#take tomorrow off & just write

[xxplastic-cubexx]

personal happiness or what the fuck ever

bonus:

[sugarpasteltmnt]

(whispers) hey friends I appreciate your excitement but gentle reminder it’s not very polite to ask fanfic writers when the next chapter is gunna come out

[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

[necrotic-nephilim]

in lieu of having posted any writing/headcanons/asks in the past few days because i have been *so* busy and unable to do anything fandom-related which is terrible and evil, i have a poll out of morbid curiosity and self-indulgence. i've been meaning to ramble here about how i feel about DC's lack fo Deaf representation and which Batfam members i would personally make Deaf, but i am mildly curious about the larger opinion and now i will subject you all to the question, i would love to hear thoughts/opinions/headcanons on any specific choices. (would love d/Deaf/HoH opinions esp but i'm mostly expecting this to reach the hearing crowd, so opinions from hearing ppl are ones i'm very curious about. if you've never given it thought before you are going to now or else /lh)

[decepti-thots]

guess who is off work now for TEN DAYS 🎉 let's GOOOO

[silverskye13]

Dude dude dude I’ve been reading all the snippets that aren’t on AO3 and because of how they were sent to me I couldn’t reply then (also like- I figured it would be maybe a little annoying to get 12 messages about them when I could send one longer one)

All of them are just so incredibly wonderfully written god I could go on for hours about the deconstruction of every single sentence, but one stood out as a favourite:

“The best seat” for exactly one reason: THE END POEM LINES!!!! Stunning!!!!!! Incredibly spaced and the repetition and the way it repeats the ‘universe loves me more’ theme and OUGH feeling shrimp emotions about these guys, Wels might be a little BITCH but he’s a damn poetic one

Also the delivery ficlet on AO3 (Red and Renbob) MAN those two are so goofy I love them- comedic timing can be hard to get right in writing but the whole paragraph of Renbob speaking with emoticons and the reader (or at least me-) thinking “how is he doing that??” And then immediately Red wonders the same thing? I was cracking up

Also this changes depending on who’s appeared most recently, but my current favourite character is The Hand- he’s just so *close* to Martyn (normal) that you start to forget he’s not until something happens and you go oh. *oh*. And the differences hit you like a knee to the stomach

The whole fic the whole world you’ve made- just absolutely stunning, incredible, for certain it has permanently changed my brain chemistry and I cannot wait to see how it continues and finishes <3333

So like, just so you're aware, when I first received this ask I was stuck on the highway after my tire exploded [literally, it was in ragged tatters when I got to the shoulder]. It was snowing and freezing and the jack slipped off while I was changing the tire [unharmed] and it took the roadside assistance guy 2 hours to get to me after promising "just five more minutes I swear" and "I just passed you I'm coming back around, two minutes," three, four, five goddamn times.

And you know what? This made me smile. It was a smile I desperately needed, sitting on the busy road watching it snow and waiting for literally anyone to help. So thank you for your kindness, and for writing kind words, and for being excited. You have no idea how positive of an impact that had on a truly grueling day.

I'm glad!! You liked the end poem Wels perspective fic. I was writing it to "Put it on Me" by Matt Maeson [recommended to me by countthelions] and I was trying very hard to emulate the feeling of circling and inevitability the song has. There's a very waltz-like meter in the song and it's very very fun to work with.

And! I'm glad the comedy from the Red/Renbob one landed! I mostly use comedy to break tension in fics, so doing a completely upbeat/comedic centered fic had me a little nervous I couldn't land the tone. I am so so stoked you enjoyed it :3

[kaisollisto]

(set sometime after this)

what do I look like_

Beatrice pauses, she knows there is only one correct answer but she hesitates. She runs a quick diagnostic scan in her system before she hovers over the chatbox. 

She’s run data on Ava for so long it should be easy to rattle off the numbers and geometry of her curves, the environment and the scale and magnitude of her body. She could close her eyes and sculpt her 3D model running on the barest of functions of her own body. She could chart her topography map on the stars. She could describe how and why every single rock and soil sediment came to be and formed on Ava. What forces of nature changed and shaped her the way she is now. 

The “_” bar flickers at her, Beatrice thinks that’s Ava’s way of blinking at her. She should start at the beginning, should describe the grueling process of creating an infrastructure to be supported by her, the new agriculture that has emerged because of her but it seems like there is no answer she can give that can match the weight of Ava’s question. 

