#(?????) not really but you know

[ddeck]

teaching myself how to make these aliens more alien

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

My Sibling in Christ, Sunfyre would set YOU on fire if you told him he deserves a better rider.

[galedekarios]

i cherish you

whenever i play, i'm struck by just how many little things and reactivity larian removed from gale, as a companion, but also as a romance interest.

in the full release version of the game, you can have this conversation about what gale would do if he ever felt the netherese magic overtaking him:

Player: If you ever feel the Netherese magic overtaking you, what will you do? Gale: If it should ever come to that, if I ever know I am no longer able to stop it, I will do anything I can to ensure no one but me pays for my mistakes. Gale: I will find the remotest place on the surface of Faerûn, or perhaps far below in the depths of the Underdark. Gale: I will await that death alone. Gale: I promise I will not betray your trust. You kept me by your side despite the menace that I am. Gale: If worst comes to worst, I will be gone long before the curtain falls.

however, in early access, this dialogue had a small variation if the player character romanced gale:

Player: If you ever feel the Netherese magic overtaking you, what will you do? Gale: If it should ever come to that, if I ever know I am no longer able to stop it, I will do anything I can to ensure no one but me pays for my mistakes. Gale: I will find the remotest place on the surface of Faerûn, or perhaps far below in the depths of the Underdark. Gale: I will await that death alone. Gale: I promise I will not betray your trust. You kept me by your side despite the menace that I am. Gale: I cherish you. [romance specific line] Gale: If worst comes to worst, I will be gone long before the curtain falls.

i made gifset for this conversation in early access, too, and the expression alone hopefully helps a little to show those who haven't experience early access a bit to convey the deep sincerity and sheer weight of those words coming from gale in that moment:

it's 'only' a short line in the grand scheme of things that was removed here, but it's a shame since a simple flag change could've preserved it.

along with the loss of the deer stew scene, the loss scene as well as at least 23 short conversation / environmental conversation, it just adds and adds and adds up to an extremely diminished experience overall.

[lukellios]

‼️ ALERT ‼️

New official Ganon art! They did this for us artists 🥺

[agentrouka-blog]

While I don't think Dany is a hero in ASOIAF, it stills icks me when some of her Antis claim that Dany allowed Drogo to kill Viserys. I think Drogo killed Viserys because he threatened to kill Drogo unborn child and Dany in Vaes Dothrak. Dany didn't had a say in it. She already tried to protect Viserys before. I don't think in this situation Dany has any agency.

I agree. Viserys doomed himself and the only thing Dany did in that moment was quit trying to save him from his own self-destruction. There was nothing she could have done to save him, and he gave her every incentive to feel relief at his demise.

This moment isn't about Dany failing him. This moment is mainly interesting because what Dany takes mental refuge in during this traumatic display is the idea of the "true dragon", and it gives us a glimpse at what danger there is in a sense of personal invulnerability and exceptionality. Viserys feels safe to indulge in a deeply disrespectful tantrum, because of a legal technicality, because he is bitter and he has suffered, because the feelings of the distasteful business partners he has acquired don't matter to him. Because he has a story in mind for himself, and this is not it.

He is very wrong. And Dany only sees the dragon he isn't, the dragon she is. There is a lesson in there she will have failed to learn down the line.

[ummmmandy]

i'm drawing fallout fanart again what year is it

[leofrith]

obviously the quality of all these shows is suffering from the fact that their primary function is to provide the setup for future star wars projects (mcuification, baby!!! who's ready for the infinity war style team-up movie where the gang takes down thanos—i mean thrawn?). but i also think a big part of why the book of boba fett, mando s3 (and to a slightly lesser extent, s2 as well), and ahsoka all suffer from the same issue of having their main protagonists cast aside in favour of side characters—which in itself might not be as annoying as it is if those stories were even remotely interesting or well-written—is because filoni & co. want to be making an ensemble piece. but instead, they're stuck having to make a bunch of solo projects that are ostensibly about individuals or smaller casts of characters, which they then stumble their way through in the most half-assed, half-hearted way possible because it's all just setup for the "mandoverse movie," a phrase which makes me want to projectile vomit.

[marrissacooper]

— Richard Siken

[skunkes]

i need to write in here more often

[stargirlfeyre]

“The Valkyries would never choose anyone over Nesta”

Because they have no one to choose but Nesta. And that’s the main flaw within their relationship.

