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planckstorytime · 6 months ago

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Strangled by Gentle Hands

*The following contains spoilers*

“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what was?”

– Solas, Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

I. Whatever It Takes

My premium tickets for a local film festival crumpled and dissolved in my pants pocket, unredeemed as they swirled in the washing machine. Throughout that October weekend in 2015, I neglected my celebratory privileges, my social visits to friends, and even my brutal honors literary theory class. All because a golden opportunity stretched before me: a job opening for a writing position at the once-legendary BioWare, with an impending deadline.

The application process wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Rather than copy+paste a cover letter and quickly swap out a couple of nouns here and there, this opening required me to demonstrate my proficiency in both words and characters – namely, BioWare’s characters. Fanfiction wasn’t normally in my wheelhouse – at the time, I had taken mainly to spinning love sonnets (with a miserable success rate). But I wouldn’t balk at this chance to work on one of my dream franchises – especially since the job prospects for fresh English BAs weren’t exactly promising. So, I got to work crafting a branching narrative based on the company’s most recent title: Dragon Age: Inquisition. Barely two months prior, I saw the conclusion of that cast’s story when the Inquisitor stabbed a knife into a map and swore to hunt her former ally, Solas, to the ends of the earth. Now it was my turn to puppeteer them, to replicate the distinct voice of each party member and account for how they’d react to the scenario I crafted. And if it went well, then maybe I’d be at the tip of the spear on that hunt for Solas. Finishing the writing sprint left me exhausted, but also proud of my work.

The folks at BioWare obviously felt differently, because I received a rejection letter less than a week later. Maybe they found my story trite and my characterization inaccurate, or maybe they just didn’t want to hire a student with no professional experience to his name. Regardless, I was devastated. It wouldn’t be until years later that I learned that, had my application been accepted, I likely would’ve been drafted into working on the studio’s ill-fated looter shooter, Anthem (2019), noteworthy for its crunch and mismanagement. My serendipitous rejection revealed that sometimes the future you strive to build was never meant to match your dreams. What seemed like an opportunity to strike oil actually turned out to be a catastrophic spill.

Still, my passion for the Dragon Age series (as well as Mass Effect) persisted in the face of BioWare’s apparent decline. I maintain that Inquisition is actually one of the studio’s best games, and my favorite in the series, to the point where I even dressed up as Cole for a convention one time. The game came to me at a very sensitive time in my life, and its themes of faith vs falsehood, the co-opting of movements in history, and the instability of power all spoke to me. But I will elaborate more on that at a later date. My point is, I held on to that hope that, in spite of everything, BioWare could eventually deliver a satisfactory resolution to the cliffhanger from their last title. Or perhaps it was less hope and more of a sunk cost fallacy, as an entire decade passed with nary a peep from Dragon Age.

As years wore on, news gradually surfaced about the troubled development of the fourth game. Beginning under the codename “Joplin” in 2015 with much of the same creative staff as its predecessors, this promising version of the game would be scrapped two years later for not being in line with Electronic Arts’s business model (i.e. not being a live-service scam). Thus, it was restarted as “Morrison”. The project cantered along in this borderline unrecognizable state for a few years until they decided to reorient it back into a single-player RPG, piling even more years of development time onto its shaky Jenga tower of production. Indeed, critical pieces were constantly being pulled out from the foundations during this ten year development cycle. Series regulars like producer Mark Darrah and director Mike Laidlaw made their departures, and the project would go on to have several more directors and producers come and go: Matthew Goldman, Christian Dailey, and Mac Walters, to name a few key figures. They eventually landed on John Epler as creative director, Corinne Busche as game director, and Benoit Houle as director of product development. Then came the massive layoffs of dozens of employees, including series-long writer Mary Kirby, whose work still made it into the final version of DA4. Finally, the game received a rebranding just four months before release, going from Dreadwolf (which it had been known as since 2022) to The Veilguard (2024) – a strange title with an even stranger article.

Needless to say, these production snags did not inspire confidence, especially considering BioWare’s been low on goodwill between a string of flops like Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) and, before that, controversial releases like Dragon Age II (2011) and Mass Effect 3 (2012). The tumult impacted The Veilguard’s shape, which scarcely resembles an RPG anymore, let alone a Dragon Age game. The party size is reduced from four to three, companions can no longer be directly controlled, the game has shifted to a focus on action over tactics a la God of War (2018), the number of available abilities has shrunk, and there’s been a noticeable aesthetic shift towards a more cartoonish style. While I was open to the idea of changing up the combat (the series was never incredible on that front), I can’t get over the sensation that these weren’t changes conceived out of genuine inspiration, but rather vestigial traces from the live-service multiplayer iteration. The digital fossil record implies a lot. Aspects like the tier-based gear system, the instanced and segmented missions, the vapid party approval system, the deficit of World State import options, and the fact that rarely does more than the single mandatory companion have anything unique to say on a quest – it all points to an initial design with a very different structure from your typical single-player RPG. The Veilguard resembles a Sonic Drive-In with a mysterious interior dining area – you can tell it was originally conceived as something else.1

That said, the product itself is functional. It contains fewer bugs than any previous game in the franchise, and maybe BioWare’s entire catalog for that matter. I wouldn’t say the combat soars, but it does glide. There’s a momentum and responsiveness to the battle system that makes it satisfying to pull off combos and takedowns against enemies, especially if you’re juggling multiple foes at once. Monotony sets in after about thirty or forty hours, largely due to the fact that you’re restricted to a single class’s moveset on account of the uncontrollable companions. Still, this design choice can encourage replay value, as it does in Mass Effect, and free respec options and generous skill point allocations offset the tedium somewhat.

While the character and creature designs elicit controversy – both for the exaggerated art direction and, in the case of demons and darkspawn, total redesign – the environmental art is nothing short of breathtaking. I worried that this title would look dated because of how long it had been in development and the age of the technology it was built upon. Those fears were swiftly banished when I saw the cityscapes of Minrathous, the cyclopean architecture of the Nevarran Grand Necropolis, or the overgrown ruins of Arlathan. But like everything in The Veilguard, it’s a double-edged sword. The neon-illuminated streets of Docktown, the floating citadel of the Archon’s Palace, and the whirring mechanisms of the elven ruins evoke a more fantastically futuristic setting that feels at odds with all three previous titles (even though all three exhibited a stylistic shift to some extent). It aggravates the feeling of discordance between this rendition of Thedas and the one returning players know.

All of these elements make The Veilguard a fine fantasy action-adventure game – even a good one, I’d say. But as both the culmination of fifteen years of storytelling and as a narrative-based roleplaying game – the two most important facets of its identity – it consistently falls short. Dragon Age began as a series with outdated visuals and often obtuse gameplay, but was borne aloft by its worldbuilding, characterization, and dialogue. Now, that paradigm is completely inverted. The more you compare it to the older entries, the more alien it appears. After all these years of anticipation, how did it end up this way? Was this the only path forward?

Throughout The Veilguard’s final act, characters utter the phrase “Whatever it takes,” multiple times. Some might say too many. I feel like this mantra applied to the development cycle. As more struggles mounted, the team made compromise after compromise to allow the game to exist at all, to give the overarching story some conclusion in the face of pressure from corporate shareholders, AAA market expectations, and impatient fans. Whatever it takes to get this product out the door and into people’s homes.

This resulted in a game that was frankensteined together, assembled out of spare parts and broken dreams. It doesn’t live up to either the comedic heights or dramatic gravity of Inquisition’s “Trespasser” DLC from 2015, despite boasting the same lead writer in Trick Weekes. Amid the disappointment, we’re left with an unfortunate ultimatum: It’s either this or nothing.

I don’t mean that as a way to shield The Veilguard from criticism, or to dismiss legitimate complaints as ungrateful gripes. Rather, I’m weighing the value of a disappointing reality vs an idealized fantasy. The “nothing”, in this sense, was the dream I had for the past decade of what a perfect Dragon Age 4 looked like. With the game finally released, every longtime fan has lost their individualized, imaginary perfection in the face of an authentic, imperfect text. Was the destruction of those fantasies a worthy trade? It doesn’t help that the official artbook showcases a separate reality that could’ve been, with a significant portion dedicated to the original concepts for Joplin that are, personally, a lot closer to my ideal vision. I think it would’ve done wonders to ground the game as more Dragon Age-y had they stuck with bringing back legacy characters, such as Cole, Calpernia, Imshael, and the qunari-formerly-known as Sten.

I don’t necessarily hate The Veilguard (I might actually prefer it to Dragon Age II), but I can’t help but notice a pattern in its many problems – a pattern that stems from a lack of faith in the audience and a smothering commitment to safety over boldness. As I examine its narrative and roleplaying nuances, I wish to avoid comparing it to groundbreaking RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) or even Dragon Age: Origins (2009), as the series has long been diverging from that type of old-school CRPG. Rather, except when absolutely necessary, I will only qualitatively compare it to Inquisition, its closest relative.

And nowhere does it come up shorter to Inquisition than in the agency (or lack thereof) bestowed to the player to influence their character and World State.

II. Damnatio Memoriae

No, that’s not the name of an Antivan Crow (though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking so, since we have a character named “Lucanis Dellamorte”). It’s a Latin phrase meaning “condemnation of memory”, applied to a reviled person by destroying records of their existence and defacing objects of their legacy. In this case, it refers to the player. When it comes to their influence over the world and their in-game avatar, The Veilguard deigns to limit or outright eliminate it.

Save transfers that allow for the transmission of World States (the carrying over of choices from the previous games) have been a staple of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises. Even when their consequences are slight, the psychological effect that this personalization has on players is profound, and one of many reasons why fans grow so attached to the characters and world. At its core, it’s an illusion, but one that’s of similar importance to the illusion that an arbitrary collection of 1s and 0s can create an entire digital world. Player co-authorship guarantees a level of emotional investment that eclipses pre-built backgrounds.

However, The Veilguard limits the scope to just three choices, a dramatic decrease from the former standard. All import options come from Inquisition, with two just from the “Trespasser” expansion. One variable potentially impacts the ending, while the other two, in most cases, add one or two lines of dialogue and a single codex entry. Inquisition, by contrast, imported a bevy of choices from both previous games. Some of them had major consequences to quests such as “Here Lies the Abyss” and “The Final Piece”, both of which incorporated data from two games prior. The Veilguard is decidedly less ambitious. Conspicuously absent options include: whether Morrigan has a child or not, the fate of Hawke, the status of the Hero of Fereldan, the current monarchs of Fereldan and Orlais, the current Divine of the southern Chantry, and the individual outcomes of more than two dozen beloved party members across the series. Consequently, the fourth installment awkwardly writes around these subjects – Varric avoids mentioning his best friend, Hawke, as does Isabela ignore her potential lover. Fereldan, Orlais, and the Chantry are headed by Nobody in Particular. Morrigan, a prominent figure in the latest game, makes no mention of her potential son or even her former traveling companions. And the absence of many previous heroes, even ones with personal stakes in the story, feels palpably unnatural. I suspect this flattening of World States into a uniform mold served, in addition to cutting costs, to create parity between multiple cooperative players during the initial live-service version of Morrison. Again, the compromises of the troubled production become apparent, except this time, they’re taking a bite out of the core narrative.

Moreover, the game’s unwillingness to acknowledge quantum character states means that it’s obliged to omit several important cast members. At this point, I would’ve rather had them establish an official canon for the series rather than leaving everything as nebulous and undefined as possible. That way at least the world would’ve felt more alive, and we could’ve gotten more action out of relevant figures like Cassandra, Alistair, Fenris, Merrill, Cole, and Iron Bull. Not to mention that The Veilguard’s half-measure of respectful non-intereference in past World States ultimately fails. Certain conversations unintentionally canonize specific events, including references to Thom Rainier and Sera, both of whom could go unrecruited in Inquisition, as well as Morrigan’s transformation into a dragon in the battle with Corypheus in that game’s finale. But whatever personal history the player had with them doesn’t matter. The entire Dragon Age setting now drifts in a sea of ambiguity, its history obfuscated. It feels as gray and purgatorial as Solas’s prison for the gods.

Beyond obscuring the past, The Veilguard restrains the player’s agency over the present. When publications first announced that the game would allow audiences to roleplay transgender identities and have that acknowledged by the party, I grew very excited – both at the encouraging representation, and at the depth of roleplaying mechanics that such an inclusion suggested. Unfortunately, The Veilguard offers little in roleplaying beyond this. The player character, Rook, always manifests as an altruistic, determined, friendly hero, no matter what the player chooses (if they’re offered choices at all). The selections of gender identity and romantic partner constitute the totality of how Rook defines themselves, post-character creation – exceptions that prove the rule of vacancy. Everything else is set in stone. The options presented are good, and should remain as standard, but in the absence of other substantive roleplaying experiences, their inclusion starts to feel frustratingly disingenuous and hollow, as if they were the only aspects the developers were willing to implement, and only out of obligation to meet the bare minimum for player agency. In my opinion, it sours the feature and exudes a miasma of cynicism.

Actual decisions that impact the plot are few and far between, but at least we have plenty of dialogue trees. In this type of game, dialogue options might usually lead to diverging paths that eventually converge to progress the plot. You might be choosing between three different flavors of saying “yes”, but as with the World States, that illusion of agency is imperative for the roleplaying experience. The Veilguard doesn’t even give you the three flavors – the encouraging, humorous, and stern dialogue options are frequently interchangeable, and rarely does it ever feel like the player is allowed to influence Rook’s reactions. Relationships with companions feel predetermined, as the approval system has no bearing on your interactions anymore. There are so few moments for you to ask your companions questions and dig in deep compared to Inquisition. Combined together, these issues make me question why we even have dialogue with our party at all. Rook adopts the same parental affect with each grown adult under their command, and it feels like every conversation ends the same way irrespective of the player’s input. With the exception of the flirting opportunities, they might as well be non-interactive cutscenes.

Rook’s weak characterization drags the game down significantly. With such limited authorship afforded to the player, it’s difficult to regard them as anything more than their eponymous chess piece – a straightfoward tool, locked on a grid, and moving flatly along the surface as directed.

III. Dull in Docktown

On paper, a plot summary of The Veilguard sounds somewhere between serviceable and phenomenal: Rook and Varric track down Solas to stop him from tearing down the Veil and destroying the world. In the process, they accidentally unleash Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, two of the wicked Evanuris who once ruled over the elven people millenia ago. With Solas advising them from an astral prison, Rook gathers a party together to defeat the risen gods, along with their servants and sycophants. Over the course of the adventure, they uncover dark truths about the origins of the elves, the mysterious Titans, and the malevolent Blight that’s served as an overarching antagonistic force. Eventually, Rook and friends join forces with Morrigan and the Inquisitor, rally armies to face off with their foes, and slay both the gods and their Archdemon thralls before they can conjure the full terror of the Blight. As Solas once again betrays the group, Rook and company have to put a decisive stop to his plans, which could potentially involve finally showing him the error of his ways.

The bones of The Veilguard’s story are sturdier than a calcium golem. Problems arise when you look at the actual writing, dialogue, and characterization – the flesh, blood, and organs of the work.

I’ve seen others chide the writing as overly quippy, but that better describes previous titles. Rather, I think The Veilguard’s dialogue is excessively utilitarian and preliminary, like a first draft awaiting refinement. Characters describe precisely what’s happening on screen as it’s happening, dryly exposit upon present circumstances, and repeat the same information ad nauseum. This infuriating repetition does little to reveal hidden components of their personalities, or their unique responses to situations. You won’t hear anything like Cole’s cerebral magnetic poetry or Vivienne’s dismissive arrogance. Many exchanges could’ve been uttered by Nobody in Particular, as it’s just dry recitation after recitation. It almost feels like watching an English second language instructional video, or a demonstration on workplace safety precautions. Clarity and coherence come at the cost of characterization and charisma.

Words alone fail to make them interesting. Most companions lack the subtlety and depth I had come to expect from the franchise, with many conversations amounting to them just plainly stating how they’re feeling. Most rap sessions sound like they’re happening in a therapist’s office with how gentle, open, and uncomplicated they feel. Compare this to Inquisition, where every character has a distinct voice (I should know, I had to try to copy them for that stupid application), as well as their own personal demons that it betrays: Sera’s internalized racism, hints of Blackwall’s stolen valor, Iron Bull’s espionage masked by bluster, or Solas’s lingering guilt and yearning for a bygone age. These aspects of their characters aren’t front and center, but things the audience can delve into that gives every moment with them more texture. The Veilguard’s companions lay out all their baggage carefullly and respectfully upfront, whether it’s Taash’s multiculturalism and gender identity issues or Neve’s brooding cynicism towards Tevinter’s underbelly. You’ve plumbed the depths of their personas within the first few minutes of meeting most of them.

