#^^prev tags with which i agree wholeheartedly

[cumplanecrash]

So apparently I only have time to format this at work, and the thing about work is, sometimes you have to do work there. This smallish section (under 800 words) rounds out what will be chapter 2, I think.

AO3 🔗 Shizun Babies AU tag 🔗 writeblogging Shizun Babies 🔗 first 🔗 prev

This was the part that they never showed you in the videogames: everyone needing to fuck off and bury their noses (or their disciples' noses) in some books. There would be no convenient "Ah, yes, I've heard of such a thing" or recently arrived tomes, like there would have been in the original Proud Immortal Demon Way; no search engines or algorithms like a more modern setting might fudge the downtime with. Everyone had to leave and go do research, because this wasn't in the book and/or because the System wanted to milk the situation for Heartwarming Points or something. Dinner'd been had, the very little they knew had been shared, and it was time for everyone to go their separate ways.

And Yue Qingyuan was absolutely bullying his precious disciple!!

They both stood by the front door, where Binghe had just returned with a stack of books from the Great Library, still clutching them as the sect leader loomed over the boy. Binghe wasn't done growing yet, while the sect leader was approaching 2 meters and as broad as an ox (that or Shen Qingqiu was shorter than Shen Yuan had been, which would be a trip and a half given usual fantasy logic), so it's not that hard for him to physically crowd Binghe without actually using overtly hostile body language.

[the finished version of this illustration goes here]

"It's very important that you understand that your Shizuns still have all of their adult faculties," Yue Qingyuan whisper-yelled at Luo Binghe. His back was turned to himself and Shen Jiu, as he had been about to leave, so Shen Yuan couldn't see Yue Qingyuan's face, but he could see Luo Binghe's polite-masking-intense-discomfort expression, so he could only imagine the intensity. "You must respect that they are grown adults, who have earned a high rank and the corresponding respect."

"Naturally," said Luo Binghe, sounding bewildered.

"But also," Yue Qingyuan took Luo Binghe's shoulder. "This curse makes them need to perform childish mannerisms against their will. So in a way, they also need adult supervision."

"This disciple is used to providing for Shizun during his flare-ups," Luo Binghe explained. "Providing amenities while being respectful is a skill this disciple has honed over the last year. And as for Lord Jiu, there are at least two things we agree on wholeheartedly, so this disciple thinks things will go rather smoothly this time around."

Bing-ge, what's the second thing?? Bing-ge? Shen Yuan bit down on his candy, hard.

"Luo-shizhi must contact me if he needs anything at all," Yue Qingyuan shook Luo Binghe by the shoulder.

"Qiii-ge," Shen Jiu whined, startling Shen Yuan where he sat next to him. "Let the boy put the books down before you make him piss himself, carrying on like that."

Shen Yuan wasn't the only one startled. Yue Qingyuan looked mildly sheepish after getting caught threatening Shen Yuan's precious little lamb. (Which, to be fair, he had excused Shen Jiu doing so much worse, so clearly this backwards-ass fantasy setting didn't understand how traumatizing being threatened by someone who you had no reasonable method to get away from could be. There was a reason the Revenge Against Shen Qingqiu arc had been so long and so well received, is all he's saying.) After relaxing from his startle, Luo Binghe sent Shen Jiu a grateful look, a sentence which had never before been thought in the entire PIDW fandom's history.

"Gimme gimme gimme," Shen Jiu demanded sardonically, going so far as to make grabby hands.

"You're doing that on purpose," Shen Yuan accused him.

Shen Jiu tilted his head back, and Shen Yuan was not preparee wail that came from so close. "Xiao Jiu wants his books now!!!"

Luo Binghe hurried past the sect leader, panic clear in his eyes as he brought five thick books to the table. As for Yue Qingyuan...

Shen Jiu immediately covered his mouth, bursting into giggles. "Qi-ge's face!" He gasped out, curling over onto his side towards Shen Yuan. Yue Qingyuan's dismayed expression was hilariously overblown, to be fair. Once the table was blocking the other two's view, Shen Jiu glanced up toward the cieling, and then did a tiny little dance, wiggling his hands and feet with a small smile.

