#DISCLAIMER I AM YET TO READ THE COMICS SO IDK WHAT HAPPENS TO HER IN THEM

[madscientistenthusiast]

Personally I think that Azula should have been redeemed simply so that she can become Zuko's horrible little advisor who whispers evil little plans to him so that he can do the exact opposite

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

reasons why i think eternals was the worst marvel movie yet (y'all have been waiting for this ik) + my opinion on the rotten tomatoes rating

disclaimer: if you wanna throw hate then do not read this any further because this is just a long rant about how eternals is just plain fucking BAD. i do not intend to cause any drama but i just wanna give us true believers the multidimensional perspective back which we seem to have completely lost after endgame, very contrary to what should have really happened. i am not here to demotivate anyone, i am just really mad so bear with me, or else you are free to leave. thank you and if you have read this far then i am guessing you wanna read further so please, be my guest.

intro: so, firstly, ik eternals are pretty important in the comics and they have some real interesting roles to play in the infinity saga and shit but... BUT, they are basically gods. and all we really got to see was that they are a bunch of 7k year-olds going around and saving humanity, swearing to not interfere but they did. frankly, i think introducing all-powerful beings in something like the mcu seems like a cheap dc move. it's too comical and kinda plays with the fairly humane characters we already have in the movies, don't get me wrong, they are amazing in the movies but they are just- a tad too spandex for me iykwim. like even moon knight is a regular person. if i were to talk about the rotten tomatoes rating, i'm- not as shocked. ik it was gonna get a bad critics' rating but the audience would love it. idk, i think as compared to iron man, the movie was- atrocious- to say the least. chloe zhao, whose major genre of directing was supposed to be indie kinda ended up directing and writing a superhero movie. listen, i am not saying that i don't like indie movies, fo god's sake i was crying at the endings of god's own country and cmbyn! it's just that- you know- like- dune and the king would mix well, but if you mix dune and ladybird- like- ykwim?? it's just that. i didn't watch nomadland but ik it won an oscar so it must be something i might like but eternals was- how should i put this in a way that people don't @ me?-like, marvel is KNOWN for its graphics. damn, my cousin (he's been into marvel since iron man) said that he watched shang-chi, didn't understand what the fuck was going on but liked it because the water dragon was pretty. like- you understand what i'm saying right? like, even my father had the same reaction, so did my mom (although she understood what was going on but the graphics were fucking mindblowing). i think throughout the movie, i was searching for those two marvel signatures- the graphics and the dialogues. i guess the whole thing lacked that, adding fuel to the already burning pyre that was my anger at the plot holes. we'll get to that.

plot- the most basic and ill-written plot marvel has ever given? eternals. a celestial is about to emerge from within the core of the earth and it happens after the blip? like uh- excuse me? humanity is currently low and it's okay to kick it out of existence at that time? and no one decided to mention that arishem was the bad guy? so were the celestials? they didn't promote any life or shit, they were power-hungry assholes who destroyed life to have the universe o themselves. also the eternals are useless robots? like ikaris step aside we had vision before these mfs decided it was okay to kill him and torture wanda. and thena was having visions, okay but why didn't she react like a normal mc? why was she ready to kill everyone? ik she's the war goddess but we all know thena isn't dumb or erratic in any form or way. killing gilgamesh was fricking unnecessary, like why? also, where were these guys when thanos was around? like he finished off half of all living creatures and sersi was crying because ikaris left her three millennia ago?? like ma'am?? is he all that you have?? you just let gilgamesh and thena go because you weren't able to get over a rando laser eye? they weren't supposed to be a thing in the first place, but a female character just cannot live without a male supporting her. wait- let's shift this to the next topic.

