#this sounds so bad i'm sorry

[starry-eyed-steve]

If this is true, they can keep it.

What is this? Can we stop with the Eddie agenda? He wouldn't help Dustin with experiments. He failed to graduate twice and hates school. He wouldn't help him connect with his friends because he doesn't care for the party like that prior to the events of s4. He likes to collect his little "sheep" who listen to his philosophies about society. He sees himself as a mentor who enlightens people, but he is not friends with them. Dustin and Mike were terrified even talking about postponing a stupid game so they could support Lucas. They don't see him as an equal, they admire and fear him.

Dustin's and Eddie's "friendship" is a mentor/student one. It's not like Dustin and Steve's friendship, which is based on mutual respect (at least prior to s4). Steve never made Dustin feel scared to ask him about favors. He respects him and is not acting like he's above him.

Let me have a book about their friendship and the struggles of season 3. How Dustin is navigating the move of their friend, how he deals with watching Max ascend into depression and how he feels about starting high school. With Steve by his site because they went through fucking hell together in s3 (and s2). How is their relationship gonna change after those events? What led to them being that way in s4. We don't need an Eddie-Dustin centric book, especially not about Eddie helping Dustin with his friends.

I swear all we get in that book will be Dustin being absolutely mean to Steve, insulting his intelligence every other page. Steve won't be smart enough to help him out there. No thanks.

[lotus-pear]

the dialogue choices in this game should be more diabolical

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[somnimagus]

did some vesperia chibis, i always forget how happy i get drawing these guys. i love them dearly

[id in alt text]

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Crazy issues that come up when a character is written a little too well

[dykephan]

when they do come back from break can they ease us into it .... a tweet or an instagram pic for the roombas to snack on and then they can drop wdapteo when we're fully warmed up

[cure-stars]

"but you see......this is where my story ends."

"then, let's start it―― right now! your next story!"

as if you're opening a present every second.

as if i'm searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone. 🎪

[0xeyedaisy]

Oops, I might've overestimated how well I can deal w my sickness while working...

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

my n1 guilty pleasure is thinkin that post m2 lauretta moved deeper into criminal after several years & ended up sentenced to jail somewhere in the middle of 1970s

[mysticalcats]

fellas. my friends said they ACTUALLY want to watch cats 2019 with me and i was SHOCKED because like. who would. want to do that. i am delighted. HOWEVER it will take everything in me to not pause it and clarify every five minutes about my opinions on the movie

[c4tto626]

wait i do have a veilguard opinion (spoilers?)

the beginning with varric is fucking stupid. i'm sorry. you've been hunting solas for this long and when you finally track him down the best plan you could come up with is to. talk to him? and maybe shoot him if that doesn't work?? shoot him??? even if you don't wanna use 'god' that's still a super powerful ancient mage and your back-up plan for your big first idea (which is, again, to ask him nicely to stop) is to. try and just shoot him. okay. also, you finally track down the guy threatening to use really powerful magic to literally tear down the veil and you just. go confront him with one, maybe two random mages? hello?? like sure, neve and maybe rook are capable but not god-killing capable (yet). i've seen the stupid ritual section a half dozen times and it never stops being so stupid i'm going insane. i have to try and talk to him shut the fuck up we should be rallying reinforcements smh

[nothanksjohnny]

Anyone else shaking at the thought of feral Optimus? He didn't come up with learning manners anxiety how to greet and everything that higher up cybertronains were expected to present. I want this man to still growl and snap his Jaws in distaste. I want him to still hold some autobots down to show them he's the leader. I want his politeness to be shown out of respect but he's not scared to rip a spark out. He lived his early years fighting to live and survive. I want him calculating but also have a primal mind. As primal as cybertronains can be. Not sure if this is mildNSFW? But I want him to randomly scruff fellow autobots. Ratchet won't listen ? He tilts his head and just bites the back of ratchets neck sinking his teeth into the sensitive mech and cables as he let's out a low growl and tugs just enough to get the message through. I want him to hold arcees throat between his teeth leaving enough pressure to make it known he can bite if he wants. Not out of frustration or anger but in sight of discipline because this is how he learned early on. This is his first communication. I want him to fight new autobots who were one deceptions. Not enought for a real battle but to tire them out and make them present their necks so he can snap his Jaws and draw a bit of energon as he laps at it to hush their whimpers. I want him to have the itch to take the children or any human he comes to name close or family to do the same. He'd be gentle he promises he'll even displace his mass so it's more fair. He won't bite the children but he needs to prove he can take care of them by showing he's strong. I want him to claw and tear open deceptions that dare hurt his comrads. I want mercy to be forgotten.i just needs a feral Optimus that chooses to show this educated and manner filled individual he's become but is quick to shift back to old ways because they work. I think I'm just insane guys.

[kerosene-saint]

I wish people didn't act like dd/lg or abdl were like pedophilia. not even into it and I'm a sfw age regressor (non community due to this problem) but like. ugh. and the problem is my views on it have changed so much over just this year. because guess what. whatever people do in their free time surrounding sex, as long as it is not genuinely illegal, should not fucking matter to you. it is not your fucking business to tell people you think their kink is gross and pedophilic, especially because it's not pedophilia. it is fine. to be uncomfortable with a kink page of a certain kind interacting with you. I get it. and there are some pretty mean people in those communities but guess what? there are mean people in EVERY COMMUNITY. and you do not have to relate that kink to pedophilia to say you'd prefer their kink blogs to not interact with whatever blog you have. but when you say shit like "pedos and also people into ddlg and abdl dni" it's annoying. you could say "ddlg/abdl blogs dni" absolutely fair. but saying don't interact abt an entire group of people of which you do not necessarily have the means of checking everyone for being in that community??? alright then. you have fun in puppy play isn't anything like fucking dogs but ddlg is like fucking children world.