That's what counts as heartwarming around here? System??? System are you broken?!? Shen Yuan demands to send a bug report!

[distortedwhite]

re: prev reblog's tags

i went back and checked CJSHCUDJD ended up removing the last bit

still agree wholeheartedly with it LOL but the reason i removed it is because of the "don't tag the ship if you need to ship on it in public"

to which i admit. i'm fine with people tagging the ship but only if they also add the "[insert ship] hate" tag. like... i want people to be able to use the goddamn blacklist function on this site.

example a: a person likes [ship]. they blacklist the "[ship] hate" tag

example b: a person couldn't care less about [ship]. they blacklist the "[ship]" tag

i think it's pretty inportant to recognise that some people aren't putting hate into ship tags for malicious reasons. they should be adding "[ship] hate" tho so that anyone doesn't have to see anything they don't want to.

tldr some people don't want to see anything related to the ship in question for reasons that are none of our business, and the catchall tag to block everything out is and remains the simple classic [ship] tag

[detectivecarlosreyes]

Academy Together Friends Forever 5/10

Also on Ao3 

(Beginning) (Prev Chapter) (Next Chapter)

Buck sighs as he walks into the café next to the hospital. Owen was being more stubborn about leaving for the night and so now Buck was on a coffee run with the request that the coffee was made by a real barista and did not come from a sachet, which is what he presumed the hospital coffee was made of. He was not wrong.

While decided on his own order, his phone buzzed in his hand. Looking down at the text message Buck almost dropped his phone for the second time in two days from surprise.

 He’s awake

Two words. The best two words that he’s read in a while. Forgetting the coffee, Buck rushes out of the café and sprints back to the hospital before settling his pace to a hurried walk as he makes his way down the hallways, knowing doctors and nurses alike would stop him if he went running through the hospital like a madman.

By the time he made it to TK’s room he was more out of breath that he should be, but it didn’t bother him, not when TK was sitting up and talking to his dad as if he’d just woken up from a nap.

Casually crossing his arms and leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, Buck just watches the father and son as catch up on everything that happened. TK caught his movement out the corner of his eye after he dropped his hand from his face, confusion creasing his forehead. “Buck? What are you doing here?”

He reaches out to him with his good arm and Buck steps in close to give him a gentle one-armed hug, being mindful of his injured shoulder.

“It’s good to see you, little brother,” Buck says with a smirk on his lips as he leans back but stays in TK’s grasp. “Owen called, saying that you got yourself into some trouble.”

TK rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Seriously dude, you’re barely four months older than me.”

“Yeah, and I take my role very seriously.” He lightly ruffles TK’s hair. “Glad to see you’re awake.”

TK swats at Buck’s hand good-humouredly but smiles anyway before settling himself back against the pillow with a yawn. Seeing Buck’s concerned frown, Owen motions Buck close and whispers in his ear telling him that they gave TK methadone for the pain, explaining his sudden sleepiness.

He shares a quick look with Owen who gets up from his spot on the bed and pats TK’s leg. “It’s late, we’ll let you get some rest and we’ll be back in the morning to take you home.”

Peering up at them with heavy-lidded eyes, TK smiles dreamily. “M’kay. Glad you’re here, Ev.”

He was snoring in less than a minute and they leave quietly soon after that, both overjoyed to be heading home no longer feeling stuck in limbo.

** ** **

Falling into one of the armchairs after picking TK up from the hospital, Buck can’t help but laugh to himself watching Owen fussing around TK. “You need another pillow.” “I’m fine.” “You looked uncomfortable.”

TK must have heard him laughing because a deep scowl is sent in his direction before TK turns his attention back to his dad, convincing him to go back to work.

“Yeah Owen, don’t you worry, TK’s got me to keep him company. You just go to work.” Buck chimes in, making up for finding amusement in his brother’s misfortune and earning a grateful look from TK.

