#this is probably dumb as hell

[xxplastic-cubexx]

alternate apocalypse ending or something who the hcrist knows anymore

[malottie]

i hate the older generation because they got to do all the crazy and grandiose stuff like going to the moon or stealing as much as possible from nature or not having constant anxiety for the future

i, too, want to have irreasonable wants and an unending greed. like they just fucked around and found out and continued to fuck around because if you never stop running the consequences of your own action will never catch you and then they were like 'oh no you can't fuck around. look, we already found out.' like. i want to make terrible decisions and dumb mistakes and weird choices too except i can't afford it because they fucked around too much

they played around with their toy so much that it broke, leaving their children to play with a crumbling asset that desperatly tries to hide its cracks. an unsettling thing that is as much a source of half-hearted entertainment as it is a testament to laws greater than life itself : that everything has to end ; that everything has consequences ; that nothing can ever be perfect

but i can't hate the older generation for doing something that i wish i could do. any of us would have done the same, because humans are stupid and selfish and they don't have fucking foresight so they fuck around until they find out and they're very bad at admitting that they've messed up because of a thing called ego. and all of that is fine. really. but only if we accept what comes with it ; that we're probably going toward the end of humanity as we know it at a steadily increasing pace. and that is fine too, really, because we don't need to be eternal to be happy or inventive or kind or proud or to matter.

the moral of the story is that yes things are bad but we aren't smarter than those who put us into this situation, that yes we can make things better but we have to acknowledge that it's hard because human's instincts absolutely do not push us in the direction of a stable and sustainable society and that even if the end will come, it does not have to be sad or terrifying or anyone's fault in particular because it's something that just happens

and that even if we feel robbed of all hope it's always there, because we might as well try before failing ; that we might as well fight like fuckers before going into the night ; that we might as well postpone humanity's death if that's all we can do. i might seem to contradict myself, but i'm just applying to mankind my personnal philosophy : 'i know that i will die and that's perfectly fine. the fact that i accept my mortality and am at peace with ephemerality, though, means in no capacity that i welcome death'

the end will come, but it does not have to be today, or tomorrow, or the day after

[crypticcanidae]

what's happening in the south of thedas?

throughout veilguard the inquisitor occasionally sends us messages from the front. they paint a pretty bleak picture as to what's going on down there and honestly, by the time vg ends, i think it's safe to say southern thedas is absolutely fucked. like irreparably so.

but! several times now i've seen the argument that it's not as bad as it sounds, that everyone down south will recover and be fine, and that anyone even slightly upset abt southern thedas being destroyed in a series of easily-missable notes is just overreacting. (that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration. but not by much.)

so. maybe i read those letters wrong and missed some obvious improvement to the situation! therefore, i've gone through all the missives and done my best to put the events in them onto a map. cause i'm very bad at visualising things. and it turns out uh. yeah no i'm pretty sure it's as bad as it seems down there. maybe even worse! i've also ended up with. yknow. even more questions tbh. i hope these fucking maps are readable. !! beware long post ahead !!

the fight for the south (obtained after meeting the inquisitor for the first time)

ostwick's shipping - what do they export? to where? whatever it is, the disruption's obviously enough for the inquisitor to notice and mention. (also, isn't a trevelyan inquisitor from ostwick? i suppose they don't say anything more about this?)

the antaam corsairs - are they harassing any other ships? have they cut the waking sea off from the amaranthine ocean entirely?

venatori-aligned nobles - which nobles, and where? are they spread across the country? do they have noticeable regional strongholds? more importantly, why have they allied with the venatori? what are they getting out of working with a fringe tevinter cult that was mostly dismantled ten years ago?

'far southern wilds' - is that just the korcari wilds in ferelden? or are the arbor wilds in orlais also seeing blight appear? (the blight consuming orlais later has to come from somewhere, after all)

the fall of weisshaupt (obtained after. well.)