relationships- so, like they made peggy male dependant, they did the same with sersi. like she kept hopping from dane to ikaris and then ikaris to dane like ma'am?? if you're going to make this gritty and realistic like dc rather than wholesome and fantastical like marvel, at least make the leader a little reliable because that's what a leader is supposed to be. also, why the FUCK was everyone looking for ikaris' approval when ajak had left sersi in charge like- huh? listen. like, ik y'all are new to the platonic besties routine marvel but gilgamesh and thena was pretty dumb, also, sprite, who looks like a literal frigging kid, is in love with ikaris? excuse mE, let a kid breathe? i DO NOT appreciate adult-minor relationships, no matter how leftist i am (ik sprite is a full-grown adult mentally and as old as everyone else but then why is she a kid??? like in atla, aang was a kid but he was 100+ years old, but he was still in love with katara, who was his age- ykw? ik i'm not making any sense- this is just too weird). even leftists who are super open-minded peopl don't appreciate that (i'm a leftist fyi), and it wasn't even like a little girl fangirling at her crush it was like full-on in love, that wasn't okay. sersi and ikaris was just plain bland. don't be blinded by that love for marvel, this was bad. they totally screwed up their chance on making druig and makkari the ultimate ship in the movie.

music score- oh boy don't even get my classical music ass started on this- the absence of the triangles, weak as fuck woodwinds, couldn't even hear those drums, like don't rumble, roar, like the string section just didn't sit right with me, it was basically just brass and effects like i could see the his dark materials meets game of thrones but THAT ISN'T MARVEL THAT'S THE POINT ISN'T IT. the percussion was okay, not as strong as this movie should have had, depending on the fact that it's practically based on 7k year-olds and THEY'RE FROM OLYMPIA GIMME THE GODDAMN ORCHESTRA!!! it wasn't eve as catchy as shang-chi, like, not even fucking CLOSE. like what would have actually worked was something like assassin's creed, damn that's the perfect mix of culture and majesty that the eternals (not the movie eternals but like eternals in general) truly deserved. idk, i see marvel heading towards a more innovative side of music and i appreciate that, like shang-chi and black panther, endgame and ragnarok are perfect examples and eternals should have matched the epicness of these movies if not even more. like the og theme's gonna remain OG okay? it's not antediluvian like everyone thinks it to be. like with tws everyone started throwing shade at it but LISTEN. these are SUPERHEROES, they deserve MAJESTY not TECHNICALITY and PERPLEXITY and MYSTERY. and eternals are GODS, so they deserve EVEN MORE. like i get effects are taking over music but the real epicness comes from the perfect mixture of brass and strings and that just did NOT happen in the score, like, at ALL, for me.

i don't like the rotten tomatoes rating MAJORLY because the audience liked it. like, i was expecting a similar reaction as my mom gave (which just deemed the movie a fucking abomination so yeah) but i did not get that rage from people, in fact, people are liking this movie or i guess i have just seen only people who are liking it, actively talk on social media due to the fear of sparking a discourse. i can understand because our fandom is big on collectivization and stuff but kudos to the critics for rating this one as the worst one yet, because, critically and from the view of a comics fan speaking, it did NOT live up to the expectations in any way and i have listed the main reasons above. it's just not the perfect marvel movie package and comparing it to shang-chi and black panther, even just with music scores, just feels like insulting the masterpieces these movies are. my overall opinion on this movie gets even worse but i love the way chloe went all out with the direction and the way they got us the representation in the movie. it was a brilliant effort but just not on the right path, for me, personally.

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its been a long time, boys. ud think that with this plague outbreak id have more time for shitty phone games, and ud be right! however, the time i normally might use to make tumblr posts has been taken up by reading lotr orc fanfiction non-stop for at least 1 full month. id still be in the thick of that obsession even now if only the fics would update. that is how i find you today folks, for the first time in many weeks i am staring at a screen with nothing to do. so come with me friends, theres no better way to fill the soulless void we are all in than reading a nice long tumbler post. 

disclaimer, first of all, a lot has happened, i prefer to keep these updates as plot spoiler free as possible but do to extenuating circumstances i feel like it is necessary to say, [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER BELOW]

that rowan fucking died,

i wont say exactly how, but i will say that her death was animated as were animations of myself and a few others reacting to our friend fresh corpse. obviously meant to be serious moments but the animations made it seem almost comical. 

i saw at least one post going around right after this update that was like ‘how could the game devs do this to us..... how could they hate rowan so.... this is punishment from on high’ and its like.... u guys do know what a story is right? the events of  a story are not typically done to punish less faithful fans, im pretty sure they were planning to kill rowan off from the beginning. this isnt disney im pretty sure the writers are not writing each chapter the night before its released by popular vote. 

