#Process Direct

[cali-kabi]

IM LITERRALY SO HAPPY AND HYPER NOW OMG OMG SO MUCH KIRBY NEWS KIRBY FORGOTTEN LAND NEWS AND KIRBY AIR RIDERS AAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Here’s some screenshots I took ;w; enjoy I’m so excited <3

[akemiiya]

isat is praised a lot for its ludonarrative harmony and how the player's feelings are synchronised with siffrin's, but something i don't see mentioned much is how it also works the other way around -- the player trying to get certain dialogues/interactions (the player's influence on siffrin's actions), even if they go against siffrin's wants at the moment, are all justified in game.

for example, if the player continuously attempts to use siffrin's dagger on their allies, siffrin is having intrusive thoughts. and if the player repeatedly tries to go into the bathroom in act 5, siffrin secretly really wanted to monologue because he's a little obsessed with them lol

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[inkyrainstorms]

Milestones

@aroace-get-out-of-my-face I sincerely and honestly wish you a very get exploded.

[ingoodjesst]

have you put the pieces together yet, detective

[harrywavycurly]

Just know I love y’all but if you send me an anon message saying I can’t grieve Liam’s passing then I need you to just understand something, I’m grieving the fact one of my favorite bands will NEVER be whole again to put it simply, Zayn can always possibly come back, but Liam is gone. I’m grieving the memories and the moments in my life that One Direction got me through because they’re all going to feel different now when I look back on them. I’m grieving the fact his family and friends lost a loved one.

[recoveringdirectioner]

louis watching the brits and tweeting about the tribute almost instantly is tearing me apart

[ryemiffie]

The funniest thing to me about trans dude Fiddleford is that means he picked the name Fiddleford. . .

Like, he was being SO FUCKING OBVIOUS and this dumb bitch (dumb bitch pictured below) remained oblivious as fUCK

IDIOT!

[ssruis]

Under the boisterous light of that first magnitude star, shall we dance a dance together?

Based on:

Flats:

[catboythanatos]

hello stob nation its slowgoing but im trying to write a fic that takes place in the crab in the time between sonic movie 2 and 3.... come eat this wip snippet

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

I will literally defend Samama Khalid with my life by the way. Sam fans get behind me we have a job to do.

If feel like a lot of the time his actions are taken heavily out of context or the reason behind why he thinks a certain way is brushed aside. Like how he acts towards Alice for example. Her being protective of him seems to have been an issue in the past for them, and her going behind his back to mess with his case files has only strengthened his distrust in her, and so he’s even less likely to listen. They clash naturally due to their opposing coping mechanisms; Alice chooses ignorance and Sam has to know. He thinks he can handle it, and it will likely be his downfall.

There’s more nuance to how he acts than him just being an asshole without reason, and you can not like him as a character, but please don’t make him out to just be an asshole, when there’s so much more to his character and motives.

[vigilskeep]

the problem with my love of starting new playthroughs is that i see relatively little of zevran and that’s sick and twisted

[happinessmaskseller]

"Did you want to talk?"

Bonus:

[meruz]

That is the most beautiful Burving artwork I've ever seen! ❤🥺❤🥺❤

THANK U I LOVE BURVING.... irving is my favorite severance character. a real yearner.... and it was more a s1 thing but i love the whole thing where his outie is so obviously cultured and surrounded with art and books and music and yet his innie has no access to that and latches onto the smallest points of corporate art and design he has access to... IDK I just wuv him. i had a more straightforward sketch of the plant room scene WEEKS ago but it always felt like it was missing something and then when last weeks episode aired i saw that beautiful train station i was like EUREKA thats what it needed! pillars!!!! and i fully pivoted to work with a reflected composition lol. thank you severance locations team <3

[keksalot404]

WHAT IS RIGHT NOW