#wow i am on fire

[zsofieia]

everyone always makes ink the helicopter parent but i think it fits error more

plus it’s funnier. i mean, the destroyer being protective…….. HAH!!

previous!!

[jtownraindancer]

In light of the recent Watcher debacle, a collection of some of my favourite YouTube comments, in no particular order:

And the one that made my entire day:

[pencilofawesomeness]

So, I've been reading a lot of Ghost King AUs recently and... my hand slipped.

[stevens-pastrami-sandwich]

screenshot redraw YIPPEE 🐁🐁

We NEEDED to see more of the monkey sidekick having duo 💔 It's okay though, im not angry about this. *my nails dig into my fists*

[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

[scrabbleg]

queen carnation of the skywings!!! she be flying tho

she is prince horizon's (lyre boy) mother and they totally have a great loving relationship /s

perhaps i'll do a lore dump about them at some point, who knows!!

also using real pictures as backgrounds will never not be fun, i need to do it more. this is from a few months ago, and i'll be posting a bit of older art because i don't have the brain cell to keep drawing new things constantly :(

[moregraceful]

max and i are closing in on launching [redacted sports rpf charity fest] and i am once again pondering how do i write "experience with writing form emails and manipulating google forms in ways no one has dreamed of" in a cover letter without saying "i did it for the rpf grind"...like there's no way unless everyone in this microsoft teams meeting gets really cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly. you know

[cerealmonster15]

poking at a rarepair tag to see if it has sparked anything new only to see own self's cringe ass posts in there 5 dead millions injured

[apicelladonna]

An update (I think)

Random Daily Prophet reporter : How does it feel to be voted the number one hated war criminal slash dark lord in the Global Wizarding Community after the ICW elections?

Gellert Grindelwald: In a world filled with muggles and cowards, I wear it as a fucking badge of honor.

Rosalind Skeeter: What about the rumor that you killed Albus Dumbledore and took his body—

Grindelwald, ready to throw hands: wHO THE FUCK SAID THAT—

-Prometheus had Blue Fire draft, 5 am with ice coffee

[ahalliance]

rotating the UHCs + serveur du lundi qetoiles precanon potentiality in my mind

[philomaela]

Jaehaerys's approach to the dragons is an interesting thing because I think it's yet another case of him learning from the "mistakes" of his elders.

Rhaena loved her baby brother and sister, so she put dragon eggs in their cradles. She essentially gave Vermithor to Jaehaerys and Jaehaerys being a male dragonrider is what allows her and her daughters to be shunted aside as easily as they are. In a world where Rhaena is the only dragonrider (and not simply the eldest) she has more leverage in the argument of who gets the throne. There are no cradle eggs for Jaehaerys and Alysanne's children, because to do so would give them power and freedom as children. Incidentally that power and freedom is what allowed Jaehaerys to become what he did, but me thinks that was kind of the point for him. It's a do as I say, not as I do sort of thing.

Not sure how to segue here but, I think it's interesting how Aerea's claiming of Balerion is framed similarly to Elissa Farman and the dragon eggs, as Rhaena's failure to prevent a theft when the dragons are under her protection. Because the dragons don't belong collectively to House Targaryen, they belong to the King. That's part of why Jaehaerys does not allow Rhaena to hold Dragonstone by right imo, because control of Dragonstone falls in line with control of Dragons. Hence confining Balerion and the younger dragons to the dragon pit later as well and creating the dragon keepers to guard them. This prevents the theft of the dragons that happened under Rhaena's watch and also under Maegor's watch. Remember how Rhaena and Aegon the Uncrowned crept into Kings landing and claimed Quicksilver? Yeah, that's illegal in Jaehaerys's world, I mean Maegor probably would have thought it illegal but the point being, he's going to take active measures to make sure no one gets a dragon without his explicit consent. When the dragonkeepers directed Alyssa away from Balerion, maybe it's because Jaehaerys had explicit orders at the time that no one gets Balerion (Maegor and Aerea both deeply worried him after all).