that little “are we drifting away..?” scene with rowan makes more sense now. there was a bit in one of the scenes where the kids all reminisce on rowans life and the mc talks about it being the last real one on one time they had with rowan. a nice bitter sweet moment. i dont hate this turn of events. its a good reminder that actions have consequences and we are way past they days of “should i wear a hat or scarf?” its YA time now. 

i did manage to take 1 screenshot from this time, i had commented that before that when rowan said she didnt have many friedns that barnaby seemed to be hanging out with her without be there as a friend buffer and here was his reaction to her death:

;_;

the funniest part in all of this however, was of course cedericks reaction to rowans death “but she was so young....” LOL fuckin RIP.

lets see... what else.... i forget a lot of what happened but i think there was a time sensitive quidditch event in there somewhere? if so i  dont remember it. what i do remember of the quidditch pals is that im gonna play beater now, skye is being weird and cagey about it, andre is involved.... the others are there.....

sidenote, i love the shitty b characters they throw in to be like yes you know this person but no they are not cool enough for u to even think about befriending. the first one of those is face paint kid, and now we have another, who is a former beater girl with horrible bangs named bean who didnt go to any classes for a whole season so she could just play ball 24/7 and got kicked off the team.  this is a character who only exists to provide an explanation as to why there would be a beater position open but i love them on principle. 

right now im in the midst of another time sensitive event, this one is a bother-your-brother-at-work-day event where recent hogwarts graduate bill weasley is bullied by myself and his younger brother charlie into letting us go with him on one of his curse breaking jobs. 

so for those unfamiliar, bill works for the magical bank of england.... and his job seems to be “retrieving treasure” for said bank. in the books, there is a bit where he takes his family on one of his trips to egypt, where his job seemed to have been tomb plundering indiana jones style for the posterity of the english bank :X. i wont explain here why thats bad but its bad. 

the game devs however in this instance, at least SEEM to be doing what jkr couldnt do by attempting to salvage what is left of gringotts bank and form it into not a super shitty implications factory run by horrible jewish caricatures. bills mission is to retrieve a goblin made artifact that was taken by dragons, so no going to foreign countries to steal things from other people! only going to a dragon reserve to rifle through animal nests. they even appear to be providing us with a likable goblin character, egad!  

my hope for this event is that we get a plotline about how maybe, goblins arent shifty human haters for no reason, and in fact they hate magic humans for very understandable reasons, like being forced to go into hiding with the rest of the magical world even though only the humans wanted to do that, and maybe despite running the bank in england they still dont have a lot of political sway in the world of wizards and witches, and have to rely on the faith that said wizards and witches wont fuck them over at every turn, even as they see how they treat other non-humans, such as house elves, which they desperately dont want to end up like. and maybe they DONT only care about gold... maybe thats a human stereotype based on the fact that theres a long history of humans not respecting goblin ownership customs.... which i could get into..... but i wont.... i just....... very badly dont want them to suck ;__________;

i know i said its ok to still like a piece of media as long as you recognize the problems with it, and i do, but once this game is done im gonna stop hp posting all together. ive been feeling more and more uncomfortable making these posts lately.  

GENERAL GAME NOTES; theres been some new layout changes and such. 

most notably the stairs screen has been changed from a bulleted list of all locations to a screen with tiles picturing an image of each location along with the name + icons of all classes at each place. there is one additional location that is new and yet to be unlocked, and the dragon reservation is appearing temporarily as its own tile as well. i prefer this method of getting in and out of a temporary location to how they did it with car during the last christmas special. the stairs icon also now stays in the corner when you scroll through locations, allowing you to open the stairs menu without scrolling all the way back to the left. 

they also moved a few of the buttons down into the lower left corner rather than the left side & combined the story button and sidequest button. they added a little camera button as well, just like in the dormitory, that makes all the icons in a location disappear and look better for screenshots. 

the daily special add offer thing now has its own button in the top right corner of the screen, and idk if i mentioned it before but now there are daily challenges that appear in the sidequest screen that offer small rewards for completing 3 tasks per day + a better one if u get all 3. the prizes are things like 4 energy, 75 coins, 3 monster food. the better rewards are usually either more coins, 8 energy, 3 gems, or 1 notebook. i think that it does all the different color notebooks but i cant remember for sure if i ever saw the gold one up as a reward. i like this addition in any case. if you dont pick up ur reward by the end of the day, the next time u log on it will force u to stop and accept them, and if one of the rewards is energy and ur energy bar is full, it does not seem to stack beyond the bar so watch out.

