#without trying to stop them

[junkdrawerfan]

One thing I am getting a bit tired of in batfam fanfics is Tim being “morally grey” or being able to work with morally grey people for the wrong reasons.

Tim Drake is the moral center of the Bat Clan. He was introduced to pull Batman back when he got too close to the line. He does the same for Dick and other heroes throughout his runs. He believes in Batman’s code.

The point—the whole point— of Red Robin is Tim testing his moral code (Batman’s Moral Code) and choosing to reaffirm that code with his own reasons. He tries to kill the man who killed his father, gets close, and then stops it because he can’t kill, even if it might be justified like taking down a dangerous serial killer who purposely targets superhero’s families. He takes up the mantle of the fallen Robin (Red Robin) as a preemptive punishment because he believes he’s going to break the code and then proceeds to save, help, trust, and befriend people because at his core he can never become the Fallen Robin — no matter how much he tries to push himself over that edge or to logic his way out of empathy.

Tim Drake believes in the no kill rule because Tim Drake believes in redemption and second chances and helping people even when they don’t want to be helped.

And that is why he can work with morally grey people. That’s why he can make friends with League Assassins and work with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. It’s why he has, arguably, the closest relationship with Jason (depending on the run of course) and see the best in Jason. It’s why he advocates for Cass’ redemption when she’s fresh off the league. It’s why he has a good relationship with Helena (that’s her little brother!) and Selina.

Tim can work with morally grey people because he believes in the best of them. He believes in their redemption and their ability to chose the right thing. He will offer his hand again and again no matter their background or their past choices or if they hurt/betrayed/tried to kill him. It’s why he can forgive and move forward.

Tim is like Bruce at his best. Their moral code allows for a million chances because they are, at their core, optimists playing at cold rationality. Tim and Bruce would never have become heroes without that optimism and empathy. Bruce for obvious reasons. Tim because if he didn’t see the best in people, he would have tried to take Batman out himself before Bruce could become a killer.

Tim Drake is a menace. He is the superhero community’s favorite little brother. He has issues with boundaries and internal foot-in-mouth syndrome. He is off putting and socially inept and makes up for it with pure sincerity and practicing social behavior because he cares (The Handshake! Y’all know what I’m talking about!)

He’s been damaged by his time as a cape. He’s not as trusting as he used to be. He’s changed and grown as a character from the naive 13 year old who tracked Dick Grayson down at Haly’s circus because he just wanted to help. He has contingency plans for his best friends and his family at 17+ when at 15 he swore he never would.

But he is still, at his core, a good moral person who believes in redemption with an eternal optimism that defies the logic and rational he clings to.

(Side note: Tim is far more trusting than Bruce.

It’s why he has more positive relationships with lots of people, not just morally grey people. Even if his trust is damaged, he’s not Batman. He can never become Batman. Him becoming Batman, not just wearing the cowl but becoming him, is Tim’s Bad Ending because that is a Tim who lost his hope and empathy and trust to the darkness.

Bruce can withstand that darkness and cling to his optimism even as he lacks trust. Even when he needs reminders of why he does what he does.

Dick can too. Dick is Batman’s true heir because Dick can be a Batman who hopes and trusts even when consumed by Darkness (even when Bruce was dead and he was drowning under the cowl because of his grief, he still thanks Babs and teaches Damian that it can get better but that’s a meta for another post).

It is one of the fundamental differences between the three, in my opinion.)

[dimeadozencows]

They're like a weird unlikely depression duo to me

See I can draw them like actual men and not chew toys... I'm allowed....

But I did do a silly one cus I much prefer to draw them like the bobble heads they are 🤲🤲🤲

[bamsara]

There are ten billion personal Lamb interpretations and all of them are correct (and also the other characters but I suffer from lamb favoritism)

If you're looking for an excuse to ramble about your Lamb or AU (or any cotl character you have) take this post to do it NOW

[splickedylit]

HAPPY HOMESTUCK DAY U WANT FIC? >:U

It's 4/13 and 4 days ago I finished posting Karkat Vantas vs The Evil Gods, a fic that I've been percolating for more than a decade and am very proud of, and which readers so far seem to have quite enjoyed! So this is me enthusiastically doing jazz hands at my baby. HEY THERE MY FRIEND DO YOU LIKE

1. Humanstuck, vigilante/superhero AUs, eldritch gods, possession/exorcism, religious horror, hurt/comfort and drama?! Alternia City as Basically Gotham?!

