#tactical level

[95-6qrsk2rx9uq42069nnnnnjthewolf]

i think tim is high maintenance the way a boarder collie or austrialian shepherd is. like you have to make sure they're not only given space to expend energy but you have to specifically let them get the herding instinct out and challenge them intellectually or they start destroying ur home

[fatedroses]

Two former military elites taking merc jobs perform absolutely hellish battle tactics together.

[vigilskeep]

when you first start the cousland origin, you can have some conversations with arl howe, teyrn cousland, and duncan that shed some interesting light on the political situation in ferelden. it’s definitely the origin where you get the most context on the rebellion and on cailan and his father. while howe isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of sources, he is also one of the most openly critical of cailan that we have access to, which i think is worthy of interest

howe remembers maric with what the toolset describes as “genuine fondness”: “your father hasn’t spoken of our time with him? that man took care of his friends. as they say, he was large as life and twice as tall!” i think we should pay particular attention to that man took care of his friends.

what howe’s talking about is a really important aspect of kingship, where you win the consent and enthusiasm of the nobility for your rule by offering rewards like wealth, land, and prestige to the loyal. kingship is always less stable than it’s portrayed, and this is one of the ways that kings must essentially sell to the nobility that answering to them is worth their time, which would be especially important in ferelden given everything we know about its culture. fereldans believe someone only has power when it is given by the loyalty of those below them, who have the right to freely rescind that loyalty. the dao codex says that “the sight of [fereldan kings] asking for—and working to win—the support of ‘lesser’ men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.”

i suspect howe is remembering a maric fresh from the victories of the rebellion, who was able to reward those who had followed him with the spoils of those victories. at the end of the stolen throne, we see that in the final days of the rebellion, maric was killing those who had betrayed his mother to the orlesians even when they arrived under truce to meet him on holy ground. in dao, we see no lingering orlesian nobility except for those who married in and continue to be met with marked hostility. i think we can safely surmise that maric elected to make no conciliatory measures and give everything to those who had followed him; with the orlesians on the run and his people out for blood, he was in a strong enough position to do so, and it certainly served to win the fond memories of men like howe.

by contrast, howe goes on to say, “it’s too bad cailan isn’t half that.” the toolset notes establish very clearly that it’s the same issue, elaborating on howe’s thoughts: “bitter turn, i don’t get as much from the current king”, and “disdainful, i have no use for him, he does me no favours”. this isn’t a minor character detail, if howe’s last words when killed by the player are anything to go by. “maker spit on you... i deserved... more...” whatever it is that howe feels he should have been given, by the crown or anyone else, it characterises his actions and his defining treachery.

it’s in these same conversations that we see another side of this demonstrated. there are two points where howe can openly criticise the king, and bryce immediately admonishes him for both. one even has the toolset note: “speaks sharply, as a lord to a lesser man, not a friend to an equal”. it definitely comes across that way; the way he tells howe “that’s enough” is not far off the voice he uses when the player, his child, displeases him. bryce can’t tolerate any criticism of cailan, as the couslands in dao are ardent supporters of the king. to venture some hc, i suspect that this is not merely royalist fervour, and that howe’s resentment for having been given less is matched by bryce’s awareness of the precariousness of having more.

over the centuries, the theirins have consolidated their power and eradicated almost all the teyrns (the noble rank that is second only to the king). with the only other lingering teyrn being loghain, who is essentially part and parcel of the royal family, the couslands stand alone as the only real rivals to theirin power within ferelden. there are rumours that bryce was once considered for king instead of the theirins; he too could have decided to believe he “deserved more”. but unlike howe, and perhaps understandably given his strong position and happy growing family, he is satisfied with what he has. he will not take the risk of even the slightest challenge being made within his hall

(i expect that bryce’s satisfaction with the current situation further spurred howe’s dissatisfaction to its heights, given the complicated cousland-howe history and the fact that he was expected to accept a friend he had fought beside as a superior for the rest of his life.)