 the character stats page is now more zoomed out so you can see your full character instead of just from the waist up. no change to the leaderboard. rowans face in the friendship roster is now a still black and white image that says ur friend may be gone but friendship is forever u-u. 

rowan has been removed from all classes. in the classes where the minigames involved her, those minigames have passed the mantle onto other friends in the class. in potions that person is now liz helping u find stuff off the shelves and in tranfiguration that person is badeea. bless these girls for helping mc get through it. touched my heart. 

theres been a few fun little “i know u have more free time now so uhhhh have some energy” prizes like they do sometimes when they dont update on schedule so thats been nice. just a few days ago they gifted us 3 gold notebooks the same way. :O. 

theres also been a few instances of a energy happy hour where for a limited time energy takes less time to refresh. normally it takes 4 mins for 1 energy to do this but during happy hour its like 2:30 mins. :U its all very interesting.

and that will have to do it for tonight my friends, ill do a post for the dragon event when its done because i do like it so far and i do like getting to bully bill with charlie. 

until next time, remember.......

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[free-the-mages]

Dragon Age questions

!!!!!!!!!!! i was tagged by the lovely @bitchesofostwick (thank you so much!!!) and i’m not tagging anyone because i’m late to this (sorry, i didn’t do it immediately when i saw it and in my usual fashion i forgot for a few days. >_>) so i know basically everyone i would tag has already been tagged. but anyway, let’s get on with it!!

p.s. this’ll be long because i ramble. ❤️

01) favorite game of the series? i’d say inquisition, probably. i rather like the character creator and the open-world feel of it. i like the gameplay of it too. it also gets bonus points because it’s the only game i know how to mod even a little, which makes me happy because i can get characters that are 100% unique to me. :]

02) how did you discover Dragon Age? Shit, nearly a decade ago i remember finding this disc for a game called Dragon Age: Origins lying around one day. it was my brother’s and i can’t remember where he said he got it, but anyway it was damaged and wouldn’t play anyway. i didn’t give a rat’s ass about it tbh. my thoughts of it went no further. it wasn’t until about three years later that my brother bought it for the 360 and i saw him play a bit and then learned that there was a character creator and I FUCKING LIVED (AND STILL DO) for games with character creators. so my happy ass started playing!!!! (that was the very first version of my Tabris, Lark!) shortly after that i purchased it for PC and the rest is history!

03) how many times you’ve played the games? I’ve completed Origins only once. I’ve started a few playthroughs, but i’ve never gotten very far. :/ oh, and i also completed Awakening once. i’ve completed DA2 i believe twice. Again, i’ve started multiple playthroughs, just never finished them all. and basically the same for Inquisition, tbh. i’ve done one playthrough without Trespasser and one with. OR i might have just loaded up the finished save and played Trespasser when i bought it. xD in any case i’ve played each game through at least once.

04) favorite race to play as? i don’t really see it as favorites? in Inquisition i’ve technically created a couple characters for each race (except a dwarf. haven’t gotten around to making a dwarf quizzy yet) but most of them are just “throwaway” characters that i make to romance people because i want to try all the romances but i can’t make every character i create into like, a character character, that exists fully in my head and outside the game. so any characters you hear about from me are ones that have really stuck out to me in one way or another. anyway the only warden i ever made that mattered any was Lark, who is of course an elf. i like them all tbh! i was rather excited about being able to play a badass qunari chick, though! (even though my first character was a human. go figure.)

05) favorite class? mage!!!!! when first played Origins i made Lark a warrior. idk for sure why, but i think it was because i didn’t want a character in the Circle. i wanted a city elf. idk why i picked warrior over rogue though. my first Hawke was a warrior. again, idk why. my second Hawke was a mage, and I. FELL. IN. LOVE. i loved the fighting animations, i loved the spells, i just…. i loved. when i finally was able to play DAI (which was a few years after it was released) my first character was a mage. again, i loved it. however, when i went back to DAO at one point and tried being a mage i was not a fan of it. i didn’t like the way it played. BUT OVERALL my favorite is definitely mage. :]

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time? the same. it might be sad and pitiful, but in-game decisions give me real-world feelings and anxiety so i just make the decisions that stay in my comfort zone. :] sometimes i’m brave and try different things, but for the most part i make the same decisions.