So, when it comes to his children, fundamentally him allowing them to claim a dragon comes down to two things: adulthood and their role in House Targaryen/in relation to the crown. Claiming a dragon is explicitly linked to adulthood, Aemon and Baelon are able to claim dragons after being knighted, Alyssa gets a dragon after she is married. Specifically, after she is married to her brother, ensuring that all dragonriders are of House Targaryen.

I bounce between Jaehaerys going "all my boys gets dragons as long as they remain of House Targaryen" vs "the heir and the spare get dragons". Both options seem plausible and both explain Vaegon's lack of a dragon. Vaegon never becomes a knight, he becomes a maester instead. He is given to the citadel and by doing so gives up his position in House Targaryen. Is that why he is never offered a dragon? Or was Jaehaerys never going to offer him a dragon at all, even if he became a knight, since his place in house targaryen would be more nebulous and thus Vaegon had no drive to conform. Why bother being a knight (a role that did not interest him) if it would not offer him the freedom of a dragon. I'm not saying Vaegon had this burning desire for a dragon, but like it is some sort of incentive isn't it? Well anyway, I think both options have interesting implications and in the end, the outcome is the same. Vaegon leaves his family, he does not get a dragon.

Either way the outcome for the daughters was always going to be the same imo, they are married into other houses, they will not get dragons and neither will their children. Fire and Blood provides an easy explanation of the younger daughters as being unsuitable to ride a dragon. Daella has no desire for a dragon, she's afraid of everything! (We could perhaps think of how Aenys was a sickly baby who grew stronger or Rhaena was a shy girl who grew confident after they each claimed a dragon, but those are not possibilities under Jaehaerys, dragons do not help you grow as children they are given after you grow up). Meanwhile, Saera and Viserra are willful, Magella is destined for the church and Gael is childlike. Back up, Saera and Viserra are willful... so was Alyssa, she wanted to claim Balerion after all! IDK, I think it's interesting how, in all their airs and shows of defiance, Saera and Viserra never express a determination to claim dragons. Almost like they know it's not an option for them. Saera tries to get into the Dragonpit as a desperate, last ditch effort, but she never asks her father for a dragon before then. She whines for an elephant but not a dragon.... that's interesting isn't it? When Viserra preens after Baelon, maybe she does that knowing that Alyssa got a dragon by remaining in the family? Again, just like with Vaegon, I'm not saying that (the lack of) dragons are like, the point behind Viserra and Saera's actions, I'm just saying that maybe it factored in.

I get that Rhaenys claiming Meleys can seem to be in contradiction to everything I've just said. She claims a dragon and then promptly marries out of House Targaryen. Personally... I read it as having to do with Aemon and Jaehaerys. By that I mean, Aemon is the heir and a grown man at this point, his father places a level of trust and autonomy in him and allows Rhaenys access to power as Aemon's (presumed) heir. It's kind of like... I wouldn't do this for my daughter, but my son has the right to do with his family as he sees fit. Again, at this point, he's expecting Aemon to succeed him when he dies and after that Aemon will be king and can name who he wants (regardless of what Jaehaerys wants). Jaehaerys is pragmatic enough to realize this is going to be out of his hands and that if he forbids anything like this, he's potentially creating discord between him and his heir for something that's out of his control and will only create more problems later. That's the motivation I've created in my head anyway and I don't think it contradicts anything I've read in the book.

I think... weirdly, the thing that solidifies this all in my head is Viserys claiming Balerion, when Jaehaerys was (I think) against anyone claiming Balerion before. Yes yes, Balerion was old and slow so there was not as much danger in someone claiming him now. But the timing is still important. Viserys claims Balerion after Aemon dies, after Baelon is named heir. Baelon is named heir and Viserys is Baelon's heir. I think it would have made sense for Jaehaerys to want Viserys to claim Balerion as a symbol of legitimacy for Baelon's line over Rhaenys who now had a dragon despite Aemon's line being disinherited. I'm not saying that's why Viserys wanted Balerion, but I think it's why Jaehaerys allowed it, is all I'm saying.