2. Riffs on the Winter Soldier/Turns Out The Guy You Love's Not Dead But He Came Back Wrong?! People slowly recovering from horrible dehumanization and learning to be people again through the power of many different forms of support and love?! People negotiating messy poly situations?! Pale Gamkar, even, perhaps?!

3. Copious shenanigans of Space and Time?! The ever-increasing urge to beat Doc Scratch's smug little "Hee Hee Hoo Hoo" ass with your bare fists?! Goddessdemonangel in a sundress?!

3. Ensemble casts whose backstories could sustain multiple spin-off fics each?! And the personnel forms I fabricated and filled out for every single one of them because I've lost control of my life?!

WINTERSOLDIERSTUCK WEDNESDAY WSUNDAY BE UPON YE. If you've been on the fence please consider checking out my huge and fully-illustrated brainchild (with an eye to the tags and warnings of course) because I had a lot of fun and think it turned out pretty sick! Thank you for attending my TED talk.

[aingeal98]

I think we're due for a comic where Cass just solos the entire family like I know that powerscaling isn't actually important in comics and that telling a good story is key but consider: dudebros are annoying and stupid and they're getting too misogynistic about her so I need someone to write one story where she just effortlessly slams the family including Bruce and then we can get back to telling the emotionally compelling and heartwrenching stories.

[benevolenterrancy]

Art prompt of Shen Qingqiu holding the aro flag (fits his color scheme)

the real reason this man doesn't realise he's tripping every romance flag in the story

[acid-ixx]

oh my god, i got so distracted by a concept this anon sent about the loving family series, that i accidentally switched my focus on writing a oneshot for it instead 😭

guess that means you guys will be spoiled with not only a new chapter for a&a, but you people who have been thirsting for a loving family scraps will also be well-fed...

[oh-no-its-bird]

"Sometimes, I can't help but feel burdened by the weight of your emotions."

"Good."

u will not be seeing me writing them kissing in the main story but know that I have been thinking ab these fucking weirdos. These weirdos and their indescribably heavy baggage and the tension between them

The Hatake clan has always been haunted by the curse of doomed toxic yuri and yaoi since the warring states era fr

Early Konoha oc art pt. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

[royalarchivist]

Pac: This is the new me, ok? I want you to welcome... the new Pac! [...] This skin is really cool, I think I'm gonna use this more often.

Himaru: ...What happened to you, man? Did you get run over? 😰

Pac: [Laughs] Don't judge me, don't judge me!

Being ugly in Arkanis is a crime, and unfortunately for all of us, Pac loves being a criminal. 😓

[ Full Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

—

Pac: Guys– This is the new me, ok? I want you to welcome... the new Pac!

Pac: [Laughs]

[Pac gets kicked from the server with the message: "Change this"]

Pac: [Laughing] No! No! No– I won't change, I won't change, I won't change! I won't change! Let me- let me in! No no no– What a dictatorship– there can't be a dictatorship here, no– No, I won't change! [Stammers] I'm- I'm myself! I'm myself!

Pac: [Pinches his nose so he has a nasally voice] Hi friends, welcome to class. I'm going to talk like that, ok? I'll even turn off the facecam, because today, I'm going to– I'm kidding, no no no.

Pac: Man, this skin is really cool, it really is. I think that this– I'm gonna use this more often, man. [Reading chat] "Halloween is over" Guys, this– This is who I am now! Who I am– This is me now, I'm this person here.

[Red text appears on the screen saying "30 seconds to change"]

Pac: "30 seconds to change–" Hang on, what is this?! No– calma, what is–? Guys, for the love of god–

[Another warning appears saying "20 seconds to change"]

Pac: No!!! No! No no no! No no no! You can't do this! You can't do this here. You- you can't. You can't make me change my skin.

[A final warning appears saying "10 seconds to change"]

Pac: No– You can't, I won't take it off! I'm going to my class now, I have to go to class! This is my "studying" skin! I- I–

[Pac gets banned]

Pac: [Hits his desk]

Dono: The skinmakers in chat are crying, having heart attacks, collapsing. It's horrible, dude.

Pac: [Laughs] It's not that ugly, it's fine, it's good.

Himaru: [Long pause] ...What happened to you, man? Did you get run over?

Pac: [Laughs] Don't judge me, don't judge me! Ok? Look at- look at- look at JVNQ! He has a funny face too, but nobody says anything about it!

Himaru: No man, I'm not judging you, but– I just wor- I'm just worried! [...] Well for me, I'll be serious with you: it doesn't matter what's on the outside, ok? What matters is what's inside, got it?