07) go-to adventuring group? Disclaimer: if applicable, i take my LI everywhere i go. :] i honestly try to take a variety of people because i want a balanced team as much as possible. i’m also a very casual player, so i don’t use the tactical camera or like, the behavior patterns or anything. i leave everything default. so i try to mix and match and come up with a team that i feel best compliments my character’s class/abilities or whatever, without me having to babysit them or really do any work in regards to that. that AND i like to hear the different banters tbh. when i’m picking my team sometimes i’ll stop and think, “omg, what is [character] and [character]’s relationship really like??? i never take them together so i don’t know!!” so i’ll expand my horizons and take groups of companions that i don’t normally take together. that being said, I LOVE ALL THE COMPANIONS ALL THE TIME SO I DON’T PLAY FAVORITES. :]

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into? Probably Sydnie, because she was the first game character that really developed into an OC. the first one i really wanted to try writing for. my first Inquisitor. :] she was the first (game) character that, as i was playing, i really sat and thought, “what would this living being with a soul do when presented with this situation?” instead of just clicking whatever. xD anyway, ideas just came flying at me when i thought about her. overall i feel like she’s very underdeveloped still as far as character’s go, but i love her and i’ve been thinking a lot more about her lately. i’d really love to finish writing something for her eventually. xD

09) favorite romance? oh man, idk. tbh i’ve not finished all of the romances so a part of me wants to be like, “i can’t really answer this tbh”. Lark romanced Alistair, and it was cute and i love them. (i’ve toyed with the idea of writing some stuff for them and it’d be so cute if i could actually get my ass into gear.) i really liked Fenris’s romance (and DA2 was the only game that i played through more than one companion’s romance.) and Cullen is the only one i’ve completed a romance for in DAI, though i played most of Josie’s and i’m love. :] honestly i really do feel like there really isn’t an answer from me for this one. sorry! D:

10) have you read any of the comics/books? nope. i was thinking of maybe getting The Masked Empire but i haven’t fully decided yet. i unfortunately don’t read books much these days. (i’d rather be on my comp playing games or arting or maybe reading fic!!)

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book? n/a

12) favorite DLCs? i am so fucking ambivalent wtf. seriously, people. i’m coming to learn that there are few things i have an actual feelings on either way. -___- Trespasser is the only big DLC i own and i fucking hate it. it’s great and all but i kind of cried at the end so whatever. :] but honestly i really really like the Spoils of the Qunari DLC!!!!! the antaam-saar!!!!!! (i think i spelled it right idk i’m too lazy to check please forgive me) and the mount!!!!! good stuff. i own (i think) all of the DLC for DA2 and i like them all well enough. i also own all for DAO and i like them well enough. i’ve only ever played the DAO in-game DLC as well as Awakening (meaning no Leli’s Song, no Witch Hunt, etc.) i just never got around to it. anyway, really. not really playing favorites here either. xD

13) things that annoy you. not much tbh. i suppose it’s annoying that sometimes in some games i’m sitting here like, “okay, why did my character just say these words? that wasn’t what the words that i clicked on said. ?????????”

14) Orlais or Ferelden? Ferelden! because it’s more rustic and i like that. :3 also mabaris.

15) templars or mages? mages. though i do believe there’s an argument to be had about the treatment of both groups at the hands of the chantry. but still mages. :]

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? obviously i intend to have and OC HOF, champion, and inquisitor all in one universe. i’ve had a hard time trying to figure out which characters i want to be canon and which aren’t. i’ve also toyed with the idea of having multiple world states that act as their own individual canons, but that’s a lot of work and like… lazy. :] for a while i just figured Lark was my canon warden no canon Hawke thus far and Sydnie my canon Inquisitor. but idk.

