#we have a lot of story coming after this

[uldahstreetrat]

so, my non spoiler review for dawntrail:

I fucking loved it.

really and truly I think it built upon the exact themes I have loved so much from previous msq in ways that aligned perfectly for some very good symbolism and parallels. even to my own ocs! many new characters to this story reminded me of my own that I have written within this setting and I couldnt be happier about that. <3

[asurrogateblog]

I genuinely honestly think however absurd is one of his saddest songs, between that and 'do not mock me when I say this is not a lie' and 'nothing is for keeps' like he was really going through it :(

Wait sidebar I just realized 'wide awake we go to sleep' isn't that what he did during his first trip with john??

REAL right??? like not only is it devastating (even just musically honestly the build-up at the end always Gets To Me) its also probably one of the most revealing of all his songs in terms of defining their relationship.... like "it's a funny thing, half-serious, with our hands on our ears" tells you SO much

I've always interpreted "wide awake we go to sleep" as similar, like "we know there's something here, but we have to close our eyes and pretend not to see it" but YAH now that you point it out, along with the previous line "living dreams with mouths ajar", its definitely reminding me of that particular incident between them.....hmmmmm

A line I fixate on is "when we made love the game was over", which I tend interpret as evidence that they only fucked for real once or a few times at most, and once it got that physical they were so far past the point of plausible deniability that they had to talk about it and their inability to actually do that eventually broke things. but I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on that line

but yah. what a song.

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[niaerinisms]

Book 2 was not bad, you all just didn’t care about the book outside of your white boy LI

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[rambles-on-dragon-age]

Varric doesn't give you the nickname Rook, your whole faction calls you Rook. It makes no sense to give you a faction specific last name and then your faction doesn't even use it, but yeah.

Hi hi!

This will be a bit of a ramble, sorry.

Varric, as a character, gives nicknames to those he's around for any length of time. (Solas is Chuckles, Merrill is Daisy, Vivi is Iron Lady, etc. Very few people in close contact with him will escape earning a moniker. I can go on about how I think it's one of his ways of telling people he sees them, but I digress.) The player character has been traveling with him for a year/the better part of a year. Varric would have definitely given them a nickname in that time. (Honestly it shocks me Harding doesn't have one by now but maybe he tried and she shut that down like Aveline once did lol) When you're putting out your things in the Lighthouse one of them is his shaving mirror and you have a moment of reflection about what he said when he hands it to you. There's also the whole time where he's giving you advice and guides you (IYKYK) and it's clear he means a lot to a Rook and they're close.

That is to say, no matter what faction you were with, you left in disgrace. You broke some code the higher ups held dear, messed up well laid plan, ignored orders to save people, etc. You didn't "fit the bill" for your faction and were summarily "adopted" by Varric to help in his hunt for Solas. Those things that made you a bad fit for your original faction? Made you perfect for what he's doing. A good person that doesn't let the potential costs stop them; they see what needs to happen to help people and will run head first into it and manage to figure a way through the most fucked up situations possible.

When you first meet Neve, you're introduced as Rook. "Like the chess piece?" Yes! One of the most powerful pieces on the board, "but tends to think in straight lines". Which becomes evident in all our shenanigans as Rook through the game. Rook's ability to claw their way through the worst situations and be flexible and creative means that Solas wouldn't be able to predict them or what they'll do. Which turns out to be right; he doesn't expect you to drop a statue on him in the middle of a massive ritual. Rook saw only "this ritual needs to stop NOW" and found a way, no matter the consequences.

I didn't hear that dialogue my first game, though, because I did my first run as a Shadow Dragon. Neve doesn't comment on the naming convention because instead Varric says you both do work with the Shadow Dragons and she just skims past the naming convention to say "Oh, what a coincidence." You are still introduced as Rook at first; it's not until later when you're in the Lighthouse where you can have the conversation that you've heard of each other even though you've never worked together.

Because even if I've worked in the group beside you under the same boss for 20 years, if you're introduced to me as "Rook" instead of "_____ Mercar" I'm not going to know who you are. It's not until later, probably while you're unconscious and she has a chance to speak to Harding, that she says she knows who you are. (Based on what Bellara says when you find her in the forest, you've been out cold for two or three days. Can you imagine what our detective figured out in two or three days?)

All that to say, if "Rook" was given to you by the Shadow Dragons, Neve would have said "Oh! I heard of a Rook." instead of just "Oh! What a coincidence we're both Shadow Dragons." She doesn't comment on who you are and what you've done until later when you have a chance to talk to her in the Lighthouse.