Pac: Thank you. [He hugs Himaru] Do you think I'm poggers? Do you think I'm poggers? Say it.

Himaru: No Pac, it doesn't matter that you look ugly, ridiculous, like a truck reversed into you then ran you over, like someone hit you–

Milo: my god

Himaru: –like Anderson Silva crushed you in the ring– Hey, it doesn't matter! What matters is that your heart is beating.

JV: And you have a home!

Himaru: Understand? Give love to others, ok?

Pac: My god.

Milo: he was saving those insults

Himaru: And that's all, ok man? You can be at peace, ok? I won't- I won't judge you, I'll just... I'll just do one thing, man.

Pac: What are you doing?

Himaru: I'm just going to avoid eye contact, ok? But I'm still talking to you, I'm still listening, ok? I hear you.

Pac: ...I can't believe this.

[owlheartt]

Something I really like about timebomb is that Ekko actually knows what he's getting into.

I'm not really seeing it get talked about but in season 1 they mention that Ekko and the firelights help people addicted to shimmer get off it and lead more fulfilling lives within the community. I should probably rewatch the scene for the exact wording (might be misremembering tbh) but that comment implies A LOT.

First: Ekko's mission is helping people where he can, he would probably try and help Jinx even if he wasn't in love with her

Second: He has experience dealing with severe mental illness as that often goes hand in hand with drug abuse, namely depression/suicidal ideation like what Jinx was exhibiting

Third: He's probably mapped out best course of action FOR dealing with this and has already figured out his own limits/boundaries. Meaning he knew what he was getting into trying to talk Jinx out of suicide, and was thus more equipped to deal with the aftermath

Fourth: He's probably helped ex members of Silco's gang. The firelights seem to have a theme of healing and repairing and recovering, so they've probably also learned to forgive. If they're mission is to rebuild the lanes into a safe space, they can't exclude people they don't like, they have to make room for them. I think they fought Silco out of necessity, and I doubt Jinx would be the first person they help who's killed one of them.

These all might be a bit of a stretch but I think it really fits. Beyond that, it shows that Ekko can ACTUALLY help Jinx. As much as unconditional love can do, Ekko has the tools for Jinx's recovery and a path ready for her. He also probably knows that her "healthy" will look different from AU Powder's "healthy." On top of that, I expect he knows how to respect her even in the middle of psychotic breaks and won't agitate her already frail mental state

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

So, uh, to recap on the ladies of Andor, the pinnacle of progressive writing according to internet consensus:

Bix: After her character consisting only of "good at mechanics", formerly crafty (in the first Ferrix arc) and "traumatised", Bix gains a new character trait this arc - helpless rage and ✨✨✨drug addiction✨✨✨! Goodie. I'm so mad at this arc for her. We never see this woman happy independent of her trauma. We see her make happy for men - the shopkeep, Cassian occasionally, Brasso and co. in the first arc - but the only time we get an unobserved smile is when she gets her big Girlboss Yay Feminism revenge. And the featurette has everyone going "oh this is her moment", "this scene is about her" - IT'S NOT!! It's about Gorst! It's more trauma porn! Her happiness and functionality once again are dependent on men! She couldn't save herself from her trauma - she needed Cassian to help her get the drop on Gorst (and let's ignore how fucking improbable all that is for a moment, how does he even know where Gorst is???), and her happiness is fully dependent on Gorst living or dying. Her character does not EXIST without him this season. Why do we only ever see her take charge of her life to kill her abusers? The only other positive thing she's done for her life this whole season is to clean up the apartment, and she was doing that to *checks notes* hide her drug habit from her overprotective boyfriend. Feminism!! Please don't read this as an indictment of people struggling to cope with trauma, or substance abuse - I'm just so tired of everyone acting like this is such an uplifting, empowering narrative for this character, because I really, really, really don't see it.

Bringing up Maarva and Kerri as people Cassian failed to protect and nothing else is so telling. That's not even what happened! He was abducted as a child, he didn't abandon his sister, and what was he going to save Maarva from? Old age?? But that's their whole narrative purpose to the writers I guess...

Mothma: Well, I know the constant political downward trajectory is her whole thing, but we really spend the whole arc seeing her do nothing but failing to convince other politicians (mostly men) of anything and being made to look like a fool for even bothering. So far all we've given her this season is being too soft and emotional (which, by the way, is why it's a little odd to me they're pinning the same thing on Cassian - why do we need this narrative redundancy here?). And her one "big moment" (read: over thirty seconds of uninterrupted talking) she gets to have this arc is either a front for Kleya's and Luthen's business or a pointless and reckless lashing out at Krennic's overt imperialism and propaganda.

