#I'm probably just complaining...

[littlenaughtygarden]

Realizing that as a kid/teen the adults in my life admired that I gave a fuck about things but they didn't give a fuck with me...Like very few adults gave me the opportunities to get involved in the community, among other things...And now I fail to engage with the things I (claim) to care about because I don't know how to get involved and I don't have anyone to get involved with

[egophiliac]

WAIT when did he get FANGS

[nadiajustbe]

The other thing I immensely love about Bartimaeus of Uruk is how inhuman he is. Usually in media authors tend to "humanise" inhuman characters, by giving them stable human appearance or/and character traits. This vampire is actually a 17yo guy. This devil is a 30yo man. This magical god is a always teenage girl and they act accordingly. This is an easy route. Johnathan Stroud doesn't chose it.

Bartimaeus is not a woman but nor he is a man (even despite using he/him pronounce primarily it is canon all spirits are genderless out of nature, some just stend to stick more to one gender than the other). Sure he is not a "child" but nor he is an "adult", because he was never a human in the first place and was never fully presented as either of this. He doesn't devide love in platonic and romantic and doesn't feel a need to clarify. He struggles to explains the way he thinks and difficult for it to translate it to a human reader. He doesn't act as someone of a particular age in "human" understanding as well. He knows thousands of languages and switches between them. He loves humanity and yet still has an unique outside perception of it because he's not a human. He doesn't fit in any of human boxes to check, he's everything and nothing at once. He can look an act of any age or gender or feeling and perhaps fit none of those in your mind.

And this gives so much freedom for creating and fanfiction. Go on make him a young adult college student! Make him a middle aged man who has thousands of jobs! Make him a fourteen year old Ptolemy's twin! Create an AU where he as an anger or a cupid or an ageless God and none of it would be OOC to him! Human!Bartimaeus can be a traveler, a performer, a coffee shop barista, a hired killer! Perhaps don't make him a human at all, what If he is a tired cat who Kitty feeds on her way to work in a shop?

The possibilities are endless because instead of being a human with some cool flashing eyes and superpowers he is not actually a human. He's Bartimaeus of Uruk and that's it.

[crypticcanidae]

what's happening in the south of thedas?

throughout veilguard the inquisitor occasionally sends us messages from the front. they paint a pretty bleak picture as to what's going on down there and honestly, by the time vg ends, i think it's safe to say southern thedas is absolutely fucked. like irreparably so.

but! several times now i've seen the argument that it's not as bad as it sounds, that everyone down south will recover and be fine, and that anyone even slightly upset abt southern thedas being destroyed in a series of easily-missable notes is just overreacting. (that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration. but not by much.)

so. maybe i read those letters wrong and missed some obvious improvement to the situation! therefore, i've gone through all the missives and done my best to put the events in them onto a map. cause i'm very bad at visualising things. and it turns out uh. yeah no i'm pretty sure it's as bad as it seems down there. maybe even worse! i've also ended up with. yknow. even more questions tbh. i hope these fucking maps are readable. !! beware long post ahead !!

the fight for the south (obtained after meeting the inquisitor for the first time)

ostwick's shipping - what do they export? to where? whatever it is, the disruption's obviously enough for the inquisitor to notice and mention. (also, isn't a trevelyan inquisitor from ostwick? i suppose they don't say anything more about this?)

the antaam corsairs - are they harassing any other ships? have they cut the waking sea off from the amaranthine ocean entirely?

venatori-aligned nobles - which nobles, and where? are they spread across the country? do they have noticeable regional strongholds? more importantly, why have they allied with the venatori? what are they getting out of working with a fringe tevinter cult that was mostly dismantled ten years ago?

'far southern wilds' - is that just the korcari wilds in ferelden? or are the arbor wilds in orlais also seeing blight appear? (the blight consuming orlais later has to come from somewhere, after all)

the fall of weisshaupt (obtained after. well.)