Looking between the two of them, Owen puts his hands up in defeat and starts moving towards his bedroom. “Okay, okay I’m going. Rest up alright, and you’ll be back to work in no time.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” TK responds under his breath, too quiet for Owen to hear but Buck heard it loud and clear. Pursing his lips, he decides not to say anything just yet instead waiting until after Owen had left for work.

Still facing the TV, Buck gives TK a side-eye glance only to see him chewing absentmindedly on a hoodie string. “Alright, what’s with the face?”

TK keeps his eyes trained on the TV not bothering to look at Buck. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve got that look that you always get when you’re worried about something. And you’re chewing on your hoodie string which means something is on your mind, so spill.”

Muting the TV, TK sighs and turns his body so that his side is flush with the back of the sofa and leans up against the armrest. Buck does the same in the armchair, with his legs hanging over the arm so that they were both facing each other. He watches as TK opens and shuts his mouth multiple times clearly trying to find the right words.

Eventually, he settles on, “Did you have any doubts?”

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” Buck responds.

Breaking eye contact, TK changes his focus to his hands. “When your leg got crushed under the ladder truck, did you have any doubts going back to work?”

Buck scrubs at the back of his head and looks away from TK. “Uh, I never told anyone this but yeah, I did.”

Surprised, TK looks up sharply. “Really? Cause whenever we spoke on the phone, you always seemed so focused on getting back to work.”

Fiddling with the zipper on his jacket, Buck lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I had a lot of time alone to think, both in the hospital and at home while I was in the cast. I thought a lot about my job and my life. And in that time, I realised they were basically the same thing. My friends and-”

He gestures at TK, “-my family were all interconnected with my job. If I didn’t go back to that, what would my life even be? For a while, I did try coming up with other potential jobs, in case I wasn’t able to get recertified, but I couldn’t come up with a single one that could even begin to replicate the same feeling of saving lives in the way that we do. Why do you want to know?”

“I just- I don’t know.” says TK with a sigh, “I just wonder if this is what I actually want to do with my life.”

“That’s not something I can tell you, sorry. But, what I can tell you is that it’s not who you are in the uniform, its who you are out of the uniform. It’s something that I learned from my captain and it’s something you have to figure out yourself.”

“How did you figure it out?”

Buck shrugs. “Honestly, I only truly knew a little while ago. I was off duty and it was Halloween; a lady hit a guy who got stuck in her front windscreen and she was just driving around with him like that for a day, while she had a concussion and brain bleed. I was on blood thinners at the time and got a little cut up on the broken glass, but I didn’t notice until the paramedic pointed it out.”

“Damn, so basically you’re saying I have to go save someone in a potentially life or death situation,” TK says with a sigh.

Buck chuckles. “No, but what I am saying is that if you listen to your instincts, you’ll know it in your heart if it feels right.”

TK falls silent after that, looking more contemplative than Buck had ever seen him before. It was a companionable quiet and Buck used the time to finally message Bobby saying that TK was awake and that he’d probably be home by the end of the week.

Actually, TK was quiet for so long, lost in his own little world that Buck actually ended up having an hour-long conversation with Eddie on his day off, and then after lunch, he spent another hour talking to Maddie who wanted an update on her baby brother’s second family. It's been a while since he last talked about them to her.

It was sometime in the afternoon when TK finally broke his silence. He’d gotten changed and looked as though he was on a mission.

“Want to come for a walk to the station? I need to talk to dad.”

Buck, of course, agreed to come wholeheartedly, keen to finally see the station and to meet the last two members of the team.

Tagging: @seaofashes @kingtxhalla @buckleystrand @justsmilestuffhappens @diazbuckleysworld @confessions-of-a-shipperholic @spell-of-the-rain @novemberhush @black-forest-girl @bluebelle88 @adamngoodbuck @overtimeme 

Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the tags list (I won’t be offend of you do) 💖

[burning2know]

I agree wholeheartedly with OP and these tags from prev. prefacing that I will be ignoring the game that shall not be named and probably repeating some points.

