#specifically in War Without End
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therighthandofvengeance · 2 years ago
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turtleblogatlast · 1 year ago
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Leo being put into a situation where there is absolutely no fighting, just verbal manipulation and perception games, would be amazing to witness. We see a lot in the series how good he is at subterfuge and how he uses his perception to manipulate to great effect, so it’d be so cool to really see it put to the test even more.
Manipulation is one of the most effective tactical strategies of all time, so just imagine Leo putting this skillset of his to the full test. Imagine the boys slowly get up to busting bigger and more powerful criminals, including those with networks of crime under their belt, and a simple fight isn’t enough to take them down. For criminals like this, Leo’s skills in subterfuge would be deadly.
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padawansuggest · 2 years ago
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Obi-Wan, 14, after exactly one explanation of how to shave, in which his eyes were glazed over and he seriously considered a gender change so he could backtrack on this specific puberty and try the other one instead, -he heard Stewjoni periods aren’t that bad and he won’t have to upkeep his face every day, how long does it take to cultivate a beard so he doesn’t have to shave again???- takes the razor from his master, disappears into the bathroom, and then appears in the doorway straight outta Qui-Gon’s worst night terrors -the ones that were real and involved waking up to a Padawan having had a vision while still speaking dead languages and asking for flesh holding JUST SAY HUG YOU LITTLE SHIT- and they stare at each other for like twenty seconds straight without blinking before Qui-Gon’s shoulders sag and he lets out a sigh they’re gonna feel in the force all over this temple for days.
‘Where did your eyebrows go?’
‘They were itchy too.’
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hurricanek8art · 3 months ago
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Thank you @tiredassmage for the literal swift kick in the pants and behold the inaugural K8's SWTOR OC Bio extravaganza (maybe?!?! I don't know what I'm doing and I'm still not happy with this but anyways 🥴). Starting with:
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Aja Verdona: The Commander
Homeworld: Naboo (birth world; Odessen (adopted)
Born: 3664BBY/21 ATC (age 21 at start; frozen in carbonite for 5 years, currently 34)
Species: Human
Occupation: Commander of the Eternal Alliance
Affiliations: Jedi Order, Eternal Alliance
Romances: Rass Ordo
Masters: Several, most prominently Connelly Draay (OC) and Orgus Din
Apprentices: Vega Kodral (OC)
Hero of Tython, Throne-breaker, Outlander, Commander—Aja Verdona has borne many titles throughout her life, but none have ever been able to outweigh her dedication and drive to protecting the galaxy. Arriving on Tython a hotheaded and arrogant young woman who was letting her 'grand destiny', her abandonment issues and her fear of failure push her to the edge, Aja found herself taken under the wing of Orgus Din. What followed was a whirlwind three years that saw her pushed to the edge of her sanity and beyond, the murder of the first Master to stick by her side despite all of her flaws and intensity, an eight-month stint as the mind-controlled pet attack dog of the Sith Emperor, and an unexpected quest to slay Vitiate once and for all. When that was undone by the actions of the Revanites several years later, Aja resumed her quest, determined to do what the Force had chosen her to do long before she was even born, leading her to mature and grow in the nearly two decades since her journey began, conquering her past anger, and defeated Tenebrae time and time again. But now that Tenebrae is gone, and new, different threats and challenges threaten to overwhelm her—the warmongering of Heta Kol, machinations of Darth Malgus, training a stubborn and determined young Padawan, and Aja's sudden, unexpected feelings for a Mandalorian warrior. Now, Aja is faced with a new question: what is she without the threat of Tenebrae constantly hanging over her head, especially now that a new prophecy threatens all she holds dear? And what will she choose to become?
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#aaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH I DISLIKE WRITING SUMMARIES THERE'S SO MUCH STUFF IN MY BRAIN I CAN'T SUMMARIZE WITHOUT IT SOUNDING PRETENTIOUS#BUT I DID IT. AJA BIO. KINDA. ISH#using my art instead of ingame because i can#(also because i don't have any of my ziost/kotxx screenshots they're all still on kronk the potato laptop [may he rest in peace] 😭)#K8's Writing#i want to add some of my “aja and vega's misadventures in jedi training” doodles in there#but i'm on mobile because a) where my art is and b) laptop is ticking me off at the moment because swtor crashing so 10 image limit#also because a lot of them need some work because even by my messy standards i'm not “ok to share” happy with them#but anyways personality-wise aja is what happens when you put an anakin skywalker whose full vader turn was stopped by intervention/therapy#avatar korra (full spectrum korra not just the wiser s4 one)#and carol danvers (comics specifically but there's some mcu carol in there too)#into a blender and yell DOWNSHIFT#i love writing her but writing about her always feels weird#i feel like my writing style is too intense and pretentious sometimes#now to panic because OH JEEZ I POSTED WRITING TO GO WITH THE ART#...what the heck do i tag this?#K8 Rambles about SWTOR#swtor#star wars the old republic#star wars#the old republic#swtor jedi knight#swtor oc#jedi oc#star wars oc#swtor oc: aja verdona#WHY DO MY TAGS ALWAYS END UP SO LONG I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHUT UP#OKAY I'M HITTING POST NOW MY WRITING IS GOING ON THE INTERNET AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH#quick edit i hyperlinked to vega's tag on my blog because hey i actually am smart sometimes!
