#idk without getting into All my thoughts

[thebookworm0001]

so replayed the endgame of veilguard yesterday and while I don’t think this game was actually asking me to analyze this nugget of information I’m going to do it anyway

Because there is a distinct difference between the veil tears from solas’ ritual vs the veil tears from the evanuris’

Rook comments that it feels like the tears near Ghilan’nain are ripping them apart and, if you’re unfortunate enough not to successfully dodge their blast radius when they get set off, you lose massive chunks of your health when they hit you. What they’re doing is deeply, inherently harmful.

Meanwhile, at the start of the game the sky is actively ripping open and… that doesn’t happen. Yeah there’s lots of demons everywhere, but no one seems hurt directly by what’s happening with the veil. The fade itself isn’t causing problems. Whatever solas was doing, however his ritual was going to work, he didn’t seem to be fudging the truth when it came to him trying to mitigate the damage.

He could likely tear down the fade violently and be done with it all like Ghil and Elgar’nan seem to be attempting, but he doesn’t.

[egophiliac]

:) hello! :D hope you have a nice day and absolutely do not think of the possibility of one of the last story cards being of silver! and that his groovy will very probably be crying!!! THERE'S SO MANY CRYING PEOPLE IN STORY CARDS LATELY!!! SPECIALLY LIGHT USERS!! I AM!!! SCARED!!!! bc so far we got Lilia and Sebek in the beginning book 7.... so at the end.... so we're missing story Silver... and Malleus is the one with less cards, so they might add one for him... but... the tears... ego.... THE TEARS!!!! EGOOOO!! (LOVE YOUR ART BTW EVERYTIME I GET A NOTIF FROM YOUR BLOG I RUN HERE TO SEE!)

(thank you! 💚💜💚)

YES I am ALSO like...90-95% convinced that we're going to be getting a story card for Silver once we wrap around back to diasomnia. 👀 especially because the way things are going, Silver will be the only character whose dream we haven't seen -- yet???? -- and that just. y'know. makes me wonder!

although I do think it would be VERY funny if he got a story card and the groovy was just "regular Silver except with one beautiful single crystal tear". this is actually a lot coming from him.

(he used up all his emotion yelling at a baby that one time, there's none left for a proper groovy-level cry.)

[technically-human]

Hi i'm absolutely in love with the reverse au!!

I want to know, in this verse does edwin still confesses to charles? if so how is it different? i feel if he did he would end it by apologizing, you know, religious guilt and all

There’s a train that goes through Hell.

Its journey starts in Wrath, and it departs already full of souls. It took Charles far too many years to realize that there were separate, more spacious wagons that demons could board. Not that he could understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t.

Actually, Charles couldn’t recall ever boarding the train. As far as he could tell, he just appeared there one day, and had spent the next tortuous decades trying to get out. It was part of the torture. Getting out was entirely possible. More than that, it was necessary.

The train had no regular schedule that he could discern (not at first, though he had always been good at finding patterns, and was eventually able to crack it) but it would make quite a few stops before finally returning to the Wrath ring. Souls inside the train were already angry and far too close to each other (close, so close not even air could squeeze in) but when they got really violent was when the train made a stop.

Getting out didn’t mean you were free, no matter where you managed it, be it Sloth or Gluttony, Pride or Lust. No, as soon as the train finished its journey, you would appear back inside, in Wrath where you belonged, suffocating once again, getting ready to claw your way out for the millionth time.

Because if you didn’t get out, The Conductor would get you.

If he thought about it calmly, Charles could probably say that he got out of the train more times than not. Still, being caught by The Conductor once was bad enough, as there was no coal in Hell, and something had to serve as combustible. Souls could not burn to death, and the whole journey always felt longer than eternity when he was caught. Once it was over, he would be inside again, and fight with more desperation than before, not caring who stayed inside so long as it wasn’t him.