Small exceptions exist. Professor Emmerich Volkarin stands out from the rest of the cast as a particularly inspired character: a charming, Vincent Price-like necromancer. His attachment to tombs and necromancy as a way to cope with his crippling fear of death makes for curiously compelling melodrama. The way in which he ultimately has to face his fear – either by foregoing his opportunity for immortality to save his beloved skeletal ward, Manfred, or by allowing his friend to pass on so that he can transcend into a new type existence – rises above the other binary choices in the game by being both narratively interesting and legitimately difficult to judge. Still, I feel Emmerich’s whole “lawful good gentleman necromancer” conceit, while a unique and clever subversion of tropes, would’ve worked better if it actually contrasted with anyone else in the party. Instead, the whole crew is full of unproblematic do-gooders who are forbidden by the game to nurture any meaningful interpersonal conflict. While I’d appreciate this lack of toxicity in my real-life relationships, fictional chemistry demands more reactive ingredients.

The Veilguard’s developers frequently positioned the game as “cozy” and about a “found family”, but I can guarantee you that there’s more tension at my Thanksgiving dinners than there is anywhere in this title. This family would get along swimmingly even during a presidential election. The thing about the “found family” trope is that it’s more satisfying when it’s earned. Here, it represents the default state, the starting point, and the status quo that they will always return to. Any minor squabbles (Harding wanting to sleep in the dirt, Emmerich taking too many books on a camping trip, Taash not liking necromancy) are introduced and squashed within the same scene. They all feel so extraneous. There’s so little friction among the companions here that you’d think it disproves Newton’s Third Law. The previous games never struggled in this regard, which makes the choices here all the more baffling.

Beyond the intra-party dynamics, characters lack grit or darkness to them – even when the narrative absolutely calls for it. Remember how I described the necromancer as lawful good (to use traditional Dungeons and Dragons alignments)? Yeah, that’s every character. Even the demonic assassin. Lucanis is a notorious hitman possessed by a demon of Spite, and possibly the weakest character of the game. This may or may not be due to the fact that his writer, Mary Kirby, was laid off mid-development. Regardless, he has noticeably less content than the other party members and generally feels unfinished. The demonic possession storyline goes nowhere; he doesn’t exorcise Spite, nor does he learn more about it or how to live with it. Instead, Spite is just an excuse to give Lucanis cool spectral wings (which he will use to fail several assassination attempts). The demon itself mostly just comes across as rude rather than threatening. The biggest issue, however, stems from the absence of any edge to Lucanis. When confronting his traitorous cousin, Ilario – the man who sold out Lucanis’s family to an enemy faction, kidnapped his grandmother, and made multiple attempts on his life – our grizzled, hardened assassin, pushed to the brink, demands… due process. Seriously, if your choices have led Lucanis to have a hardened heart, his method for dealing with the grievous traitor is sending him to jail. That’s The Veilguard’s idea of vindictive brutality among a clan of unforgiving murderers-for-hire. By contrast, Inquisition features Sera insubordinately murdering a stuck-up nobleman for talking too much. I believe that if modern BioWare had written The Godfather (1972), it would’ve ended with Michael Corleone recommending his brother-in-law to attend confession and seek a marriage counselor.

The writers seem intent on making the cast wholly unproblematic, with no way that the audience could ever question their morality or taste the delicious nuance of seeing someone you like do something bad. Measures were taken to child-proof every aspect of the good guys so that they couldn’t possibly be construed as anything else – even if it constricts them to the point of numbness and eventual atrophy.

To make things as palatable and accessible as possible, the language itself was dumbed down. Characters make frequent use of neologisms and bark phrases like “Suit up,” or “These guys go hard.” It emulates popular blockbuster superhero stuff rather than staying true to the diction the series traditionally employed. It’s all about the team, and the entire Dragon Age world has been stripped down into simplistic conflicts and recognizable stock characters.

This is why The Veilguard’s story largely fails. Despite being ostensibly being about the characters, they come off as an afterthought. Most of the time, only the sole requisite follower has anything to say on a given mission. Even in combat, their wholeness as fully-implemented party members falls short of expectations. Their damage output pales in comparison to the Rook’s, they have no health and cannot be downed in battle, and they mainly exist to give the player three extra ability slots. That’s the game’s true ethos for the companions, whether in combat or dialogue – utility, tools to make things happen rather than elegantly crafted identities. We end up with the largest amount of content per companion among any game in the franchise, only to have the weakest roster.

I know these writers can do better, because I’ve seen them do better. Trick Weekes wrote Iron Bull, Cole, and Solas in Inquisition, as well as Mordin Solus and Tali’Zorah in Mass Effect 2 (2010) and Mass Effect 3. Mary Kirby wrote Varric throughout the series, as well as Sten and Loghain in Origins. Plenty of other experienced writers, such as Sylvia Feketekuty and John Dombrow also contributed, so I can’t put any of the blame on a lack of skill. I don’t know if the mistake was trying to appeal to a wider audience, or if the constant reorientations of the DA4 project drained the crew’s passion and left them lacking in time to polish things.

I personally suspect that the writers had to rush out a script for all of the voiced dialogue. A video from August of 2020 showed off the voice actors for Davrin and Bellara, more than four years before the final game’s release. I think the codex entries, letters, and missives that you find throughout the game, which consist of only text, are much better written than the dialogue. My theory is that the writers had more time to revise and spruce up these tidbits, where edits were minimally invasive, as far as production is concerned. But my knowledge is limited; after all, BioWare rejected my application almost a decade ago.

Still, there are aspects of The Veilguard’s plot that I enjoy. The lore reveals were particularly satisfying2, and many felt rewarding after a decade of speculation. I called that elves were originally spirits, as well as the connection between the Archdemons and the Evanuris, but I wouldn’t have guessed that the Blight formed out of the smoldering rage of the Titans’ severed dreams. I’d concisely describe The Veilguard’s story as the opposite of Mass Effect 3: Whereas ME3 did excellent character work, the characterization in The Veilguard leaves much to be desired. Whereas ME3’s tone was overwhelmingly grim, The Veilguard feels inappropriately positive. Whereas ME3’s lore reveals ruined much about the series’s mystique, The Veilguard’s helped tie the setting’s history together. And whereas ME3 fumbled the ending about as much as it possibly could, The Veilguard actually coalesces into a spectacular third act.

While I think the twist with Varric’s death is weak (outright pitiful compared to the Dread Wolf twist of Inquisition), the actual events that make up the finale carry a momentum and urgency that the rest of the game severely lacked. Everything from the sacrifice and kidnapping of Rook’s companions to the slaying of Ghilan’nain to the awe-inspiring battle between the Dread Wolf and Archdemon Lusacan – the whole affair takes the best parts of Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission and elevates it to the scale of an apocalyptic series finale. Ultimately, Solas takes center stage as the final antagonist, and the drama crescendos to a height the rest of the game desperately needed. He remains the most interesting character in the game and perhaps the franchise, and thankfully, the resolution to his story did not disappoint me (though I would’ve preferred the option for a boss battle against his Dread Wolf form if the player’s negotiations broke down). So in that sense, I think the worst possible scenario was avoided.

But is that really worth celebrating? Averting complete disaster? Exceeding the lowest standards? In many regards, The Veilguard still could have been – should have been – more.

IV. A World of Tranquil

In my essay on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024), I briefly discussed a trend in media to sand off the edges so as not to upset the audience in any way. The encroachment of this media sanitization seems to be an over-correction to the brimming grimness of late 2000s and early 2010s fiction (to which the first two Dragon Age titles belong), which earned comparable levels of criticism. Like Solas, I occasionally feel trapped in a cycle of regret, where it feels like our previous yearning for less aggressive, mean-spirited content led to a media landscape that prioritized patronizingly positive art. Now it’s clear to me that, in order to have a point, you need to have an edge.

Dragon Age historically drew a very progressive audience, and many of them congregated around Tumblr in that website’s heyday. Tumblr has garnered something of a reputation for overzealous discourse and sensitivity among its userbase, and I think that the developers of The Veilguard, in an attempt to cater to one of their core audiences, may have misunderstood both that passion and the fundamental appeal of their products. They became so concerned about optics, about avoiding politically charged criticism, that they kneecapped their world-building, rendering it as inoffensive and sterile as possible. It’s not so much “PC culture” as it is “PG culture.”

To that end, the various governments, factions, and societies of Thedas lost their edge. Dragon Age previously presented itself as anti-authoritarian by showcasing the rampant abuses of power across all cultures. Whether it was the incarceration of mages under the Chantry, the slavery practiced by the Tevinter Imperium, the expansionist anti-individualism of the Qun, the restrictive dwarven caste system, or the rampant racism against elves, social strife abounded in this world. I think that’s one thing that drew so many marginalized fans to the series. But the correlation of fictional atrocities with those of real life frequently prompted volatile discourse, with many concerned about how allegedly allegorized groups were being represented. You began to see countless essays pop up by folks who use the phrase “blood quantum” more than any healthy person should for a setting about wizards. BioWare responded to this by making Thedosian society wholly pleasant and the people in power responsible and cool and the disparate cultures tolerant and cooperative. If nothing’s portrayed negatively (outside of the cartoonishly evil gods), nobody can take offense, right?

For starters, the Antivan Crows have gone from an amoral group of assassins to basically Batman. These figures, which previously purchased children off slave markets to train them into killers, are now the “true rulers” of Antiva, by which the official government derives its authority. The Crows in The Veilguard stand against the insurgent qunari army as heroes of the common folk. They’re not an unscrupulous faction that Rook is reluctantly forced to ally with for the greater good; no, the Crows are simply good guys now. When the pompous governor of Treviso rails against them, with such audacious claims as “assassins and thugs should not represent the citizenry,” we’re meant to laugh at the governor’s foolishness. The unintentional implication this sends is that lethal vigilantism and unchecked power are cool because the people who use it are cool and stylish. The slave trade goes unacknoweldged; Antivan children want to grow up to be assassins now. The Crows never do anything wrong in The Veilguard – the governor is later revealed to be cooperating with the invaders for their own power. BioWare avoids the unpleasantness inherent in the Crows’ concept by pretending it never existed.

Perhaps more ridiculous is the Lords of Fortune, a new faction of pirates and treasure hunters based out of Rivain. Except they don’t really do piracy or treasure hunting. The game goes to lengths to ensure that the audience knows that the Lords don’t steal important cultural artifacts from any of the tombs and ruins they raid. What do they steal, then? There is no such thing as an ethical treasure hunter – plundering indigenous sites for souvenirs is inherently problematic – but the writers wanted to reap the appeal of adventurous swashbucklers without any of the baggage, regardless of whether it makes sense or not3. It comes across as a child’s idea of a pirate: they’re not thinking about the murder and looting, just the funny men with eye-patches who say “ARRR!” The developers want us to like the Lords of Fortune, and to that end, they can’t do anything culturally insensitive – even fictional disrespect toward a made-up culture. This is doubly amusing because the Lords are represented by Isabela from Dragon Age II. The same Isabela that kicked off a war with the qunari by stealing their holy book, the Tome of Koslun. This irony goes unacknowledged by the game.4

When these rogue buccaneers aren’t busy giving land acknowledgments to displaced Dalish elves or whatever, they’re enjoying their nonviolent coliseum. Pirates revel in bloodsport, but only so long as no actual blood is spilled. The Lords refuse to fight prisoners or animals in their arena, as they find such acts too cruel. I guess they’re all big Peter Singer readers. Instead, they summon spirits to adopt the visages of common enemies so that the player can kill them with a clean conscience. It’s another example of wanting to have your cake and eat it too – they wanted to create a glory hunter/gladiator faction, but couldn’t stand the underlying implications of such. So they twisted and bent them to fit into their unproblematic paradigm, leaving the Lords flavorless and lame. They barely even contribute to the main story, and they’re practically the only look we get into Rivaini society (which remains criminally underdeveloped).

More tragic is the handling of the qunari, once one of the most unique and nuanced civilizations in the Dragon Age setting. The Qun, as portrayed in the first three installments, is a society that demands all of its composite parts work in harmony. Thus, they have predetermined vocations for their children, rigid gender roles, strict codes of conduct, and an ambition to “enlighten” the rest of the world. While the Qun has often been presented as antagonistic toward the heroes, the series has commonly balanced its portrayal by showing how seductive its absolutism can be for people without hope. In some cases, life under the Qun is preferable, as is the case with former Tevinter slaves. Conformity becomes comfort when the world is regularly threatening to split apart.

The Veilguard opts for a different approach. See, Rook’s not fighting members of the Qun in this game – they’re fighting the Antaam, the former qunari military. The Veilguard constantly reiterates that the Antaam, which makes up one of the three branches of the Qun, has broken off and decided to invade, pillage, and stoke chaos. BioWare didn’t want the questionable morality and complexity of fighting an invading people from a humanized, multi-faceted culture, so they removed their culture. Their efforts to turn the non-Western-coded qunari into something digestible for their mistaken conception of a modern audience instead results in two caricatures: one being a fetishized, perfect society where there are no perceivable social ills; and the other a bunch of rampaging brutes.

Contending with a realized conception of Plato’s Republic mixed with the Ottoman Empire makes for more compelling drama than a horde of murderous giants. Again, BioWare wanted to have it both ways, and they still needed nameless, faceless orcs to kill. So every bit about the qunari’s militancy, imperialism, and repression coexisting alongside some of their more progressive ideas and communal unity is stripped of its context and meaning. Blame is placed solely on the Antaam, who no longer represent (and retroactively, never represented) the Qun’s ideology. It’s a cowardly compromise, attempting to pin the blame of all the Qun’s failings on a renegade military and seeking to exonerate the political and social apparatuses of their culpability.

At one point, a minor character named Seer Rowan lectures to an ignorant human (a proxy for the audience absorbing these retcons) that qunari society has always been egalitarian in practice, with mages enjoying freedom there. Previous games showed that the qunari shackle their “saarebas” mages, stitch their mouths, cut out their tongues, and teach them to commit suicide if they ever stray from their masters. However, we’re now assured that this is only practiced under the Antaam, and No True Qunari would ever do such a thing. Ignore the fact that, in Inquisition, we witness the enslaved saarebas under the supervision of the Ben-Hasserath, a subdivision of the Ariqun (i.e. not part of the Antaam). In fact, the Antaam that Rook fights in The Veilguard never command saarebas at all. They’re completely absent from the game (likely because the image of the bound, mutilated minority was too much for The Veilguard’s sensibilities). Seer Rowan’s weak, conciliatory retcon can’t even justify itself in its own game. The scolding diatribe communicates an intrinsic misunderstanding of the Qun by the writers – namely, it continues the pattern established with the Antivan Crows that the mechanics of power in society are fundamentally good as long as aberrant forces aren’t in charge. While I understand the desire to be conscientious about the portrayal of fictional cultures that draw upon non-Western traditions and iconography (which have historically been demonized in media), glamorizing the Qun and stripping it of its realistic nuance does little to alleviate any problems with representation. If anything, it creates new ones.

But hey, now we have our faceless orcs to guiltlessly slaughter. That’s what the Antaam’s been reduced to, bereft of the ideology that made them people. We kill them because they’re strange and scary and foreign and seeking to destroy our cities for fun. They remain the most prominent representation of the qunari in-game, barring our party member Taash. BioWare’s attempts to reverse what they viewed as problematic components to the qunari instead devolved into the very tropes they wished to avoid.

Which leads us to the elves. Much of the series’s discourse has surrounded the portrayal of the long-suffering elven people, who endure slavery under Tevinter, expulsion from their homeland in the Dales, confinement in ghettos, and the general disdain from other races. The games’ stories use symbolic shorthand of real-life oppressed peoples to communicate these tragedies, and this has led to a variety of intense, emotional interpretations over the years. The unending misery of the systematically marginalized elves hasn’t gone unnoticed by the fanbase – and their criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed by the developers. To quote The Veilguard’s creative director, John Epler, in an interview with Polygon:

“Dragon Age has not always been the kindest to the Dalish [elves]. Somebody once made a joke to me, and it’s not untrue, that it’s possible to wipe out a Dalish clan in all three of the games in some way.”

He and others on the development team must’ve thought elves needed a break, because the omnipresent racism against them vanishes completely in The Veilguard. Tevinter, an empire built on the back of chattel slavery, doesn’t show any of that. Consequently, it feels like players in the know still haven’t seen the true face of Tevinter, despite spending half a game there. The notion that the capital of Minrathous gives now is one of a prosperous city that’s centuries ahead of the countries down south, rather than a cruel regime cracking the whip at every opportunity. Perhaps the writers weren’t comfortable portraying this, or felt that their audience might not be amenable to it after years of incendiary argumentation. Nevertheless, it castrates their established world-building and robs us of the opportunity to witness true elven liberation in the climax. With both the fall of Minrathous and the toppling of the tyrannical elven gods, we could have delivered a much needed catharsis after four games of oppression, but The Veilguard forgoes this storytelling opportunity to play it safe.