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cisthoughtcrime · 8 months ago
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… can you … elaborate?? On the Roman republic empire thing? I mean is this That’s Interesting or an Oh Shit situation??
I might do a longer post with more details in a few weeks, but the short version is definitely Oh Shit.
There's an extremely polarising and power-hungry guy with rabid followers and he says he's into making the country great again because it has become decadent and weak. He's running to be king of a democracy which prides itself on having overthrown kings to become a balanced republic. He gains support by writing and publishing his own self-aggrandizing heroism with particular emphasis on the barbarity of foreign nations supposedly less civilised than his own, and even takes his armed supporters into the capital when he's faced with prosecution if he loses his chance to get back into office, which causes his political enemies to flee in fear for their lives. After he regains power and manages to bribe, threaten, kill, go to war with, or otherwise remove enough of the threats to his power, he is a dictator in all respects, but he's still saying it's democracy and he's not really a king. Even after he's assassinated and the Senate is tentatively trying to get back to how it was before the dictator consolidated power and cemented his office, the damage is already done, the seat is open for a new dictator, and once the bloody fighting over it is done, the democracy is dead and the Republic has become a monarchical Empire with one man in office for life who appoints his own successor. The new Empire kicks off with the passing of laws to encourage traditional values and higher birth rates, and the new emperor has already killed off enough of his enemies and collected their wealth to pay off the massive debts left by his dead predecessor. The assassinated dictator becomes literally deified and worshipped by an actual cult, and his name becomes synonymous with the office of dictator for the next several centuries of the country's history.
His name is Caesar.
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dimiclaudeblaigan · 2 years ago
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ah yes, she's concerned about the aggressor and attacker who was invading them six months ago. something is wrong with the empire right now, poor edelgard; whatever could've happened to her? :(
like... what. why do you care about what's going on with her specifically when she's the person who made the decision to invade leicester? does the whole war just mean nothing to marianne? it's just totally fine that all those people died in a war edelgard started? poor edelgard, something happened to her after she started her attack? you're concerned about the leader who gave the order to attack your home?
hopes has stupid lines but this one is top tier of the top tier and just an excuse for more edelgardjerking from the writers.
#DCB Three Hopes Run#like no sorry if someone attacked the country i live in and then suddenly their army was a mess#i would /nooot/ be concerned about the leader who ordered an invasion of my home#you'd never see a character being like wow i sure am worried abt dimitri and claude#who are just defending themselves and fighting for their lives out there#but here we get marianne being worried abt the person who declared war on her people#this game tries so so SO hard to make edelgard seem justified and doing a good thing#and also has tons of characters being like wow i sure do just want the best for her#like no i would not want the best for someone who invaded my country unprovoked#being worried abt the civilians in the empire is one thing bc the imperial army was out of control#but just wanting edelgard specifically to be okay? uhhhh. seems like this was just#the only way the writers could keep it in their pants without having shez make a sex joke at edelgard like byleth can#like does marianne not realize the end goal here was to defeat and thus kill edelgard?#it doesn't happen bc of the plot bc thales' magic and yadda yadda#but ultimately without that happening she would've had to be killed to be truly defeated#she's not like claude who would prioritize survival. she would fight to the end#like if you're that concerned about the person who started this war then why are you fighting against her?#either join her side or stay out of the war. really don't understand why anyone from leicester in ag would be worried abt her#they can't even use the classmates excuse bc they weren't even classmates for that long (and it's a stupid excuse even in gw)#but like no rly this game just has ppl love up on edelgard for absolutely no reason#she comes in and starts killing their soldiers for her conquest and marianne six months later is like wow i sure am concerned abt her!!#literally like imagine someone from crimea being like ''im concerned abt ashnard''
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crimeronan · 1 year ago
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oh the other influencing factor in that book poll is that i've read almost 100% of the listed trashy teen paranormal romance & teen dystopian romance titles. yes even the ones that suck. yes even those ones. i was non-discriminating as a teenager and i know what i like (drama and garbage).