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM………………….. one of the mabaris in the first two games was named Charlemagne (i think my Hawke’s dogs are always Charlemagne) and i think Lark’s dog was… omg hold on i have it documented somewhere. *a few minutes later* Shawshank! Lark’s dog’s name is Shawshank.

18) have you installed any mods? yes because i’m garbage that is privileged enough to be a computer gamer and can install mods. i also really like having mods and making mods so yes. yes i install mods. :]

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden? not particularly, though she didn’t mind having to leave the alienage. she’d be dead or worse if she’d stayed and also she would have attempted to run away long before shit hit the fan if she didn’t have her family to think about. she still cared for her family and she did feel some sadness over leaving them, but it was like her soul made a sigh of relief and a weight was lifted. she was truly happy to leave. becoming a Grey Warden was sort of like a not completely unpleasant side effect.

20) hawke’s personality? i don’t really have a Hawke atm but I generally tend to play blue Hawkes.

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition? no and they should all thank the maker because every fucking one of ‘em would be in plaidweave and that’s that on that.

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? ugh this is too much thinking for me. why are there so many questions?!??!?!!? anyway idk. i think Sydnie would change the way she let herself react to a really bad thing that happened in the circle. because she reacted the way she did, it completely changed who she was and it takes her a long time to get herself back. sorry it’s vague but that’s just how these things go sometimes. :] Lark doesn’t really live in the past, if that makes sense? she doesn’t dwell on things enough to regret. why change the past when you can own this day???? as a certain cheeky lesbian elf apparently says maybe. :3

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? kind of, but mostly small things, and generally only things that pertain directly to my character. also i like to switch things up when it comes to romances. :] i try to take the basics of the in-game romance arc and tailor it a bit more to what i envision. or just what i want. ;D so i guess that could maybe be considered off canon, though i don’t really see the romances as canon anyway.

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone? no. not intentionally, anyway. it would take me way too long to explain my thought processes when it comes to creating characters (and this bitch is already long enough at this point) so i won’t go into details. :] so basically no, i don’t ever really set out to base characters on people. maybe subconsciously it happens? idk.

25) who did you leave in the Fade? my first playthrough was the default world state so i sacrificed Stroud because of course i did. with the custom world state i have now i sacrificed Hawke. D: because you know i’m not sacrificing Alistair!!!! especially not after he said the stuff about Lark and them being together AND I COULDN’T TAKE THAT AWAY. also it wasn’t like it was MY Hawke, because i don’t have an actual OC Hawke it was quite easy to sacrifice her because i had no real attachment to her. anyway don’t fucking ask me who i’ll sacrifice when i finally get around to actually deciding on my canons and their world state because I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. thank you. :]

26) favorite mount? i don’t use mounts much actually. i like hearing banter. that being said, i really like the way the qunari horse looks. i also like the harts and i don’t care what anyone else says i love their nails-on-chalkboard screech. fight me if you must but i said what i said. :]

THANKS SO MUCH TO ANYONE WHO READS THIS I APPRECIATE YOU LETTING ME WASTE YOUR TIME!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[jude-harley]

mental health wheeeee

i’m going to talk about some mental health stuff, it’s okay if you don’t read, there’s some self harm talk and some friendship drama (i don’t blame them but i still have some feelings and if u think it might apply to you don’t worry i still love and care about you unless you don’t want me to love and care about you in which case i will respectfully maintain my distance) and also i feel like it’s kinda guilt trippy but i literally don’t know so

it’s just alot of me dumping my thoughts and feelings i’m not trying to look a certain way i hope, and i’m not trying to argue anything i don’t know this is just feelings 

but i’d really appreciate it if you like the post if you do read the whole thing

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooow okay so i got some feelings

see, for someone with mental health issues, a fucked up past, and all the shit i’ve gone through, i’m actually doing pretty damn well.

key word: for.

i....... mean, it’s like.

on the outside, i’m doing okay. i have pretty damn good grades (A’s and B’s, even at my super hard school!), i socialize with people, i eat, i sleep, i bathe myself (most of the time.) hell, i haven’t even self harmed! 

well, i don’t know if i’ve self harmed or not, i guess. i don’t really know what counts as self harm. but i haven’t caused any physical damage!!!!! 

and so, so, so many people would tell me i’m lucky. but i can’t help but feel, am i really?