'wherever darkspawn once had a presence' - every place that's had darkspawn? all of them? cause thats. most of thedas? including several regions we visit in vg, but i don't remember hearing anything abt darkspawn appearing in the silent plains, which you'd think might come up in the graveyard of nevarra's capital city. at the very least, this might explain why the south's hit so hard despite lusacan and razikale being on the other side of the continent, i guess? anyway i marked what i think are the the three largest, worst blighted spots, and i left my blight notes on the map too for lack of a better place to put them. you can see how many places might now be getting swarmed.

^^ - if i'm right and darkspawn are appearing everywhere they've been before. well. this could have been a fun way to incorporate worldstate choices? if the inquisition allied with the wardens orlais has warning of a horde emerging in the western approach, if the wardens were banished orlais suffers heavier casualties from having to fight unexpected darkspawn on top of the venatori. something like that.

'reports of darkspawn advancing to its very gates' - advancing to weisshaupt's gates? the fortress we just lost to the darkspawn? this sounds like the inquisitor's getting reports that weisshaupt's just under siege, not overrun entirely and abandoned?

'erasing all the gains that the wardens and dwarves had made' - the darkspawn getting to weisshaupt is erasing dwarf-warden gains on the surface, in the anderfels? or do they mean progress reclaiming the deep roads has been lost? because weisshaupt's gates are on the surface, and haven't had to be retaken before now (weisshaupt has been sieged by darkspawn before during blights, but it's never fallen entirely). unless they're meaning that darkspawn numbers in the roads during the siege were so high they've overrun dwarf-warden positions? or the loss of wardens assisting the dwarves and recalled to weisshaupt was that damaging?

'called them all back to weisshaupt' - once again. worldstates. past events. what happened to that warden civil war that was brewing in inquisition? what happened to the orlesian wardens possibly breaking off from weisshaupt entirely? what about the wardens in amaranthine, possibly allied with the architect, possibly working with avernus to research the blight? all of them got orders to up and head to weisshaupt, and they all obeyed, despite the internal conflicts we've been hearing whispers of for the past few games?

the tide turns (obtained after fighting the dragons in hossberg)

the felicisima armada - nice to see the armada mentioned, obviously, but it might have been even better if we got to actually learn anything new about it. instead of the half-baked beach and arena we could have had a hub in llomerryn/estwatch, experienced some of what makes rivain so distinct from the rest of thedas. we could have seen isabela acting as an admiral of the armada, maybe had some quests that lead to the armada harassing the antaam. yknow, gotten to be involved in the interesting things happening in the world, instead of hearing about them after they've already happened. (mostly i just. really don't understand where the lords of fortune came from in the first place? a rivain-based pirate faction already exists? it seems like isabela's a leader in both groups? what's going on here?)

the venatori - did the inquisition just do a really bad job ten years ago? i was under the impression the venatori as a group were finished, that they'd failed their plans, lost their god, and splintered apart. hadn't tevinter even publically denounced them? i know that doesn't mean much really, but yknow. after inquisition it sure seemed like whatever group succeeded the venatori would be starting pretty much from scratch, or having to use a new name, at least. but they're not only openly back in power in tevinter, they've got the resources to stoke conflicts across the continent? yet again. worldstates. thedosian politics. what happened in the past decade??

val royeaux to kirkwall - so the venatori are marching forces across nevarran territory into the free marches, these forces presumably including some amount of orlesian soldiers? i know kirkwall/the free marches are apparantly busy right now (getting blighted?) but as far as i can tell. nevarra doesn't really have anything going on? but they're just letting hostile orlesian forces cross their borders to attack the marches? i would have thought that would provoke some sort of response, given that nevarra (and parts of the marches) have been invaded by and fought wars against the orlesian empire several times?

the coming storm (obtained after speaking to the inquisitor again)

'little trace remains of the antaam dreadnoughts' - i'm assuming the antivan resistance has picked up enough momentum for the antaam to struggle to maintain control by now, and that combined with the efforts of the armada has lead them to pull their fleet back somewhat to keep from overstretching their forces. but i do like the idea that the antaam, competent trained soldiers, were beaten and driven off by a pack of pirates.

the drums of war (obtained after discussing how to attack tearstone island)