'wherever darkspawn once had a presence' - every place that's had darkspawn? all of them? cause thats. most of thedas? including several regions we visit in vg, but i don't remember hearing anything abt darkspawn appearing in the silent plains, which you'd think might come up in the graveyard of nevarra's capital city. at the very least, this might explain why the south's hit so hard despite lusacan and razikale being on the other side of the continent, i guess? anyway i marked what i think are the the three largest, worst blighted spots, and i left my blight notes on the map too for lack of a better place to put them. you can see how many places might now be getting swarmed.

^^ - if i'm right and darkspawn are appearing everywhere they've been before. well. this could have been a fun way to incorporate worldstate choices? if the inquisition allied with the wardens orlais has warning of a horde emerging in the western approach, if the wardens were banished orlais suffers heavier casualties from having to fight unexpected darkspawn on top of the venatori. something like that.

'reports of darkspawn advancing to its very gates' - advancing to weisshaupt's gates? the fortress we just lost to the darkspawn? this sounds like the inquisitor's getting reports that weisshaupt's just under siege, not overrun entirely and abandoned?

'erasing all the gains that the wardens and dwarves had made' - the darkspawn getting to weisshaupt is erasing dwarf-warden gains on the surface, in the anderfels? or do they mean progress reclaiming the deep roads has been lost? because weisshaupt's gates are on the surface, and haven't had to be retaken before now (weisshaupt has been sieged by darkspawn before during blights, but it's never fallen entirely). unless they're meaning that darkspawn numbers in the roads during the siege were so high they've overrun dwarf-warden positions? or the loss of wardens assisting the dwarves and recalled to weisshaupt was that damaging?

'called them all back to weisshaupt' - once again. worldstates. past events. what happened to that warden civil war that was brewing in inquisition? what happened to the orlesian wardens possibly breaking off from weisshaupt entirely? what about the wardens in amaranthine, possibly allied with the architect, possibly working with avernus to research the blight? all of them got orders to up and head to weisshaupt, and they all obeyed, despite the internal conflicts we've been hearing whispers of for the past few games?

the tide turns (obtained after fighting the dragons in hossberg)

the felicisima armada - nice to see the armada mentioned, obviously, but it might have been even better if we got to actually learn anything new about it. instead of the half-baked beach and arena we could have had a hub in llomerryn/estwatch, experienced some of what makes rivain so distinct from the rest of thedas. we could have seen isabela acting as an admiral of the armada, maybe had some quests that lead to the armada harassing the antaam. yknow, gotten to be involved in the interesting things happening in the world, instead of hearing about them after they've already happened. (mostly i just. really don't understand where the lords of fortune came from in the first place? a rivain-based pirate faction already exists? it seems like isabela's a leader in both groups? what's going on here?)

the venatori - did the inquisition just do a really bad job ten years ago? i was under the impression the venatori as a group were finished, that they'd failed their plans, lost their god, and splintered apart. hadn't tevinter even publically denounced them? i know that doesn't mean much really, but yknow. after inquisition it sure seemed like whatever group succeeded the venatori would be starting pretty much from scratch, or having to use a new name, at least. but they're not only openly back in power in tevinter, they've got the resources to stoke conflicts across the continent? yet again. worldstates. thedosian politics. what happened in the past decade??

val royeaux to kirkwall - so the venatori are marching forces across nevarran territory into the free marches, these forces presumably including some amount of orlesian soldiers? i know kirkwall/the free marches are apparantly busy right now (getting blighted?) but as far as i can tell. nevarra doesn't really have anything going on? but they're just letting hostile orlesian forces cross their borders to attack the marches? i would have thought that would provoke some sort of response, given that nevarra (and parts of the marches) have been invaded by and fought wars against the orlesian empire several times?

the coming storm (obtained after speaking to the inquisitor again)

'little trace remains of the antaam dreadnoughts' - i'm assuming the antivan resistance has picked up enough momentum for the antaam to struggle to maintain control by now, and that combined with the efforts of the armada has lead them to pull their fleet back somewhat to keep from overstretching their forces. but i do like the idea that the antaam, competent trained soldiers, were beaten and driven off by a pack of pirates.