Dedra: Yeah, she's holding all the strings, but in a weird way, her whole narrative is dependent on Syril now, and I have a bad feeling this is all leading up to him being butthurt about being used. It's a great spy storyline, but just like Mothma's part, great as it is, in combo with the deeply uncool treatment of Bix, it starts to feel like an unfortunate pattern.

Cinta: I actually liked her scenes a lot! Especially the scene in the café - it had an interesting ambiguity, for a moment there I was wondering if Cinta was running Vel, getting back with her to keep her on track on someone's orders. I think I may be giving the script too much credit here, given how weirdly stilted the other two romances were handled this arc it might have rather been a case of "the writer really thinks lovers talk that way". But even if it was an accident, I think that would be an interesting feature in the show, because they're the one couple who genuinely seem to be compatible and on the same page about what they want! And I get that they were making a point to get her killed so uselessly, by friendly fire, on accident. But man, this show refuses to give a woman happiness, even for the span of a timeskip. Whenever any of the ladies seems happy or get something she wants for herself, you can already be sure she's about to die or have something incredibly heinous happen to her immediately after. And the execution of that scene pissed me off, because if that scuffle had even just been relocated to the tunnel entrance, I would have bought it. But no, they're in a really wide, mostly empty alleyway, the blaster was mostly pointed at a wall and trapped between the two men wrestling for it, and you don't even see anyone being close behind them, and yet Cinta not only manages to get hit but instantly killed - what are the fucking chances? And yes, it's a metaphor, but again, with the overall bad aftertaste, it feels targeted and cruel at this point. With how little we got to see of Cinta, it really made her death seem like an afterthought. Like Brasso, this could have packed a punch, but we knew so little about her and had seen her even less, so it just fell flat.

My only positives(ish):

Vel: Her character is really growing on me! She has such a nice, well-executed, subtle development compared to most other characters on this show. She's clearly learned from Aldhani, and she's learning from Mothma and Luthen, too, and her resentment at the life she's leading is so beautifully expressed by her last scene: The greatest punishment she can imagine is recruitment to her cause. Because that's what she's doing to this guy. Recruitment. This is on you forever, this is all your life is now, you owe me and everyone whatever you have to make up for this. That's so heartbreaking, and so real. Am I pissed that Vel is constantly and pointedly denied happiness at absolutely every turn? Yeah! But at least for her, it feels like there is a little more agency, because she chose this life, even though she clearly has options. For her, it feels a little more tragic and narratively weighty, and less like a pointless onslaught of misery.

Kleya: I love her so much. And I could (and should) point out that it feels a little shallow to have her be completely reduced to "being the only competent person among men who are losing their shit at all times". We know nothing else about her, other than that she is Girlboss(TM). But, unlike with Bix, we actually see her be outstandingly competent completely on her own merit all the time, and even though the script neglects her, too, there is an implication that she has actively and deliberately sacrificed the rest of herself to be this spymaster - instead of the writers simply forgetting to give her anything more. And I just think Elizabeth Dulau is KILLING IT. In a weird way, Kleya is giving me the power fantasy that most Star Wars gave to little boys. It's not exactly a win for feminism - it's yet another flavour of "women can either be competent and powerful OR express their emotions and be vulnerable with people" - but I do have a soft spot for her, and her moment at the exhibition was the tensest shit I've seen this whole season. Nothing more gripping so far than watching this woman attempt to turn a screw.

[candyredbloodshed]

FLYING !!!

[sillygoofyqueer]

waiting in a boring ass bus station and seeing that u posted more fucked up mad scientist wuxian oh life is so fucking good 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

I'm glad I can bring you joy and hope in your dreadful time in the bus station. Just for you today, we're flipping the perspectives and checking on all the other sects!!! I know what you're thinking. "Four. Four what the fuck is happening in Lotus Pier." And boy oh boy. Let's look at things with the bigger picture - Wei Wuxian has never stepped into Lotus Pier, so there's no comparison for Jiang Cheng to be belittled by (don't worry!! He still has his inferiority complex and mummy issues because like...Madam Yu is his fucking mother. She's a monster even without Wei Wuxian to point at). Jiang Fengmian actually shows affection for his son, but he's also a bit more distant than he would be in canon; he grieves the death of his friend and his friend's wife too much to think about anything else. Jiang Yanli is in an arranged marriage still, because as much as he would like to deck Jin Zixuan all the time, Madam Yu would quite literally have his head for such a crime. At least he has his dogs.