I worry that this hesitancy originated from anxieties about the sensitivity of depicting marginalized peoples in brutal, dehumanizing conditions, and how that might look to more fragile viewers. But I think it’s important for all players, watchers, and readers to know that, though there might be aspects shared between them, fictional minorities are distinct from real ones.

Dragon Age’s elves are aesthetically Celtic. Their residency in alienages evokes images of Disapora Jews in Europe. Their Long Walk after being driven from the Dales calls back to the Trail of Tears, sharing an experience with Native Americans. Their subsequent migratory nature is reminiscent of the Romani people. And their ancient empire of Arlathan, with its large columns and temples of worship, headed by ascended humanoid (for lack of a better term) deities that cast down an enemy called the Titans, and which has since had its religion and culture co-opted and renamed by Roman-inspired Tevinter invites comparisons to classical Greece.

My point is, the elves of Dragon Age don’t represent one group of people, because fictional cultures are constructs drawing from countless inspirations. If they represent anything beyond themselves, it’s the idea of a proud people that’s fallen under the yoke of conquering powers – a supervictim to embody all. The idea that one must be limited in their storytelling options based on how the portrayal might reflect upon or disrespect an existing culture is flawed, in my opinion. In the overwhelming majority of cases, coding cannot be read as a 1:1 allegory, especially in speculative fiction like science-fiction and fantasy. I believe the most mature way to evaluate a story isn’t to try to pigeonhole what it’s trying to say say about who, as if there’s some insidious encrypted message in the text. Rather, it’s to see the forest through the trees and interpret the work as a complete whole in itself.

On that basis, I ask: would it have been so bad to see some of those enslaved elves, praying for salvation, side with their manipulative, nefarious gods? To add some nuance to the conflict with Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, would the story of elven liberation not have been better if the game actually engaged with it? Could we actually have a moral quandary with those whom Rook ends up fighting, even if the content might be seemingly problematic?

Epler might respond in the negative, per the Polygon interview, claiming that the gods “simply don’t care” about the elves.

“Those blighted, decrepit gods, they’re not bothering with the soft pitch. Their pitch is, We’re going to make a horrible world. We’re going to give you a lot of power, and maybe you’ll be OK.”

Like a chess board, the core conflict of The Veilguard is black and white. BioWare abandoned the chance to make Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain more interesting villains because it was too risky.

Similarly risky was Solas’s role as an antagonist, since his motivations, as explained in “Trespasser”, are deeply sympathetic. Perhaps too much so for the developers’ comfort. Unlike the Evanuris and their disinterest in the elves, Solas wants to restore the elven people to their former glory. At least, that seemed to be his pitch in the last game. Frustratingly absent from The Veilguard are the Agents of Fen’Harel – elves who swore fealty to Solas’s cause. They infiltrated and compromised the Inquisition, effectively precipitating the final decision to end the organization in its current form. The idea that Solas had amassed an army of common folk who found the idea of a renewed elven empire appealing made him appear formidable and intimidating. “Trespasser” implies that a mass uprising of elves under Solas’s leadership was imminent, and anyone could be in on it.

None of this happens in The Veilguard. Not only does Solas lack an army, but their absence isn’t explained or even acknowledged. As a result, Solas remains a passive antagonist until near the end, since the player has no disciples of his to contend with (either physically or ideologically) along the way. It wastes a side of his character that had been foreshadowed in a decade-long cliffhanger – that of a charismatic leader, capable of coordinating a rebellion that could spell disaster for its own followers.

In a Reddit AMA after the latest game’s release, Epler answered where the Agents of Fen’Harel disappeared to:

“Solas’ experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories – the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him – he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his ‘followers’ and went back to being a lone wolf. There are Dalish clans who are sympathetic to his goals, but even there, there’s an understanding that he’s too dangerous to have a more formal connection with, and that he will, ultimately, sacrifice them to his own ends if necessary.”

I find this explanation unsatisfying, not the least bit because the narrative offers next to nothing to imply this. The disappearance of Solas’s agents represents my biggest bugbear with the game, depriving it of the full potential of its highly anticipated antagonist in favor of the more generically villainous Evanuris. Moreover, this omission fits into the aggravating blueprint for The Veilguard’s inoffensive direction. The motivations, emotions, and backgrounds of the Agents of Fen’Harel would be sympathetic, and therefore might problematize the otherwise cut-and-dry conflicts. Epler seemed concerned that audiences might think Solas was “a little too sympathetic in his goals,” according to an interview with GamesRadar+.

But that’s the thing: sympathy isn’t endorsement, and portrayal of sympathetic characters isn’t endorsement either. But neither does that invalidate the emotions and experiences that generate that sympathy, even if the character’s actions ultimately turn toward evil. I’ve noticed a trend (especially in symptomatic criticism, which I generally dislike5) to view art as propaganda, and to evaluate it from a moralizing, top-down perspective. Antagonists with complex or understandable motivations (in this case, revolutionary villains) are often judged by this framework as tools for stories wishing to champion the status quo. Common arguments that I’ve seen imply that the relatability that we often find in villains is not a strength of the writing, but a devilish trick of ideology by which writers can reinforce conservative doctrine, to scold us away from certain beliefs. Any decent writer knows this isn’t the case, and that people don’t write morally or emotionally complex antagonists for didactic purposes. Instead, characters such as these embody the anxieties of their creators – the fear of losing yourself to your passions, the fear of going about things the wrong way, the fear of sacrificing too much to achieve your desired ends. The concepts and feelings that compel these characters remain authentic to the writer’s heart and the connection they established with the audience.

Art isn’t propaganda. To read it as such reduces it and promotes intellectual dishonesty and foolhardy myopia. Stories are irreducible (otherwise, we would not waste our time with them), and so I believe interpretations should be formed from the bottom-up, rooted in the text as much as possible. The “message” cannot be imposed from the top-down, but symptomatic readings, in their focus on tropes and cultural context, frequently condemn without a trial. Hindering your story in order to future-proof it for the sake of optics is a safeguard against this, and one that leads to bad stories. Artists should have confidence that their text will hold its ground on its own. To quote Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “A Message about Messages”:

“The complex meanings of a serious story or novel can be understood only by participation in the language of the story itself. To translate them into a message or reduce them to a sermon distorts, betrays, and destroys them… Any reduction of that language into intellectual messages is radically, destructively incomplete.” (67-68)

BioWare’s doctrine of passive writing violates this wisdom by surrendering to their fear of (bad) criticism. The Veilguard lacks punch, stakes, and empathy and becomes incongruous with its established lore because it’s not willing to take risks that might alienate or upset players. They’re more concerned with making sure their work is inoffensive than they are with conveying a moving story.

I believe all of this was inherited from an incestuous feedback loop between a vocal minority of critics, of which I might’ve once counted myself among the blameworthy, and the apprehensiveness of out-of-touch corporate board room decision-making. Dragon Age’s genome mutated, and it slowly lost its teeth.

Over the course of a decade, we bred the Dread Wolf into a Dread Pug.

V. What It Took

The Veilguard’s lack of confidence in itself and lack of faith in its audience contribute to its capitulatory nature. In many respects, it feels like the developers lost their passion for it over the course of the ten year hellish production and just wanted to be done with it. This resulted in a decent game that nonetheless feels divorced from what came before it. It tries to juggle being a soft reboot while also trying to close out the series’s biggest and longest running story arcs, but inevitably fumbles.

Nearly everything done by The Veilguard was handled better by Inquisition. And Inquisition was certainly the more ambitious title. Perhaps more returning characters would have established a sense of continuity between the two, or at least made it less awkward by having them present for the story’s grand finale. For as strong as the endgame is, it could’ve benefited from the presence of slave liberator Fenris, elven history aficionado Merrill, possible Evanuris soul vessel Sera, or Divine Victoria (any of them). The core pillar of Dragon Age is the characters, and The Veilguard’s under-performance (and in some cases, outright dismissal) in that regard sabotages its integrity. Without this to anchor it, the changes to gameplay, visuals, and roleplaying depth become more alienating.

Personally, what do I take away from this? The Veilguard is far from the game I dreamed about for ten years, and not the one that loyal fans deserved either. I’m no stranger to disappointment at this point in my life, and yet this still leaves me with a hollow feeling. Will I still be able to return to Inquisition, a game I truly adore, and see it the same way as before, knowing now where all this is leading? The true cost of The Veilguard, for me, has nothing to do with the price tag: it’s the loss of that perfectly tailored dream, now that the possibilities of the future have shut their gates.

Where do those dreams go? Are they doomed to fester in their lonely, incommunicable agony? Will they be twisted by their enmity, like the blighted dreams of the Titans, and spread their corruption into those important happy memories?

In 2014, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: Inquisition helped me to see the light and come out of it. In 2024, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard made me feel nothing. There’s no less favorable comparison in my eyes. It’s disheartening to behold something that once meant so much to me and be greeted with numbness. I have to wonder if that affection will ever return, or if I’ve just grown out of it.

But as I wandered the streets of Minrathous as Rook, I heard a familiar song. It was one of the tavern songs from Inquisition, its nostalgic chords filling me with wistful sentiment. I know, deep down, there’s still something there. Maybe I just need to dig it up. Maybe it’s time to look back…

To be continued…

– Hunter Galbraith

Further Reading

Le Guin, Ursula K. “A Message about Messages.” Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Abrams Image, 2018, pp. 67–68.

Incidentally, this was an anomaly my friends and I pondered over and eventually solved. It turned out to be a former Wienerschnitzel. ↩︎

You could argue that this credit goes more to Inquisition and the previous games for laying the groundwork for said reveals, which were obviously planned out ahead of time, as confirmed by the aforementioned official artbook. Regardless, the payoff satisfied me and gave me proper closure. ↩︎

I’ve been informed that there is a hidden conversation that explains that the Lords of Fortune do, in fact, sell cultural artifacts at times, but only to the rightful owners. This just makes me wonder what they do with the artifacts if the prospective clients can’t pay. Do they shove them back in the ruins and re-arm all the booby traps? ↩︎

I would argue that this does not represent character progression on Isabela’s part, as her (possible, depending on the player’s choices) return of the Tome of Koslun in Dragon Age II was a pragmatic sacrifice she made to save her friends and the city, rather than an acknowledgment of the qunari’s inviolable ownership. In fact, in many continuities, she never returns the Tome at all. ↩︎

I prefer more formalist criticism because it allows the text to lead the dance, not the critique. I think it’s only fair, given that the creators likely spent more effort crafting the piece than I spent consuming it. Symptomatic criticism mandates that the reader consider everything around the text, typically at the text’s expense. In the worst cases, symptomatic critics make their arguments about seemingly everything besides the text in question. ↩︎ Link to article: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2025/01/01/dragon-age-the-veilguard-strangled-by-gentle-hands/

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literaryvein-reblogs · 3 months ago

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Please help! I’m writing musicians but am gravely afraid of being so inaccurate I’ll get laughed at. Do you have any general tips for writing musicians/celebrities/rich people or all three?

Writing Notes: Musicians

Musician - creates, performs, or composes music.

Diverse in their talents, encompassing a wide range of instrumental, vocal, and compositional abilities.

They may specialize in various genres such as classical, jazz, rock, pop, electronic, or folk music, and their proficiency may extend to multiple instruments or vocal techniques.

Duties & Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities of musicians can vary depending on their specific roles, genres, and settings. However, here are some general duties and responsibilities that musicians often have:

Practice and Rehearsal: Musicians need to dedicate significant time to practicing their instruments or vocals to maintain and improve their skills. They also participate in rehearsals with other musicians or bands to synchronize their performances.

Performances: Musicians are responsible for delivering live performances, whether in concerts, gigs, recitals, or other venues. They must prepare their repertoire, select appropriate songs or compositions, and perform them with skill and expression.

Collaboration: Many musicians work collaboratively with other musicians, bands, orchestras, or ensembles. They must be able to communicate effectively, listen to others, and contribute to a unified musical performance.

Composition and Arrangement: Some may create original compositions or arrangements of existing music. This involves writing or reworking musical ideas, melodies, harmonies, and lyrics to create new pieces of music.

Recording and Studio Work: Musicians often record their music in studios or other recording environments. They may need to work with audio engineers, producers, and other professionals to capture their performances accurately and achieve the desired sound.

Promotion and Marketing: Musicians, especially those pursuing a professional career, need to actively promote their work. This may involve creating a brand, establishing an online presence, networking, and marketing their music through various channels.

Music Education: May engage in teaching and mentoring aspiring musicians. They may offer private lessons, lead workshops, or work as music educators in schools or colleges to impart their knowledge and skills to others.

Equipment Maintenance: Responsible for maintaining their instruments or equipment, ensuring they are in good working condition. This may involve regular cleaning, string replacement, tuning, or repairing any issues that arise.

Continuous Learning: Musicians must stay updated with the latest trends, techniques, and developments in their respective genres. They may attend workshops, masterclasses, or pursue further education to enhance their skills and expand their musical horizons.

Types of Musicians

There are various types of musicians based on their roles, expertise, and the context in which they perform. Here are some common types of musicians:

Vocalists/Singers: Vocalists specialize in singing and using their voice as their primary instrument. They may perform solo or as part of a vocal group, choir, band, or opera company. Vocalists can have various vocal ranges and styles, including sopranos, altos, tenors, baritones, and basses.

Music Artists: Music artists, or soloists, are musicians who perform as the featured artist or performer in a concert or other musical setting. They often showcase their virtuosity and mastery of their instrument or voice. Soloists can be instrumentalists or vocalists.

Session Musicians: Record or perform with other artists or bands. They contribute their instrumental or vocal skills to enhance the recording or live performance. They may be hired for their versatility and ability to adapt to various musical styles.

Composers: Create original music by writing scores or arrangements. They may compose for a wide range of genres and mediums, including film, television, theater, orchestras, bands, or solo performances.

Conductors: Conductors lead and direct orchestras, choirs, or other musical ensembles. They interpret the musical score, guide the musicians, and shape the overall performance. Conductors use their knowledge of music theory and interpretation to bring out the desired artistic vision.

Music Educators/Teachers: Specialize in teaching and imparting musical knowledge and skills to students of all ages. They may work in schools, colleges, universities, or offer private lessons. Music educators can teach various subjects, including instrument instruction, music theory, composition, and conducting.

Music Arrangers: Music arrangers take an existing piece of music and restructures or adapts it for a different ensemble, style, or purpose. They make artistic decisions regarding instrumentation, harmony, rhythm, dynamics, and other musical elements to create a new arrangement that showcases the original composition in a fresh way.

Orchestrators: Orchestrators specialize in translating composers' musical scores into fully realized orchestral arrangements, determining the instrumentation and voicings for each instrument. They collaborate with composers and directors to bring musical visions to life in various contexts, from classical performances to film and television soundtracks.

Music Therapists: Use music as a therapeutic tool to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. They create and implement music-based interventions to promote healing, improve communication, enhance emotional well-being, and support overall therapeutic goals.

Instrumentalists: Specialize in playing a specific musical instrument. They may perform solo or as part of an ensemble, orchestra, or band. Examples include pianists, guitarists, violinists, drummers, saxophonists, and trumpeters.

Orchestral Musicians: Orchestral musicians perform as part of an orchestra, which typically consists of various instrumental sections, such as strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Examples include violinists, cellists, flutists, clarinetists, trumpeters, and percussionists.

Studio Musicians: Studio musicians work in recording studios and contribute their skills to create and record music. They may be hired to play instruments, sing backing vocals, or add specific musical elements to a recording. Studio musicians are often proficient in multiple styles and genres.

Jazz Musicians: Specialize in performing and improvising within the genre of jazz. They may play instruments such as saxophone, trumpet, piano, double bass, or drums, and often engage in improvisation and complex harmonies.

Rock Musicians: Perform within the rock genre, which encompasses various subgenres like classic rock, alternative rock, heavy metal, and more. They may play electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, keyboards, or sing as frontmen or frontwomen of rock bands.

Pop Musicians: Create and perform popular music that appeals to a wide audience. They often incorporate catchy melodies, hooks, and contemporary production techniques. Pop musicians can be solo artists or part of a band.

Folk Musicians: Specialize in traditional or contemporary folk music, which typically features acoustic instruments like acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, or harmonica. They often draw inspiration from cultural and storytelling traditions.

Classical Musicians: Perform music from the classical music tradition, which includes composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others. They may play instruments such as violin, cello, piano, flute, or perform as opera singers.

Electronic Musicians: Electronic musicians create music primarily using electronic instruments, synthesizers, drum machines, and computer-based production techniques. They may specialize in genres like electronic dance music (EDM), techno, ambient, or experimental electronic music.