He couldn’t understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t. But as the souls pushed and bit and clawed and punched their way out, Edwin boarded the train. And that wasn’t even the most groundbreaking revelation Charles had that day.

ko-fi

[waterfallofspace]

when someone has a defined sneeze, not a quick cough-adjacent, or a rapid/small "eshh/ishh/tshh" type, a vocal, lengthy, defined one

think "hih'ttzshh'chiew!" or "hh'atchshew!" or "eh'rrschh'oo!"

one where you can hear each section, the breathy inhale (hihh-), the vocal release (tschh-), and the whining/relieved end (shhiew-!)

just something about getting all those parts in the experience, hearing the clear sections of a sneeze~

+ bonus points for being vocal enough to hear their voice in it~

[marlinspirkhall]

Seeing as we're at the halfway point of the year and some of these situations are (hopefully) no longer ongoing, I can actually talk about them. So, new Marlin Life Lore in no particular order:

- Left a cult (don't worry about it)

- Kissed someone who was enbyphobic (boo)

- Quit my job part 2 electric boogaloo

- Tried manifesting as a joke and think I got cursed instead

- Three month long situationship 🥳

- Five older people were hitting on me, but at least 2 of them were actively evil (3 if we count enbyphobic woman)

- Burned bridges with two long-standing industry connections within 3 weeks of one another

- Gathered a Google Drive worth of evidence on my ex-boss (because we can always nuke the remains of the bridge)

[deoidesign]

One of my first digital pieces (2010) versus one of my recent ones (2024)

We all start somewhere!

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Okay. hear me out. Creaking Helsknight

[c-kiddo]

cone collection grows. i have this rly big pleasingly chunky stone pine cone at home but this is just my collection for here

[doctorsiren]

IM IN LOVE WITH YOUR REIGEN SPLIT AU. I NEED MORE OF IT 😭😭😭

ask and ye shall receive :)

[ria-starstruck]

the backgrounds i went crazy hard on in my nine sols animation only for them to show up for a fraction of a second at most each

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

perhaps my most #cancelable videogame take i can post on this website is i think that the kind of people who say that anyone who picks the "morally wrong" or "mean" options in video game dialogue should, as a player, feel bad about their own choices/morals in real life. is that those people are just another flavor of the kind of dudes who play Disco Elysium and get mad for not being rewarded for picking the facist options. both of these groups are reducing games to "a thing I want to agree with me and everyone else who doesn't either suffers or does not have the option to play a character who behaves otherwise" rather than "a medium where you get to (or even Have to) explore different kinds of characters in order to experience the full depth of the story and characters in it."

When I want to pick options in a game that are mean, negative, arrogant, or ignorant, it's because I want to explore what would push a character into becoming that kind of person. Sometimes I want to see how the NPC characters who I-The-Player like/agree with react to someone who is fundamentally different from them. I think it's GOOD actually when the narrative allows you to push limits and especially when it has the option to then punish you for it in some way, such as losing options/routes later on, or companions straight up abandoning you for your choices. It DOES often make me deeply, viscerally uncomfortable to make choices in a game that are so counter to my own, but it means I get to experience that discomfort in an isolated environment and also think about what it means, what would push the character or even yes a real person into actually feeling those things. And I get to play with what ways the narrative could challenge them/make them grow over the course of the game--or on the other side, it can let me make a character who does start off more open/accepting but let the events of the narrative push them into being more reactively closed-minded instead.

I like that we have invented a medium where you can play a game multiple times and experience it differently depending on the character you play as. Books and TV and movies are all static--the greatest draw of games to me is the ones that are responsive, that can tell a slightly different story every time--when other characters in the game respond differently to you because of it, or some paths open up and others don't. And so yes it did disappointment me when a franchise that previously had these elements, Dragon Age, did not include them in the most recent installment. I don't think games should have options where you get to just hit a button to say something racist with no consequences or exploration into why a character would do that. but like, if i can only ever play a game as an upstanding person who is morally right all the time in basically the same flavor for every dialogue. I only get to truly play that game Once, you know? And I only get to see the way the companions react to someone they like and trust. And never really go deeper than that.

