#this was such a dumpster fire lmao

[arson-09]

by the time i got to acowar i had lost all hope and all my annotations were just so tired and done. heres some of my personal favorites

[lizzybeeee]

THE ENTIRE DRAGON AGE AMA IS A DUMPSTER FIRE

They avoided all the high-rated questions with genuine criticism (not blind hate!) and went for questions that were safer and allowed them more leeway. After that awful IGN article and that treatment of Davrin...God, just put it down. I have no faith that BioWare will be able to continue Dragon Age or Mass Effect with the respect it deserves.

Edit - They had an opportunity for genuine discussion with fans who were concerned/unhappy with the way Veilguard was -> people unhappy with the story, the marketing, the lack of 'RP' options in an RPG, etc... Instead they just doubled-down even more, avoiding those critical questions, with no real acknowledgement that fans have very reasonable problems with this game.

Some Highlights & My Initial Ramblings Below:

The Executors

"They attempt to manipulate events in the most subtle way they can manage."

So, very clear that they're not simply observers of what is happening in Thedas: they're manipulators...

"Magical Illuminati Confirmed! Lizard People Did 9:30 Dragon!!!!"

All that complexity of character -> his hatred of Orlais, his experience as a general, his relationship with Cailain, and the influence of Howe...all diminished. Any influence from a shadow cabal is too much influence - all the humanity of Loghain's choices/consequences...God, what a waste.

Not to mention what this does to other events/characters in the series -> they imply they've been intervening as far back as the magisters breaking into the golden city. I do not find this compelling! At all!

2. Solas and the Executors

Oh my god, he sounds like such a fucking Mary-Sue I'm so sick of Solas at this point -> "Actually, I know more about the Executors than anyone alive - not even the rest of the Gods know as much as me."

("I'm also, like, an Ancient Elven God, I'm responsible for the Blight and the Veil, and I kind of locked the Gods away cause they were evil - but, like, I'm really sad about it. Also the Herald of Andraste thinks I'm cute <3")

<- Previous comments: massive oversimplification, obviously

But I miss the days when not everything was about Solas. It removes so much interest and wonder in this world when the fucking egg is behind it all. I loved him as a character in DAI and now I just feel this bone deep tiredness when I see his stupid face.

Don't you dare threaten to bring Gareth David-Lloyd back -> keep him away from this mess!

3. The Fate of the Rest of the Evanuris

Yay. I'm so looking forwards to "The Return of the Elves: Electric Boogaloo 2" - it was done so well the first time!

"It was the elves all along!"

The only character with any potential to be interesting is Andruil*, but how they handled all this lore was done so shallowly and so poorly that I find it hard to give a damn anymore. Not to mention that the game literally mentions Ghilan'nain mourning Andruil - so is this a retcon/redirection/or have you confirmed that one of the most interesting members of the Evanuris' is dead?

*interesting in that she's established in lore to potentially have a tonne of really cool things attached to her (the void armour, the great weapon she has etc...). The rest of the evanuris are nowhere near as well established as she is.

4. Southern Thedas, Sociopolitical Issues, and Future Games

NOW YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE GEO-POLITCAL EXPLORATION?? You avoided any meaningful discussion like the plague in DATV but now you're acknowledging it?? OkaY. okAy.

They couldn't even give us the long-term ramifications of the mage/templar war how the hell am I supposed to believe that they will be able to pull off 'elven gods are real' etc...? For a game series that totes : your choices matter -> they have not proven that they have been able to show that in a meaningful way. They literally cleaned the slate with this game to avoid doing that.

So, what, does that mean that the Veil is never going to come down now? Or are you going to have the entirety of Thedas build themselves up again just to have the Veil fall and send things into chaos once more?

What a fatalistic, miserable outcome for Thedas -> why the fuck would anyone bother to live in Thedas if you're going to keep throwing meteorites at them? By all means, change/conflict has to happen for the series to move forwards...but this is just so miserable at this point.

(The Elder Scrolls, at least, gives people room to breathe between crisis' or sets them up in different areas of the world! Bethesda treats past installments/your decisions with greater respect than DATV does.)

Even, then, if the Veil remains up, that means that the spirits are just trapped in the Fade being miserable for the rest of existence. The entire series has been humanizing spirits, from Justice to Cole, and now they're just throwing in the towel? I guess they can stay in the fade now! Problem solved!

What do you mean the Evanuris are not a threat anymore? IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION YOU LITERALLY SAID SOME ARE STILL POTENTIALLY KICKING AROUND THE BLACK CITY?