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vordemtodgefeit · 1 year ago
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i got a high 1st in my classics creative project!!!!!
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arolesbianism · 1 year ago
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Finally starting to get some proper fairy worldbuilding brainstormed for the random card au, huge win for 3 specific characters and them only
#rat rambles#random card au#band posting#sekai posting#my current concept is that long story short these guys are magical beings that evolved alongside humans#they generally lived side by side but eventually the gods decided if they wanted full worship it'd be best to seperate them#so they basically offered the magic folk some real cushy deals to get them to move elsewhere and then attempted to trap them there#I say attempted cause rly this just lead to a long long war that ultimately resulted in a truce but not without some bullshit compromises#but despite the devinities efforts the magic folk still did exist alongside humans#the ones they did seperate however would end up being known by a different name due to their close work relationship with the gods#the two still have a. strained relationship to put it lightly. and the leading fae are still deeply petty abt what they do have to do#but they also very much do not want to start up another war so they do the bare minimum to fulfil their obligations#aka do some memory relocation#I say relocation because memories cant just be artificially erased with magic#so instead they usually chose a memory barer for the person being removed and store all the memories into them#maya is this for aya and rui is this for emu#its not a fun time since it means you cant leave the main city and youre usually chosen because you knew the person#airi is just a basic contractor tho so she isnt trapped in the city#maya does end up getting to leave tho because of chu2 insisting on contracting her#this wouldnt normally be allowed but chu2 is part divinity and her specific divinity bloodline holds a lot of power#so maya gets to be free for a bit to make music with a lil brat yippeee#its even more anxiety enducing because chu2 is specifically contracting her to participate in a music tornament#the winners of which will be graced with a fun visit from the god of their choice#which isnt a fun thing to have to dread when the person whos memories your holding for is one of said gods
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yuwritesstuff · 27 days ago
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The moment Satoru found out his wife was pregnant, something shifted inside him — like an ancient spell breaking open in his chest, releasing light and warmth he hadn't known he'd been missing.
He’d stared at the little test in your shaking hands, blinking under the harsh bathroom light, and when you looked up at him — nervous, hopeful — he didn’t say a word at first. He just fell to his knees and pressed his forehead gently against your stomach, arms wrapping around your hips as if to say thank you to the tiny life just beginning there.
From then on, it was like the world had flipped upside down in the gentlest, most absurd way.
Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer alive, was suddenly anxious about everything. He kept one hand behind your back every time you walked as if you'd tip over without it. He scowled at the stairs as if they’d personally offended him. He triple-checked the expiration date on everything you ate, even the fruits. Apples!
“Do you think our baby likes apples?” he’d asked one afternoon, watching you crunch into one while curled up on the couch.
“I think I like apples,” you laughed.
“Okay, but we’re a team now. You and the baby are a package deal. So I’m asking for both of you!”
You'd just rolled your eyes — but smiled the whole time.
He thought your cravings were adorable. Even the 2 AM “we need fried chicken right now” kind of cravings. There was no mountain he wouldn't climb for you — and in fact, he did climb one once to get a specific type of peach you said you wanted. He’d teleport to different prefectures if needed.
Your growing belly was his favorite thing in the world. He loved watching you rest your hand on it absentmindedly, like you were already cradling the baby. He’d trace soft patterns over your skin with his fingers, murmuring nonsense stories to the child who kicked like they already had opinions.
He was fascinated by everything. The sound of your baby's heartbeat on the monitor. The way you waddled and scolded him when he called it cute — but he did think it was cute. You were beautiful like the moon — soft, whole, glowing in a way that wasn’t meant to be touched but cherished from beside.
He kept a journal. Something he never told anyone.
It wasn’t elegant or poetic — it was full of rambling thoughts, doodles, little “today the baby kicked again” notes, and things he wanted to tell them when they were older. Sometimes he wrote about how scared he was. How the world was cruel. How much he wanted to protect them. How he was afraid he wouldn't be enough. But always, at the end of the entry, he’d write:
“But your mom is here. And that makes everything okay.”