i don’t think howe’s judgement on cailan is likely to be without basis. we don’t hear about any victories the young king has to his name, from which he could have passed around spoils. (to be fair, cailan had harder luck than maric in this regard. a king who raises a successful rebellion gets to bring glory and prestige to everyone who follows him, whereas a king trying to rebuild after that rebellion mostly gets to bring, uh, taxes probably. especially on wealthy centres of trade like howe’s amaranthine, one might assume.) cailan also takes a far more diplomatic approach to the question of orlais, which perhaps predictably did not win over many nobles of howe’s generation. it makes sense that cailan’s strongest supporters would instead be men like bryce who hope for things to simply continue, peacefully, as they are. perhaps in another world where cailan had won the battle of ostagar, he might have earned wider respect. (you could actually argue on this basis that there’s more sense and purpose to cailan’s glory-seeking than he usually gets credit for.) but howe already acts before ostagar, which can only demonstrate his certainty in cailan’s failings at this point: his belief that even if cailan could win, he would not be stable enough to pursue justice for the couslands

[r-h-e-t]

I Need You — You Need Me

[poorlydrawninstarsandtime]

hey guys i think somethings up with that octoling on the other team. they seem kinda out of it, maybe we should call a halftime and- is that a fucking knife.

[id in alt]

[nocternalrandomness]

"Switchblade"

[wowlooknothing]

I gotta talk about the use of Chapel's logo in TBW for a second

All of the logos in that game are really cool but Chapel's is just perfect to me and I seriously love the way It's plastered over every little thing in Kalan

Like obviously it's on all the weapons caches and other chapel related props (this is just a couple examples btw when you're actually looking in-game they're legit everywhere)

But the way the logo is used gets way cooler the more you seek it out like how it's incorporated in the enemy designs

And the way it's used in subtler ways like in these banners and fire pits and the fences outside (and I especially like the chaplains throne thing in the background of the recording because it does have the logo explicitly on the back but there's also a bunch of other ways the shape of the logo is used in the design of it)

And my favorite little detail is that in the older church in the recording mission it uses more literal representations of the logo (like the banner and fire pit from before), but the chapel of the civil tongue in the b team has a much more modern design to it and it often uses just three parallel lines rather than the full blocky logo

And the resistance posters also use this more modern version of the logo which I think is awesome because it shows that Chapel is dominant enough that you don't need the full logo to understand that these are representing chapel

I just think this is an interesting bit of environmental storytelling that's completely unnecessary and never directly acknowledged but they included it anyway just because it's cool

I don't have much of a point in saying all this I just think it's neat:)

[waterdroid]

Tactical Breach Wizards Spoilers but this part of this conversation is so funny because, like. Who're you calling nemesis-adjacent, Banks.

At this point in the game her and Jen are basically friends; they've joked around, bantered a bit, and the arrest and accidental murder from the beginning is basically forgotten. The only reason she's helped the resistance this long is because Jen asked nicely. In that SAME CONVERSATION Banks sort of flirts with her to distract her from her bad metaphor. This isn't even a "if you're rivals for that long you're just gay" she's just down bad and in denial. By the end of the game shes so horrendously down bad she fucking gets Jen a fake passport and if Jen starts the PI office in Liboli Banks WILL join her. fake ass nemesis I saw you laughing at her jokes

[elvisqueso]

Pocahontas refusing to confide in Nakoma.