And throughout the game, you continue to be introduced as Rook. Even if you started as another faction, if you're written a letter about "Rook" and not your real name, why would anyone know who Rook is until they meet and go "Oh this lil shit right here. I know this asshole."

[20001541]

this line makes me wonder how long hori has had their backstory in mind, because in even in 193 afo states that yoichi was the only family he had left.

so I wonder if hori had their backstory in mind from the beginning or if he only had a vague idea of what their childhood looked like at this point.

I wouldn't be surprised if he did have their orphaned as babies backstory in mind here because the backstory explains so much of afo's behavior and the comic book they read was first mentioned here so he had to have some idea of how they stumbled across the comic that changed their lives at the very least ...

[bastiodon8]

i drew (and headcanoned some of) people's courtneys. too out of it to tag the specific ppl these courtlets come from so if you see your courtlet say hi i guess? wanted to post this since i love this piece so much and i love seeing how people interpret concepts.

and a bonus featuring my own courtlet. thank you.

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[novantinuum]

gnawing at the bars of my cage

can we please Stop telling SU blind reactors all the fandom drama and SU crit that came out of every episode so we can allow them to just enjoy the show like a normal person at their own leisure and make their Own opinions thank u

[puhpandas]

as someone who isnt super excited for sotm for certain reasons I am really glad that like. it's clear that since ruin theyve been setting up for carnival and sotm IS carnival. so now that carnival is finally coming out, afterwards theyll be moving on to other plotlines since the main villain stuff is sorted out

I'm just rlly happy to finally see a clear direction for how the story is gonna be playing out with like "okay these games were leading up to this so after this will be open possibilites" instead of like. absolutely no info about each upcoming game and being left guessing before it releases and just having to wait and see what's in it and if anything you're looking forward to will be in it

it feels like they have a plan and a solid direction for what they're trying to do and after carnival releases thatll be all that buildup coming to fruition. & we already know from the Scott interview that theres another release 'beyond sotm' that's 'super exciting' so maybe thatll be focusing on another big currently untouched (which is basically all of them) plotline, or even the big campaign game that dawko has been calling security breach 2

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe I need to write Cardinal's Map so there's a contemporary book about the power of literature and reaching for a world beyond the mundane that isn't wall-to-wall inspirational platitudes with vague worldbuilding about the battle between the forces of good vs. evil.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[palaceoftears]

Magnificent Century Rewatch: One Picspam per Episode

Episode 17: The Double Joy

-My dear mother used to say "walk barefoot on earth and it shall take away all your troubles and sorrows, earth shall give you happiness and joy"

-Your mother spoke well, one can only find peace in earth. But I'm not sure if it is on earth or in it.

[lord-squiggletits]

Speaking of Tyrest. A lot of people forget that he treated Pharma with absolute disdain, not only using him as a test subject for a clearly painful mass murder machine, but talking to Pharma like he saw him as nothing but some henchman to order around that was nothing more than a 'diseased cripple' if Tyrest hadn't come to rescue him.

Like it really is an interesting background dynamic with some curious implications, but when you look at fandom posts from around that issue/the years after, for some reason people just saw "Pharma worked with Tyrest" and concluded Pharma is a card carrying bigot ksjfnskxkd. Like yeah Pharma didn't do anything to stop Tyrest but it seems his main beef with the Autobots was with Ratchet in particular and maybe a general disdain for his ex-comrades. As well as continuing to hate Decepticons which like, not even the "good Autobots" are immune to (even in Pharma's introduction, First Aid says in his journal something like "yeah we all hate Decepticons, but Pharma REALLY hates them"). And despite what fandom likes to construe there's really no evidence in IDW1 that Autobots and Decepticons are different "races" or "types" of Cybertronians, so Pharma hating Decepticons really isn't a bigotry/robot racism thing. And instead probably has something to do with, idk, the 4 million year long galaxy-spanning blood feud war, or maybe being blackmailed and tortured into insanity by the Biggest and Most Decepticon-y of Decepticons.

Tyrest treated Pharma like trash, the other Decepticons working for Tyrest (how come no one ever brings that up btw) also hated him, so if anything it seems that Pharma was more of a rogue element only staying with Tyrest bc he was his best option and probably had no way to even escape.

I'm glad that at least in recent years the fandom has acquired a keen reading eye and good taste to finally recognize Pharma as the (accidentally) complex character he is instead of making him some posh, racist Starscream clone SHSJDGSGDH