the drums of war (obtained after discussing how to attack tearstone island)

'the free marches have unified' - i know extraordinary circumstances can force things like this to happen but also. we know the free marches are divided enough that city-states will make alliances just to spite their neighbours. we know blights don't really bring people together without effort. i would love to know what sort of political manoeuvring has been going on for the entirety of the marches to unite to assist ferelden - or just the inquisitor? if the inquisition disbanded, why does the inquisitor still seem to have so much influence? also. the marches are doing this when they're in the middle of conflicts? hasn't kirkwall been entirely evacuated to starkhaven now?

blight in ferelden - putting those words onto a map makes them look way worse, doesn't it? the darkspawn now have redcliffe, much of southern ferelden, and most of denerim (if not all, by now), they'll spread the blight everywhere they go, and the blight itself has reached lake calenhad. as a reminder, this letter in da2 tells us the land around lothering is poisoned so badly by the blight it'll take decades to recover, if ever, after only a year. other places still haven't recovered after centuries. vg's blight might be changed in some way, but it doesn't seem to be any weaker, and only the blight in minrathous is destroyed at the end. assuming vg only takes a couple of months, it ends with ferelden blighted even worse than after the fifth blight.

the beginning of the end (obtained after escaping the regret prison)

blight in ferelden - (continued from above) by now, ferelden's certainly lost the korcari wilds, brecilian forest, hinterlands, and a decent chunk of the bannorn to the blight, as well as possibly all of lake calenhad and its shores, depending on how blight spreads in water. that's the majority of the country's settlements, farmland, and natural resources uninhabitable, unusable, or obliterated - again, the blight poisons the land, it takes decades to centuries for anything to grow there again. on the bright side, the tiny amount of unblighted land left in the bannorn will probably be enough to support the surviving population, since the refugees were few enough to fit into skyhold. from veilguard on, ferelden is likely reduced to amaranthine, highever, west hill, the northern edge of the bannorn, whatever region runs above lake calenhad, the island of brandel's reach, and the islands home to jainen and alamar. the new ferelden capital would probably be highever or amaranthine, possibly amaranthine given the arling's run by the wardens, and they'll likely become far more influential now that ferelden's blighted nearly as badly as the anderfels. at least they got to keep the circle in jainen!

blight in orlais and the free marches - it would make sense to me if the blight here has spread out from the wastelands of the western approach and the silent plains. honestly i might have overestimated how much land's been consumed? but equally we're told the blight's moving fast so. maybe i'm underestimating. who knows. regardless, orlais has probably lost it's southern regions, as well as a large part of the heart of the country. like ferelden, it looks like a lot of what's probably farmland has been blighted, as well as several major cities. that combined with the venatori-supported civil war they've been fighting this whole time means orlais is. possibly in a worse state than even ferelden! i don't know how they'll recover honestly. maybe orlais will fracture into a dozen smaller states, maybe they'll somehow have enough military strength left to attempt to expand and claim nevarra's unblighted land. either way, they're probably not a major power anymore. also, the dales are probably blighted too, though maybe not entirely? which is unfortunate for the dalish, assuming they haven't been completely absorbed by the veil jumpers and given up on the dales for arlathan. for the free marches, again assuming the blight's spread from the silent plains, kirkwall, wildervale, starkhaven, and tantervale are most likely to have been hit, if not lost entirely. the eastern city-states are likely alright. also. a lot of nevarra's probably been blighted? most of it, even. including the capital. and grand necropolis. cumberland might be fine though.

blight in tevinter? - we aren't told anything about what the blight and darkspawn are doing in tevinter, i think? aside from minrathous being miraculously cured so it can become the center of civilisation in the future, obviously. we're bringing back the pre-andrastian empire! anyway. the silent plains would be the main threat here, and if the blight spread up to the nocen sea it could split the imperium in two, which could be fun i think. and the blight from the anderfels could affect the western border somewhat too.