'the free marches have unified' - i know extraordinary circumstances can force things like this to happen but also. we know the free marches are divided enough that city-states will make alliances just to spite their neighbours. we know blights don't really bring people together without effort. i would love to know what sort of political manoeuvring has been going on for the entirety of the marches to unite to assist ferelden - or just the inquisitor? if the inquisition disbanded, why does the inquisitor still seem to have so much influence? also. the marches are doing this when they're in the middle of conflicts? hasn't kirkwall been entirely evacuated to starkhaven now?

blight in ferelden - putting those words onto a map makes them look way worse, doesn't it? the darkspawn now have redcliffe, much of southern ferelden, and most of denerim (if not all, by now), they'll spread the blight everywhere they go, and the blight itself has reached lake calenhad. as a reminder, this letter in da2 tells us the land around lothering is poisoned so badly by the blight it'll take decades to recover, if ever, after only a year. other places still haven't recovered after centuries. vg's blight might be changed in some way, but it doesn't seem to be any weaker, and only the blight in minrathous is destroyed at the end. assuming vg only takes a couple of months, it ends with ferelden blighted even worse than after the fifth blight.

the beginning of the end (obtained after escaping the regret prison)

blight in ferelden - (continued from above) by now, ferelden's certainly lost the korcari wilds, brecilian forest, hinterlands, and a decent chunk of the bannorn to the blight, as well as possibly all of lake calenhad and its shores, depending on how blight spreads in water. that's the majority of the country's settlements, farmland, and natural resources uninhabitable, unusable, or obliterated - again, the blight poisons the land, it takes decades to centuries for anything to grow there again. on the bright side, the tiny amount of unblighted land left in the bannorn will probably be enough to support the surviving population, since the refugees were few enough to fit into skyhold. from veilguard on, ferelden is likely reduced to amaranthine, highever, west hill, the northern edge of the bannorn, whatever region runs above lake calenhad, the island of brandel's reach, and the islands home to jainen and alamar. the new ferelden capital would probably be highever or amaranthine, possibly amaranthine given the arling's run by the wardens, and they'll likely become far more influential now that ferelden's blighted nearly as badly as the anderfels. at least they got to keep the circle in jainen!

blight in orlais and the free marches - it would make sense to me if the blight here has spread out from the wastelands of the western approach and the silent plains. honestly i might have overestimated how much land's been consumed? but equally we're told the blight's moving fast so. maybe i'm underestimating. who knows. regardless, orlais has probably lost it's southern regions, as well as a large part of the heart of the country. like ferelden, it looks like a lot of what's probably farmland has been blighted, as well as several major cities. that combined with the venatori-supported civil war they've been fighting this whole time means orlais is. possibly in a worse state than even ferelden! i don't know how they'll recover honestly. maybe orlais will fracture into a dozen smaller states, maybe they'll somehow have enough military strength left to attempt to expand and claim nevarra's unblighted land. either way, they're probably not a major power anymore. also, the dales are probably blighted too, though maybe not entirely? which is unfortunate for the dalish, assuming they haven't been completely absorbed by the veil jumpers and given up on the dales for arlathan. for the free marches, again assuming the blight's spread from the silent plains, kirkwall, wildervale, starkhaven, and tantervale are most likely to have been hit, if not lost entirely. the eastern city-states are likely alright. also. a lot of nevarra's probably been blighted? most of it, even. including the capital. and grand necropolis. cumberland might be fine though.

blight in tevinter? - we aren't told anything about what the blight and darkspawn are doing in tevinter, i think? aside from minrathous being miraculously cured so it can become the center of civilisation in the future, obviously. we're bringing back the pre-andrastian empire! anyway. the silent plains would be the main threat here, and if the blight spread up to the nocen sea it could split the imperium in two, which could be fun i think. and the blight from the anderfels could affect the western border somewhat too.

orzammar - yet again, worldstates could have had an impact here, affected whether orzammar has alliances that could help it hold out or not, things like that. but honestly, considering everything else that's been going on, it seems safe to assume orzammar's been entirely wiped out. kal-sharok might be the last surviving population of underground dwarves, aside from the ambassadoria in tevinter. who might now have lost their home entirely.