Satoru was the kind of man who laughed too loud and talked too much, but around you lately, he’d gone soft and quiet in the evenings. He loved brushing your hair back behind your ear. Loved kissing your shoulder when you leaned into him. Loved pressing his cheek to your belly and just… being. No missions. No curses. No battles. Just you.
And despite all his fears — the world, the danger, the weight of who he was — he was happy. Genuinely, finally happy.
It hit him one night when you fell asleep on his chest, your hand loosely over his heart, your child nestled between you two.
He whispered into the silence, voice rough with awe, “I think… I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
And for once, Satoru Gojo didn't feel like the last one standing in a war-torn world. He felt like a man — loved, loving, waiting for a life to bloom.
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leyiorr · 10 months ago
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i can't stop looking at her t-t-t-t, FACE!
mdni.
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satoru gojo is doomed.
why is he doomed, you ask? well, put bluntly, you, his girlfriend of five months, are driving him absolutely crazy.
crazy is an understatement, actually. insane, mad, mental, unhinged, deranged, bonkers - whatever you want to call it. he's holding on by a thread; the thinly woven string known as sanity growing ever weaker as the days roll by and turn into weeks.
of course, he's only blaming you. you hadn't actually done anything wrong.
you're the first relationship satoru's had in his life, and he'd be damned if some inappropriate thoughts ruin his chances with the love of his life. he'd never been happier - dating you gave him the kind of happiness he thought only existed in movies; the kind of giddiness of a child in a candy store.
he was devoted to you in every way, shape and form - you are everything he's dreamed of and more.
more.
that's right, you were more.
recently, you were the devil's temptation personified.
surprisingly, even after twenty-odd years of being one of the most attractive guys around, and having women throw themselves at him like he's some kind of greek deity, satoru is a virgin. i'll repeat that, he is a virgin. a fact that only suguru knows. a fact that he's neglected to tell his girlfriend.
he may have a flirtatious personality and the ability to charm ninety percent of the human race with one of his thousand-kilowatt smiles, but in truth, he had never dated anyone. ever. let alone got his dick in a pussy.
so when he starts wanting to go further, he's not sure how to bring it up without sounding like a horndog.
it all started when you wore a sleek black dress to one of your dates. it clung to your figure, fabric wrapping shamelessly around your every curve and tickling your midthigh at its end. and if that wasn't bad enough, it had a plunging neckline, giving the world - satoru specifically - an eyeful of the assets god gifted you with. your boobs were practically spilling out of your dress, the light catching your cleavage as you held his arm. he could feel himself salivating like some sort of perv. how was he supposed to focus with aphrodite's personal creation hanging off his arm?
his eyes began to drift to the flesh of your chest more than he'd like to admit. all sorts of r-rated scenarios ran through his head and he dared to entertain every. single. one. he could do so much with them, tease them, spit on them, pinch them, suck on them, put his dick between them-
“satoru?”
his gaze snaps back to your face at record speed. you notice how he's chewing his bottom lip, flush creeping onto his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. his hands are clammy; there's suddenly too little oxygen in his room.
“did you listen to anything i said?” your arms fold beneath your bosom and satoru almost implodes.
what do you expect him to do? the necklace around your neck has his initial on it, and it hovers over your tits almost mockingly. if it snapped, the letter would fall right between the valley of your breasts-
“satoru!”
he's choking on his saliva, apologizing profusely as he encourages you to continue your story - though he hasn't heard shit over the blood pumping loudly in his ears.
it's a battle no, a war between his rationality and his desires and he doesn't know which is winning. his rationality wins when he's around you - he just sucks in a breath and thugs it out, no matter how much his dick shouts at him. but in private, he's letting the desires win as his fists himself to the thought of you, your lips, your ass; your boobs.
the first time he sees you in a bikini he has to take a breather before he can get into a game of beach volleyball with you and the group.
(and even then he was struggling. every time you jumped for the ball the only thing he was looking at was your tits.)
he should be neutered. effective immediately.
it drags out for so long that you finally notice, and force him to talk to you about why he's avoiding you, and if you'd done anything wrong. but all you get is:
“baby, i'm so sorry- you're so pretty and i can't help myself. i didn't know how to bring up that i wanted to take our relationship to the next step, you mean the world to me and i'd hate to make you uncomfortable-” he trips and stumbles over his words-
“...is that it?”
and his eyes bug out of his head as he stares at you. weeks, months of agony over this and all you have to say is 'is that it'?
he doesn't even have chance to respond; to process your words before you're popping the top button of your blouse.
yeah, satoru gojo is doomed.
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notebooks-and-laptops · 8 months ago
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Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.
About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.
