#Compound Manage

[sunlight-shunlight]

thinking about veilguard and bioware in general, i think we are reaching a point where people need to grapple with the inherent limits of what stories can be told in our Current Society and in AAA gaming companies.

on a labour level: mass layoffs, tons of developers leaving despite previously talking about how passionate and happy they were to be involved, not even paying severance, and crunching employees to the point of burnout. this is unfortunately pretty standard for AAA game companies.

on a cultural level: it is SO white and SO centrist-ly Canadian. i wrote up these asks outlining how. it is a repeated pattern of writing in which they go into tortured racial oppression allegories at best, while constantly peppering in a "but BOTH SIDES were wrong and made mistakes :( :( :(", in between their fictional atrocities that are clearly mirroring irl genocides and enslavement. or at worst, it's "the qunari are radical islamic borg" which has even less nuance. i personally thought, since dai came out in 2014, and a lot has changed since then about the world and in public awareness, that this would have filtered into the narrative and resulted in more satisfying and historically grounded writing. unfortunately not the case. it's shocking if you compare it to how sharp and aware and unflinching something like disco elysium is.

so what does this mean?

under these conditions, it is unavoidable that we get development by people who are rapidly cycled out of the company or demoralized into burnout. we get digestible, easy little soundbites of lore without much substance, because any complexity needs more time and coordination rather than the process of "quick, we have these assets, a lot of people involved in making them just got laid off, we need to make Something by next quarter to show the CEO". we get very little cohesion between games, despite the clear intent from dai to have so many plot points set up to follow through in a sequel, because the team and development are so chaotic that they can't hold onto a vision and complete it.

we also get this inherent caution and "conservatism" from the narrative, because on an ideological level, they're largely white people who want cops to be included in pride. so any major change to even a fictional society is Bad and Scary, and shouldn't be done without making sure that every character finger-wags appropriately at non-state violence. there is clearly not much ideological or even ethnic diversity within the leadership; or at least not enough that anyone there felt comfortable even speaking up on minor issues like the Incredibly Orientalist Isabela Outfit, let alone anything larger.

i don't personally think there's too much value in trying to analyze veilguard's plot or lore at this point. the final product is chaotically developed and does not seem to reflect the goals of the creators as set up in prior games, it's basically a ship of theseus in terms of the people and ideas involved in making it. this is sad for all of us, who were interested in the story, and attached to the characters, and were creatively fulfilled by engaging in the fandom. it's probably worse for the developers who have lost their jobs, burnt out, or feel unhappy with the game that they spent years of their life working on. it's certainly miserable as an indictment of The Industry, as well as the general societal climate of white Canadian centrism.

the solution is to create a society where people can develop games in peace and prosperity and stay on projects for longer, rather than constantly getting turfed out without severance pay. and to get some genuine leftists, poc, and indigenous people on staff who can weigh in and provide significant input, rather than a Council Of Liberal White Edmontonians every time.

in the meantime, at the very least, let's please stop preordering AAA games and supporting companies who notably abuse their employees.

[dclovesdanny]

Anger Management and Odysseus and Penelope

Jason was Odysseus and Jazz was Penelope

Jason never forgot. Even as a child, he remembered. It was why he became Robin. (Where was the kind world Athena had said she would build? Where was his mentor? More importantly, where was his wife and son?)

Jazz didn’t remember until the night the portal opened. That night, she woke up drenched in sweat, her husband’s name on her lips. (She tried not to think about how much Danny reminded her of Telemachus. She tried not to think of that as Danny fought against the monsters Telemachus had always dreamed of fighting.)

Jason always dreamed of his family, even as he chased a vague revenge. The pit rage filled him, but his memories of becoming a monster, of Poseidon’s screams, kept him cold. (Sometimes, he saw bits of young Odysseus in Damian, the same flaws that he had once had now present in this boy. He tried his best to reach the kid before he made the same mistakes.)

Penelope had been from Sparta. Many forgot that, focusing on her clever tricks and undying love. While she was still clever and loving, Jazz was still as much of a warrior as Penelope. So she didn’t hesitate to beat her parents to almost death before whisking her injured brother to Clockwork, who informed her Telemachus (and oh gods did it hurt her that she only discovered Danny was her son when he was on the verge of another death) needed Ectoplasm from his father, Odysseus.