There's nothing quite like the interactive medium of a video game that makes you examine your own choices and beliefs. And when it comes to politics, there's often a disconnect between ideology and lived experience. My favorite thing about DA was always the fact the it tried to bridge the two. Whether it's showing that various individuals in similar circumstances can have completely different ideologies, or it can be to explore what happens to individuals and their experiences after reshaping the world according to the player's ideology. That bridge, albeit implicit, has been formative in the way I think about my own world. When it comes to the lore and world building, it demands the player to use critical thinking, much like a historian might, to make sense of it. And I did end up feeling like I needed to make sense of the world to make my choices.

Even though DA has argued both sides, it does it incredibly well. The arguments it presents come from character perspectives that makes sense in the universe, and it makes it all feel real. I think a lot of credit should go to origin's writers for providing those arguments. It feels like the writers talking amongst themselves trying to hash out what each action means for the world and to eachother using the NPCs, and in the spaces of these discussions, I get to reflect on where I agree and disagree and what that means for me as a player. The experience reminds me of me watching Contrapoints videos in which she has a conversation with various parts of her own beliefs about her gender identity, and engaging with her inner-discourse lead me to a deeper understanding of my own identity.

That's the true value of arguing both sides. It lets the audience decide for themselves without being prescriptive. And while it does demand the audience construct their own reasons and values to explain their choices, it also provides a window into possible viewpoints that the audience might or might not agree with. And not in a judgmental way. That process shows how one character may arrive there, not through insanity or stupidity, but through various circumstances and experiences.

DA's goal was always to challenge the player. That isn't to say that there's no bias, or a particular perspective that the writers are coming from. But the point is that it opens a space for exploration. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that without falling into the hole of appearing contrarian or troll-ish. And to some extent the writers themselves had to treat each argument with equal respect and legitimacy to display its outcomes in the game according to the rules of the world rather than their own ideals. And that itself is not easy. It doesn't surprise me that that world view and capacity disappears when the series changed hands.

And underlying all of that is a philosophy about how individuals operate, and how they operate when they come together into groups of individuals (many different words to say power and hierarchy). And that underlying philosophy is what resonated with me so much with over time. It's very compassionate to be able to hold space for these other perspectives. Not only rare to see due to the complexity required to show it, but easy to lose and difficult to gain back once you've lost it. And at this moment in the history of DA, we have lost it.

In some ways, I think the timing of this happening Makes Sense. We live in a tumultuous time where reality is uncertain and volatile due to the nature of new modes of information exchange. We see all kinds of people sharing things on social media that could easily be interpreted as lived experience or disinformation. And more than ever, our shared reality is being shattered into a million pieces by personalized content. (I too have felt the "we live in parallel universes" thought creeping up on me). In this chaotic environment, we Need the psychological comfort of certainty, of knowing what the world is like. The easiest and most familiar way is to find an authoritative voice and trust that single voice as the guiding star. That voice is only strengthened by others' agreement, and we contribute to this strengthening with our own psychological needs for certainty and stability. And we become resistant to dissent and critical analysis, because the amount of information to sort through gets very overwhelming very quickly.

What DA does has always been the opposite of that, it demands the player to confront multiple perspectives (albeit in a much more curated and coherent way). And it is logical to me that the game goes against such a primary psychological need in these trying times, perhaps now more than ever. But this theme has always gone against the grain, and media that goes against the grain in this way is so rare and So Badly Needed. We Need people to be able to think through and cobsider multiple perspectives, because there are so many perspectives accessible to us. At the same time I understand the draw of never ever having to do that. And I also understand that a lot of people just don't think that deeply ever. And that's why losing DA hits extra hard for me. Because it is another piece of resistance swept away with the torrent of greater trends that push us away from shared understanding with the people around us.

i feel like all of my pondering and analyzing and criticizing veilguard over the past few months has actually truly given me a better understanding of what dragon age meant to me, what about it specifically was so meaningful, and why, as a result, veilguard felt so wrong. it took a while for me to figure it out. about three full months of relentless essay writing, actually. but i think if you had asked me a few years ago what the core of my love for dragon age was, whatever answer i gave would not have truly gotten to the root of it, because i think i had to experience the disappointment of veilguard to fully understand why i love dragon age. and ive realized that core is that i loved how the previous dragon age entries demand so much of the player, and deliberately prompt introspection and critical, often political, thought.