blighted leviathans - *blackwall voice* i would have liked to have seen it. but yeah once more the cool things are all happening in the background. seems like we could have run into these in a felicisima armada questline, or possibly with the wardens if the ten year old griffons were adults instead of hatchlings still. i don't even know what to say here honestly. this makes recovery even harder now, i suppose. orlais and nevarra have lost sea access, ferelden and the southern marcher city-states might struggle depending on how far the leviathans spread towards the amaranthine ocean. fishing might be a little difficult now too.

conclusion

rivain and antiva seem to have come out largely unscathed by the blight, and we know from rivain that andrastianism, the qun, mages, and spirits aren't entirely incompatible, so there's a real chance for things to improve there. the eastern free marches are probably fairly stable, all things considered. tevinter and the qun might be forced into peace, however temporary, given that the antaam's been decimated and the imperium's apparently going to be doing some restructuring. ferelden and orlais have effectively suffered an apocalypse. nevarra and the western free marches are likely only doing slightly better. the anderfels are. probably largely unchanged, tbh. very cheerful! what's happening in the south? nothing good!

as i've seen some others say, i don't inherently dislike the idea of the south, the places we're most attached to, suffering some catastrophe in service of underlining how high the stakes are. my problem is the way it's executed. all these events were thrown together into a handful of codex entries that were very easy to miss entirely. there was no attempt to work with the very different worldstates people could have, despite marketing reassuring us that our past choices would be respected. it felt like an afterthought added into the game to try and cheaply increase the emotional impact of a somewhat lacklustre story. many of the things people felt were missing from veilguard - the politics and intrigue, the relations between nations and peoples, etc - aren't missing at all, it turns out. they've simply been relegated to the background. we can see where they might be happening, guess at how our protagonist could have been involved, but we aren't allowed to actually participate anymore. and i think that's unfortunate for a series that used to be so determined to think about those things, even if it didn't always handle them very well.

[tangled-wires-and-a-dead-heart]

It is fascinating to me that, despite being one of the games love interests, Avery is essentially an optional part of the game. Like I'm thinking about it and the time that you are actually forced to interact with/be in general proximity to Avery is significantly less than every single other one of the potential love interests, even moreso now that the update has come out and you can completely avoid even meeting Avery until the third episode (and even then I don't think you actually learn their name. And you barely even interact with them).

All of the instances of you actually interacting with Avery (going to the diner in ep 1, seeing them on the street talking to Sybil in ep 2, hanging out with them in ep 3, and talking to them at the diner when you're looking for Stella in ep 4 (assuming that they haven't joined you to look for Stella beforehand)) are optional and can almost completely be avoided. You have to actively try to hang out with and include them in activities because they won't naturally be invited along.

[yoshifan456]

Simon Pegg, on his Instagram dog-walk story:

"I've played Benji for almost twenty years now and I don't think I've been this excited for a release of a Mission Impossible before. It's a huge one for Benji. I can't wait for you to see it. It's gonna be huge. It's gonna be memorable. I can't wait to start banging the drum about it."

...

The marketing has started....

[kooldewd123]

i want more mainstream aromantic stories. not aromantic characters. not stories about aromanticism. just stories where romance is a complete nonfactor. no love interests no angry exes not even any goddamn subtext just something i can consume without even the mere concept crossing my mind.

[lemonduckisnowawake]

It's SO fairytale like but also sci-fi?? I'm talking about Lost in Starlight. My sister pointed out to me that there's also a pun in the Korean title that also contains a word that can mean goodbye. And honestly I ADORED how they actually managed to interweave a romantic storyline with a going to space action adventure AND a band AU struggles flick. Also, pretty music and amazing voice acting and STELLAR animation (it's what gave it that fairytale-like feel with the backdrop of spaaaace).

[here-there-be-fics]

There are so many things about Buck and Tommy's relationship and the breakup that constantly have me asking why?

Why only Tommy calling him Evan exclusively?