Weakened, sure, but Solas was 'weak' in DAI. You're giving yourself an out if you decide to go back to the elves again. Please do, I'd love more content on how the elves alone fuck everything up!

5. More Southern Thedas, the Chantry, and Tevinter

Thanks for the confirmation that things in the South are so fucked up that they have to work alongside the 'Slave Capital' of the known world to rebuild!

Slavery was one of the biggest things that caused a rift between the north/south chantry system -> one of the reasons why there were exalted marches -> a uniting belief in the south is that slavery is fucked. They didn't address slavery in DATV - what hopes are there that they will do so effectively in a future game?

Don't tell me that Dorian fixes everything off screen either -> either he solves slavery off-screen or the south is being forced to work the slaver-capitol because their land is nuked and they have no ground to stand on.

I'm so thrilled.

6. Solas and the Idol / The Blight

I will never get over Solas fucking curing the Blight off-screen and no one asking questions/giving a shit. Hello?? The Hero of Ferelden would like a word with you???

So the Blight is calcified in Minrathous, at least, but everywhere further away is still fucked! Once more, the South is doomed to suffer from the long-term effects that regular blights have -> not to mention the red lyrium (which still exists according to the AMA) across the south.

I don't care; it's lame. It's a lame way to conclude the blight and I hate it. This game did not earn 'cure the blight from thedas' at all. You could have had us learn how to soothe a titan and see how that can diminish the blight but you did it this way.

Another 'magical ritual' because Solas has such a good track record with them lmao.

7. The Agents of Fen'Harel / The War with the Qun / The Crows

Turned him against the idea of being a leader???!!

Fen'harel's Call to the Elven People After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned. This is from the Trespasser Epilogue, Epler!

Your concept art for Joplin literally had him as a leader of a faction of elves. Just be honest that it's a retcon and you changed course - don't try to save face with this reasoning.

About the Antaam: "We needed some big mindless bad guys to fight and so we did this because we didn't want to address the Qunari War/Invasion we set up in Trespasser".

You had to canonize Sten as being alive and Arishok in order for this reasoning to work -> you didn't even come up with an alternative Arishok to take Sten's place.

Yeah, the exchange that set up the Crows we see in the game as "idealists" did not make the game. I can confirm that!

I'm sorry, "Caterina kept Illario in check?" as in, 'kept him an idealist and not the usual Crow'? The woman that beat him with a cane and starved him and his cousin to train them as Crows. Fuck off.

lmao -> tell me you're coming up with this on the spot without telling me that you're coming up with this on the spot.

8. World State Discrepancies - Isabela

Outright ignores the very real criticism about the marketing from this game and World States.

"there are absolutely places where we unintentionally suggested there was a hard canon (...that Isabela is always assumed to have joined Hawke's party.)"

Unintentional?

Excuse me, you have her talk about Merrill and the Kirkwall Crew as family - that was not unintentional in the slightest. Not to mention Sten, Blackwall, Sera, and Cole are canonized as being part of your world state no matter what.

You had a story you wanted to tell - one that only fit a few world states - and you went ahead with it and disregarded those choices. Don't try and lie about this all being a big misunderstanding.

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Edit - They could have taken the opportunity to address the very reasonable criticisms that people had with this game but they cherry-picked questions and avoided/minimized anything remotely critical.

They could have provided us some insight into the game development time but each time they approached the topic they settled for "we're happy with what we delivered and it was well optimized."

They had an opportunity to acknowledge that people were bothered by the handling of the lore/stories (to potentially mention they could course-correct/ rethink their plans) but instead they doubled down on everything that they did and even 'justified' some decisions. They doubled down on the Executors, Solas's changing motivations, the destruction of Southern Thedas, and the elves/Solas being at the heart of everything etc...

This AMA basically confirmed that the only reason they did what they did to the south was for a reset -> It's not a compelling or fulfilling narrative to have everything we've done reset back to ground zero off-screen. BioWare games differentiate themselves from other RPG's by their import system from previous games - it was compelling and exciting! With DATV they set the expectation that BioWare can outright throw out entire games worth of choices/build up, not solely retcon them.

Justifying your choice to water down the lore/world of your story by saying you'll address it in the 'next game' does not instill me with confidence, BioWare! It doesn't explain that lack of it in this game either!

They avoided every question that, rightfully so, pointed out the misleading comments made by devs in the pre-order period of the game:

the fact that there were only 3 imported choices from previous games was leaked by a reviewer -> BioWare was vague from the start about choices

that this game was the most 'romantic' in the series

that world states/ headcanons wouldn't be disrespected

that there are 'lore' reasons for bad darkspawn design

that there are lasting, impactful choices/consequences to be made in this game

that the lore/world was not watered or toned down

that companions are deep and you can disagree with them etc...