dragon age games have historically forced the player to be self-reflective and introspective about their worldview and beliefs. solas is obviously a fantastic example, as he was deliberately written to be a reflection of the player in order to prompt them to reflect on how they treat people, how our expectations of people influence their behavior, and how people are pushed to extremes and turned into monsters or saved by love and kindness. how do people become monsters? what drives them to blow up buildings or start rebellions or destroy the world as you know it? are they right or wrong? does it even matter? how did you contribute to this? are you innocent? it puts these insane, politically and morally charged situations in your face and forces you to confront them. slavery, a refugee crisis, poverty, class disparities, racism, foreign occupation, the list goes on, and you are not given the option to look away or be a bystander. you have to ACT. you have to choose, you have to make judgements, you have to take responsibility and explore your role in this world as someone with the capacity to act upon it, to make your will a reality, to fail, to make mistakes. i honestly can't think of any other video game that does this to the same extent? nor any media at all because the act of being IN the world as one of it's people through the act of role-playing is essential to how it provokes this experience in the player. its ballsy. they deliberately try to make you uncomfortable. these games are full of liars, deceivers, betrayers. the games themselves lie to you. its character try to deceive you. did you catch it? or were you fooled? what else might you be fooled by? who else might be lying to you? in the game? in real life? and then you get to play it again knowing the end, and what the game prompts changes with your new knowledge. now it asks, do you forgive them? what makes someone worthy of forgiveness? where do you draw the line? what do you think?

i dont think i realized until recently how impactful this was for me considering how i first got into dragon age at 16 years old. i dont think i had experienced anything up to that point that would put a situation like judging a war criminal who ordered the deaths of children or another war criminal who just left me to die and orchestrated a near-coup or a traumatized terrorist who just blew up a church right in my face, and said MAKE A DECISION. and i didnt know it at the time, but looking back i can see how valuable it was for me at that age to have what was effectively an avenue of exploration and self-expression of all of these moral and political issues that i was grappling with as a young adult. i played inquisition for the first time just months before i voted in my first presidential primary. i already had a political consciousness at this point, but it was nonetheless new and vulnerable and still blossoming into something more concrete. inquisition, then, almost provided a sort of political, moral and personal sandbox for me from ages 16-20 to better help me understand myself in relation to the world. the RPG-ness allowed me to put myself into these situations - like the mage-templar war and its metaphor for mass incarceration and police brutality - while i was also simultaneously grappling with and trying to understand these issues in real life. having dragon age to help me further unpack my own beliefs and conception of these issues was undeniably impactful. it provided a space, through a narrative i enjoyed and cared about, to make choices and judgement calls and better understand who i was, and what felt right to me. it asked, "what do you think?"

veilguard lacks this. completely. and lets be clear that the previous games did not always do a perfect job. many of these depictions are messy and harmful and problematic, but they at least, by extension of their own existence in a narrative that forces you to THINK and JUDGE and DECIDE, give me the space and opportunity to judge them as messy, as problematic, as harmful. i can confidently say that i think da2 is too sympathetic to the templars as an organization because the fact that da2 presents me with so many narrative conflicts regarding the templar organization allows me to not just make in-game decisions and play as a staunch advocate for mage freedom and circle abolition, but to form opinions on the game itself by extension. i can confidently say that i believe the qunari's portrayal is islamophobic because the game has prompted me so many times; what do i think about the qunari? what do i think about the oppression of the elves? what do i think about dorian being a seemingly good person but defending the practice of slavery? who should rule orzammar; the progressive asshole or the conservative traditionalist? do i forgive loghain? do i forgive anders? do i forgive solas? this in-world critical thinking about issues in thedas leads to meta critical thinking. further questions naturally follow -> what message did the writers intend to send through anders? how can i notice the echoes of how this story came into fruition in the shadow of 9/11? what do solas's endings tell me about the writers view of retributive punishment? how is bioware's portrayal of the dalish, as inspired by indigenous north americans, reflective of deep-seated anti-indigenous canadian sentiment? why did the writers stop prompting these hard questions at all in veilguard? did they only like it when it was about characters, not when it led to critical thinking about them and the company as a whole? through these processes of in-world interrogation, i am inevitably invited to analyze the effectiveness of their narrative portrayals and the writing itself. perhaps this is why dragon age is so famous for its discourse lol.

