#and am now thinking about it again

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

I mean, yeah, sure, he's done heinous war crimes and intense acts of destruction, and he does have ties to an evil god that he will lean into and embody under the smallest bit of pressure and discomfort, and he does kind of enjoy violence. But have you considered that he's kind of awkward and grumpy and he loves his bestie/qpp very much and is oh so carefully protective of him? That he would give the world for him in a heartbeat?

[words-writ-in-starlight]

honestly my mother was a huge champ about her eight-year-old asking to be bought an unabridged edition of the Odyssey for a birthday present, and then she was an equally huge champ about reading her eight-year-old the unabridged Odyssey as a bedtime story and pausing every four lines to define something for me, and let me just say that I have fucking TREASURED the opportunity to reverse that old tradition by more or less forcing her to sit on my couch and listen to Epic and pause it every four lines for my dissertation

[paintedcrows]

Evening in the Lab

[mobius-m-mobius]

#obsessed with their priorities

[clownowo]

I felt like i needed to express this thing i noticed again in another form

[lucabyte]

ghost

[kacievvbbbb]

Also the fact that like Nani is pressured into giving up custody for Lilo because she doesn’t have insurance and can’t afford the hospital bill and she’s coerced into signing because then the state will cover it. I’m supposed to find that a heart warming moment when the social worker is showing that she cares about Nani and Lilo? Really? How is that not just financial coercion? How is that just not a criticism of the health care industry in America (that I’m sure they didn’t mean to do on purpose)

Also it’s so blatantly obvious how the writers of this movie have no idea why Nani sings Aloha 'Oe to Lilo the night she finds out she is going to be taken away. A YouTuber named Sideways, who analyzes music in film(and has done a whole video about how Disney’s live action remakes don’t work musically years before this) explained that scene so beautifully.

How the sond Aloha 'Oe was originally written by the Queen of Hawaii for the people of Hawaii after American Colonizers forced her to surrender the Islands. How she performed it as a last goodbye for the country that was being taken away from her. And that mirrors how Lilo is now being taken away from Nani by colonial forces (even tho Cobra Bubbles does mean well and sympathizes lilo is still being given into the care of the US government) and this is her subtle goodbye to her. And it’s fucking brilliant and you can tell that that scene was written by people that fucking care and know what the fuck kind of movie they are writing. The scene is solemn and is treated as such. Nani sings it as tho it were a lullaby and a final goodbye. It’s the first time the song is sang in the movie because the writers actually understand the gravity of it.

Instead what we get in the live action is lilo first singing it to Stitch randomly while doing (I think maybe the accompanying?) Hula because why the fuck not. And then a lifeless dark scene where Nani plays the ukulele and sings to her like the fact that she had just been coerced into giving up her sister wasn’t just treated like a good and final decision. Because, why the fuck not.

[lazylittledragon]

taking all my american followers by the shoulders. listen to me. just because you have a more promising candidate now doesn't mean you just assume it's going to be fine and don't bother voting. assuming trump wasn't going to win is how you got here in the first place so you go out and fucking vote for harris and give everyone a fighting chance.

also if you're still in the 'they're both as bad as eachother' delirium, please take your head out from between your cheeks and consider that your options are an imperfect president and the literal worst person alive who is going to get masses of people killed. i've said it like this before, but it's like deciding between maybe getting food poisoning or definitely having a brain aneurysm. take your pick i guess but don't be surprised when you drop dead.

[jack-abbot]

"No one can do this alone."

DIEGO LUNA as CASSIAN ANDOR in Andor, Season 2 [4/4] 2x11 — "Who Else Knows?" 2x12 — "Jedha, Kyber, Erso"

[vaguely-concerned]

I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.

a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?

interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.

this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)

and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.

I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

//LOUD INCOMPREHENSIBLE POINTING//

[egophiliac]

Silver is finally here...he just took the title for the most beautiful card in TWST's history...

me five years ago: wow I really hope we get to see dragon Malleus someday! that'll be so nice and wonderful. I bet he's a big silly! :)

twst: :)

GOD. it occurred to me literally three hours before the anniversary stream that they might've been saving the reveal for then to just explode us all at once. this timing was EXTREMELY deliberate. thank you Twst. I can't even focus on all the Blazing Jewel stuff because Silver wielding the physical manifestation of his Complicated Dad Issues is busy eating my entire brain. and -- oh what's that? he duos with Lilia? I'M RUINED THANK YOU ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ

this is your warning that I'm going to be the most annoying person on the planet come Monday morning, thank you everybody and goodniiiiiiight

[choccy-milky]

how to scare a goody two-shoes ravenclaw 👵🏻

[licorishh]

double ?? upload ???? yeaaaahh i've gotten FASTERRrr for whatever that's worth so complementary blyla because guess what i miss them too (nobody was surprised by that)

[islandlibrary]

never forget james flint parallel parked a fucking warship

[knickety]

Anaxa’s character stories all being in mediums that have already been destroyed has me climbing the WALLS. Cerces looking through his memories. A study record that no longer exists. An improvised speech that nobody would have written down. Another fragment of memory that nobody got to see. The complicated bits of his character and explanations for his goals and Why he is the way he is will fade away and he will be remembered largely as a performer and a blasphemer. How will they remember him when so little of him yet remains?