Jason was preparing for his leave, preparing to fight and take Gotham by storm, when he heard a loud rip. A portal (one far too similar to the portal that opened to the underworld, far too similar to the pit) ripped open space. A woman with a boy in her arms stepped out, and his body felt weak.

“Penelope.” He rasped. His wife looked in his eyes, and he took in the bloody boy in her arms who looked to be getting younger by the moment. Without a word, she placed the boy in his arms, and he felt the pit rise, but there was no rage. Only love.

The boy’s injuries faded, and the boy stopped shrinking. He looked to be about five, with dark hair and soft features.

Penelope’s hand cupped his cheek, and she wiped away the tears he didn’t even know he was crying.

“Could you fall in love with me again, my love?” She whispered the words, and he felt his heart break. Their foreheads met, and he breathed in the scent of home.

“I will fall in love with you over and over again.” His whisper hung in the air for only a moment before their lips met in a soft kiss. Later, they could trade stories. Later, they could worry about escaping the compound. Later, they could rage about what happened to their son.

For now, they just basked in the feeling of home.

[buckynats]

I'm so tired of feeling so terrified and stressed out that I'm constantly sick to my stomach I don't know what else I'm even supposed to do at this point

[arolesbianism]

Decided to mess around with bones now that toonsquid has them

[hetslop]

a bunch of girls are gathered around the table in the cabin discussing how they personally would reform the world and government

[raedear]

finally watching the Return - is Marwan just sad and beautiful all the way through this??

[formulatrash]

in 'cool and unusual motorsport jobs' news, Mercedes F1 team are looking for an Environmental and Sustainability Manager, which needs specialist qualifications in UK environmental certification but which aren't the sort of thing that most F1 jobs ask for - could be a really awesome opportunity to work on implementing green technologies and developing environmental practices, if that's your field

[hibernating-stag]

The last post is part of the reason Faust Got In My Brain So Bad-

Something about someone who's self destructive behaviour has a positive impact on the people around him is so. Deeply tragic.

Faust is someone who can't slow down or let his mask of the friendly neighbourhood doctor slip for even a moment because that's seconds wasted where he could be helping his patients. And what's a bigger insult to everyone he's hurt than that?

[crimsonscloud]

more jelco and dutch ideas i will never get around to writing so i brainrot about them instead:

forgotten first meeting.

they meet once before dutch runs away from khlyen, when jelco is still sort of early in the company. they’re both sent after the same target (neither knows the motive for wanting the person dead, but neither are in a position to ask questions).

both are disguised / not using their real names, so they don’t recognize each other later on, but it’s a sort of call forward to the interaction they do remember (him trying to get her to kill tighmon).

[silent-sentinels]

lays on the fucking. ground. maybe we should open commissions. so we can buy a new laptop

theres so many other funds that need money and we can still deal with this

our fucking enter and backspace key stopped working bro idk what to tell you. this is including: volume up and down buttons, brightness up and down buttons, screenshare button, 1, 3, 9, q, e, o, d, h, and now enter and backspace. even after relocating half our keys to our keypad buttons this shit is nigh unusable.

nOT TO MENTION OUR CHARGER THAT ONLY WORKS 50% OF THE TIME. god this is SO ANNOYING BUT APPARENTLY WE DONT DESERVE ANYTHING RIGHT NOW ARUGGGGGH

maybe once spring semester starts we can ask. fucking. who knows. who cares. like truly who cares. also we can't do commissions are you fucking kidding? us? with art on a deadline communicating with peoples requests through dms are you hearing yourself???

aaAAUGGGHHHH FUCKING. WEEPS.

[blakelywintersfield]

Sometimes I forget that not everyone knows what my narcolepsy medication is because I forget that narcolepsy is considered a rare medical condition, so I'll make a joke about taking The Salts™ in person or outside of my Discord group and realize people don't know what I'm referring to and I'm just like

MY LEGALLY PRESCRIBED OXYBATE SALTS

[dollar-and-sense]

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[rheineorshine]

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[my-financials]

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[bigmeandragonlady]

was really thinking about making it so my MC has to get conscripted (she wanted a bit of extra time to scope haven and it would be fun extra having to build trust after that) but know that a: she's scared of inquisitors b: she would have enough in world knowledge to know said inquisitors wouldn't give a shit about context, only that she used weird magic and now there's a revenant statue at a church, and are probably looking for her

anyway she doesn't want to be jailed, die, or get experimented on- so she joins after a too long, mildly awkward silence in the infirmary

[kc22invesmentsblog]

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