One anomaly in all of this for me is actually Seasmoke... how tf did Laenor get Seasmoke within this interpretation of things, I admit I have no clue. I don't want to just cast it away as an authorial (by that I mean the actual author GRRM) attempt to somewhat balance the scales when it comes to the Great Council of 101, no matter how tempted I am to read it that way. Maybe this was a sign that even Jaehaerys was not sure about who should rule between Viserys and Laenor, so he thought Laenor did have some right to a dragon? Issue with that is, if that's the case he might as well wait on things and grant the dragon after the council. Or maybe it was a consolation prize because the outcome of the council was a forgone conclusion in Jaehaerys's mind. Ooooh! or most interesting of all, Baelon is the one who advocating for this as hand of the king, an apology for disinheriting his brother's line. So like, Baelon advocates for Laenor to be allowed a young dragon as a gesture (notice it's a gesture offered to Laenor heir of Driftmark and not Laena), Jaehaerys acquiesces since Baelon has Vhagar it's not really a threat, but then Baelon like immediately dies after. Whoopsie Jaehaerys, maybe you should have stuck to your original policy! (I get that this part seems like a stretch, personally I'm just attached to my interpretation at this point and I'm trying to make it fit, I acknowledge that)

This meandered a lot but anyway I think my overall point is that I think Jaehaerys had a clear strategy when it came to the dragons and it was based around the family history of Rhaena placing the egg in his cradle, Aegon the Uncrowned's claiming of Quicksilver, Elissa Farman and the dragon eggs and finally Aerea and Balerion (also misogyny, there was a lot of that too). I think the fact that he learned not to do what his sister did is the saddest thing imo. He won't make the same "mistake" as his sister did with him and just give his children a dragon out of love. Love has nothing to do with it because he is a king and these are his heirs (even though love still has everything to do with it because he is a father and these are his children).

[oz00ms2]

Ngl- Smoker is two years younger than Rosi and I’ve decided he had the biggest crush on him when he was a cadet (theres a universe where Rosi survives and reciprocates)

But what I wanted to ask is do Smoker and Firebug get along? I think they’d have a similar sense of justice

um. yes??? I love the idea of smokey having a crush on rosi sm??? 10/10 absolutely and now it's canon in my heart.

as for smoker and buggy, they would have a very sibling coded relationship, if both were perpetually ten years old and pulling one another's hair.

agreed, they do have a similar sense of justice and both are notorious for getting in trouble being defiant against superiors when they disagree with orders or a situation. however, while buggy is more weasel his way out of said scenarios - smokey is headstrong & face first, and when working together they clash almost constantly over the best way to handle situations.

smoker was firebug's subordinate for a while there, and while they had an impressive track record, the crew were going through Advil like candy because of all the arguments.

rosi tends to be the only one they stop fighting/snarking for...but mostly because he is large and can scruff them both like hissing cats.

in the end, they are actually very close despite their claims otherwise. and smoker has a personal vendetta against red haired shanks for whatever he does to make buggy act so depressed after their infamous run-ins.

have a younger bad lungs trio ✨

(whatever firebug is yelling at them for, he's probably right.)

[velvetcake96]

The Forest Fic that changed my preteen brain chemistry being kinda cannon in Tøp/Dema lore was not something I was expecting in 2024.

What I also wasn’t expecting was Tyler Fucking Man with Three Children and a Wife Joseph to repost a meme on his instagram about it.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Forgive me, forgive me. I ask, I beg, I pray, but it never comes.