BioWare's behavior towards their customers in the lead up period to this games release was downright scummy. I absolutely felt misled after playing the game for myself and recalling what I read in interviews put out. While EA is undoubtedly poison, you can't hold them solely accountable for this.

I feel for the individual developers who worked on this in what was undoubtedly a toxic environment from EA - but I feel that it's pretty clear that BioWare itself has a lot of problems within and in their leadership/executives. Working for EA does not give them an excuse to mislead their customers.

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I already had a very grim outlook on the franchise from the end of DATV but this literally look my interest out the back and sent it to God. What a disaster.

[rokurookajima]

she blocked him for this

(based on this bc.. rent free in my head)

[youuuimeanmee]

In regards of my previous headcanon I made a few weeks ago,

I would like to make an apology video to Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Henderson, I am so, so sorry I ever doubt your Ellegant DNA–

[ggswaywardgifrepository]

It boggles the mind that the Bi-Han ship tier list seems to always put Sektor at the bottom below:

-the dude who convinced him to betray his entire realm for power that he never even got (Don't @ me, I love Shang Tsung, BiShang is my MK1 OTP, and my favorite Bi-Han ship.)

-one or both of his brothers (Not my thing 99% of the time but knock yourselves out. MK draws on loads of mythology for its lore and inc@st isn't exactly a foreign topic there.)

-his creator god (Despite loads and loads of baggage and a pretty significant power imbalance. There's also not much acknowledgment that Liu Kang had Bi-Han's entire life to notice his resentment brewing and try to reasonably intervene. Or he did try and failed--still, not a whiff of blame for Liu Kang, though. That's why I personally find this one off-putting, but again, enjoy what you enjoy.)

-Sareena (This one I totally get. We craved redemption for Bi-Han and saw a compelling and fulfilling possibility here. Tracks. 100%. It's also not as one-sided as other redemption focused Bi-Han ships because we know he positively influenced Sareena as well)

The bulk of the SekHan hate is directed at Sektor, and it makes me angry the more I think about it. But I admit this was my reaction for a long time as well.

In my case, at least, my discontent stemmed from Sektor not being a savior to Bi-Han, which suggests she has no value as a character other than to further his arc. And that's such a one-dimensional way to see both of them. By this logic, Sektor is worthless if she doesn't bring Bi-Han back to the light. Then also by this logic, Bi-Han isn't capable of championing his own redemption, rather, he needs another character holding the reins. (Sareena, Kuai Liang, or Liu Kang, most commonly.)

The DLC trailers were edited in such a way that we all had this preconceived notion of who Sektor was going to be in Khaos Reigns and a lot of it didn't hold up. She was hinted to be in love with Bi-Han but we all assumed it was one-sided--I did, at least. And somehow we all preferred the idea of that love being unrequited because heaven forbid two flawed, grown ass people be in a relationship. I also honestly think there's an aesthetic disconnect. I think there are a lot of people who either wanted him to not be in a ship, or to be in one with someone prettier.

I do still think they might've parted ways over the Cyber Lin Kuei, had that plot seen the light of day. But it's yet another 'what if' that never came to pass that I preemptively held against Sektor.

There's also a lot of speculation that Sektor is just manipulating Bi-Han, which can be used to invalidate romantic feelings but also suggests he's much more easily taken advantage of than I'd like to think he is. Him falling for Shang's shit was enough, alright. (And Shang is prettier. Sorry not sorry. Sektor is v attractive but Shang is much more attractiver.)

But Bi-Han is not a stupid man. At least, I don't want to see him that way. And the bulk of the anti-SekHan arguments paint him like this.

Honestly, anyone who says, "I know they're canon, I see the logic behind it, and I just fucking don't like it" resonates more because there are things I'm never gonna be jazzed about with them, and they're intangible, too.

SekHan is nowhere near my favorite ship, but I am sad to see it get hate. I think it was poorly introduced and left a bad taste in our mouths. But it still bums me out to know that that's why so few people even care to try and write the characters well together and rectify that.

And please, you're obviously allowed to disagree with every word here and ship or not ship whatever the hell you want. These are just my frustrations.