Pocahontas (1995)

rambling lil' meta under the cut

i've been thinking a lot about pocahontas's relationship with nakoma and what kind of friends they really are in the context of the film. when we meet them both, pocahontas is elevated and nakoma is in a boat far below her, shouting up to reach her. i think nakoma is always reaching for pocahontas and pocahontas will only reach back sometimes. it's a pretty unbalanced friendship, when you look at it, and i wonder why nakoma remains the main point of contact in the community for pocahontas besides her father. perhaps it's because they're similar ages. maybe they're childhood friends who just got so used to each other that the one may take the other for granted.

pocahontas never confides in nakoma, and you gotta wonder why. even their first interaction has pocahontas demurring when she answers that she was up on the cliff thinking. thinking about what? She doesn't say, but she doesn't refute nakoma's assumptions.

and nakoma...what does she get out of this friendship? maybe she's just used to trailing after pocahontas this way, maybe she just doesn't have another friend, or she thinks pocahontas needs her.

nakoma is sort of a foil for thomas, who trails after john smith like a starry-eyed fanboy with an intense para-social relationship perspective. nakoma also is the active participant in the friendship, not pocahontas. nakoma fills in the gaps of their relationship with assumptions and guesswork, because pocahontas is so reticent, so hesitant to share of herself that nakoma Has to. and when pocahontas's seclusion goes too far, when she fails to confide in nakoma some of the most essential elements of what she intends, nakoma has to fill in the gaps again. and when she does it's Not Good, and her solution is to send their strongest warrior (a man with affection for pocahontas, who might keep her secrets if she needs him to) to try and save her friend. and then it all blows up in their faces and a man lies dead in the water for it.

every relationship in the movie is so tragic like brO—

[deathsmallcaps]

Captain America: Brave New World (CABNW) analysis

This movie is all about themes of rehabilitation, hope, and not allowing your past to define your future.

Sam is redefining the mantle of the shield, and reclaiming his independence. Since reaching adulthood, he has worked as part of the military, or in a major team, and always besides super powered people (not that he was the only regular human in the Avengers, but you know). And now Sam gets to herald a new age of modern values of rehabilitation.

Steve was also a man of hope, but he (as a white man) fought the Other: fascists and aliens. AKA, unredeemables (in the short term) and nonhumans. He was from WWII; while the full truth of the matter is that the USA did not join the war out of altruism and a wish to save oppressed peoples, I personally feel glad that the USA was able to help out in those matters. I feel our part in the war was justified when it came to stopping multiple genocides. Many people also feel this way, and hold WWII up as this bastion of ‘justified’ wars. Many feel it’s okay that Americans went to Germany and Japan and started killing people, because they were doing it first.

Same thing with alien invasion storylines. I love Steve, but the only person he is MCU-canonically pursuing rehabilitation for is Bucky. He has different values as both a survivor of WWII, a witness to the explosive growth of fascism in the early 1900s, and a white man. Sure, Steve grew up disabled and Irish(-American) in the early 1900s, but he was also a blue eyed blond haired American man who shows no trace of an Irish identity on screen. Steve is a hopeful, principled and angry man.

Meanwhile, Sam grew up being othered as a Black child and then man, joined a war that was never justifiable (never confirmed what war he was in but no war the USA has perpetuated in the 2000s, if not even earlier, has been justifiable), and then continually had to be an examplar wherever he went. Except for possibly War Machine (I’m not sure where he fits in), Sam was the ONLY Avenger of Color. Ever. (And the only one from a more rural area)

And yet Sam always chooses hope and kindness. He has it rough - as the only Avenger of Color, he had to always choose others needs over his own. He and Isaiah Bradley (another person restored by Sam’s rehabilitative justice <3) discuss the weight of that. Bradley points out time and time again that Sam doesn’t owe the world his kindness, his willingness to be a hero, his health and well-being. After all, Bradley got fucked over for doing the right thing, a Steve-type thing, in a Black body. But Sam decides to push on anyway.

I’m not saying Sam isn’t angry. He deserves to feel angry, he has as much right to the emotion as any other human being. But every single goddamn time he can, he chooses to be kind. He chooses to believe that people can find worth again. And that takes a strength of will that is frankly insane. PLUS he does it without a consistently optimized body.

And he chooses to be kind to Ross, of all people. Ross, who is clearly trying to be a changed man in the events of the film - but still a man who imprisons innocents and whose first instinct is to pick fights with nations who own nuclear weapons.

But Sam still reaches out to him. Still helps Ross meet Betty while Ross is in prison. Is the better man, every goddamn time.

