#this is inescapable hell

[ros1eartts]

medkit says the ph word!1!!1!! Put him in timeout

-aiden wuz here!!

[blackberry-sage-tea]

I don't think that Veilguard is a product of developers who didn't care. I feel like it's a product of developers who cared so much that they were willing to do anything and everything to get the game finished. Even if it involved a million concessions. A million compromises. An FPS game engine that had to be twisted far beyond what it was designed for, a set of assets and mechanics and art style created for a polar opposite game to the "gritty" singleplayer narrative they were making. With all the core veterans of the series that shaped its identity having been driven out or fired, and the ones remaining either inexperienced/unskilled in their new roles or burned out beyond belief to the point where they actually felt they needed a "fan council" to advise them on writing it.

I think they wanted so badly to deliver on the promise of DA4 that they kept going even as (imo) everything that would have made DA4 worthwhile got stripped out of the game.

I know a lot of people think of that as a miraculous achievement, "at least it Got Made", but personally "a hypothetical great DA4 that just sadly never got finished" would have been better than "the shitty DA4 that every new piece of fan content is now obligated to include or reference in some way by virtue of being the capstone finale to the series".

Especially because getting it made didn't...save their jobs or the series or anything they still got fired and the studio still got shuttered. Sometimes "cut your losses", "listen to your regrets", and "the little wins aren't enough" are acceptable things to say. So much of Veilguard's script feels like it's full of the mantras that the development team was telling themselves over and over just to get through a hellish cycle and you know, I think a lot of those messages are wrong, actually. I'm not looking to be judgmental, in that position I might have made the exact same choices, but looking in from the outside I think it was a mistake to just keep going at any cost.

[uncanny-tranny]

Huge shout-out to John Cena for dropping my new transition goal that one time last year. Look at this and earnestly say this isn't peak male performance.

[deconstructthesoup]

This... this is probably an absolutely insane idea, but...

*small sigh, head in hands, mumbling under my breath*

A Slay the Princess "Barbie: Princess & the Pauper" AU where Damsel is Annalise, Prisoner is Erika, and... god help me, but you know that Opportunist would be the perfect Preminger

[roguelioness]

Hey you know that fisherman alone on the island banter Solas has with Varric in Inquisition

Have you ever wondered if the reason that "fade image" stuck with Solas was because he identified so deeply with it

Do you think of a fisherman Solas cooking alone, of the fisherman Solas eating alone, of the fisherman Solas isolated in a far-too-big-for-one-person place

Do you think of a touch-starved fisherman Solas wanting the warmth of another person in the coldest and darkest of night but unable to find any

Do you think that was why he was so indignant about the fisherman's inaction

Because the fisherman had options he did not

Because the fisherman could have found someone else but he could not

Because the fisherman could have had a happy life but he cannot

[tethered-heartstrings]

genuinely am not sure how I'm expected to get enough sleep, go to school, do all my assignments, study, exercise, keep up with dishes and laundry, keep my house clean, shower everyday, buy groceries, prepare 3 (healthy) meals a day and eat them, and not explode in the process???

[saturdaysky]

Creepin on your tags… Mayfic? Mayhew fic?? Mayhew fic for us Mayhew lovers???

Is it is a WIP or is there anything published so far?

Mayhew fic for us Mayhew lovers!!!

Nothing is published yet. I will be completing the fic first, and publishing it weekly once it's done and edited. I also am hoping to illustrate it like I did for my friend's critrole mercaleb fic! (like so: one, two)

The premise

After events of the game, Gale leaves to become a god (but pinky promises he'll come back), while Wyll, Karlach, and Mayhew (now a very grudging mind flayer) go to Avernus to find a cure for Karlach. All four of these people have just leapt into the crucible. What shape do they choose to become?

I'm exploring what actually happens in those six months between the endgame and the epilogue party.

Mayhew/Flayhew: What is it actually like to become a mind flayer, and how long can you ignore the fact that you did? What if it gives you the power you've always wanted? It will cost you the better self you're trying to be, but your clock is ticking. How much faith can you put in promises made by someone who left you behind?

Karlach: What is it actually like to walk back into Hell with only trust and wishes in your pockets? How do you keep going when those wishes run out? The friend who wouldn't let you die is now slowly dying inside himself, so what do you do now that the shoe is on the other foot?

Wyll: What is it actually like to be a powerless warlock who swore to protect your friends? Hell will kill all of you if any one of you is the weak link, but you're not trapping yourself into another pact. How do you make up the difference? In your duty of protection, when does a friend become a monster, and when does a monster become a threat?