Okay and then the invasion of Lotus Pier happens. Wen Zhuliu? Dead. Wang Lingjiao? Dead. Wen Chao? Desperate to prove to his father that he's a good son, that he's better than Wei Wuxian ever could be (because Wen Ruohan is mourning his little scientist). This leads to a highly uncoordinated attack mixed with the fact that Madam Yu is not facing off against Wen Zhuliu which was ultimately her undoing in canon, means that they can pretty easily beat back the attempted invasion. There's like an issue with this though, and that's the fact that I cannot picture a Madam Yu who would not make snide, insulting comments about Wei Wuxian's heritage. Wei Wuxian in this AU would literally not fucking take it. May I remind you about how, after learning about his parents dead by the Wens' hands, he literally tore a man apart? With his bare hands? Sorry bbgs, girlboss is not making it. (Also Jiang Cheng needs the trauma for character building.)

Meanwhile, the first moment that Lan Wangji makes it back from the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter and he's found out that his brother isn't dead, and that they have started rebuilding the Cloud Recesses, and that everything is going to be okay, he spills everything. He sits down with Lan Xichen and tells him everything that happened in the cave, the way Wei Wuxian took a blow meant for Luo-guniang. How he, instead of abandoning them and just leaving on his sword, took charge of the situation with an injury and coordinated escape groups. How he almost died in order to save Lan Wangji from certain death, forcing this monster's jaws apart. How he was most certainly brainwashed by the Wen and yet still worked with Lan Wangji to kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter despite his distrust. He doesn't think that Wei Wuxian is genuinely bad, just very, very misguided ("I can fix him, gege....").

Lan Xichen of course takes his didi's words seriously and writes to Nie Mingjue about it, also asking after Nie Huaisang because "Wangji said he didn't come for the night hunt?" He receives a letter back, one that makes it very clear that Nie Mingjue wouldn't at all believe that there was anything redeemable about Wei Wuxian if it weren't for the fact that the same man had been the one to entirely engineer Nie Huaisang's escape. He would likely be tortured and/or dead by this point if it weren't for Wei Wuxian intervening. Even more than that, he's been corresponding with Huaisang, asking more about all these different sects and what they were like. Mingjue, whose world has always been a very clear black and white, does not know what to do with the idea of a Wen not actually being evil. Let alone multiple Wens, like Wei Wuxian's letters suggest. Lan Xichen is like "hmm...let's see where this goes, having Wei-gongzi on our side could be useful in this likely impending war."

Then Nie Huaisang gets the short letter about Wei Wuxian's death. It's like a shock to the system, the idea that Wen Ruohan would actually kill a boy so useful to his cause the moment he found out that the boy was learning more about the world around him. A teenager, discarded because he's no longer good enough to be perceived as useful. Nie Huaisang is honestly a mess because of it, having begun to see a friend in Wei Wuxian - he was friendly with the other gongzis, but it had always been so hard to connect with guys that were, at the end of the day, completely focused on fighting and brawling. Either that, or there was beef between the two sects (the Jin) or the gongzi his age was just terrifying (sorry, Wangji). Wei Wuxian had been someone who had been funny and related to him so well. Now he was dead.

Lan Wangji is sort of feeling out of sorts when he's told by Lan Xichen, because he feels like he's failed this sincere boy who helped and helped despite his preconceived notions of life. He should have done more, helped out more. If for anything, just because of the debt he owes Wei Wuxian for keeping him alive even when he himself was injured and just riddled with resentful energy. He literally clambered into the rot infested shell and attacked the Xuanwu from up close and personal because Wangji was too injured to do so himself. Lan Wangji had repaid that by not attempting to speak to the boy while knowing that one of his peers was doing that very thing, not asking Nie Huaisang what he was telling Wei Wuxian, or how Wei Wuxian was even doing, or anything. Now he was dead and it was too late to reach out for him.

Lan Wangji had failed Wei Wuxian before even trying to help him.

[they-didnt-last]

a dps 10 things i hate about you au with neil and todd as bianca and cameron and charlie and ginny as patrick and kat. meeks is michael and pitts is mandela. keating is either the English teacher or the counselor. I think it'd be really funny if he were the counselor though

[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.

[stardust--ace]

i need to delete this blog bro it's not even the cringe demon anymore