[softsimulation]

cycl0n3 sw0rd & svynx

after a messy breakup with his first girlfriend, blair, cycl0n3 made the decision to get out of his comfort zone and leave sunset valley behind for a fresh start. initially he headed for san myshuno but being the socially anxious loner that he is, he couldn't handle the bustling crowds of people and constant noise. instead he found a small town just outside of san-my, got himself an "it'll do" apartment and used his computer smarts to get a job with a startup tech company where he has very little in person communication.

he did however get over his socially anxious tendencies just enough to go and adopt svynx from the local shelter.

(when i was a kid and only had base game, i thought cycl0n3 was a really evil sim because of his name so i wouldn’t let my sims interact with him EVER and the one time my sim did talk to him i deleted the save file 😭)

credit to @pugownedplaysthesims-blog on the gallery for creating svynx!

[boyguk]

me watching eurovision 2024 go up in flames

[millionmaggots]

macdennis but in a no children by the mountain goats way

[mikiruma]

hi. for ppl who jumped the twitter ship. im quitting my job suddenly and missing out on what was going to be a good week of pay so if anyone wants to toss like ten bucks for an icon or something so i can eat in the meantime i would GREATLY appreciate it

[nebulaedaniel]

also i so so so so miss having phannie friends and talking in groupchats it was so FUN 😭 oh to be 16 again (only for that part of it)

[thrandilf]

Checkmate

"Poof!" Aaravos giggled to himself, the lightness at sharp odds with the high stakes Viren felt bearing down on him more and more by the minute.

"Please."

Viren could plead for his life if he must. He looked at Aaravos's amused expression, reminiscent of a cat batting at yarn, while Viren felt his world diminishing, his breaths labeled with numbers. Hours. That was all he had.

Aaravos angled his head, still smiling. "Please what?"

They'd played this game before, of pushing and pulling, of choosing what angle to show to the mirror, of pretending Viren had ever had any power over the being before him. He'd been foolish, but desperate. He'd thought back then that he'd run out of options. Now, now he understood how it truly felt to be backed against a wall, to have death staring him in the face. Now he knew optionless.

Aaravos had won so completely that he held Viren’s remaining time like grains of sand to play with between his palms.

Viren was done playing.

"Aaravos, please." Viren was only a lavender projection, but he had no doubt he could sob if he must. "I'd do anything. Even if you have no fondness for me, please, for Claudia."

Aaravos raised his eyebrows. He leisurely paced around Viren, circling like a shark. His smirk was audible in his tone. "You speak like you're the dirt under my feet, yet you still stand."

He knew that cue.

Viren sank to his knees in defeat, head bowed. His heart pounded, he trembled too much to talk back, to protest.

Aaravos continued. "There. Now, do you truly know your place, or is it that we forgot your spine when reassembling you?" he mused.

The words tasted like dust. "You won, Aaravos. I- I know my place."

"Oh, I think you're starting to learn it, yes."

Aaravos crouched down. He reached his hand out and laid it on Viren's cheek. Somehow, he was able to sustain the physical touch. Viren's eyes widened as Aaravos tenderly raised Viren's gaze up to his, pure fear meeting smug control. Aaravos's hand drifted down like a caress until he reached Viren's neck. He closed his hand around Viren's throat.

"Please," Viren wheezed. "Aaravos, please, I'll do whatever you want. I never betrayed you. I did all you asked!" Viren's spirit broke, pressed between the ticking clock he felt in his bones and Aaravo's grip. He coughed on a sob, shaking so hard he was wondering if all of this was enough to have a panic attack on top of it all.

Aaravos leaned close. "So, you admit you are mine?" Aaravos murmured in his ear.

Chills ran through Viren. "Yes. Yes, I am. Aaravos."

Aaravos let Viren's neck go, instead stroking his hair as Viren gasped. He even pressed a kiss to the top of Viren's head.

"I am merciful, Viren, unlike our enemies." Aaravos smiled, voice still a purr. "You won't become my enemy, of course, so you have nothing to fear."

Viren barely managed to nod. Surrendered down to his free will, kept obedient even without the use of the strings Aaravos could pull on any time. How much of a life was this?

Aaravos stood upright, looming over Viren, eyes deceptively warm. "I'm so glad we understand each other."

[nostrildamus]

dating apps suck for a variety of reasons, among them being the fact that someone can just put "Sneezy" as their display name and not elaborate on that choice whatsoever

[nodirectionhome-ao3]

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in the cabinet ahahahahahahahahahhahaha I am going to walk into the ocean!!!!

[starqop]

hello tumblr have a n

[kachimera]

Me when the het ship has dual sided deep love and devotion 👌👏🤘

[adachimoe]

Tetsuya Kobayashi in the Persona Super Live 2017 pamphlet interview:

Godspeed sir thank you for your work.