[galedekarios]

tara is the mvp >-Io

[thestobingirlie]

The "or else Steve would be in charge" comment from Jonathan at the end of season 4 is so petty because by then Steve has put himself on the line to save the kids (and Nancy AND Jonathan) enough times plus he never gave Jonathan any crap for going after Nancy when Stancy was still together. I obviously don't expect Jonathan to like Steve after the events of season one or really care about him one way or the other, but he's shown so much leadership and kindness. Just goes to show Jonathan is so stuck in archetypes of people and refuses to acknowledge that other people are complex and fluid lol

his little comment is just proof he still hasn’t grown or developed past his “i’m inherently better than anyone ‘normal’” phase. well. can you call it a phase when it’s his only consistent characterisation lol?

like you said, i don’t expect him to like steve, but it’s just such a nonsensical comment because at this point steve has saved nearly all the characters lives multiple times and he routinely gets left in charge of the children.

jonathan just wanted to make himself feel better about his failing relationship with nancy by cracking a joke about her ex and it didn’t work lmao.

[ggadtomarry]

Tom having is birthday on 31 December is iconic. Bitter winter baby and sweet summer child power couple .

But.

In-story the fact that Tom had 9 months to prepare for the new magic world and rebrand himself was essential. He fake domesticated himself.

Also the fact that he was older than lots of kids.

But.

What if Tom was born in August? What if after Albus' disaster visit Tom got shipped to Hogwarts in a couple of weeks?

Can you imagine baby rabid Tom being bullied by Slytherin snobs and reacting by terrorizing them? Killing animals, scaring ppl, having an army of snakes?

[anactualfrog]

WIP STILL: demon dragon sculpture! Teeth, eyes, and horns still need some attention. And he still needs his epoxy clear coat on the wet bits haha

[agentrouka-blog]

When do you predict Dany to arrive in Westeros? I know grrm said something about Dany & Tyrion’s paths intersecting at some point in winds , so logically she’d still be in Essos for that…but on reddit quite a few people that think she’ll arrive in Westeros mid twow and that just seems unrealistic to me when she has so much left to do in slavers bay

I agree that this would be unrealistic. There's a great deal of travel time involved in moving her armies west, whether on foot or by ship. Before that, GRRM is setting her up for a big confrontation with her beginnings. This includes Vaes Dothrak, her arc in Slaver's Bay, potentially Volantis (heir to the Targaryen empire) and ultimately Illyrio in Pentos, the author of her marriage to Drogo. Dany will not be returning to Essos, so GRRM is going to make the final steps of the "blood of Old Valyria" symbolic of that entire empire's relationship with its continent of origin.

That will take some time. Same with events in Westeros. I don't expect Dany to arrive until the end of TWOW to properly set the tone for those epic confrontations in ADOS (dance of dragons 2.0, resolution of the ice threat, conflagration of KL, political restructuring and glimpse at rebuilding).

[loveoaths]

i will never stop thinking about how palpatine forces count dooku to kill his apprentice asajj ventress because she is getting too powerful, and palpatine refuses to tolerate a threat, even if it is useful and temporarily loyal. and how the nature of sith master and apprentice is built at the intersection of dependence and expendability. masters train apprentices to need them, and never teach them everything they know (implying that the sith have been steadily losing their own cultural knowledge and techniques over thousands of years because of their own selfishness) out of fear of their apprentice rising up and killing them, which is also the one thing they have trained their apprentice to do. meanwhile apprentices, resentful of their dependence, go out and create apprentices of their own to usurp their master and continue the entire useless cycle. by nature, both master and apprentice are inherently crucial and expendable all at once, which they then use as a threat to keep one another in line.

but in the cases of ventress and maul, they’re both uniquely expendable because their existence is only tolerated (first by plagueis, then by sidious) under the condition that they are a tool that will be disposed of once it’s usefulness has ended. that’s crazy. years and years of training someone only to off them; the time sink alone is ridiculous. and neither of them expects this, either, because they believe in the old lineage of the sith: that their masters will honor their agreement and make them Sith Lords so long as they obey without question, only to find out in the worst way that they were never intended to become true Sith Lords. they were a means to an end, and both of them feel so deeply betrayed and hurt by this that they cannot let it go. like… i dunno man, but as much as that is a leopards-ate-my-face situation, it’s also deeply sad because these two in particular are essentially raised in the sith tradition. ventress has some years as a jedi, but not many. the foundation of their beings, the one solid thing they believed in, turned out to be hollow. sad.