[dunmeshistash]

How is lycion pronounce

in japanese his name is リシオン Rishion

So I imagine it would be like lee see on? You can put リシオン on google translate and make it say it out loud with the japanese voice if you're curious

[burning-academia-if]

Hi again. If you've been around a while you're probably going to be like "Em, again??" But guess who got sick for the 6th time this year and this time it was a full on chest infection!! It has been three weeks, and somehow I am still Not Free!!

Anyway, BA fell to the wayside this month because it was Velox Fabula time and I've yet to miss a Velox jam (also...chest infection). I also needed to get my sudden and newfound Pirates of the Caribbean obsession out of the way so! I made a short pirate visual novel for the jam and I'm normal again. I also released the prologue of my side IF To Taste Sweet Silver (@sweetsilver-if) just to have it out. Feel free to check it out if you want, but it likely won't be updated for a while as I'm shifting gears back to BA for September!

I don't have much to report but:

UI update should be out in the next week or two depending on how I'm feeling. It won't look like much to y'all since it's more for my sake via cleaning up the code LOL but there were things added (friendship indicators, open dyslexic font option, character page updated, stat page updated, glossary page added) I'm not a graphic designer but it's better organized I think. There won't be an Official Post about it because it isn't new content, but I will make a small announcement when it's out. It'll also include the originally deleted Lars/Zoe/Nevio lunch scene in Chapter 2 as well. Sorry this is taking so long, I just really struggle with the coding side of things which has made the process slow.

Writing in August was also slow, and honestly, I think I really needed those few weeks off not thinking about BA. My inbox being very quiet helped as well, so I really did take a real break from BA. When I opened up the writing doc, I felt a whole lot better about working on BA again, and we have hit 100k words finally!

Anyway, I don't want to lament much, but I did have a personal goal of releasing up to Chapter 4 this year which obviously is Not Going to Happen. It honestly sucks I got sick so often this year because it cut into so much time for creative projects, be it BA or anything else.

I'm not really going to be hard on myself for it, though. I think releasing 3 chapters this year considering everything that kept Going Wrong this year is actually pretty good. I just think its annoying when I know I could have done it but the universe said no instead akfjalfa Anyway, I'm not sure when Chapter 3 will release but I do have a good feeling about September and I think I'll be able to at least get a decent chunk done this month!

Finally, September marks the one year anniversary for this blog and October marks the one year anniversary of BA releasing!! I feel like I literally just started writing this, the fact it's September already is wild.

I was going to do art commissions, but due to surprise car issues, I don't really have the money for that now (next year for sure though!!), so I was thinking of maybe doing character Q&As to celebrate? I've also seen some authors do raffles, but I'm not entirely sure what I would raffle off? Maybe personalized short stories with readers MCs if there's interest in that? I'm not sure yet, but I have a month to figure it out lol

But also thank you to everyone who has followed along!! It's been a really fun time both writing BA and on the blog. I know I say this a lot, but I'm really glad this is such a chill place. It's nice for me the author obviously, but it's also nice because I always want the spaces I have to feel like safe places for others as well so! Thanks again!

Lastly, I normally would end on a little snippet or preview but since most of what I wrote was just the two different openings, I feel like I have nothing fun to tease (or maybe I'm too picky about snippets idk). Hopefully Zoe's bday post tomorrow makes up for it, and I'll post some snippets later in the month instead!

Thanks for reading!

[antihibikase-archive]

It is incredibly isolating to navigate through fandom as an aromantic person. Aro experiences are so varied, and there is no definite aro experience that encapsulates the alienation that fandom spaces cause for certain people.

Fandom is mostly built and structured on shipping. And if not, the blorbofication of characters, which tends to go down the shipping pipeline; where does that leave the romance repulsed aro person who genuinely does not want to see any form of shipping? Platonic dynamics, right?

Yeah, sure. But by platonic dynamics, it's only "best friends" or "family" right? Where does that leave the aro folks with undefined labels? No, qprs aren't a get-out-of-jail card.

And qprs- they have no rules or standards set upon them by society, not even having a clear definition for what it is, because not all qprs are the same. Yet, for some reason, it ended up becoming the "nonbinary" option to a lot of people- not romantic or "regular" platonic? Qpr it is, right?

But where does that leave the aro folk who don't want a qpr? Who don't wish to see characters depicted in pairs or trios or so forth- who embrace the lack of a partner?

And these concepts presented; when aro folk talk about them, do you care? And if you do, do you understand? Do you try to?

If you aren't aro, but wish to be supportive, are you a genuine ally? Do you raise the concerns of aro folk you share the space with?

Or do you take a look at these concepts- and decide you understand them "well" enough? Do you decide to speak for aro folks instead?

Do you depict relationships outside of romance because you believe in the importance of platonic relationships? Will you accept the fact that not all platonic interactions will be familial or "best friends"?

Can you accept depictions of qprs outside of "more than friends, less than lovers"? Are you willing to accept it is not just "best friends" or "romance lite"? Will you accept that nothing is inherently romantic- and characters in a qpr may fall under your standards of lovers?

Can you resist the urge to put every character in a pair or trio or group? Are you comfortable with the notion of characters finding more joy in being by themselves, outside of all those lenses you see them in?

It's good if you can.

And if you can't, at the very least, do you understand why some aro folk in your space are upset? Embittered by your favorite ships? Starving for representation?

Did you depict these characters with these concepts with the knowledge that aromanticism is fluid?