So like... I just sit and think about the scenes you can get in Inquisition. with Cassandra breaking down, because she fears she placed a would-be tyrant at the head of a powerful organization--that she searched and searched and chose wrong. Of Varric who is desperate to convince you not to become a monster, like the last person he feels betrayed him. Vivienne intentionally pissing you off because she wants to see how far you'll go when angered, how much she has to worry about your reactions. They say so much about the companions, what they fear most, and where they will draw the line. And especially in Inquisition, at these crisis points--you don't have to double down. Your character can have a come-to-Andraste moment where they go "woah... is that really how people see me? is this what i want?" and I think that kind of option can do way more for encouraging actual players to examine the choices they make in stories, more than locking the player into supportive, non-aggressive options does.

now. do i think all games execute these flavors well? no. writers and devs will have their own biases and blind spots, even if they are otherwise well-intentioned. and I don't think the ends of the scale need to extend from "absolute angel" to "horrible bigot", because the real complexity of course lies in the middle. I am not asking for games to let me be bigoted at every turn, what I want is games that let me make the protagonist deeply flawed in one or more ways--fearfully closed-minded to things outside their upbringing, or afraid of change to the status quo, or who want to advance their own aims regardless of consequences to others. I actually agree that the game was correct not to include any options for disrespecting Taash and their personal journey for example, but I do wish... idk maybe that we could have had a scene where if for instance the player character avoided outside-world missions relating to clearing away blight, they could confront us on how this might devastate the natural world and its creatures like dragons, and push us into trying to resolve it. Or in the other direction, if you spend the (currently meaningless) time giving money to background NPCs begging in the cities, Neve could could have a special cutscene thanking you for your attention to people otherwise beneath notice. You know?

And of course not every game can do this, I can write those sentences up there that represent hundreds of hours of dev time, of course they can't do it all. But the prior games usually did have at least a little of this, and that was enough to make me really fall in love. I KNOW the tumultuous development cycle, restarts from scratch, interference from higher-ups all contributed to why Veilguard was unable to hit those same marks this time. And we probably won't ever know how much of the loss of options/reactivity was intention vs a side effect of these things. But I wish people wouldn't frame players who miss these aspects as insane/morally corrupt. When for most of us it's because we genuinely enjoy challenging and exploring these aspects of reality in fiction in a way entirely unlike what we actually support in real life. i fully acknowledge not everyone desires to play this way. and that's fine!!! i am glad people can enjoy doing a "good" run each time that brings them joy. but for me it really limits the potential bounds of my enjoyment i guess. I like media that is complicated and messy and makes me think, and extra so when I get to see how playing that way impacts the greater story around it.

[waterfallofspace]

A and B hanging out with a group of their friends, after having just gone out together, now back at someone's house eating a meal, playing some games, having fun~

the only problem is, the place they've just been really sets off B's allergies, which A knows, along with the fact B refuses to sneeze in front of people (whether for kink!reasons, or other ones)

glancing over at B, A can see how itchy they look, their hands keep touching their face, pinching or rubbing their nose, trying to sniffle as discreetly as possible

knowing they're too polite/shy to just get up and leave, A stands from where they were lounging, grabs B by the arm, and tosses some excuse over at the group, who for the most part doesn't even notice

dragging B into a bedroom/bathroom, A closes the door behind them, smiling fondly to themself as B immediately ducks down with a "nGt!- nXGt!- dXGt!-"

"let them out, love" A offers gently, grabbing up some tissues and handing them over, "you've gotta get it all done before we go back out there"

"thagk you-" B manages, with a relieved glance at A, before ducking into the tissues with a vocal, "ekt'chhh-oo!", starting to work their way through the allergy attack they'd been postponing for so long

with, of course, A offering blessings and rubbing their back through it all~

[godmerlin]

Interesting little tidbit. Of course he literally explains why he feels uncomfortable doing any of the promotional work that we all crave lol

[dimonds456]

Gonna say something controversial.

Ford Pines is a nuanced character who is neither good nor bad. Absolving him of his crimes is actively a detriment to his character and does a disservice to the storytelling of Gravity Falls, but defining him exclusively by his mistakes without taking the time to understand him is a purposefully bad faith take that actively makes your enjoyment of the show worse.

He is neither a good or bad person, because "good" people and "bad" people aren't real. There's just people. And people fuck up sometimes.

If no one fucked up and if no one held onto those fuckups sometimes out of sheer desperation, the world of fiction would be way more boring, unengaging, and dull.

Ford Pines is a mess and I don't want him to be sanitized or demonized. I just want him to be a mess.

Thank you

[can-of-slorgs]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

so im listening to the potd audio commentary and jodie's talking about covid restrictions and filming flux and how the restrictions were more intense at the start of filming (was that end of 2020/start of 2021?) and she says "by the time we finished, we could hug" and damn they took that opportunity didnt they