Hip-Hop Artists: Create and perform within the hip-hop genre, combining rap vocals with beats, sampling, and other elements. They often deliver rhythmic and poetic lyrics over instrumentals or electronic beats.

Country Musicians: Perform within the country music genre, characterized by its roots in folk and blues and often featuring instruments like acoustic guitar, fiddle, banjo, pedal steel guitar, and vocals with distinctive country-style twang.

Gospel Musicians: Gospel musicians perform within the genre of gospel music, which has its roots in Christian religious music. They may sing or play instruments such as piano, organ, drums, or guitar, and often incorporate powerful vocal harmonies and uplifting messages.

Personality & Interests

The Holland Codes: Musicians and singers typically have an interest in the Creating and Persuading interest areas.

The Creating interest area indicates a focus on being original and imaginative, and working with artistic media.

The Persuading interest area indicates a focus on influencing, motivating, and selling to other people.

Musicians vs. Non-Musicians. They seem to differ in 2 traits (Gjermunds et al., 2020), using The Big Five:

They somewhat tend to have lower scores on Conscientiousness, and considerably higher scores in Openness to experience.

Thus, Openness seems to be the most typical personality trait for musicians.

These results suggest that musicians are more creative and openminded than non-musicians.

Musicians and singers also typically possess the following specific qualities:

Dedication. Auditioning for jobs can be a frustrating process because it may take many different auditions to get hired. They need determination and dedication to continue to audition after receiving many rejections.

Discipline. Talent is not enough for most musicians and singers to find employment in this field. They must constantly practice and rehearse to improve their technique, style, and performances.

Interpersonal skills. Musicians and singers need to work well with a variety of people, such as agents, music producers, conductors, and other musicians. Good people skills are helpful in building good working relationships.

Musical talent. They have superior musical abilities.

Physical stamina. Those who play in concerts or in nightclubs and who tour must be able to endure frequent travel and irregular performance schedules.

Promotional skills. They need to promote their performances through local communities, word of mouth, and social media platforms. Good self-promotional skills are helpful in building a fan base.

Musicians are storytellers and conveyors of emotions.

They have the ability to evoke feelings, inspire, provoke thought, and create a sense of unity through their music.

Their music can serve as a medium for self-expression, cultural representation, and social commentary, making them influential figures in shaping the artistic landscape and reflecting the diversity of human experiences.

Musicians contribute significantly to the cultural landscape by expressing emotions, telling stories, and communicating ideas through the universal language of music.

They may perform as solo artists, collaborate in ensembles or bands, or work with orchestras, choirs, and other musical groups.

Musicians often undergo extensive training, practice, and continuous learning to refine their craft, and their creativity and dedication helps to shape the auditory experiences that resonate with audiences across the globe.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

You can find more details in the sources linked above. As for writing celebrity or rich characters, you can choose actual rich celebrities as a basis to develop your specific character. And also consider some Celebrity & Rich People tropes as inspiration. Just alter as needed/desired. Hope this helps with your writing (don't let getting laughed at discourage you. Keep writing, editing & learning throughout)!

#anonymous #music #character development #writeblr #literature #writers on tumblr #dark academia #writing reference #spilled ink #writing prompt #creative writing #writing tips #writing advice #light academia #writing inspiration #writing ideas #character building #writing resources

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felassan · 15 days ago

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Deadline reports: '‘Mass Effect’: Doug Jung Joins Amazon’s Series Adaptation Of Video Game As Showrunner'

[reportedly] "EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios’ long-gestating Mass Effect TV series is taking a major step forward in its development with the hire of Doug Jung (The Chief Of War) as showrunner. He will be working alongside Dan Casey who has been writing the project for almost a year." Mass Effect, based on Electronic Arts’ best-selling sci-fi video game franchise, has been in the works since 2021 when Amazon MGM Studios made a deal with the interactive entertainment software company. Jung and Casey executive produce alongside Michael Gamble of Electronic Arts, Karim Zreik of Cedar Tree Productions via the company’s overall deal at Amazon as well as Ari Arad and Emmy Yu of Arad Productions. Jung most recently served as executive producer and showrunner on Apple TV+’s upcoming series The Chief of War, which premieres August 1. His series credits also include Netflix’s Mindhunter, Cinemax’s Banshee and HBO’s Big Love. In features, he co-wrote Paramount’s Star Trek Beyond."

[source]

edit:

Variety reports -

"Doug Jung is set to serve as showrunner on the “Mass Effect” TV series currently in development at Amazon MGM Studios, Variety has confirmed." [source]

#mass effect #bioware #video games

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frostbytemyrik · 1 year ago

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Danny Phantom Required* Watching

*It isn't actually required. I know there are a ton of phans who have never even seen a single episode of the show, but it's a fun watch and I would recommend at least catching some.

Sorting the episodes into colors (with the first letter in parenthesis by the title for those who might be too colorblind to tell). Note that this is all just my objective opinion, and everyone is free to leave their own thoughts on this!

Green (G) - Introduction of an important character or major plot development, such as a new power for Danny or another major shift in the status quo. If you can only watch a few of the episodes, watch these.

Pink (P) - Introduction of a side character or minor plot development.

Red (R) - Introduction of a new character worth mentioning or other general status quo change, but the episode is generally considered to be...not great by most people. (But hey, nothing wrong with liking these episodes!) They'll be summarized at the bottom of each episode description for those who can't be bothered to watch them.

Blue (B) - Nothing important happens to the overall plot, but it's a fun episode that fleshes out the characters.

Season 1

Episode 1: Mystery Meat (R) - Establishes the show and its main characters: Danny, Sam, and Tucker, as well as a lot of other important characters such as the Fenton parents and Jazz, and minor recurring characters like Dash and the Lunch Lady. The writers are still getting their footing so the main trio is unfortunately among the flattest they get here.

Episode 2: Parental Bonding (P) - Introduction of Paulina and Dora, first look at Valerie, and most importantly, Danny's power to overshadow people. Fun episode in general, Tucker makes a weird comment at the start but this is one of Sam's absolute best episodes as a character. (Tucker and Sam actually getting to be fun characters instead of just "butt-monkey comic relief" and "selfish asshole" is rarer than I'd like, so I always like pointing out the episodes where they get some love.)

Episode 3: One of a Kind (G) - Introduction of Skulker, a recurring major antagonist, and his motivations.

Episode 4: Attack of the Killer Garage Sale (P) - Introduction of Technus, Ghost Master of Technology and Destroyer of Worlds, Manipulator of Machines, Lord of all Gadgetry, Wizard of Integrated Circuitry, Master of All Things Electronic and Beeping.

Episode 6: What You Want (P) - First appearance of Danny's Ghost Ray and introduction to Desiree and the Ghost Catcher (a Fenton device with an unfortunately rather...culturally insensitive name and design), explores Tucker and his relationship to Danny. I went back and forth between making this green and pink because I'm biased in my love for this episode, but it isn't necessary to comprehend later episodes. (If you can watch it, though, it's a lot of fun as we get to see how close Danny and Tucker are and how Tucker feels about Danny's powers.)

Episode 7: Bitter Reunions (G) - Formal introduction to main series antagonist, Vlad Masters, and his relationship with the Fentons and the ghosts of the Ghost Zone. (Antisemitism tw: Vlad has hired ghost hitmen that are vultures with Yiddish accents, hooked beaks, and fezzes. They thankfully don't show up anywhere else, as far as I can remember.)

Episode 8: Prisoners of Love (P) - Introduction to the Ghost Zone itself and Walker, a side antagonist. Shows Alicia, Danny and Jazz's maternal aunt who never appears again after this episode.

Episode 9: My Brother's Keeper (G) - Gives Jazz a focus and formally makes her a major player in the plot through a certain discovery she makes. Also introduces side antagonist Dr. Penelope Spectra.

Episode 10: Shades of Gray (G) - Valerie Gray, a background character from Episode 2, gets new motivations and becomes an important part of the series going forward.

Episode 11: Fanning the Flames (P) - Ember is introduced, and she hypnotizes the entire town to fall for her with her music. To keep Danny out of her hair, she makes him fall for Sam. Whether this episode is a Pink or a Red depends on whether or not that bothers you. (Racism tw: there's a sequence towards the end of the episode that shows people around the world watching Ember, and they're all very stereotyped appearances of Japanese, Eastern European, Arabian, and Indigenous Australian people. Thanks, Hartman.)

Episode 12: Teacher of the Year (B) - A fun episode with Technus. It does have some of that early 2000s "don't underestimate me because I'm a girl" stuff, but it's still a good episode with a lot of heart.

Episode 13: Fright Night (P) - Introduces Fright Knight. A Halloween special that has its ups and downs (eating underwear?) It's just really funny that an actual ghost, who has been to the maddeningly twisted and alien world of the afterlife, still can't scare anyone to save his life.

Episode 14: 13 (P) - It's a shame this isn't actually the 13th episode. Anyway, it introduces Johnny 13 and Kitty, while Tucker and Sam get to hang out without Danny while trying to solve Tucker's new run of bad luck and the fallout for his reputation.

Episode 15: Public Enemies (G) - Walker's back and he's making a major shift in the status quo: ghosts are confirmed to exist as he stages a major invasion of the town. Things don't go well for Danny, and the repercussions will be felt for well into the series. Also introduces Wulf, a ghost who looks like a werewolf, exclusively speaks Esperanto, and has the ability to tear the fabric of reality to create portals between Earth and the Ghost Zone. He's putting this power to use for Walker, but it's clearly not by choice...

Episode 17: Maternal Instinct (B) - Maddie notices her son is growing distant from her and tries to take him to a science symposium to bond with him, but disaster strikes and leaves them in the woods, with the only shelter available being...a cabin owned and occupied by none other than Vlad. Meanwhile, Jack tries to understand Jazz, who doesn't seem to want anything to do with him or ghost hunting. Lots of great character moments for the Fentons.

Episode 18: Life Lessons (B) - Danny and Valerie, arriving late to class because they both were out ghost hunting, get paired up in home economics class to raise a flour sack baby together. We get more insight into what Valerie's life is like after Shades of Gray, and she learns to get along with both Fenton and, temporarily, Phantom, after an excursion through Skulker's part of the Ghost Zone. As a B-plot, Tucker makes money babysitting other students' flour sacks while ignoring the one he has with Sam, and Sam tries not to get attached to the sack. It's not important to the plot AT ALL but I'd put this as a must-watch if I could. Alas, I made the rules and must follow them.

Episode 19: The Million Dollar Ghost (B) - A million dollars is placed on the head of the ghost boy, Public Ghost Enemy #1: Inviso-Bill, known to us in the audience as Danny Phantom.

Episode 20: Control Freaks (G) - The circus is in town! New villain Freakshow gets introduced, and he becomes important later. Kinda. Depending on how much you like a certain blue episode that comes on down the line. The trio go to this cool new goth circus, but there's a string of ghostly robberies in town and Danny has been acting strangely lately...

Season 2

Episode 1/21: Memory Blank (R) - Danny and Sam have a fight, Sam wishes she'd never met him, Desiree makes the wish come true and now Danny has no powers and neither he nor Tucker remember her at all. Sam gets him fried by the portal again to get his powers back, but this time with a new logo she designed slapped onto his chest. Really all that happens is Danny gets his logo. This can be skipped...if you wish. ;)

Episode 2/22: Doctor's Disorders (B) - There's a bug going around - literally - getting the kids at Casper High sick. Symptoms include sneezing, chills, coughing, congestion, and various ghost powers depending on the student. The only ones immune seem to be Danny (thanks to his ghost powers) and Tucker (wearing his new homemade cologne that smells awful in a different way to everyone). A new hospital opens up to treat them, but something fishy is definitely going on. ...But Tucker is afraid of hospitals. Great Tucker episode.

Episode 3/23: Pirate Radio (P) - Introduction to Youngblood, an occasional antagonist. A new radio program pops up, and every adult in town (and Jazz, who's 16 but sees herself as an adult) is enraptured by it and the one song that it plays on loop. Then one day, every single adult in town leaves behind a note that they're going on a cruise, and it's up to Danny to rally the teens of Amity Park to discover what's so fishy about the cruise and get their parents back.

Episode 4/24-5/25: Reign Storm (G) - The creepy castle in the Ghost Zone Danny accidentally freed Fright Knight from in Fright Night holds yet another secret: the coffin of the Ghost King, known as Pariah Dark, whose goal is to rule over the Ghost Zone and the human world with an iron fist. Vlad frees him hoping to snatch the powerful artifacts on him, but it backfires and now the King is free and follows the fleeing ghosts to Amity Park, which he promptly invades. Danny, Valerie, and various enemies including Vlad need to team up to seal King Pariah back within his sarcophagus and save both Amity Park and the Ghost Zone as a whole. Major status quo shifts happen here.

Episode 6/26: Identity Crisis (B) - Not my favorite episode, but I'm including it here because it was popular with the Phandom a decade ago. Danny gets tired of trying to balance his human and ghost lives, so splits himself in two using the Ghost Catcher that was introduced in Season 1 episode 6: What You Want. That also, unfortunately, divides his personality to two extremes; the human half ("Fun Danny") is lazy while the ghost half ("Super Danny") is an absolute ham of a superhero stereotype, and Tucker and Sam struggle to put their friend back together so he can stop Technus in a way only he can (and also because both halves are honestly really annoying them).

Episode 8/28-9/29: The Ultimate Enemy (G) - This is THE episode of all time. Maybe not the best episode, but it's great in its own right and, more importantly for this list, introduces another major status quo shift. It's also basically required viewing for the comic that came out last year (at time of writing), as that comic is a direct follow-up to this episode. Clockwork, a ghost that is essentially a deity of time, has a mission to eliminate the greatest threat to Earth and the Ghost Zone that has ever been before he comes into that role: a ghost named Danny Phantom. Danny comes face-to-face with a version of himself that caused a doomed future, and needs to fight to ensure that future never comes to pass.

Episode 10/30: The Fright Before Christmas (B) - The boy Danny Fenton, a Grinch to his core, finds the holiday season to be quite a chore. Into the Ghost Zone to blow off some steam, he accidentally causes a scene: the Ghost Writer's finished manuscript in ashes, and with Danny's indifference he clashes. He traps him in a book that warps space and time, and forces all events in his life to rhyme. You're in for a treat if you like all these rhymes, but if they annoy you, then don't waste your time. (This factoid may not matter to you, but this is where we learn of the Christmas Truce!)

Episode 11/31: Secret Weapons (R) - Jazz is overbearing, Danny doesn't like it, so Jazz decides to go to Vlad. The episode's latter half isn't bad, but it's R because Jazz's constant invasions of Danny's privacy and the repetitive thermos jokes grate on me. If you plan to skip, the thing that makes it a red episode is this: Vlad learns that Jazz is in-the-know.

Episode 12/32: Flirting With Disaster (G) - A lot of the more plot-relevant episodes in season 2 (and one in season 1) have been building romantic tension between Danny and Valerie, and here's where it comes to a head: they actually start dating! However, after some jealous stalking thorough investigating, Sam finds that there's someone pulling the strings, and manipulating their real feelings for each other to pull them together and get them out of the way... Valerie especially undergoes a lot of major character moments, and we learn a lot more about her as a person. One of my personal favorite episodes (and I don't just say that because I'm a Danny/Valerie truther) (the "engraved" ring and Sam being a stalker about it aren't great, but honestly I just try to ignore those parts. Yes, I know I'm biased).

Episode 17/37: Kindred Spirits (G) - While Danny's busy being an asshole to his friends leaving Sam and Tucker to take the blame for property damages during his fights, he finds a strange girl named Danielle (or "Dani") who claims to be his cousin and shares an eerie resemblance with him. The similarities go more than skin deep, as she quickly reveals that she's ALSO half ghost. Tucker and Sam warn Danny that there's something suspicious about the whole ordeal (in between being left behind to be blamed for collateral damage more times than I'm bothered to count right now), but when Danny winds up in trouble anyway, they still skip detention (that he got them in) to save him before it's too late. Danny's a dick, but despite that, it's still a good episode and we get introduced to Dani before her next appearance.

Episode 19/39-20/40: Reality Trip (B) - Freakshow gets the Reality Gauntlet: an off-brand Infinity Gauntlet that can warp reality to anything he desires. He gets Danny's secret revealed to the world, causing the government agency the Guys In White (from Million Dollar Ghost in season 1) to relentlessly pursue him. Luckily, thanks to knowledge Sam gained from a book on the gauntlet, the main trio manages to warp the gems to different parts of the United States, severely limiting Freakshow's power. Unluckily, Freakshow retaliates by kidnapping their parents and Jazz, forcing the three to go on a cross-country road trip to get the gems back to Freakshow and save their families while evading the law. No permanent shifts of the status quo, but one of my personal favorite episodes. It's a fun ride!