ive said before that im not sure that veilguard could ever have been as impactful for me as the previous games, partly because when you are 16 everything is more impactful because your brain is an eager sponge, unless it did something that really resonated with me as an adult. but what it should have been, at the very least, is something that could have been as impactful and formative on a current 16 year old that sees a gif on tumblr and decides to check out the game, as inquisition was to me 10 years ago. and im sure there are teenagers and younger adults out there playing this game and loving it and loving the characters and the world and thinking its great, good fun. thats great. however it fundamentally cannot have the same profound, developmentally catalytic experience it had on me because it simply does not challenge the player. it does not prompt them to question their own beliefs and the power structures within their lives. it does not prompt them to reflect on the political narratives they may have been fed all their lives. it does not confront them with the sorts of topics that get books on banned lists in florida and force them to bear witness, to think deeper, to feel guilt or horror at the outcome of your own poorly-made decision, to make moral judgements, to make mistakes, and to live with the consequences.

i think i now understand why veilguard was so disappointing to me and ultimately would be a failure in my eyes no matter if i enjoyed the combat or the exploration or whatever other shiny coat of paint sits atop it. veilguard does not ask much of you. it does not prompt any sort of introspection or interrogation of your presently held beliefs. it does not demand anything from the player except to dodge at the right moment. this is a fundamental, core departure from what made me fall in love with dragon age in the first place. if you love dragon age because you want "fantasy escapism" and fun characters to smooch, then i am happy for you. but i would remind you that can find fantasy escapism all over the steam library - farming sims, cozy games, a witch looking for her cat in the alps, etc. what you cannot find are games that are willing and brave enough to challenge and provoke the player into a better, more thorough understanding of themselves in relation to our world and it's many, complex and daunting political and moral issues. to have lost such a thing, when media like this has become so few and far between, and during a time when we need it more than ever, is a devastating loss.

[mariusrenathyrs-crashout]

I hope it's ok to post your tags prev; but after like an hour of sitting on the thought, I think I have an idea for Torbek. While I wholeheartedly agree he's Hunt coded - and take this with a grain of salt since I've only seen the first like 22 eps of Witchlight - he's someone capable of violence but I don't think he actively seeks it out to the degree most Hunt avatars do.

I personally think Torbek has the possibility of being a fantastic Corruption avatar. While a lot of people think of the Corruption solely as rot and bugs and decay - Torbek is literally pumped full of Witchlight which is made of mushrooms - but it's got qualities of companionship, of unhealthy and toxic relationships, of a loss of self and yet collective whole.

Torbek has the Other which for now we can say is sort of like a parasite to Torbek. He has shown to be dangerous, domineering and has on several occasions taken over Torbek during heightened emotional states such as the Agden fight or the Inn scene. He's the "bug" so to speak in this Corruption comparison. And Torbek is notoriously a lonely person, while I can see aspects of himself fading into the Lonely, he goes to great lengths to try and feel included or part of something. His "partner" Clementine isn't real, he originally had an unhealthy idolship towards the party, specifically Kremy.

Etc etc etc lol.

So Magnus Archives nation, what are we thinking?

For the Witchhunters, some of the obvious being Yorgrim as the Buried, Farryn is the Corruption, Briggsy as Flesh, the Lonely for Jericho, are we thinking the Hunt or Slaughter for Marius, and what of Lethica? I'm leaning more towards the Web but masking as the Dark.

Kremy I think could be a good Web avatar, what do we think for the other Krew members?

I'll figure out more for other campaign PCs as I watch.