orzammar - yet again, worldstates could have had an impact here, affected whether orzammar has alliances that could help it hold out or not, things like that. but honestly, considering everything else that's been going on, it seems safe to assume orzammar's been entirely wiped out. kal-sharok might be the last surviving population of underground dwarves, aside from the ambassadoria in tevinter. who might now have lost their home entirely.

blighted leviathans - *blackwall voice* i would have liked to have seen it. but yeah once more the cool things are all happening in the background. seems like we could have run into these in a felicisima armada questline, or possibly with the wardens if the ten year old griffons were adults instead of hatchlings still. i don't even know what to say here honestly. this makes recovery even harder now, i suppose. orlais and nevarra have lost sea access, ferelden and the southern marcher city-states might struggle depending on how far the leviathans spread towards the amaranthine ocean. fishing might be a little difficult now too.

conclusion

rivain and antiva seem to have come out largely unscathed by the blight, and we know from rivain that andrastianism, the qun, mages, and spirits aren't entirely incompatible, so there's a real chance for things to improve there. the eastern free marches are probably fairly stable, all things considered. tevinter and the qun might be forced into peace, however temporary, given that the antaam's been decimated and the imperium's apparently going to be doing some restructuring. ferelden and orlais have effectively suffered an apocalypse. nevarra and the western free marches are likely only doing slightly better. the anderfels are. probably largely unchanged, tbh. very cheerful! what's happening in the south? nothing good!

as i've seen some others say, i don't inherently dislike the idea of the south, the places we're most attached to, suffering some catastrophe in service of underlining how high the stakes are. my problem is the way it's executed. all these events were thrown together into a handful of codex entries that were very easy to miss entirely. there was no attempt to work with the very different worldstates people could have, despite marketing reassuring us that our past choices would be respected. it felt like an afterthought added into the game to try and cheaply increase the emotional impact of a somewhat lacklustre story. many of the things people felt were missing from veilguard - the politics and intrigue, the relations between nations and peoples, etc - aren't missing at all, it turns out. they've simply been relegated to the background. we can see where they might be happening, guess at how our protagonist could have been involved, but we aren't allowed to actually participate anymore. and i think that's unfortunate for a series that used to be so determined to think about those things, even if it didn't always handle them very well.

[trashogram]

Another little idea:

So you tried to summon the Devil, but there’s a little bit of a problem. Not because it didn’t work — Oh no. It worked exactly as it was supposed to.

It’s just that…

Satan ended up being too big to fit through the portal that opened up with your summoning circle. So now his head is stuck in your living room floor. And he’s been glaring at you something fierce with those four scorching eyes of his this whole time.

You���re pretty sure that even if you somehow manage to fix this, you’re still gonna be royally fucked.

[elucubrare]

a Scottish folk tale i think about a lot when someone adds a bad comment to a post:

A man who was a hump-back once met the fairies dancing, and danced with their queen; and he sang with them, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," so well that they took off his hump, and he returned home a straight-bodied man.

Then a tailor went past the same place, and was also admitted by the fairies to their dance. He caught the fairy queen by the waist, and she resented his familiarity. And in singing he added "Thursday" to their song and spoilt it. To pay the tailor for his rudeness and ill manners, the dancers took up the hump they had just removed from the first man and clapped it on his back, and the conceited fellow went home a hump-back.

[sunshinedaizeyy]

The journey has come to an end. We may rest again

[666grlsblog]

i need a gun and someone to show me how to use it

[hunterkhean]

Silly short Conversation Came to my head I can't help but draw it...