Why have them be so domestic and attentive, Tommy especially, caring for Buck when he's injured, turning up for Chris's birthday, turning up at the hospital for the wedding, having Buck talk about Tommy to nearly everyone he knows, where previously it was only really Bobby he spoke to..etc etc, no other love interest has been included 'just because' quite like Tommy.

Why bring back a character so connected to the team, already so integrated in Buck's life and family? That fits so well into future storytelling both on a work front and in the team's personal lives.

One thought I recently had in more depth was why the hospital scene when Denny was injured? Why make such a show of having Tommy there at the hospital, comment on how amazing it is to have a group of people always be there for you, saying it in such a way that makes it clear he's never really had it himself...this scene wasn't about Buck and his journey but about Tommy's. Then Buck affirms Tommy's comment and includes Tommy in that group, bringing him into Buck's journey of finding where he belongs and seemingly sets Tommy up to do the same. Something that Buck has done previously when he talked about Tommy throwing in with them during the ship rescue. Especially considering that you had nearly the entire main cast in that hospital scene surrounding them to show the similarities with Bucktommy and Banthea and Tommy's connection with Chim, Eddie and Hen(who they are all there to support). A costly and time-consuming task for a production that moves very quickly and shoots down to the wire, they could have easily removed that scene or tommy from that scene but instead they almost entirely focused on him instead.

Having all that happen and then back it up again in the cemetery scene just to end it all with a sudde breakup in very next episode is insane....and such a waste.

The breakup would have been effective without all that because it was a significant storyline for Buck last season that proved incredibly popular among the general audience and fans alike - it could have been a really lovely positive end to that story, both of them going their separate ways with Buck learning something new about himself and a new friend in his back pocket, a character they could be brought back for nearly any of the mains if the story required. But instead they made it really hurt, continue to hurt episodes later and leaving a gaping 'what if?/what now?' hole in the story.

It seems negligent to waste so many good storytelling moments to indicate to the audience that this one, this relationship, this character in particular is special. And none of those moments were because he was the first man Buck has been with but about Tommy in particular. It's hard to find time for side characters in a rather full ensemble cast, the audience rely on these indicators about side characters to understand their purpose and place in the story and impact on the main characters. If Tommy isn't coming back they have wasted some really fantastic endgame LI material that can't be replicated. It will be hard to top those moments for any future love interest and it'll fall flat if the writers don't find a way to out do those scenes with Tommy.

[coughdropenjoyer]

hastily made meme calling myself out before beginning the behavior I'm calling myself out for

[egophiliac]

saw the event announcement and had to immediately drop everything and get back to my favorite pasttime (drawing Lilia). sure don't want me saving up my keys, huh, do you Twst?

[forcedhesitation]

astarion origin playthrough worth it just for all the extra moments where he does the "sad wet cat" face

[thelonelyshore-if]

I am so desperately close to finishing my big mystery scene for the chapter. It's unfortunate, because I want to keep writing, but I have to be a responsible adult and go to sleep. A pity, truly. Especially because as soon as I've wrapped this up and tested it, I can finally get it out to my beta readers and we'll all be one step closer to the chapter's release.

Sigh. Well, since I'm impatient and sad that I can't stay up all night writing, here are some previews from said mystery scene. Enjoy <3

[r0semultiverse]

Dan Da Dan mangaka is a homestuck fan

My partner was looking up the Dandadan manga just for fun or whatever and sent the magazine/book page that looks a bit different in the anime and immediately I felt an eerie sense of familiarity...

Obama going into space on a special mission remind anyone else of a certain piece of media?

At first I was like surely Dandandan has been out for some time before getting an anime adaptation; so, it's probably just coincidence... right?

Oh how wrong I was... truly, we can never escape it. We cannot fight the Homestuck.

[beanghostprincess]

Can't believe I'm seeing some people over at Twitter arguing about somebody "stealing a Band AU name idea" when it's about JJK and the name is "six eyes"... Y'all would NOT last a day in the One Piece fandom, Jesus 💀

[star-critter]

Why is stobotnik taking over my Tumblr For You?