i know that probably sounds incredibly fucking spoiled, but it’s like that one comic about how the broken cup is mended, and the chipped cup is cracked forever.

i’m not kidding when i say that. i internalize everything and trap my feelings and never let them out, but they don’t go away. ever. and then like, i don’t have a standard of what “normal” is, and i wind up suffering and in pair for so long because i just keep going and going and going and going and nobody notices and i think it’s normal because none of my work is affected and i’m still productive and i help other people so nothing must be wrong???

i stayed with my abusive mother for so fucking long because of that mentality

i guess what i’m saying is that the very specific life i’ve lead has cooked up a brain with a very weird.... brain thing. i don’t really think i can call it a mental illness?

see, my mental health so much revolves around other people. i need other people as a reference point for whats okay, it fluctuates based on other people’s opinions of me, i place my self worth on how useful and productive i am, and the main, absolute main reason i’ve stayed alive and never self harmed is because of other people.

but like.... not in a good or healthy way. well, right now, since i’m out of my abusive mom’s household i’m doing better and am trying to stay positive and motivated with things like “you can’t die yet because you haven’t shown your art to the guys who made avatar yet!” i mean, that’s still based around other people’s opinion of me, but at least it’s a more stable goal than appeasing my mother.

like, i swear, the day that she took away my computer, and screamed at me and hit me until i was sobbing in my bathroom, THE ONLY THING stopping me from cutting out of how much i hated myself was that it would make a mess, which was not good or productive.

and it’s just???? been like that for so fucking long???? i know “any reason to not self harm or commit suicide is a good reason” but it doesn’t FEEL like a good reason. i still hate myself so, so, so, so fucking much. i feel genuinely worthless. 

and it’s like.... you know, maybe it would be better if i self harmed? maybe i should? because then maybe someone would care because literally all it fucking takes for me to feel good is someone telling me i do good. that’s...... that’s fucking it.

and yeah i guess this is partially about some shit that happened with an online friend group that resulted in me getting banned from the group chat (i made a hitler joke without thinking, it was along the lines of “don’t kill baby hitler if u travel back in time lol” and spiraled so out of control) and i genuinely feel fucking awful about it. and i’m not angry at them. i’m really not. i guess i just wish that, i dunno.... honestly. i wish i knew how to think and what to do exactly? because i had fucked up without thinking before and i’ve apologized before and said i would get better, and i’ve really been trying, i’ve been trying so hard to get better, but like, they’ve said i haven’t actually gotten better and i do feel really bad and idk i don’t know if i actually have gotten better and they were just angry or if i haven’t improved i dunno

and like the worst part is that i feel like i can’t express that i really am sorry without sounding like a liar and a faker and fucking manipulative and just trying to get it over with (even right now!!!!) because that’s how my mom was and god i feel like even right now i’m making more fucking excuses because i’m just a shitty person like that. i’m so sorry if it is like that don’t feel bad 

but also i guess it’d be nice if when calling me out and shit they had made me feel like less of a despicable person like they literally did say alot of shit like that and i don’t even remeber who did it (there were three times i was called out within the group chat, the first time i really WAS doing something shitty and i needed to be called out and i felt alot.... idk cleaner afterwards and i think i really did improve

the other two times i guess it was really just one guy who’s real name i don’t know and a couple other people (it’s such a blur i can’t remember) who were fairly justified but idk i wish that they weren’t so harsh about it i guess. i mean they didn’t have to be like “what u did wasn’t that bad uwu” but it would have been nice if they had been more like “what u did was shitty, but you can learn from it.” i mean i’m not trying to be passive agressive here this is legit how i feel. also i feel like they didn’t believe me when i apologized and i’m paranoid about being guilt trippy when i talk about my feelings (see: my mother) and i guess this just made it worse because i can’t say that it’s just my mental illness, there’s a strong basis for fact here and every time i feel bad about it i just feel more guilt trippy and it’s a horrible vicious cycle