[shewhorunsmazes]

“Ai is the future; the future is now. And sucks. The future is both now and sucks.” - Breanna

just like with thelma… those scammers really scammed the wrong meemaw… also… we got some genuine harry whump this episode! which really has me thriving

[libidinous-weeb]

Gabriel’s Christmas story part 5b/FINALE (ft. LMAOOO GET FUCKED U ANNOYING TWINK (affectionate and with intent to ride his dick for sure next time))

[fujii-draws]

Grovyle, Celebi, and Dusknoir creating the most intricate plan regarding the most appropriate time to meet Hero and Partner again in the present while they’re next to the Passage of Time. How they’ll explore the present first as a trio for a couple more weeks/months, have Grovyle and Celebi reunite with the two whilst also giving a Big Heads Up regarding Dusknoir; where they’d then go on to see whether or not they truly want him there, and take the necessary action based on their decision. (Whether it’s a unanimous ‘fuck no we don’t want him back’, 50/50, or completely okay with starting over.) Nodding in agreement towards the plan and stepping into the portal together.

They then proceed to immediately get spotted by Hero and Partner just relaxing on the beach.

[civetside]

hiiii i have a question for people who like web comics, WHERE do you go to read web comics generally? like i know there's like webtoon or whatever and of course i plan on making mine a lil tumblr blog but other then those im out of the loop and idk if there's any platform that would be better then those or anythin, i would appreciate y'alls thoughts

[bajaja-blast]

ik we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but ngl some of y’all are making me feel like a wanted criminal for liking Cracker Island, Song Machine & Humanz :/

[utilitycaster]

i just finished this week's episode and I'm so blown away by Celia's portrayal of faith in exandria and how deep her understanding is and firstly, god, it's just so beautiful to watch but, secondly, it is kind of creating this juxtaposition to me of this person who's been brought in for a mini series, given a lore primer, does seem to have watched SOME episodes, has such a grasp on worship and the role of the gods in exandria vs bells hells who had hundreds of episodes to learn about it

So I agree that Celia's performance has been an absolute highlight, and while I'm try to taper off some of the post-mortem C3 stuff I think a couple things were going on. Most crucially, as Divergence is a limited series with actors who aren't terribly familiar with Exandria, I am sure there was a lot more guidance with regards to character creation and series tone. I would not be surprised if Brennan and Matt wanted characters with a range of attitudes towards the Prime Deities, ranging from Nia and Garen being faithful despite it all, to Crokas and Fiedra's neutrality/apathy, to Erro's loss of faith, and who could show how all of these people, despite those different attitudes, could work together if they prioritized community and hope.

The thing about Bells Hells is again, the cast is aware of the role of the gods in the world, as we've seen in past campaigns. I think again this was a lack of guidance and people building characters who were not prepared to engage with the question of "what would you do if the gods - all of them, not just the Prime Deities - were threatened" in a meaningful way, and Matt did not guide the campaign when they began aimlessly circling that question and indeed simply threw more options at them. They - and their fans - consistently believed the worst not just of the gods but of those who worshiped them and their fellow Exandrians (we've already extensively talked about the breathtaking selfishness of "I don't know if I want to save someone who doesn't love me," but consider how Ashton assumed the gods would smite them down for knowing the true story of Aeor [something Bells Hells chose to suppress for reasons I actually don't understand, like, I don't mind that they did this but it feels like they nearly got Liliana killed simply to go against Ludinus, which wasn't even their ultimate motivation in the end] and repeatedly treated the gods-as-mortals plan as a punishment to humble them, even though the Primes very much did not see it as such). It is, as I said sometime last week, an aberrant party attitude towards the world as compared to Campaigns 1, 2, EXU Prime, Downfall, every canon or semi-canon one-shot (eg: Song of the Lorelei) and, I would even posit, not even in line with the portrayal of the gods within C3's main story (not even Downfall) itself. So I don't want to diminish the excellent work Celia's put in, because they've been fantastic throughout, but I really think it's just...Bells Hells had a bunch of character concepts that probably should have been further refined early on, and far more guidance was given re: Rei'Nia's development, and it shows.

[citruscore]

good morning

[chalkscrub]

babygirl doodles from a little while ago