There’s a rawness to her message, like Ava has invited her inside to peer inside a panel with a fraction of her wiring. (She’s seen vague blueprints for it, has even attempted to emulate a new environment from Jillian’s leftover notes but none of them make it past the first couple tests.) It’s a new thing to learn from her, to realize that she will always be changing but Beatrice is stagnant. 

Beatrice places her hand on the patch of grass on the cliff side. She can peer over the edge and watch as they pass by the blinking cities below. She wonders if this may help, if it could bring her closer to describing her in a way that Ava has only known. 

Ava is silent and Beatrice didn’t think she could feel this much from one question. She doesn’t know how to describe it but it feels like all of the bolts inside of her are expanding and she too must adapt. It’s odd what Ava is asking, (at the core of it all am I still me?) 

The numbers don't seem to matter anymore, how could she even begin to quantify any sort of Ava with her data. There are no words fit to describe her. It’s frustrating, everything that she’s ever known is running away from her. There must be something wrong, she must be doing this wrong. 

And for a moment Beatrice falters, she falters, she feels diminutive. A query to an answer that she doesn't have. A tender sort of thing from Ava that she cannot grasp, a whisper that she cannot hear. 

She’s missing something, she must have missed something on Ava. It’s incomplete and wrong and she must start over. There must be an adequate way of seeking her, finding Ava’s answer. 

I don’t know._

[not-poignant]

it's the tenth and i've only written two chapters, i'm in trouble with the burnout again folks x.x

[marlynnofmany]

Writing Advice of the Day: dragons make everything better.

Just in case you were wondering.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

words can't express how excited i am to see you get into book 4 (aka second? part of volume 6) of tgcf. nothing makes a girl happier than seeing fellow fans suffer.

i am already suffering and i just started vol 6!!! hualian kissed, but now xie lian is in the kiln with white no-face and another flashback arc with the xianle trio just started 😬 xie lian you’re in trouble girl

also i think i know ruoye’s origins now and @lansplaining you were absolutely right, i DO desperately wish i could part myself from that knowledge.

[midnightsnaq]

Accidentally found myself working on two mp100 fics at the same time

[ofmdee]

eheheheeeee i just sent BU pt 30 to kira to read over 👀

[5eraphim]

how are you a femcel if you've had sex before? Also you are very pretty you could get any guy you wanted.

it's aaaaaalll about the mindset my friend 💘🗡️

[necrotic-nephilim]

your Kon post was sooooo good, like yes the core four are queer platonic, however Kon is hypersexual enough to have made out with (or more) everyone in young justice at least once, yes, including the non-corporal Greta don’t ask me how that worked

I love all of these posts!!! how many of these ask game things do you have in your inbox??

thank you so much!! and i ABSOLUTELY agree with you on hypersexual Kon (truly i just adore characters with grooming/rape trauma like Kon coping through the lense of hypersexuality) and even if YJ is queerplatonic, Kon has made his way through most of them. including Greta. he's creative he'd find a way. probably involving TTK. bc TTK in sex is a thought i have daily. endless potential for using it to basically turn someone's body into a living fleshlight he can manipulate from the inside out- specifically have a TimKonBart idea in my head about that where Kon coaches Bart through sex, since Bart is a speedster with a bonkers refractory period who struggles to feel satisfied, and Tim is caught between them getting used to get Bart off with Kon using TTK to manipulate Tim's body. fun times. fun ideas.

currently, i have one more ask game ask in my inbox (tho always feel free to send more!) that's BruJay focused. though i *do* also have a couple other asks that are just ideas i pan to use as prompts for full fics. just haven't gotten to those yet bc i'm currently busy with packing to move states so. i have *not* had the time to write i wish i had. i will not reveal too much but one involves JayTim fucking during the Titans Tower incident, another is JayTim with animal traits leading to porn, and then another is Tim/Kon/Jon with incest kink stuff. so! i have many things planned, i just need to settle into my new place, however long that takes.

[transmascsnearyou]

My best friend is in hospital so I'm cooking for him to bring him some good food tomorrow (he's basically allowed to eat whatever he wants)

And I'm so genuinely lucky that his favourite food is lasagna because that's literally the only thing I can cook perfectly.

Like I'm not a good cook, just in general. I either season too much or too little and the food ends up being just okay. But lasagna is the one thing I can do. I tried it once when I was 13 and it turned out amazing and I always just do whatever and it turns out incredible.

[miodiodavinci]

laying down by a brook with one hand in the water like some kind of tragic prince , , , , , ,