DISCLAIMER IT IS NOT MY FRIENDS FAULT I STILL LOVE THEM AND I MISS THEM EVERY DAY BUT I WANT TO RESPECT THEIR DESCION TO NOT TALK TO ME ANYMORE

mina, vi, madi, if you are reading this, i am sorry, i really am. you don’t have to forgive me or be friends with me again but i don’t hate you and i don’t want to hurt you. i understand that i might hurt you without meaning to and it’s better for you to be away from me, that’s okay. but i want you to know you aren’t bad people, and i don’t hate you or not like you, and you guys deserve the best stuff in the world.

i dunno, i guess this kinda got off topic. odds are they won’t actually read it, and i still feel guilty trippy and bad. like so so so fucking guilt trippy. i feel fake and like a faker and my moiral hasn’t been online for a while and i really miss her

tldr: i feel like fucking shit and a faker who guilt trips people because i hurt some people and feel about about it and because i manage to remain functional and productive despite my shit and it makes me feel like a faker and also makes me want to self harm because it’s not actually that bad unless i self harm. i don’t actually want to die thank god now that i’m out of my abusive mother’s household but i’m so close to self harming. 

WARNING I TALK A SHIT TON ABOUT DEATH AND SUICIDE AND SELF HARMING

i mean i feel like it wouldn’t hurt if i just. did it once. you know i already get so many intrusive thoughts about hurting myself i could maybe just..... cut myself a couple places on my arms. on my legs. not neat, messy, natural, like i got them in a fight or in an accident. but i guess then nobody would still notice unless i told them but maybe i could tell them 

but if i told them then i would just be a faker, right, cause i don’t actually wanna die. again, literally i don’t want to die because it would be an inconvenience to other people. i have maybe, like, one reason i don’t want to die that isn’t “i’d inconvience other people and make them sad despite the fact that i’m a useless piece of garbage because one, death in general makes people upset, two, i’m leave behind such a mess, not just physically, but with all the paperwork too, and three, people wouldn’t actually miss me all that much, they’d feel sorry for themselves, feel soooooo bad because oh no where did i go wrong, all the bullshit like that.” of course, some people would be more than inconvenienced, my dad, stepmom, sister, pets, and hopefully my two best friends would be heartbroken, but my mom would only mourn for her hypothetical daughter, not her real kid who’s gender is... i don’t even know. probably a boy and a girl. but she’d never accept it. 

anyway, my only reason for living other than what’s stated above is i have to go show the avatar guys my work, and my long term reason for living is making a tv show a la gravity falls that alex hirsch loves so much he guest stars in it and maybe even works on it with me.

so alex, if you go, i go too.

but yeah see if i did that i’d jsut be doing it for attention and everyone would hate me because i’m amking a mockery of a real and serious mental illness. and then if my dad found out i’d be sent to a mental institution for a week (protocol where i live, if your child shows suicidal ideation, send em to the hostipal) and other people would be like, “yeah i’m in cause i took 48 prozacs and then went swimming in a pool of vodka that i not only drank but attempted to drown myself in” and i’d be there like “yeah uh i cut myself once for attention and it was specifically planned out in a place that wouldn’t kill me but would attract just enough attention to get other people to sympathize with me because atm i don’t actually want to die, i just kinda hate myself” and then they’d all hate me cause i’m a fucking faker who’s passing all they’re classes and even did well in most of them and is on track and doesn’t do drugs or have sex or do anything dangerous and i don’t really hate myself and i’m just a fucking leech on resources who think’s they’re depressed BUT THEY ARENT AND I’M JSUT A DFUKCING PIECE OF SHIT

and see i know this would happen because at my local lgbt+ club lots of people think i’m a faker and a prude or maybe they don’t and they see me as 100% mentally healthy or they even envy my life and if i hated myself they’d be like “wtf????? ur life i so good man???? like, only one parent is abusive??? you have good grades???? you handle urself??? you have friends????? you aren’t as bad as me”

and okay maybe they don’t treat me like that and they probably don’t but it’s how i feel. i feel like shit and a faker but why do i want to hurt myself so much but not die that doesn’t make sense

but listen if you get to the end of this, and you are reading this. this isn’t a situation where i’m like, “tell me how awful i am” see because after reading this i guess you get that i hate myself but i don’t hate myself but i hate myself for not hating myself that much 

so if ur reading this and u wanna help yes, yes, validation and positivity and “ur not a horrible person or a faker” would be unbelivabley helpful because like i said i’m very impacted by other people