Season 3

Episode 1/41: Eye for an Eye (R) - A prank war between Danny and Vlad ends in Vlad becoming mayor and passing a lot of horrible laws specifically to spite Danny. The laws are undone by the end of the episode, but Vlad stays mayor.

Episode 2/42: Infinite Realms (R) - In trying to map out the Ghost Zone, the main trio end up meeting Frostbite: leader of a realm in the Zone known as the Far Frozen, filled with spirits that take the form of peaceful, yeti-like monster folk who revere Danny as the chosen one who defeated Pariah Dark. Frostbite is also keeper of the Infi-Map: a map that can take the user anywhere in the Ghost Zone. Now for the bad news: Vlad is here, he wants world domination now for some reason, and he wants the map to help him do it. Vlad steals the map, the trio needs to get it back. It's not the worst episode, but Vlad's villain decay is...tragic. Tl;dr: Frostbite is the leader of a tribe of friendly yeti spirits and keeps the Infi-Map, which can take the user to any point in the ghost zone.

Episode 5/45: Forever Phantom (B) - One of the only actually fun filler episodes in season 3. Introduces us to Amorpho: a ghost with the power to shapeshift into anything and anyone, who uses their power to cause mayhem for attention. They bite off more than they can chew when they impersonate Danny Phantom, however, and a Fenton device gone awry locks both Amorpho and Danny into the form of Danny Phantom. Wacky hijinks abound.

Episode 6/46: Urban Jungle (G) - Haha green. Like plants. Anyway, Danny has been cold lately. No matter what he does or where he is, he's consistently freezing. It gets worse: while Danny's in this weakened state, a giant plant ghost named Undergrowth takes over Amity Park and possesses Sam. Unable to fight the constantly-regenerating Undergrowth or to keep himself from freezing, he flees into the Ghost Zone to seek Frostbite's aid.

Episode 9/49: Frightmare (B) - Danny wakes up one night to learn, to his horror, that Nocturne, the ghost of dreams, has put all of Amity Park into a deep sleep to feed on their energy. He enters the dreams of his friends to wake them and get their help taking Nocturne down. A good episode for people who ship Danny/Sam, and a GREAT episode for people like me who like to pretend that all the episodes I left off the season 3 list were just bad dreams.

Episode 10/50: Claw of the Wild (B) - The students of Casper High are ending summer with a camping trip in a foggy forest. All seems normal until, one by one, campers go missing. Danny, Tucker, and Sam go investigating and find their ally Wulf, who seems to know something about the disappearances...

Episode 11/51: D-Stabilized (G) - Regarded by most as the final good episode of Danny Phantom. Dani had been on her own in the world since we last left her, but over time, her form has been getting unstable, causing her to be slowly melting into a puddle of ectoplasm. She tries returning to Amity Park to get help, but is now being hunted down by Valerie, who Vlad commissioned so he could melt Dani down and study her remains to make a superior clone. (Valerie thinks he's just going to keep her contained for the safety of Amity Park; she isn't informed of the cloning.) Valerie turns Dani in to Vlad, but Danny manages to form a shaky alliance with Valerie to get Dani back, since Valerie knows that Dani is half human.

Episode 12/52-13:53: Phantom Planet (R) - The only reason this is here is because the comic continues from where this episode left off. If it didn't, I'd suggest ignoring it entirely. Rapid-fire summary: an asteroid is about to hit Earth, Vlad reveals himself to the world and demands unquestioning rule over Earth (and one trillion dollars or something) in exchange for turning the asteroid intangible. Vlad can't turn it intangible since it's made of Ectoranium, an anti-ghost substance we never hear of until now. Jack leaves Vlad in outer space. Danny gets every ghost he knows to help him turn Earth intangible, it works somehow, and Danny reveals his secret identity to the world. Statues of Danny are built all over the world, Sam and Danny start dating, and Tucker becomes mayor of Amity Park. A bunch of other stuff happens too but it's all stupid. Valerie gets thrown into a dumpster on live TV and that's her only appearance besides clapping for Danny at the end. I'm still mad. Don't watch Phantom Planet.

The Comics

Book 1: A Glitch in Time (G) - Danny's life is perfect: his secret identity is out, and the world accepts him not just as a part of it, but as its savior. His parents and former bullies fight on his side now, he's in a committed relationship with Sam, and Amity Park seems to be at peace. There's just one problem: his powers are getting weaker by the day. Unbeknownst to him, there's another problem in progress: Dan Phantom, the evil future Danny from The Ultimate Enemy, is released and fuses with Clockwork, causing present Danny and those near him to experience unstable glitches in time. Vlad returns to warn Danny of the threat of Dan, and they all team up to venture into the depths of the Ghost Zone to find a way to stop Dan and get Danny back to full strength. Meanwhile, Jazz and Valerie hold down the fort at Amity Park, holding Dan off for as long as they can while the trio and Vlad search for answers.

Book 2: To be continued in 2025!

Danny Phantom can be watched on Paramount Plus, but if you don't have a subscription, there may be DVDs at your local library! Other people may also have resources on how to watch the show, so feel free to ask around!

Danny Phantom: A Glitch in Time can be found anywhere books are sold! Abrams Books Amazon Barnes and Noble Google Play Waterstones

#danny phantom #danny phantom agit #a glitch in time #dpagit

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misfitwashere · 3 months ago

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ROBERT REICH

MAR 21

Friends,

There are two huge national security questions at the heart of the Trump regime.

The first is whether Elon Musk is working, at least in part, for China’s Xi Jinping. Consider:

(1) China is the location of Musk’s largest Tesla factory in the world in which China invested $2.8 billion. The state-of-the-art facility was built in Shanghai with special permission from the Chinese government, and now accounts for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries.

(2) China is the world’s biggest market for Teslas and is the only electronic vehicle market where Tesla sales are continuing to grow.

(3) Chinese investors have been funneling money into Musk’s other businesses.

(4) China is a hotbed of other technologies that Musk would like to get his hands on.

(5) In 2022, Musk told The Financial Times that China should be given some control over Taiwan by making a “special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable.”

(6) In 2023, at a tech conference, he called Taiwan “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China,” and compared the Taiwan-China situation to Hawaii and the United States.

(7) On X, the social platform he owns, Musk has long used his account to praise China, encouraging more people to visit the country.

(8) One of the Pentagon’s biggest worries is that China has developed a suite of weapons capable of attacking U.S. military and non-military satellites.

(9) The Pentagon now relies heavily on Musk’s SpaceX Starlink satellite communications network for military personnel to transmit data worldwide.

(10) SpaceX launches most of the Pentagon’s military satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets, which take off from launchpads SpaceX has set up at military bases in Florida and California.

(11) SpaceX has become so valuable to the Pentagon that the Chinese government has said it considers SpaceX to be an extension of the U.S. military.

(12) The Pentagon has hired Musk’s Space X to build it a new constellation of low-earth orbit satellites to spy on China, Russia and other threats.

(13) Perceived missile threats from China — nuclear weapons or hypersonic missiles or cruise missiles — have led Trump to sign an executive order instructing the Pentagon to start work on “Golden Dome,” a space-based missile defense system, in which Musk’s Space X would almost surely be involved for rocket launches, satellite structures, and space-based data communications systems.

(14) Musk and his SpaceX have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting U.S. secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders — leading to at least three federal reviews, including one by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and another by the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

So … is Musk working for Trump, for the United States, for China, or for himself — or for all of the above?

The question of Musk’s allegiance becomes more weighty by the day.

This morning, for example, he met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon brass. According to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the meeting had been arranged at Musk’s request to give Musk details about America’s preparations for war with China — the most sensitive and secret information anyone can receive.

It appears that after the scheduled meeting and its subject matter were reported yesterday, the meeting mysteriously morphed into something more innocent. Apparently, Trump decided Musk shouldn’t be briefed on war preparations with China.

Musk arrived shortly before 9 a.m. and left about 90 minutes later. When a reporter asked what Hegseth and Musk discussed, Musk shot back: “Why should I tell you?” Trump and Hegseth deny China was even mentioned.

The underlying question is whether Musk can be trusted.

Not even his position in the Trump regime is clear. Congress has not confirmed him for any role. He hasn’t been “vetted” by the FBI, as are all senior appointments. His finances haven’t been reviewed by anyone; they certainly haven’t been made public. He hasn’t even taken the oath of office, pledging his allegiance to the United States and the Constitution.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Musk’s connection to Putin. According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk has been in regular contact with the Russian President —a close partner of China, which has supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Which raises the second huge national security concern at the heart of the Trump regime: Is Trump working for Putin? I don’t have to list all the evidence that prompts the question. That evidence also keeps mounting by the day.

Trump and Musk: Manchurian heads of the United States?

#robert reich

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bngtanah · 14 days ago

Text

I’m (not) With The Band. | 1o [m]

summary: Adrienne is an indie producer who is hired to help co-produce BTS’ next album alongside their resident producer; Suga. Despite the initial opposition on both ends, the pair spend time together, share a few stories, dreams and aspirations and begin to hit it off really well. Wrapped up in the whirlwind of late nights and heated disagreements and reconciliations, Min Yoongi and Adrienne Rolle find themselves growing closer and closer. One night they decide to cross the barrier between personal and professional and do their best make a relationship work against all odds.

pairing: idol!Yoongi x OC word count: 3k genre: drama, romance, smut

chapters:prologue| o1| o2| o3| o4| o5| o6| o7| o8 [m]| o9| 10| 11|

warning: smut, workplace relationship, slow burn, sexual attraction, ambw, developing relationship, light angst, mid writing tbh.

“You’re late.”

Yoongi spoke, deadpan, from his seat on the edge of the couch as Adrienne came bumbling into the studio. With her laptop and other miscellaneous electronics cradled in her arms, she panted hard and leaned against the doorway to catch her breath.

“I know,” she finally huffed. “I overslept… and I had to run all the way here. Don’t be mad.”

Yoongi smirked and shook his head. “I’m not. You’re lucky the van had a flat tire today; we would have left without you.”

“Oh, does that mean I can sit? Thank God, my legs feel like jelly,” Adrienne sighed and shuffled forward, groaning heavily once she was finally seated next to Yoongi on the couch and dumped her laptop and backpack off to the side. “Where’s everyone else?” she asked, resting her head against his shoulder.

“Interviews, taking pictures… I don’t know,” Yoongi replied with a slight yawn and an arm around Adrienne’s shoulders.

“So you’ve just been sitting in here waiting for me?”

Yoongi pursed his lips and gave Adrienne a sideways glance. “I was working.”

Adrienne glanced behind her at the studio computer that looked untouched and then back toward Yoongi with a teasing smile. “On what? The computer isn’t even on,” she chuckled.

“… Lyrics,” Yoongi answered after a moment’s pause. He was usually a pretty good bluff. His stoic and often sarcastic personality helped with that less than desirable quality of his, but as usual Adrienne seemed to disarm that in him. He found himself stuttering and fumbling over his words when he wasn’t even trying to deceive her.

“Mhm, sure. Writing down imaginary lyrics in your imaginary notebook, with a make-believe pen?” Andy queried and leaned in closer, snuggling against his neck.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Maybe I was waiting for you to show up because maybe I wanted to see you alone before everyone got here.”

“I know.”

“If you know that, why do you need to hear me say it?”

“Because I’m needy,” Adrienne giggled and nipped her teeth against Yoongi’s skin, making his soft pout break down into a genuine smile.

When Adrienne leaned forward to rest a hand against his chest, Yoongi pulled her to him gently. And kissed her, slowly and tenderly as if they had all the time in the world. In the past few weeks, they barely had a moment to themselves without someone passing through the studio to record or give input on one of the songs they had yet to finish. Yoongi missed having Adrienne all to himself and being able to touch her and talk to her the way he wanted to. They’d only been together officially for a few weeks, but insufficient privacy and intimacy were beginning to get to him. He enjoyed the playful teasing and unbridled tension that sparked between them just a short time earlier, but Yoongi was glad to finally get to this part.

He loved kissing Adrienne, how warm and soft her lips were, how her smaller frame felt against his larger. He moved one hand to the small of her back, letting go of her arm and pulled her up so that she was totally seated on his lap, his mouth opening and their tongues entwining, a spark of electricity jolting down both of their spines at the intimate contact. Part of Yoongi realized he could just do this all day and all night, kiss Adrienne on this couch like they were the only two people in the world and have that be the end of it. He never had to see her undressed again if it meant that she could melt in his arms the way she was now.

Of course, that didn't mean that he didn’t want to. And he was reminded of just how long it had been since he had the privilege of seeing her naked when he felt her hips slowly move against his crotch. The movement was tentative and brief, as if she was testing the waters and gauging his reaction before actually attempting to arouse him. Yoongi smiled against her lips, feeling reassured she was feeling the same amount of desire for him as he had for her.

“What are you doing, Andy?” he asked, half-chuckling and pulled back to gently kiss along her jawline.

“You know, Gi,” she answered softly, almost sounding coy as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Don’t you miss me? I miss you.”

Yoongi groaned when she rolled her hips once more, this time with deliberate effort, and raked her fingernails against his scalp.

“Teasing me?” Andy breathed, and Yoongi wrapped an arm around her lower back, pulled her closer to him, and smothered her neck with his lips.

“Don’t you wanna see me come for you again, Yoongi?” His body responded before he could, breath hitching and a possessive, almost primal, growl forming in the back of his throat as he captured her lips again, cutting off whatever she planned on saying next. He swallowed every short moan and sigh of pleasure that dared escape her lips. Yoongi needed to silence her, knowing that if he didn’t, he would have taken her right there on the sofa. The knowledge that they had no time to fool around didn’t stop him from groping her body, however, his hands roughly gripping the smooth skin of her thighs. He just barely resisted the urge to move any further up and underneath her skirt, though they both clearly wanted him to.

Bbzzzzzzz

The vibrations of Yoongi’s cellphone in his pocket startled them both, and Yoongi seriously considered ignoring it for a moment. The taste of Adrienne’s lips was much more interesting than whomever could have been on the other end of that phone call. Reluctantly, he allowed his better judgment to guide his actions and pulled back from Adrienne to answer the call.

“Hmm… it’s here? Okay, I’m on my way.”

With a petulant frown, Yoongi held Adrienne’s gaze for a few somber seconds before pressing a quick kiss to her lips and moving her back onto the couch.

“I hate your job,” Adrienne grumbled as she began gathering her possessions together and standing up. A humorless chuckle parted Yoongi’s lips, and he pulled her close to his side by her waist to place a gentle kiss against her cheek.

“You’re not the only one.”

Being sardined in a car full of attractive men may have been a dream for some women, but for Adrienne it felt like nothing short of a nightmare. Especially when they were all sleep-deprived, grumpy, and all she wanted to do was cuddle up next to her boyfriend and go back to sleep. But she couldn’t do that without causing a scene and possibly putting her contracted job on the line. With all this and the knowledge that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from touching him at the forefront of her mind, Adrienne opted out of sitting next to Yoongi on the ride to the first of many photo shoots that day.

She was nestled between Taehyung and Hoseok, who were both asleep and gently wheezing against her ears. The dueling chorus of their snoring was a nice distraction for her to stop herself from turning around to bother Yoongi, who she knew was sleeping soundly as well. Adrienne was tired too, but she had a melody in her head that refused to allow her to close her eyes. Her short intimate moment with Yoongi that morning inspired her to rearrange the melody for a song they were almost finished with. She knew he would hate her for changing something at the last minute yet again, but Adrienne really couldn't help herself.

Earbuds lodged in both ears, Adrienne nodded along to the unfinished beat pouring through them. She was so engrossed in the interface in front of her, Adrienne hardly noticed Namjoon attempting to get her attention until he tapped her knee.

“What are you listening to?” He asked once she could hear him.

“Something I’m working on,” Adrienne replied with a fake frown.

Namjoon perked slightly in his seat at the mention of new music; he was the only one that didn’t seem overly tired. “Can I listen?”

“Mmm, I dunno…” She placed a finger against her chin as if she was contemplating something. “I wanted it to be a surprise for everyone.”

“Aw, c’mon Adrienne, just one listen,” he pleaded, even going so far as to press his hands together as if he was genuinely begging her.

Adrienne giggled, handing over her laptop with the earbuds still attached. “Fine. But this is only because I like you. Don’t tell the other boys.”

She ended her statement with a playful but innocent wink, completely unaware of the faint blush that colored Namjoon’s cheeks as he pressed the earbuds against his ears and began nodding along slowly. Adrienne couldn’t place the feeling of slight nervousness that ensued after Namjoon went silent; having someone else critique or even just listen to her work without it being completed was always a nerve-wracking experience.