You know I find it incredibly bewildering to see just how much kalki reflects myself in him like YEAH Duh of course he does, he’s my little guy it’s like his full time job. But at the same time he is a fully functional facet of my being and he is at the mercy of my whimsies, and whatever he discovers in his arduous journey of self realisation is ultimately a reflection of what I discover in the real world. It’s also incredibly funny because ffxiv lore for dark knights is really baked into the idea of (re)discovering yourself amongst the bloodshed and continuing to live and love and thrive despite the world working against us. who would have thought such a raw message could come from an mmorpg side quest about edgy emo boys of all places

also adamantite armour of fending i would lay down my LIFE for u

variant + phone bg version + ID below the cut

tch as if you guys are actually going to use artwork of my little guy as your phone background. i know. how dumb. let a girl dream. i should make an alternate version but it's of Fray and Myste

[START ID: A picture with a red background focusing on the character's bust that is placed to the left of the image's centre. He is coloured with a dark blue overlay, contrasting with the red background. He has brown skin, long black hair that falls over his shoulders, and is wearing blue and gold armour and earrings. He is looking at the viewer, right eye dark brown and the left an glowing unnatural red, with an expression that looks determined and angry and yet bitter and forlorn. In the foreground and on the right side of the piece, a miniature version of the character stands coloured in a light blue overlay and wearing the same blue and gold armour, looking as if he is glowing. He is facing towards the left of the piece, or perhaps at the character bust, his expression unreadable. Above the miniature character's head is the symbol representing the FFXIV dark knight, coloured in gold. END ID.]

[joelletwo]

v theee [boring car selling in nc details] theee to junk ur car the company wanted me to go ahead and sign the title and leave the buyer info blank which is having an open title (bc if u drop it on the way to sell ur car anyone can pick it up and fill in their info and own ur car) and is like. STUPID illegal in nc. like people still do it esp in just third party-to-third party sales. and junker services do it so if they can sell the car again they dont have to deal with two transactions of paperwork and fees [<- which is why its illegal so nc can capture those fees]. but like. they shouldnt be able to tell me on their publically available site that they want me to break nc law

and also nc law wants me to get that title notarized which because of open titles being illegal. most notaries wont notarize u if the buyer isnt also there filling in their info.

most notaries are also. either like banks or other m-f 9-5 type businesses. or just some random person in their house. and random person in their house is more likely to break the law for me but i dont want to ask some random person to break the law for me

(the dmv will also notarize and anecdotally from reddit some of them totally will just shrug and let u do it with only you the seller/you the buyer there instead of needing both but thats arbitrary depends on getting someone who doesnt care lol)

AND also. even if im selling to a person not trying to get me to break the law just buying my car regular. and i work m-f 9-5 or we both work hours where theres no way to get us both in the same place and certainly not a bank or a dmv except like, sunday evening, when no banks or dmvs are open.

do we just go fuck ourselves????????? like what do they want. they want me to die?????? i think my government wants me to die and sterilize myself

[theladyofshalott1989]

MCtober2024: Week 3

Amortentia

Damien and Sebastian are both enchanted by the distinctive scent of old books and parchment, but where they diverge is that Sebastian appreciates earthier notes like the crisp, sharp aroma of rain, while Damien prefers richer scents along the lines of a hearty meal. This is all well and good because Damien loves the great outdoors and Sebastian is the cook of the family. No wonder they're so well-suited. 😊

(Don't mind Sebastian and Damien; they're smelling each other 🤭 GET A ROOM, BOYS!)

Alternative House

Gryffindor, of course, for Damien's deep sense of loyalty (no one better come between him and his friends and family, or they are in for a very bad time) and his bravery. It takes a lot to not be beaten down while growing up as a queer boy in Muggle London, but he made it through and was rewarded thoroughly, if I don't say so myself. 💕

Genderbent Damien, aka Demi

Sebastian very much appreciates men and women in my head canon (he doesn't like to limit himself, y'know?😅), so he'd definitely be just as obsessed with Demi as he is with Damien, especially if she were, uh, riding a broom. 👀