Gale: What is it actually like to become a god? What do you do when you play for ultimate power and win? Your divine future awaits, and mortality already seems distant and petty. You can leave everything behind to claim perfection, right now, and no one can stop you. So...do you keep those old, mortal promises you made?

Altogether, these are novel-length ideas to chew on, and the word count reflects it. It's novel-length already 😂 but this is because I want the fic to be robust enough to stand on its own and prove its own points, like a novel must do. I also want it to be readable even if you haven't played BG3. It's a ton of work to write, but it's very fun.

The shorter premise is: sometimes, just sometimes, if you play out two bad endings long enough, they can become one good ending.

[icannotholdmypen]

OKAY NOW I'VE LISTENED TO IT WHAT THE FUCK I WANT MY HAPPY BOY BACK RIGHT NOW

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Equius: D-> Grocery store mission barely accomplished took massive damage to the hull and all internal systems. Shield repair could take days

[thatdamnokie]

✨ recommended reading over christian universalism ✨

[wildtales1973]

my moms obsession with being the tiniest prettiest most emotionally vulnerable and sexually desirable woman in any room and her belief that I am not a person but an extension of her has not negatively impacted me at all why would you even suggest that?

[theoldgodsaredisappointed]

Working retail is great. It's super super great when the store you work at has been having plumbing issues for the better part of a month.

It's even better when the floor drains start overflowing with literal shit water raw sewage.

And I love having a manager who refuses to close the store when the whole place smells like literal shit and every customer who comes in looks shocked and disgusted. Surely this will not ruin their perception of the store forever more.

Surely it can't be better to close for one day than to gain the reputation of "shit store."

God I just fucking Love retail.

[satellite-runner]

can solidly say the worst thing about T so far is the body acne

[disgustedorite]

Why does the unethical hell prison exist again?

[dorianbrightmusic]

seriously? the moment i google what 'high nose bridge' means, i'm getting 3 different sites advertising rhinoplasties?

why is there so much pressure on folks to change their appearance. one site was labelled 'choosing your nose'. seriously? seriously??

[22degreehalo]

I'll say it as many times as it needs to be said. There is absolutely miniscule actual harm that comes from engaging with Harry Potter in 2024. JK Rowling does not need money. Anything sent her way is less than a rounding error. And the book series was literally EVERYWHERE in the 90s and 2000s. Like it or not, it DID impact a whole generation of people - pretending that never happened is completely absurd, if not outright irresponsible. It happened. It's just a fact. Harry Potter is mainstream. There is nothing that can be done to 'promote' it. It's already there.

What all this obsession with HP on tumblr is about? An easy way to smugly define Good People from Bad People. Because if you *really* cared about trans people enough, you'd hate everything associated with Harry Potter. Regardless of how much you adored it when you were 8 and went to Harry Potter parties with your family all dressed up quoting book lines at one another in your most precious childhood memories because for once your special interest actually aligned with the people closest to you. No, all those positive associations should have been deleted instantly. If you *cared enough*, it would just *happen*.

Which is why a whole slew of people who previously had earnestly reblogged posts about Moral OCD and how bad tumblr can be about it were suddenly cackling about how buying Hogwarts Legacy was comparable to *refusing to throw The One Ring into Mordor, starting a war that would kill millions.* And how donating to a pro-trans charity (an act that would have VASTLY more impact than aforementioned rounding error) is comparable to 'donating to a pro-elf charity' in the wake of that.

Because tumblr doesn't actually give a shit about autistics or OCD sufferers. When we complain about stuff that they also dislike, they proudly reblog that and rage in the notes about how selfish and cruel and Individualist those other people on tumblr are!!! But the *second* they get to paint themselves as the ones with '''''good thoughts and feelings'''''' they take it, and make up posts about how HP likers 'believe they're the main character and everything should revolve around them.'

Is it actually about whether something causes harm? Or is it about dividing the world into Inherently Good People and Inherently Bad People? Is it actually about doing real good for the community and making the world a better place? Or is it about shaming people with the Wrong Emotions until they fucking hate themselves and spend hours upon hours ruminating on end trying to change themselves because their inability to let go of positive Harry Potter feelings is OBVIOUSLY evidence of a truly inescapably evil and cruel and wretched identity that the world would be better off without?

Which is it, actually? When it actually feels a little bit good to feel like you're on the Right Side of all of this, for once?