How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.
So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.
But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.
We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.
None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.
The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.
Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.
Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.
Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.
And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.
Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.
This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.
Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.
And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.
I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.
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mosspapi · 1 year ago
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I hate being only self-aware enough to know that what I am doing is unhealthy, illogical, and pointless, but not being able to Do anything abt it. Like. Great. Thanks brain. You can see that this is stupid and causing more problems than it solves. So why are you Insistent on doing it anyways when our life would be so much easier if you just fuckin dropped it.
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silvereyedowl · 1 month ago
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After sleeping on "The Reality War", I've come to a sort of verdict on it: I don't think this episode can be properly judged without acknowledging the behind-the-scenes issues that heavily impacted it.
Specifically, Gatwa's decision to step back due to the postponing of a formal renewal of the show.
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This image has been kicking around. It's a promo image from "The Reality War" of a scene that isn't in the final episode.
It's known that reshoots for the S15 finale took place in February. Based on what the rumours and leaks say, the episode originally had a totally different ending, involving that dance party. I've also heard speculation that it would have set up Poppy as a plot hook for the next season, and there would have been a cameo from Susan Foreman to set up the plot about her return that RTD has been teasing from as early as "The Devil's Chord".
It's clear that RTD and co. were expecting the renewal to come much, much earlier than it did, and that waiting until after S15 had broadcast was not actually the original plan at all. Gatwa gets fed up because he doesn't want to put his career on hold like this, so RTD quickly concocts a new ending with a regeneration.
Poppy was never, ever intended to be turned into Belinda's daughter in the original ending, but whatever RTD had planned for her, he clearly felt it would only work with Gatwa, and so he hastily wrapped that up while also setting up a regeneration. (Incidentally, this also may have left answers to the Belinda/Mundy resemblance hanging.)
As for the Billie Piper of it all? The reshoots being almost last-minute meant RTD didn't really have time to do a full-blown casting for a new Doctor, and he clearly decided to go for shock and spectacle (for reasons that have yet to be determined). I suspect he decided on this rather than a mid-regeneration cliffhanger as a way to have a more decisive cliffhanger, hoping that people will want to know why this happened.
I will also add that Piper probably isn't playing the Doctor: no official source up to and including the episode credits have referred to her as such, and the regeneration itself also looks off.
Although RTD bears some of the responsibility for the messy way things went down, he doesn't own all of it since the lack of decision on a renewal was clearly the inciting incident here. I do hope that someday we learn what the original ending was – it doubtless would have fit the story better. And it would have fit Belinda better as well.
At least we got Jodie Whittaker in a scene not written by Chris Chibnall. The way Thirteen is written there tells me that RTD hasn't completely lost his touch.
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anistarrose · 1 year ago
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I'd like to propose a dark horse candidate for the most interesting line in The Book of Bill. And it's this near-unreadable, seemingly one-off joke from the "Skin" page:
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[ID: tiny text reading: "Help! This is not Bill Cipher. My name is Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5. I'm one of thousands of beings Bill has devoured over trillions of years whose souls are now trapped inside him. You have to free me! It's horrible in here. He just keeps playing the song "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark on an endless loop. Please, please, this is not a joke! The Zimtrexians were once a proud and mighty people, but now our spirits long for release from this..." End ID.]
Okay, so Bill devours souls who then live out a horrible existence inside him. That's just some typical and expected Bill behavior, right? Nothing to be shocked by? Maybe not, but one thing jumps out at me... and of all things, it's the way that Bill keeps playing that Beach Boys parody (correction provided by @fexalted: no, not in fact a Smiley Smile parody, but a real song!) on loop.
Because in The Book of Bill, there's a recurring motif of characters playing music for a very specific reason: to repel an unwanted presence inside their head. This is what Elias Inkwell, and later Ford, did with the "It's A Small World" parody — they tried to keep Bill out of their brains. Or, metaphorically... to drown out his voice.
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[ID: a Journal 3 page with a cassette taped inside. It's titled: "The World Is Small Ever After for Always." Ford writes: "If it's war you want, it's war you'll get! If you want to torture me? I'll torture you back!" End ID.]
That doesn't necessarily mean that Bill finds the voices of devoured souls to be troubling, let alone downright haunting, does it? Well... not quite on its own. But there's a "color" code on the page about TV static that says a lot:
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[ID: a code consisting of colorful squares, translated to letters that spell out: "he never sleeps he never dreams but somehow still he hears their screams." End ID] (screenshot courtesy of @fexiled)
The context of the page implies these "screams" come to Bill especially when he listens to TV static, and the broader context of the book implies that these are the screams of his destroyed home dimension, Euclydia. Therefore, not necessarily those of the souls he devoured, from Zimtrex 5 and possibly other dimensions.