“I like it,” Namjoon exhaled after what seemed like ages, handing back Adrienne’s laptop with a broad smile that made his dimples sink even deeper. “It’s… what’s the word… sweet?”

“Thank you,” Adrienne explained in a whisper, she wanted to avoid waking anyone up. “I was going for something like… spring. Like that fresh feeling you get when you’re starting a new relationship and everything at the beginning is just exciting and bright.” The way Adrienne’s face lit up betrayed her desire to conceal the fact that she was speaking with personal feeling, and Namjoon chuckled softly.

“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” he commented cautiously.

“I am…” She nodded then stiffened her back and added, “P-past experiences. I don’t think I could date anyone now even if I had the time. How do you explain getting up at 4 in the morning to travel around the city with seven men twice a week?”

Namjoon chuckled, finding her explanation cute and somewhat outlandish. Then a small lull of silence fell between them, and Namjoon’s mouth was moving before he had the chance to think about what he was asking.

“So… is time the only thing keeping you from seeing anyone?”

He had no idea where this sudden burst of confidence and curiosity had come from, but the way Adrienne shyly ducked her head down and pressed her hands to her cheeks before answering made him think his random question may have been a good way to turn the conversation in his favor. It was a simplistic way of thinking, but he was only human after all.

Adrienne, meanwhile, was simply trying to think of a way to deflect his questions without turning into a babbling mess. She was a terrible liar, and having to actually deny being with Yoongi made her feel uncomfortable. Why was he asking her about dating so suddenly anyway? This was hardly the time and place for this type of conversation.

“B-basically, I mean, I guess it might work with the right person, but I’m focused on my music right now,” Adrienne finally managed to spit out, cheeks burning red.

“But… say there was someone that was interested in you and they didn’t mind your work schedule. Maybe they even had a schedule just as crazy. Would you consider that?”

Namjoon rambled and became more eager with his choice of words the longer Adrienne let him talk. She was barely about to formulate a response to what seemed like an interrogation coming from the leader of a group that had the potential to fall apart at her hands. The furthest thing from Adrienne’s mind was that Namjoon might be making reference to himself, and not trying to subtly hint at her relationship with Yoongi. Adrienne’s moist palms gripped the edge of her laptop tighter, and she sank her front teeth deep into her bottom lip, desperately trying to think of a response. Just as her lips parted, she felt a body stir next to her, and the words that came from Hoseok’s lips almost made her sigh with relief.

“Why are you so concerned about her dating, Namjoon?” He asked. Obviously, he wasn't sleeping quite as soundly as Adrienne had thought. Hoseok quickly sat up once he realized just how much of his body was leaning against Adrienne’s side and cleared his throat, pointedly looking to Namjoon for a reply.

“I’m not concerned!” Namjoon countered. “Just curious, I guess. I mean, I-… shut up, Hobi.” Namjoon huffed and sounded defeated as he adjusted his position to face forward again. The smug smirk on Hoseok’s lips fell once Adrienne turned to face him, and he snapped his head in the opposite direction to avoid catching her gaze. It was an odd gesture, considering how comfortable Adrienne thought they were; something like eye contact had never been a problem before. She contemplated asking him about it for a moment, but Adrienne really didn’t have the desire to push him for an explanation. There was no reason to risk another heart attack so early in the day.

Later that night, 11:00 pm

Despite Andy’s reassurance, Yoongi was not having a great time. She had somehow convinced him to ignore the mountain of work that was past due for both of them for just one night and go dancing with her. The DJ was terrible and annoying, the hordes of pretentious and desperate twenty-somethings that seemed to frequent this place were less than amiable company, and apparently all of them were freakishly tall, judging by the amount of times he had been elbowed in the back of the head without even a small apology. Countless complaints had taken up residence on the tip of Yoongi’s tongue since the moment they stepped into the club, but Yoongi held back for the sole fact that Adrienne seemed to be enjoying herself.

That could just be due to the fact that she was a much more pleasant person than he was most of the time. Even if she wasn’t having the best time, there was no way you’d be able to tell just by looking at her face, especially not now while she laughed loudly, each of her pearly white teeth gleaming, at something Taehyung had said along with the rest of their small group. Hoseok, Taehyung, and Jungkook had somehow weaseled their way into what was supposed to be a private night out for Yoongi and Adrienne. Yoongi suspected Hoseok only tagged along to act as a chaperone, judging by the amount of times he attempted to redirect Adrienne’s attention whenever Yoongi hovered nearby. Tae and Jungkook apparently just wanted an excuse to go clubbing.

Yoongi sniffed, adjusting the watch on his wrist and bringing a bottle of beer to his mouth. He hadn’t been paying attention to anything anyone was saying, his attention focused solely on coming up with a bridge melody for their latest track. Hearing Adrienne squeak softly to get his attention made him look up from the ground and raise an eyebrow to silently question what she wanted. They were alone now, with Taehyung and Jungkook having found people more interesting to smother with attention, and Hoseok leaving to head home. Probably convinced the two other members would be enough to prevent Yoongi from making a public mistake.

“You’re not having fun,” Adrienne stated and leaned against the bar where Yoongi sat.

“What makes you say that?” Yoongi replied, sounding genuinely surprised. She was correct, of course, but he thought that he was hiding his distaste well.

“You’ve been nursing that beer for half an hour,” she started, “And you’ve looked annoyed since we got here. Look, if you don't want to be here, we can go back to work.” Adrienne sighed and stepped forward so that her body was slotted between Yoongi’s legs. “I just wanted to spend some time with you in a place where we don’t have to look over our shoulders like we’re doing something wrong.”

Adrienne frowned, and Yoongi felt his heart twinge. Tonight was one of the few times he and Adrienne had the chance to be out in public as an actual couple, and all he was doing was making her upset. Yoongi shot back the remainder of his beer and rested the empty container on the bar before wrapping his arms around Adrienne’s waist and pulling her closer.

“Sorry,” he replied in a cute voice that made Adrienne visibly grimace and attempt to push herself away from him.

“Don’t do that,” she groaned. “You know I hate when you do that.”

“You love it when Hobi does it!”

“Hoseok does it well! Aegyo doesn’t suit you, Gi,” Adrienne giggled, and even though he was moderately offended by her rejection, Yoongi was just happy she was no longer frowning.

“There’s my girl,” Yoongi smiled, hooking his index finger under Adrienne’s chin and pulling her forward to him. “Can I be honest with you?” he muttered against Andy’s lips, and she nodded.

“I hate this place,” he said with a dry laugh, which made Adrienne pout softly.

“Fine, we can leave, but you have to dance with me.”

Yoongi groaned audibly and rested his forehead against Adrienne’s now folded arms, but she was not deterred.

“You’ve been dancing with Taehyung all night; can’t you find him?”

“I don’t want to dance with Tae, I want to dance with my boyfriend.”

Yoongi kissed his teeth, looked up at Adrienne one last time before pushing himself off the barstool. He smiled when Adrienne did and turned to the bartender to order a bottle of soju before allowing himself to be dragged into the middle of the dance floor. In theory, Yoongi didn’t have a problem with dancing; it was nearly fifty percent of his job after all. He did, however, have a problem with being judged and watched over like an animal in a zoo; and that was exactly what he felt like whenever someone’s head turned to catch a second glance while he and Adrienne meandered their way through the crowd. She was far from the only foreigner in the club that night, and her small stature allowed her to go almost unnoticed when she was alone or in a group. But the fact that she was holding his hand suddenly made her something to be gawked at and questioned silently as she moved past every bigoted person that happened to be in attendance that night.

It was truly an exercise in self-control for Yoongi to stop himself from connecting his fist to the jaw of the next person that looked at them and whispered something to the person next to them. Instead, he chose to take a swig of soju to quell his annoyance and hold Adrienne’s hand even tighter until they came to a stop, and the feeling of her sliding her arms around his neck brought him back to reality. A sense of calm washed over him when he could finally refocus on the reason he was here in the first place, and Yoongi felt the small smirk he had been fighting evolve into a wide grin that spread across his entire face as the couple swayed together, ignoring the pulsating beat and everyone else around them.

“Are you drunk already?” Adrienne teased, taking the bottle of soju from Yoongi’s hands and taking a sip.

“I’m not drunk, I’m happy,” Yoongi replied simply, still smiling from ear to ear. “You make me happy.”

Adrienne’s lips, still curled around the bottle of soju, ticked upwards in a quick smile before she took another swig and lowered it to her side. Without a word, she wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him down to her lips in a sweet but quick kiss before resting her chin on his shoulder and nuzzling her nose against his neck.

“You make me happy too.”

Several songs and bottles of soju later, Yoongi and Adrienne were finally exiting the club, leaving behind the two younger friends that had accompanied them in the beginning. At least, they assumed they were leaving them behind. Truthfully, neither of them had been spotted since Hoseok left and the group split up hours earlier. The whereabouts of Jungkook and Taehyung were the last thing on Yoongi’s or even Adrienne’s mind as they stumbled out onto the sidewalk with Adrienne holding onto Yoongi to steady her steps. They both had the same amount of alcohol, but Yoongi made the sensible decision to follow every shot he took with a drink of water to avoid a hangover in the morning.

Adrienne did not.

Which is why her voice could be heard blocks away as Yoongi attempted to walk her home without being noticed. It was both a blessing and a curse that his company had set her up with an apartment so close to their building. It was late, but Yoongi knew there was never a time when the BigHit building was totally free of sasaeng fans looking to catch a glimpse of their favorite idol.

He contemplated taking a longer route just to avoid going near the building at all, but his concern about getting Adrienne home quickly heavily outweighed his desire to not be bothered by crazed fans. By some small miracle, the pair managed to get back to Adrienne’s apartment in one piece. She was still slightly tipsy, but the walk in the open air seemed to sober her up enough so that she was no longer singing unfinished melodies at the top of her lungs when they neared her apartment building.

“Are you going to leave?” He heard Adrienne yell from her bedroom as he stole a bottle of water from her refrigerator.

He nodded once she could see his face and leaned against the doorway of her bedroom.

“Do you have to? Can’t you just say you slept in the studio again?” Adrienne shuffled her sheets around to create an empty space, but Yoongi didn’t move, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to leave if he chose to take just one step over the threshold of her bedroom.

“That only worked because I had Hobi to cover me last time,” he sighed, watching Adrienne pout. “And it’s too easy to guess where I am this time. Taehyung and Jungkook… those two idiots don’t know how to keep a secret; they’ll talk as soon as they get home.”

Adrienne frowned again and got up. Yoongi tensed as she walked toward him since he was unable to read the expression on her face. She looked… pained, but there was also something there that he couldn’t pinpoint. His anxiety calmed when instead of pushing him out like he thought she would, she lazily placed her arms around his torso and pressed her cheek to his chest. He looked down at her when she shifted her head, assuming that she was going to say something. Instead, he was met with a more pointedly pained expression and Adrienne forcefully pressing a hand against her mouth.

“Are you oka-”

Before he had the chance to finish his question, Adrienne was stumbling backwards and scrambling to find her bathroom. The sound of her retching echoing against the tiled walls of her bathroom answered any questions Yoongi might have had, and he quickly followed after her, trying his very best to stop himself from laughing at the sight of Adrienne groaning into the toilet bowl and trying to keep her hair out of her face.

When he’d finally composed himself, he kneeled next to Adrienne and pulled every stray and unruly curl out of her eyes while rubbing her back as she lurched forward again.

“You drank too much,” he said, not expecting a response, and Adrienne only glared up at him when she could hold her head up again. After a few minutes passed with nothing forcing its way back up Adrienne’s throat, Yoongi guided her back to her bedroom and gently pushed her down onto the mattress, giving her a sip of his water to rinse.

“You should drink more water and get some rest, Andy,” Yoongi commented softly as he took a seat on the edge of her bed and brushed some hair away from her face. He stood up silently and disappeared to Adrienne’s adjoining bathroom, then returned a few moments later with a small damp makeup wipe in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Adrienne asked when he sat down again and began moving toward her face.

“Your makeup is smeared,” he answered simply and lightly wiped the cool cloth against Adrienne’s cheek. It took more than a few swipes for Yoongi to finally notice there were tears streaming down her face even though she was smiling.

“Are you okay?” Yoongi asked and shot up, immediately feeling panicked. “Did I hurt you?”

“You like me.”

Those three words gave Yoongi pause, and he exhaled sharply, waiting for her to explain the meaning behind her statement. When she didn’t, Yoongi kneeled next to where she lay and pulled a hand away from covering her face.

“What are you talking about?”

“You like me!” Adrienne repeated once more before wiping away a stray tear and clearing her throat. “I promise, I’m not just saying this because I’m drunk. But… I feel like I’ve been pushing you since we started this whole…”

“Relationship…?” Yoongi interjected, and Adrienne pressed her lips together gently.

“I pushed you into admitting you have feelings for me. I pushed you into making a move. I pushed you into a corner to be with me. Hell, even tonight I pushed you into slacking off and taking me out. It feels like all I do is push and push, and it’s exhausting, Yoongi. I never know if you’re doing something because you want to or because I’m pushing you.”

Yoongi sighed, holding Adrienne’s gaze as he attempted to gather a response. He had always hoped his actions would make up for what he didn’t say. He didn’t need to constantly reinforce how he felt about Adrienne because he showed her exactly what he felt by what he did. Wasn’t that enough?

“Andy. Please listen to me carefully. I only ever want to say this once,” Yoongi began, his palm cradling the swell of Adrienne’s cheek before he continued. “I like you. I'm not good at expressing myself. I find it difficult and awkward to talk about my feelings unless it’s for my music, but you should know that I like you. I like the way you light up a room just by walking into it and how you can turn a simple piano chord into a beautiful score of music. I even like how pushy you are,” Yoongi chuckled softly as Adrienne playfully bit down on his thumb. “You push me toward good things. I don’t want you to stop.”

Adrienne huffed loudly and rolled over so that she was now lying on her back. “I wish you would have said that three weeks ago. I would have gotten so much more sleep.”

Yoongi looked over at her once more, standing to his feet and leaning over her, both of his hands on each side of her face. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his lips pressing gently to hers. “I’m sorry that I’m a shitty boyfriend,” he added, a kiss on her jaw accompanying it. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like I don’t like you,” he whispered with a kiss on her neck. His mouth moved further down to her collarbone, and Yoongi barely stopped himself from pushing the collar of her top over and sucking hard. Adrienne’s hands pulled him down to her body, bringing them as close as possible.

“I really can’t stay tonight,” he moaned, his hips rolling down into hers. “You keep saying that and not leaving,” Adrienne retorted, and Yoongi chuckled softly at her accurate observation.

Yoongi was done pretending that he had any intentions of leaving anytime soon and captured Adrienne’s lips with another kiss, taking his time to taste and swallow every moan and languid breath that escaped her lips. The final test of Yoongi’s will began the moment he leaned back to catch his breath, his head tilting to the side as he stared at Adrienne sprawled on the mattress. He had every opportunity to stop right there and give himself enough time to get back to his dorm undetected. Unfortunately, there was no way he could make himself leave Adrienne as she was now, panting for breath and practically begging to have him take her. What kind of boyfriend would he be to deny her? Yoongi sucked in a quick breath of air as she wiggled out of the pair of sweatpants that covered her legs and echoed her soft moan as he coaxed her panties off her hips, keeping his gaze on hers the entire time.

Adrienne’s thighs cradled his weight as he lowered himself on top of her again, pecked her lips and licked hot stripes up her neck. “Ah… shit,” Adrienne whispered when his hands moved down her body, searching for her warm folds until he found just what he was looking for. He easily slid two fingers past her entrance, and Adrienne groaned loudly as he stroked her from the inside. His pace slow and deliberate.

“You’re so fucking wet. I barely touched you,” Yoongi teased and seized her mouth again. His thumb massaged her clit while his index and middle fingers stroked her slippery walls. He pulled away slightly to get a better view of her face. Staring at the varying expressions that crossed her face, gauging her reaction to what he was doing, how it felt for her. Even here, he took pride in his work, smirking gently to himself whenever her body jolted or she moaned his name when words failed her. Adrienne’s nails used his forearms, back, and any part of his body she could reach to say the words she couldn't.

Yoongi added another finger and sank his teeth into his bottom lip when her eyes rolled backward before snapping shut. “Ride my fingers, Andy,” he said sternly, the command spurring Adrienne’s hips to piston faster. “Fuck, Yoongi. I want you inside of me,” Adrienne whispered between pants of breath, but Yoongi ignored her requests. His fingers kept at their work, and her hips bucked back and forth as her feet lifted from resting on Yoongi’s calves and were now suspended in mid-air. Sounds of inexpressible pitch streamed in an embarrassing frequency from her mouth as Yoongi’s torturous digits worked her middle.