Hell, they even represent what changes Sam could herald for the fate of the United States, and even the world, visually. In Ross’s panic as the Red Hulk, he destroys the White House*, a symbol built by slave labor. And under Sam’s tenure as Captain America, it will be rebuilt - along with what a hopefully better United States of America.

I love Sam Wilson, and I am SO excited to see his future as Captain America.

*and possibly also the Washington Memorial? I know he goes by but the detail slipped my mind. It also was built with slave labor. Some might quibble and try to claim that the obelisk was built by skilled stonemasons, but many many many enslaved people were extremely skilled laborers. So there is a huge chance that the stonemasons were enslaved. And even if they used completely white/free Black stonemasons, the quarried stone was mined by enslaved people. So yes, it was built by slave labor.

(Also I think it’s cool that Sam’s getting his own villains like Serpent and Leila Taylor made an appearance? She was basically his only canon love interest EVER**, and she hasn’t appeared since the 1970s. I think it’s still possible that he might be given a male LI or they just never pursue that angle of the character, but at least she and Sam have a relationship built on at least some respect and personal chemistry. Unlike Steven and Sharon.

Personally I’m more of a fan of Samsteve or even SamJoaquin than SamBucky, but that’s just mostly because while he’s grown on me in the last few years, I’m not really a Bucky fan. Samsteve probably won’t happen because of the stupid time travel thing (though who’s to say they didn’t at least have a fling? Plz?) but SamJoaquin could happen! I wasn’t sold on Joaquin right away - his sunny personality was tripping my betrayal alarms in my movie expectations brain - but I am glad to be wrong. I’m excited to see him as Falcon again once he heals up!

**There was a werewolf princess lady? But she literally never came back. Which disappoints me because I thought she was funny (I read her issue) and really unique. She was human but had a device to specifically control werewolves? And they do exist in the MCU, thanks to Werewolf by Night…

I LOVED the dogfight scene. Great body work on Anthony Mackie’s part, interesting background, awesome moves (cutting through a plane with a wing? Punching and pulling a pilot out of their plane and letting the rest of it just fall?? Sam and Joaquin together???) and fucking BOMBSURFING

[dairine-bonnet]

Lynette von Valancius (aka Rogue Trader) *rushing towards Aurora and a crazy sniper on the roof*: Taking calculated risk is my second nature!

Heinrix van Calox: *deep sigh*

[ruushes]

(sound of my resolve to stay offline while playing breaking immediately) ive seen a couple people saying they bounced off rogue for its difficulty which is too bad but does makes me feel a lot better bc i am extreme garbage at deflecting, however, it's pretty fundamental to the build i am voluntarily choosing for myself and could change at any time, so auri's going to die however many times it takes for them to learn to fucking block

[dramaqueer-commie]

its so funny to me how the Golden Goose, literally the personification of kindness, who upon hearing that they had lost the key to fixing the world just said "bother😌", asked Red "is there anything youre really passionate and care deeply about" and when she answered three blind mice went

"eww really why?"

[nocternalrandomness]

A Royal Air Force A400M Atlas making a low level run through the Mach Loop

[scribblesscribblings]

You know what, I will give Xioyun one nice AU where he left Tian Xia with one of his siblings so that he isn’t traveling alone anymore! In particular it would be his second brother since his eldest brother and sister would have little reason to also leave.

Together they bring double the silliness to anywhere they go!

[araluenstories]

Apprentice Gilan, turning up in the main tent at the gathering and interrupting the rangers' meeting with a parchment of his battle tactics assignment in his hand:

"Are you finished already?"

"No, I just don't get it."

"Did you read the whole assignment?"

"I did, five bloody times, and it doesn't make any sense because of what the fucking-"

"Language!"

"- left wing does, a bunch of knights would never do that!"

"...imagine they do exactly that."

"Great, then they are done, and I am finished with this assignment because I can think of at least fourteen ways to deal with this right now."