Except... do those two things really have to be mutually exclusive?
The beings that Bill devoured were accumulated over "trillions" of years, plural, according to Grebley. In Weirdmageddon 1, Bill claims to have resided in the Nightmare Realm for precisely "one trillion" years. So the "devouring" habit probably extends back even further than his time in the Nightmare Realm...
Enter @acetyzias, pointing out a very conspicuous word — and one of the only uncensored words — from Bill's description of destroying his home dimension:
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[ID: the word "mandibles". End ID.]
Oh, and how does Bill describe the "monster" that destroyed his home to Ford, when Ford asks about revenge?
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[ID: Journal excerpt reading: "Sixer, it would eat you alive." End ID.]
For a long time, Bill's destruction of his home has been associated with fire, even when the story's told by Bill himself. But through the way the book characterizes Bill's guilt — and characterizes how the consequences of what he's done remain lurking deep inside him — I think The Book of Bill lays out the hints for another motif: devouring.
And, well, when it comes to how Bill destroys things... it wouldn't be without precedent.
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[ID: screenshot of Bill in Weirdmageddon 3, taking a bite out of the Earth. End ID.]
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arolesbianism · 11 months ago
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I've been digging up some one of my most neglected stories recently and I'm finally actually developing the rest of the cast after like what? 7 or 8 years or smth? I genuinely don't know when I first thought up Lace but she's been floating at the edge of my mind since then as my token true timeloop guy as opposed to Butters who doesn't rly count because the quote unquote timeloop was entirely within their control and only was a continuous loop because they kept consciously trying again and again. Lace on the other hand. Legitimately 100% powerless in her timeloop situation, as in there was quite literally Nothing she could do to end the loops herself. Some gods just threw her in a 50 year timeloop without even doing the bare minimum of telling her first and she just sorta had to live with that until it from her perspective abruptly stopped leaving her to deal with the fallout of everything she went through now that she's suddenly being forced to live a real life again. And as fun as all of that is it has been very stagnated for years because there is in fact a story and world that exists outside of and around this one plot that matter quite a bit and that I have been refusing to properly work on until now lol.
#rat rambles#oc posting#take a wild guess as to why Im thinking abt this story again#anyways longggg story short this is a world filled with various gods that run various kingdoms and such#and some of them have been at war for a long time leaving things for the common folk very unstable and chaotic#due to this adventuring parties started helping ppl out and some of them would gain the blessing of their local god(s)#nowadays its very uncommon for there to be prevelant parties without at least one blessed member and theres some gods who even have set up#schools of sorts for aspiring heros that tend to be very competitive and hard to get into#in the original version of the timeline of this story most of the cast except one met at this school and graduated as a party together#they proceeded to travel around doing their work and picking up their last party member and bonding and all that#until eventually they found out that the god they work under was planning some apocalypse level shit in order to establish control over the#entire planet and the crew turned on her and tried to stop her and got close enough that she took desperate mesures to stop them#she contacted the god of time and commissioned them to rewind and edit the timeline#and while the timeline editing meant that they couldnt rewind enough to go before two of the party were attending the school#they were able to rewrite lace out of the timeline and was able to help sentence them to a timeloop sentence#lace was specifically targeted for being the one who figured most of this stuff out in the first place#now this is where the timeline get a bit wonky because her timeloop actually takes place later on then when time was reset to#it mostly just took a while to get the loop set up but its still a mostly undetermined amount of time later atm as it rly depends on whats#most convenient for me as I develop the rest of her old party more#since they still end up forming a party together anyways despite the best efforts of two powerful gods#Im also planning on adding another member to their party who wasnt in the original party so lace can get upset abt it#but yeah currently the rest of the party includes lace's unnamed older sister and three other losers whos designs have been sitting on my#toyhouse for a while lol#theres raiden who's the sort of adopted child of the god they used to serve#and the theres hill who was the one in the original party who they picked up after graduating and she and lace used to be gay together#and lastly theres choice who was supposed to attend the school but in the current version of reality had their wagon shot down and#wasnt able to make it and has been rly upset and frustrated abt that#the last one is probably going to be a potion guy or smth#Ive also been having a fun time thinkng abt how both versions of the party managed combat since both parties distinctly lack a healer#anyways Im going to bed now gn
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