“Open your eyes, Andy,” Yoongi grunted, the roughness of his tone betraying just how much self-control he was exercising at that moment and just how close he was to snapping. “I want you to look into my eyes when you come for me.” Adrienne nodded, unable or unwilling to verbally respond, and Yoongi knew exactly why. “Your cunt is squeezing my fingers.” Yoongi sighed, and Adrienne barely whimpered in response.

“I’m gonna come,” she panted, and Yoongi showed no mercy. His fingers drilled her then rubbed her clit with just the barest touch and reveled in the way she came undone beneath his touch. Her toes curled, back arched, and Yoongi thought for just a few seconds she stopped breathing before she finally exhaled and moaned his name. Thighs shaking, chest rising and falling too rapidly, Adrienne jerked as an heavy orgasm slammed into her. Yoongi smiled to himself, still stroking her gently as she worked her way back down to earth and leaned forward to kiss her breasts through her shirt.

A sigh left Adrienne's lips as his fingers did, and Yoongi lay down beside her. They stared at one another for a while, silently admiring each other's features. Adrienne’s half-lidded gaze widened when Yoongi drew his fingers, still slick with her juices, into his mouth.

“Hmm,” he hummed in approval before pushing himself upwards and shuffled towards the edge of the bed. He felt Adrienne reach for his hand, and he smiled, smothering her lips in another tender kiss then standing to his feet.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Andy. Get some rest.”

#bts fanfic #bts #bts imagines #ao3 fanfic #bangtan sonyeondan #bts fanfiction #bts angst #bts workplace au #min yoongi #min suga #bts suga #yoongi fanfic #yoongi angst #bngtanah #INWTB

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usafphantom2 · 6 months ago

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Here’s why the SR-71 Blackbird SR-1 Ejection Seat had two loops on the D ring

SR-71 Blackbird

SR-1 Ejection Seat

Two loops on the D ring

SR-71 Blackbird

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” was a long-range, Mach 3+, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft.

The first flight of an SR-71 took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966.

The Blackbird was in a different category from anything that had come before. “Everything had to be invented. Everything,” Skunk Works legendary aircraft designer Kelly Johnson recalled in an interesting article appeared on Lockheed Martin website.

For instance, the Blackbird’s ejection seat (in the form of the Lockheed SR-1 ejection seat) had two loops on the D ring.

Why is that?

SR-1 Ejection Seat

The SR-1 ejection seat is a Lockheed design not much different from the Stanley designed Lockheed C-2 used in the very early A-12 and SR-71 Blackbirds (as can be seen in the cockpit of A-12 06925).

This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. SR-71A Blackbird 61-7972 “Skunkworks”

According to The Ejection Site, the D-ring at the front center of the SR-1 ejection seat is cable connected to an initiator under the seat pan.

The cable is spring-mounted to prevent injuries after ejection and before seat separation at which time the cable is severed. When pulled, the initiator gas is routed to the inertia reels to retract the crewman back upright. It is also routed to the foot restraint reels and via a quick disconnect fitting to the canopy removal system.

As the canopy is jettisoned, an initiator in the canopy system is actuated and gas from it is directed back into the seat via another quick disconnect to actuate the gas-operated sequencing system, and to fire the catapult after a 0.3-second delay to allow the canopy to clear the area.

Two loops on the D ring

SR-71 pilot Darryl Greenamyer was as short as Bob Gilliland (another Blackbird driver) was tall. They were both examples of above and under-the-average test pilots hired by Lockheed Skunk Works.

This model is available from AirModels – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS.

As told by Donn A. Byrnes and Kenneth D. Hurley in their book Blackbird Rising: Birth of an Aviation Legend, when Darrell was placed in the cockpit and the depressurized simulated (this was done by pumping up his pressure suit to 3.5 psi over atmospheric pressure) …

His suit became so rigid that he could not reach the ejection seat loop mounted on the seat between his knees (The D ring) so they made it fit. The result was a second loop that raised above the initial loop.

As seen in the picture below.

Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter X Page Habubrats SR-71, Instagram Page SR71Habubrats and Facebook Page Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.

Photo credit: Tony Landis, Richard Graham via The Ejection Site and U.S. Air Force

SR-71 Blackbird

Previous « JMSDF, US Navy increase cooperation between UP-3D and EA-18G electronic attack aircraft as EP-3 era ends

@Habubrats71 via X

#sr 71 #sr71 #sr 71 blackbird #blackbird #aircraft #usaf #lockheed aviation #skunkworks #aviation #mach3+#habu #reconnaissance #cold war aircraft

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moneeb0930 · 1 year ago

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𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗥𝗟𝗘𝗬 𝗔𝗡𝗡 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗢𝗡 (1946- )

Shirley Ann Jackson, born in 1946 in Washington, D.C., has achieved numerous firsts for African American women. She was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.); to receive a Ph.D. in theoretical solid state physics; to be elected president and then chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); to be president of a major research university, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York; and to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Jackson was also both the first African American and the first woman to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Jackson’s parents and teachers recognized her natural talent for science and nurtured her interest from a young age. In 1964, after graduating as valedictorian from her high school, Jackson was accepted at M.I.T., where she was one of very few women and even fewer black students. Despite discouraging remarks from her professors about the appropriateness of science for a black woman, she chose to major in physics and earned her B.S. in 1968. Jackson continued at M.I.T. for graduate school, studying under the first black physics professor in her department, James Young. In 1973, she earned her Ph.D.

Shirley Jackson completed several years of postdoctoral research at various laboratories, such as Fermi in Illinois, before being hired by AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1976, where she worked for 15 years. She conducted research on the optical and electronic properties of layered materials, surface electrons of liquid helium films, strained-layer semiconductor superlattices, and most notably, the polaronic aspects of electrons in two-dimensional systems. She is considered a leading developer of Caller ID and Call Waiting on telephones.

After teaching at Rutgers University from 1991-1995, Jackson was appointed chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Bill Clinton. In 1999, Jackson became President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she still serves today. In 2004, she was elected president of AAAS and in 2005 she served as chairman of the board for the Society. Dr. Shirley Jackson is married to a physicist and has one son.

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askagamedev · 8 months ago

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Summer 2025 Game Development Student Internship Roundup, Part 1

Internship recruiting season has begun for some large game publishers and developers. This means that a number of internship opportunities for summer 2025 have been posted and will be collecting applicants. Internships are a great way to earn some experience in a professional environment and to get mentorship from those of us in the trenches. If you're a student and you have an interest in game development as a career, you should absolutely look into these.

If you know of any game development internships that aren't listed here, please tell me! I'll try to collect another batch when EA posts theirs as a follow-up.

Technical Artist Intern (Remote!)

Sound Design Intern (Remote!)

Game Design Intern

Game Engineering Intern

Data Analytics & Data Science Intern

Localization Production Intern

Environment Art Intern

Animation Intern

VFX Intern

3D Character Art Intern

Site Reliability Engineering Intern

Concept Artist Intern (Canada)

Animation Intern

VFX Intern

Game Engineering Intern

Technical Artist Intern

Threat Intelligence Analyst Intern

UI/UX Design Intern

User Research Intern

Computer Graphics Intern

Software Engineering Intern

Production & Project Management Intern

Concept Artist Intern (California)

World Designer Intern

3D Artist Intern

Animation Programmer Intern

Animation Technical Design Intern

Audio Design Intern

Backend Engineer Intern

Balance Design Intern

Character Artist Intern

Engine Programmer Intern

Environment Art Intern

Game Design Intern

Game Security Intern

Gameplay Programmer Intern

Gameplay Systems Engineer Intern

Salesforce Developer Intern

Software Engineer Intern

Environment Art Intern

Game Design Intern

Gameplay Programmer Intern

Tools Programmer Intern

Technical Artist Intern

Technical Character Animation Intern

Technology App Portfolio Intern

Tools Programmer Intern

Concept Artist Intern

At time of writing, Electronic Arts was performing maintenance on their recruiting site and should have new openings posted on November 12th 2024. I'll do a second round of internship opportunities once they post, along with Ubisoft and any others I missed.

Brush up your resume and focus on any game dev work you've done. Amateur game dev work counts! Tabletop game mastering counts! Amateur board and card game design counts! Making your own CCG fan sets or draft cube counts! Game jam work counts! These make a bigger difference when it comes to hiring than most other kinds of work experience.

If you need assistance with your resume/CV, cover letter, or have other questions, join our discord and ask. The server is full of experienced developers who can help review your materials and give you suggestions. I also suggest taking a look at my Game Career FAQ. There's a lot of answers in there already. Best of luck out there.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

#getting a job in the game industry #internships #student resources #game career advice

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daisukitoo · 2 years ago

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MegaCrit and the Enshittification of Unity

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification...

-- Cory Doctorow, defining a term that has quickly come into use.

Unity has decided to speedrun this process, which is the kind of thing that happens when you hire a former Electronic Arts CEO. Some quick background to get to the punchline:

Unity is a popular game engine. Game developers use it to make video games, including some very popular ones like Among Us, Pokémon Go, and Genshin Impact.

Unity recently announced a new pricing scheme for using Unity, charging per install of a game and making it retroactive on existing games as of January 1, 2024. (My understanding is that developers could avoid that by never updating the game again, since that version would have been made under the current license and pricing.) This is jumping straight to "abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves."

The game development world reaction has been explosive and unequivocal condemnation, jumping immediately to "Then, they die" with many developers having already announced that they are dropping Unity and in some cases planning to delete existing games. Some have included an "unless this pricing announcement is reversed" clause, others have just said that Unity has lost their trust and is dead to them forever. A quick web search will find you lots of existing discussion.

I am mostly posting this to get to the announcement from Mega Crit, makes of Slay the Spire:

#unity #enshittification #mega crit #slay the spire #game development drama

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thelostgirl21 · 5 months ago

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Full disclosure: my partner has been an electric vehicle geek since the early 2000s, and very passionate about environmental and consumerism issues.

One of his first loves, as a teenager, was computer programming.

During the 1998 North American ice storm, while he was still just a student, they came to hire him to develop a system to quickly and effectively keep track of and distribute the relief money to the population.

Since then, he's made a career in programming, and spends a lot of his free time programming from home as a personal hobby of his.

So, when Tesla started making electric vehicles that were a crossover between an electric car and a computer (two of his passions / special interests), he naturally became highly enthusiastic about it!

And I slowly started to share his enthusiasm because I, too, am strongly against consumerism in general.

We will tend to repair home appliances and electronics for as long as we can (until you can no longer purchase repair parts), even when "buying a new one" would be cheaper.

I kept the same cell phone from 2001 to 2016, and I only changed it because the plastic on it was disintegrating and they were planning to stop supporting analog cellular services in our area.

So, what had me incredibly excited about the Tesla Model 3 back then (that was more expensive than any car I ever would have normally considered), was that it was designed to be constantly upgraded (for free, no less!) without needing to buy a new car to keep up with the new technology offered on the more recent models.

With our provincial and federal government subventions, the cheap price of electricity in Quebec, and everything we'd be saving on gas, we decided that the investment would be well worth it.

Back in 2016, we (sadly, very naively) saw Elon Musk as a visionary, an environmentalist, and someone with an interest in forcing the North American market (and the world at large) to slowly evolve towards developing more environmentally sustainable products and technologies.

People often compared him to Tony Stark back then, and we were sincerely fooled into thinking that he actually gave a damn about the future of this planet!

To be clear, we see electric cars as PART OF the solution to help tackle climate change, not THE solution to tackle climate change.

Holding various industries, and the wealthiest among us, more accountable for their pollution is obviously part of it.

And we also need to invest in more effective commuting infrastructures, densification (that allows for more services to be within shorter, often even walkable distance) combined with more affordable housing, etc.

There is plenty to be done to address environmental challenges in ways where it will become easier for individuals to make certain choices that will help reduce their own individual carbon footprint!

But, as long as people will continue to want to own personal cars, regardless of them actually needing to own one or not, we will also need to make sure that the cars that are offered on the market have the least negative impact on the environment as possible.

So, EVs aren't the one and only solution to the issue, but we firmly believe they remain a step in the right direction.

Sadly, there's an awful lot of misinformation about EVs. But they still remain a greener option than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles in virtually every possible scenario.

It is especially true in Quebec, where 100% of our provincial electricity production is hydroelectric.

So, anyway, we were looking to acquire an EV at that time, and Tesla was the only company with an EV that was designed to regularly upgrade itself and improve to keep up with newer versions of their vehicles at no additional cost.

When we bought it, we thus made the firm decision to keep the car for as long as its body (essentially, the "casing" of our "computer-car") would hold, even if that was 50+ years!

My partner insisted on getting the full self driving (FSD) feature while it was still at its lowest price, because the whole idea of witnessing a computer system slowly learning how to drive, and being amongst those teaching it how to drive, was utterly fascinating to him.

Therefore, on March 31st, 2016, he spent over 3 hours waiting in the rain outside of the Tesla dealership in Montreal to be amongst the very first people making a reservation for the Tesla Model 3.

We received our car in September 2018, named him (yeah, we gave our car a gender, deal with it!) "Spirit", and he's sincerely been the best car I've ever driven (or been driven by) in my entire life! Especially in our harsh Canadian winters!

It really pains me to say that the product itself is astounding, and has even exceeded our expectations. Because I can't, in good conscience, exactly recommend it to anyone under the current political climate / leadership.

Since September 2018, we've watched Spirit evolve, learn, gain new features, and constantly improve in ways that have been utterly fascinating to experience!

But, since September 2018, we've also sadly had to watch Elon Musk evolve into the worst of what humanity has to offer, in ways that have been utterly terrifying to witness!

He's turned into an ultra rich, dangerous, self-obsessed fascist that's declared some sort of cowardly holy war on some of society's most vulnerable people, and that keeps on threatening everything we love, including fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community, and the freaking environment (the thing we once believed he was looking to save), of all things!

And I have no word to express just how disgusted and sick I felt over that Nazi salute he did.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the oil companies and many giants from the automotive industries that would rather be selling ICE vehicles than EVs have been backing up Trump's campaign and helping him finance it as well.

But they don't wield the level of influence over social media, nor have the freaking "cult following" that Elon Musk has!

Most CEOs will operate from the shadows to avoid alienating part of their clientele, but Elon apparently just doesn't care about hurting his company and its workers, or destroying the legacy of what they have built for/with Tesla.

It's like he just fell into the manosphere at some point, drank their Kool-Aid, and decided to become their champion while trying to fix "everything wrong with the world" according to their perception of it!

A few of our friends have sold their own Tesla for fear of being associated with the man.

And we are a bit at a loss trying to figure out how to handle the situation ourselves.

Hence why I'm writing this, because it feels like my brain is stuffed, about to freaking explode, and I can't quite think clearly!

I sort of need to get it out of my system, and maybe gather other people's thoughts on this.

First, the car has already been paid in full.

So, we can't "unbuy it" to reclaim the money that we already gave Elon Musk's company.

Of course, we could sell the car to get rid of the risk of accidentally being seen as an "Elon Musk supporter" while driving around (the reason why others have done it)...

...but then, we'd only be putting the car into someone else's hands, not removing it from circulation.

And, perhaps, accidentally rewarding an Elon Musk fan by making it possible for them to buy and own a Tesla that they might not have been able to afford at full price otherwise!

Like seriously, I can't fathom why anyone that doesn't already own a Tesla would want to buy themselves one when they know that they would be investing money into Musk's company and increasing his wealth, unless they really don't care about the political positions / actions of its CEO, and/or they agree with him.

So, selling it would basically just make an Elon Musk supporter happy!

And I'm not exactly into making any Elon Musk fan happy right now.

And, when we bought our car, since we were amongst the first people reserving it by putting a deposit on it 2 years in advance, there was a deal where Tesla would be the one paying for our internet subscription services to allow us to stream music, watch Netflix, YouTube, etc. in the car for free for as long as we remained the owners of the car.

Meaning that we are the ones costing Elon Musk's company money by listening to music and watching movies in our car.

Somehow, watching "Sense8" on Netflix in a Tesla knowing that Elon Musk / Tesla is paying for your internet connection symbolically hits a sweet spot.

That deal isn't transferable if we sell the car, either.

So, the company would just have one less internet subscription to continue paying for.

And, even if we could financially afford to destroy the car, totally remove it from the roads, and donate the battery to a company that recycles them, etc., the car itself is in perfect working condition, and throwing away something that works and will need to be replaced feels like we're once again displacing the issue and wasting resources.

Maybe we could put a sticker such as

on it (source).

But then, my partner fears that we might get attacked by far-right Elon Musk fans/supporters, since they've been known for not exactly being kind to those opposing them.

So yeah, I'm just going crazy right now trying to figure out how to handle being stuck with a car that people tend to so strongly associate with Elon Musk!

It's like...

You buy a car in an effort to do your own personal part for the environment, reduce your own carbon footprint, and fight consumerism in the automotive industry...

Then, 7 years later, the CEO of the company that holds 13% of its shares makes his grand coming out as a Neo-Nazi / Neo-Nazi supporter!

The situation feels a bit surreal, and nothing quite prepares you to mentally and intellectually deal with that!

Current mood:

#Personal #My thoughts #Fucking fuckity fucking fucking fuck!

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disregardcanon · 10 months ago

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amc iwtv abigail (2024) au

The year is 2024. The location is Paris. A team of professional criminals are hired to kidnap the “daughter of a wealthy businessman” and hold her hostage for a large sum of money.

This team includes:

The “mastermind”

The medic in charge of anesthetic doses and taking care of the kid

The getaway driver

The hacker

The muscle

The ex army

These roles are played by

Santiago as the mastermind

Madeline as the medic

Estelle as the getaway driver

Daniel as the hacker

Celeste as the muscle

Now you may ask, why these particular choices? Here's the explanation

The “mastermind” of the team thinks that he’s far smarter than he is, doesn’t view abigail the child vampire as either a threat or a creature with feelings, starts out sadistic and only gets worse until he’s the real villain of the piece after becoming a vampire toward the end of the movie. This is all very Santiago to me.

The medic is the one who develops a bond with Abigail, the child vampire. In the movie, this character has a son that she’s trying to get the job money for so that she can reconcile with him too. While I wouldn’t want that to be the exact backstory, it does work for the framing. A Madeline who went into health care to help her ailing younger sister and try to get her foot in the door for a medical transition. Who was able to transition but had that kill her career and then had to resort to working for crime bosses. She ends up nicking some of their supplies to try to help her sister and has a very traumatic firing. Without that income and those supplies her sister dies and she loses access to her hormones, so she decides to do something.. Drastic. To try to get back on her feet. What other option does she have, really?

Estelle is the getaway driver because she blows up on a motorcycle and I think that’s funny

Old Maniel. This character in the movie is a young woman from a wealthy family who hacks for the fun and the thrill. I love the idea that publication of his vampire memoir destroyed his journalistic career in the 80s. After that, he still had to make do somehow, right? Hacking got the job done. He’s doing one more big job to send home an enormous paycheck to his girls, maybe write a book about it that’ll be published post mortem and keep paying their bills. Sure, whatever he gets on paper won’t make him look good, but it’ll be something. He doesn’t expect that vampires involved in his past situation would be so close to the ones plotting this situation.

Celeste as the muscle because if Estelle is there she has to be too.

I liked the ex army character but he doesn’t really line up with anyone I have in mind so. He has been tragically cut. Such is life

ONTO THE PLOT!

Santiago brings the group together. No one tells anyone else their real name.

Then, they kidnap their mark from her luxurious Paris apartment. Everyone feels a little weird about the mark being a kid when no one was informed of that, but like.. It’s a bit too late to turn back when the kid’s knocked out in the back of your car, right? And like… she’s not a kindergartener or anything. She’s probably like… 13? A bratty little teenager with a rich dad. That’s kind of justifiable, right?

(It’s not.)

They get to a giant villa in the countryside and meet up with their contact, a white American woman named Antoinette. She tells them about how they just have to keep the mark in the house overnight while she “negotiates terms” with the father. She confiscates all their electronic devices for the “safety of the operation” and gives them almost no information. After some prodding she gives them all fake names from twilight. Then, she leaves them alone in the mansion for the night with the bursting liquor cabinet.

We get some character setup after Estelle tries to do a cold read on the others and madeline calls everything she says out as bullshit. Then estelle’s like well if that was so bad how about you try it? And then madeline reads the CRAP outta her. Then celeste asks for one and it’s spot on. Santiago’s like here’s 50 bucks if you can say ONE true thing about me. And she’s like you were an undercover cop who decided that you liked being able to hurt people even more easily and never wanted to go back to having some level of rules on you. And he’s like WELL YOU’RE A DUDE! And she’s just like wow! How original! You figured out that I Transed My Gender. Can you tell me literally one other thing about me? And he. Can’t. Because he’s not as smart as he thinks he is!

Daniel has been weirdly quiet during this, so she turns to him and she’s like hey gramps do you want one? And he’s like i would literally rather die. She’s figured out that he used to be a journalist from a few of his conversational ticks but she doesn’t point it out, because he asked for no reading and she has some manners. Unlike SOME people! She’s blunt but she’s not a total asshole.

Then, Madeline goes up to check on the mark who should be waking up from the anesthetic soon. She IS! The girl plays up being scared and hurting and madeline’s like. Well the blindfold is a LITTLE over the top. I have a mask on. This is fine. She won’t be able to ID me from a lineup like this, probably,

So she takes the mark’s blindfold off. Now that the thing is off, the girl doesn’t seem scared at all. It’s like it was just a game and she’s done with it now. No “who are you” no “what are you doing” no “are you going to hurt me?” Just a staring contest with a middle schooler.

In the briefing, they told them that the mark’s first language was English. That’s the language that Madeline starts with.

“Who are you?” Madeline asks.

The girl smiles. “I’m Claudia.”

“Your whole name.” Madeline clarifies. The kid must be someone powerful’s daughter if she’s this assured of her own safety.

“Just Claudia,” the girl tells her, “I’m not on good terms with either of my fathers right now.” Well. That gives Madeline some information at least. The girl has two fathers who are separated.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Madeline assures her, because it feels like something she should do. It’s what she’d planned to do, coming up here.

“I know,” Claudia tells her, “you can’t hurt me.”

Madeline feels her breath catch in her chest. “We can’t?”

“You can’t.”

“And how do you know that?” Madeline asks.

“I just do.”

Madeline laughs. “Any other insight you want to give me?”

Claudia smiles brightly. “Sure. Can you tell Daniel Molloy that I didn’t like his book?” Madeline feels fear curl up even sharper in her gut. A fearless child named Claudia, two powerful fathers, and Daniel Molloy. She lives in Paris. She is very familiar with that man’s “memoir” from the absolutely exhausting American tourists obsessed with retracing the steps of the “real life” vampires chronicled in the book that killed a promising journalistic career in the 80s.

Is someone punking them? She doesn’t even let herself consider the crazier option: that everything in that book was real.

After whatever THAT interaction is, madeline corners santiago to make him give her more information. Who is this kid’s dad? Does she actually have two? Does he have any real clue who this kid is? Why does she seem unphased by being kidnapped? Why doesn't she seem like a kid at all?

He’s less than helpful, so Madeline brings her findings to the entire group. How the girl doesn’t seem phased at all by being kidnapped. How she claims she’s not on good terms with “either father”. “Just Claudia” and her strange request for Daniel Molloy.

“Okay, yeah,” the elderly hacker says, closing his laptop and standing up, “that’s my bullshit threshold. I’m getting the fuck outta here.”

“What?” Estelle asks, “but we are so close to getting our money?”

“I am not waiting around for one of Claudia’s dads,” he declares.

She frowns. “Do you know them?”

“Know them?” he asks, “uh yeah, I know them. One of them, at least. He’s not a man you wanna mess with.”

Celeste rolls her eyes. “Come on. What could make him so frightening? Truly?”

He just stares at her. “He’s a vampire.”

Estelle bursts into laughter, “Oh, what a funny old man you are! Who is he really?”

“A fucking vampire!” he repeats with wide, terrified eyes.

“Ah,” Santiago says, “you’re the Daniel Molloy. I should have known.”

Celeste frowns. “Who?”

Estelle giggles. “He wrote the gay vampire memoir! He always said it was real.”

“It was!” the guy tells them, “every fucking thing I wrote there was real. Every word. And no one believed me.” Santiago snorts.

The old man turns towards him with a deadly look in his eyes. “You think that’s funny?”

“Yes,” Santiago assures him, “I do.”

He points to a nasty, mottled scar across his neck. “Her father did this to me. I almost died. Still think it’s funny?”

“Yes,” he assures him, “with every word you speak it just gets funnier.”

“Whatever, man,” the old man mutters, “I’m getting out of here before she starts picking you fuckers off.” Then he turns to the driver. “Can I have the keys?”

“No! I’m not giving you the car keys!” Estelle declares, “we will need them to leave in the morning.”

He laughs. “None of you are making it to morning. I’m getting outta here while there's still some sun.”

“Then you will be walking,” Estelle says firmly.

“Whatever,” Daniel says, waving off the comment, “I’ll take my chances with the walk to town.”

The old man staggers out the door and into the dying evening sun, leaving his cut of 50 million dollars on the table.

“Well,” Celeste says, “more money for the rest of us.” That brings each of their counts up to 12 million dollars. Certainly enough for Madeline to give her sister a proper funeral and pay for HRT for the rest of her days.

Santiago goes to “speak” to Claudia, which is just an excuse to try to intimidate her and be mean. She lets it “slip” that she’s the daughter of a famous crime boss who has people killed by decapitating them: Lestat de Lioncourt.

He comes to give the group that information and they decide they'll take their chances. Like... sure. That makes… some sort of sense? If her father is a terrifying crime boss that could explain some of her behaviors. She’s still worried, but she tries not to let those consume her.

Claudia isn’t a vampire. She’s just… a smart young woman. Older than she looks, surely. Stunted growth, perhaps? That can happen with neglect. Perhaps she split from her fathers because of something along those lines. An undergrad student, perhaps. The team made an assumption concerning her age and Antoinette just let them go with it.

(Madeline tries not to let her mind settle too long on “Antoinette” from the book- the mistress whose position was always so precarious until she just… disappeared from the story entirely.)

She goes to speak with Claudia again to put her worries to rest. This will prove to her that this isn’t a preternatural middle school student but a shrewd university student.

When Claudia sees her, she starts speaking French. It sounds atrocious.

Madeline doesn’t bother responding in her mother tongue.

In English once again, she says, “Your French is bad.”

Claudia sticks with her atrocious French. “Really? You’d think a girl would get better after 80 years.” Four twenties, she claims.

Madeline chuckles and permits the girl a response in French. “Four twenties, you say? I will believe you’ve lived one of them, at least.”

Claudia grins as she switches back to her mother tongue. “Not buying the little girl act?”

Madeline scoffs. “You only acted as a little girl before we caught you. The moment you were here, you showed your true colors.”

“I’m a hundred year old vampire,” Claudia tells her, "a hundred twenty one to be exact."

Madeline laughs. “No, I think you are a cunning college student conning your father out of money.”

Claudia grins, maneuvering her cuffs to be slightly more comfortable. “However would I do that?”

“Stage your own kidnapping,” Madeline posits, “then scare the attackers into leaving and pocket the money."

“How would I do that, exactly?” Claudia asks. She sounds intrigued, excited to hear Madeline tell her back her own genius plan.

“You’re pretending to be the vampire Claudia from Molloy’s delusional diary,” Madeline tells her, “you hired another woman to pretend to be the vampire Antoinette. Recruited a few people that you thought would be susceptible to strange suggestions in addition to the father of the delusion itself so they’d leave. Then you get 25 million to yourself at the end.”

Madeline turns her head to finish her point and notices something.

She’s not in cuffs anymore-

Claudia’s canines slide down like a trick door, turning into fangs.

“I like you,” Claudia tells her, “I think I’ll kill you last.”

This is where “you should watch the movie if you haven’t yet” comes into full effect. The action is GREAT and I am just going to give you a brief play by play. The house seals itself into a special trap until the sun comes up. Claudia kills Estelle first- detaches her head from her body and drinks her blood. The three survivors band together for a while to try to evade her and stay alive.

The stakes rise as they try to talk about what awaits them outside of this death mansion. Santiago decides that he straight up hates her for “letting her sister die” and having the gall to Be Trans About It.

They “capture” Claudia who spends the whole time taunting them and turning them against each other. Santiago is needlessly cruel. Claudia “escapes” and Madeline realizes that she was never trapped in the first place. They engage in a Flirtatious Bonding Moment TM before the group splits again. Madeline and Santiago run off and Celeste gets left behind.

Then, Celeste gets turned into a vampiric puppet that Claudia uses to scare the shit out of them before the woman's body dies. It seems like Claudia has all of the murders in the bag until a door to a hidden room opens up and fucking Antoinette is behind it. And guess what! She WAS the mistress! She gives them some pathetic backstory bits about being a scorned lover turned by one of Claudia’s fathers a hundred years ago. Lestat, the one who turned her to be his lover, planned to kill her as a peace offering to his husband as they reunited at the temporary return of their runaway daughter. Said runaway daughter decided that she wanted to start again, completely on her own, and requested that Antoinette be allowed to live in her service since Claudia can’t make a vampire on her own. Both fathers agreed, as it made them feel better for their daughter to have someone as she ventured off into vampiric adulthood away from them. Antoinette has been forced to play errand girl to her ex-lover’s daughter for 80 years. The ex-lover that was going to kill her to return to his husband’s good graces.

So yeah. Antoinette wants to turn someone she thinks can help her defeat Claudia and then get rid of her keeper and find out how to escape somewhere that loustat can’t find her afterwards. Compassionless, mainly competent Santiago seems like a very good choice!

He is. At least… he like, takes to the gift? Pretty immediately? But he kills Antoinette because he doesn’t want to share and then Madeline realizes that she’s 100% safer with Claudia. She’d been thinking that might be the case for a while, but now she’s certain.

Madeline tries to get away from him to find Claudia and makes it to her, but they realize quickly that his size advantage is.. .real bad for her in a fight. Especially since Madeline’s like, 100% dying. He shifts the odds one more time by trying to make Madeline into a vampiric puppet like he saw Claudia do. Thankfully his hubris got the better of him and it doesn’t work. Madeline’s able to fight against it and restrain him.

Restraining him is just a temporary fix, though. Madeline is bleeding out and Claudia is trying to bring her back from the brink with her blood, but with a volatile Freshly Turned Fledgling and a dying human that claudia doesn’t WANT to die… the odds aren’t looking great for her.

That is until her father finally does come. Lestat de Lioncourt appears in all of his vampiric glory. The moment he arrives he’s separated Santiago’s head from his body.

“You’re late,” Claudia says primly.

He huffs. “Late? I wasn’t aware I was welcome until you were losing a fight with a fledgling!”

“A fledgling that your fledgling made,” Claudia says, “so really, it was your fault.” He smiles ever so slightly.

“If you had allowed me to kill Antoinette years ago, she never could have moved against you,” Lestat tells her pointedly.

Claudia shrugs an acknowledgement. “I wanted a companion. She worked alright."

He snorts. “That's what I thought when I made her, but Antoinette was a poor replacement for your father."

Claudia frowns. “Where is Daddy Lou?”

“Home,” Lestat tells her.

“What? He didn’t come help?” she sounds devastated that her father might have been reading the paper while she was being hunted.

“He closed his mind off from you,” he says, “per your request, ma petite.”

She moves her hand up to her elbow to rub gently at the viscera coating it. “Asking that of him mighta been… harsh.”

The man smile ever so slightly. “Perhaps. If you were to reopen your mind to him-”

“No,” Claudia tells him, “just havin’ your presence in there is bad enough.”

He flinches.

“But..” Claudia says, “maybe you could just… keep an eye on me, just in case?" A slight smile. “And you can both come round every once in a while, I s’pse.”

Lestat’s eyes drift over to the mortal dying on the floor. “Would you like assistance with this.. Cleanup?”

Madeline feels her heart stop in her chest. What does that mean, exactly?

“You can’t kill her,” Claudia says firmly.

Lestat turns his gaze toward back to his daughter. “And why is that?”

“She saved my life,” Claudia tells him, “and I like her. She’s interesting.”

“Hm,” he says appraisingly, “you are without a companion.” A companion. What, exactly, does that mean?

Claudia’s eyes widen. “Are you offering to make me one?”

“You cannot create one on your own,” he says, “and I will not be “coming round”- he uses air quotes, like a douche bag- “until I am invited. So. Yes. I am offering.”

Madeline tries to wrap her head around this offer, a vampiric eternity with the most interesting person that she’s met in years. Someone who understands the horror of having a body that makes people make all the wrong assumptions.

Claudia takes her hand. “Well, what do you think? How's forever sound?” There’s nothing in this world for Madeline, anymore. A dead sister and a world that doesn’t want her.

Why not join someone who might understand? It’s not like she has anything to lose. Her sister is dead and all she’s working towards are a funeral, a tombstone, and her own hormones. Why not live the way that she wants for once? “I say,” Madeline tells her, “turn me. Now.” Forever isn’t too scary when there’s someone you trust it with.

#amc iwtv #amc iwtv aus #claudeline #claudia de pointe du lac #madeline eparvier #lestat de lioncourt #lesdaughter #the unholy family

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