#blah blah blah this is a rant

[tt40art]

“Why Do You Still Own and Use an MP3 Player?”

I will admit that modern music streaming is incredibly convenient and “cheap” — at least for the consumer. Spotify lets you trial music before you buy, lowering buyer’s remorse if you snag something you end up hating. However, that’s about all I can say for it.

While I am not a digital minimalist, I am a firm believer that music should be played without interruptions. If I’m listening to something, I don’t want my phone to mute it or lower the volume for an alert. Likewise, I would rather eat my own eardrums than listen to some irrelevant ad between my songs.

More importantly, I want to own my music. I want to have it even after some upper-level management type decides the label is no longer profitable. I want to play it wherever and whenever, and I want absolutely zero ads. (Apparently, free Spotify shows pop-up ads when you’re playing your own locally-hosted content.)

Also, they keep removing headphone jacks from phones. :(

[baejax-the-great]

One of the things missing in Veilguard is any sort of meaningful power struggle. By keeping to the poorer parts of the city-settings, we don't really deal with corrupt or powerful nobles. By defanging the Crows, an organization who famously has lethal squabbles between factions, they turned them into some weird, benevolent family organization. Even the assassin trying to make "evil" power plays doesn't actually manage to kill any of his targets, and his ruthless relatives? Also don't kill him in revenge. In the end, the status quo is maintained. Nothing has changed.

In Tevinter, we have the Threads, an organized crime unit who we know runs "protection" rackets on the locals and is involved in some kind of smuggling (it's Tevinter--so presumably this would involve slavery and dangerous artifacts, but it's Veilguard, so I guess not). Instead of them beefing with the Shadow Dragons, who presumably ruin some of their deals with their pesky "freeing the slaves" thing, and instead of their main issue being with any sort of law enforcement, something which doesn't exist in Veilguard beyond one singular templar who does all of jack shit the entire game, their main power struggle is with the Venatori, who are evil just to be evil.

And instead of the Veilguard siding with law enforcement or the threads and enlisting their help to, idk, unseat the corrupt head of the templars or otherwise deal with the venatori shit, the threads are highly favored by the storyline, and in the end the only real choice is to make Neve a thread or to make her... idk, the same Neve? The game calls her an "inspiration", but it's not like she's part of any organization, so we can't call her a figurehead. It's just like, see that random citizen right there? She rules. And I don't really see how that increases the power of the rule of law, because even if one good person is working within rule of law to get things done, she's not part of the system, and everyone already know the system is corrupt in Minrathous. Random citizens in fucking Ferelden know the system is corrupt in Minrathous, or they would if they weren't all dead. Neve is now just playing on hard mode to appear righteous, which, good for her, but I'm sorry, won't inspire all that many people who are still paying "protection" money to the local mafia.

(Putting Neve in charge of the Threads is an absolutely whackadoodle decision by the devs that I don't even know how to respond to. She has a single Thread contact. Presumably the Threads have a hierarchy. She has never demonstrated interest in being a smuggler. Being a detective really has no overlap with being a crime boss. Telling a group of criminals that they are all detective's helpers now is sure to go over like a lead balloon. What the fuck was that. Why did that happen.)

Maevaris and Dorian arguing came out of nowhere and lasted a fairly long time, which was interesting, but after the most recent election in the states, Maevaris's position sounds unbearably naive and trite, and this hardly counts as a power struggle as they both say they will support the other depending on what some random outsider thinks should happen. (That is soooo not a basis for a system of government. Why would Maevaris OR Dorian cede their power to Rook, someone they don't know and who doesn't matter)

The power struggle within the Wardens is also very stupid and easily solved. The First Warden is a moron. He dies (kind of). For some reason the extremely hot and competent couple who we first encounter in the middle of nowhere are next in command, so, phew. Problem solved there. A question of what the Wardens will do now that the Blights are over would have been interesting. Do they keep recruiting lest the Blight somehow reoccur and nobody remembers the Warden secrets? Or do they disband? Do they set themselves to seeking a cure and nothing else?

The closest you get to that is deciding what the griffons will do, which, again, why the fuck is Rook deciding that, but also there are 13 of them, in two or three more generations they will be dead unless a lot of mages bone up on genetics real fast.

Who is left? We have Rivain, which is just pointless in this game. I played as a Lord of Fortune, but you could drop that faction and not a single thing changes in the game. Pirates who don't loot valuable artifacts because they are elvhen? Give me a fucking break.

Same for the Mourn Watch. There is pretty much nothing going on in that region. You could excise it from the game and nothing changes in the slightest. There is not a single excuse for them not using the Eluvians to help the Veilguard earlier in the game, given just how little they have going on.

The Veiljumpers are just missed opportunities all over the place. They could have had factions debating whether to join the god of vengeance in fucking up the human civilizations as payback for, you know, everything. They could have had people joining Cyrion in thinking that a Forgotten One might be the best way to face down the gods, given they'd done it before. There could have been a HUGE cultural impact on "what do we do now that we know our gods are evil fuckfaces--what do we keep and what do we throw away," but Veilguard ain't that deep. They could have had knowledge of a super-weapon or some elvhen bullshit that would help the Veilguard fight the gods... but nah.

In DAO, your decisions not only affected the political futures of the various regions, but they decided who would help you and how. Did the dwarves have golems? Did you have templars or mages? That whole wolf thing with the Dalish that I no longer remember that well? And the Dalish deciding to help changed how they were viewed in Ferelden. The mages helping you meant the monarch would treat them favorably. It fucking mattered.

In Veilguard, the only situation remotely close to that is the dragon decision at the beginning, which was one of the fucking dumbest plot points in a video game I have ever played. It was the first thing that made me set my controller down and go... what? What the fuck? The idea that Rook, a nobody, is the only person singularly capable of driving back a dragon in the entire north is laughable. What the fuck was Dorian up to that day? How is Rook more capable than every single Crow? How is it the two companions you sent to the other city were absolutely useless? If Lucanis/Neve + two companions were unable to drive a dragon away, what makes them think Rook would be the deciding factor? What makes them blame Rook when they themselves couldn't fucking do it? Neve in particular was a big part of fucking up that ritual and releasing the gods, so why is Rook taking all the fire for this?

AND WHY IS THEIR RESPONSE TO A BLIGHT TO FIND A SINGLE DRAGON HUNTER? HEY DIPSHITS, THE DRAGON IS HUNTING YOU. YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT PART. YOU NEED AN ARMY.

But Treviso or Minrathous being spared doesn't change the global political situation at all. It would have been really interesting if it did. Tevinter hobbled? How many kingdoms would be salivating to take a bite out of their territory? With the trade princes of Antiva being absolutely fucked over by the Blight, who is taking over that trade? Who is getting rich?

Nobody, I guess, because why would Rook know or care about that, because, as previously mentioned, they are a nobody who doesn't matter and honestly shouldn't be listened to.

The stakes in this game are nothing because the bad guys are all so obviously bad that you know, as a video game player, that you are going to defeat them. Oh, the Antaam are just mindless, faceless brutes fucking up Treviso? Okay, let's kill them. Venatori again? I'm pretty sure they aren't the heroes of this game. There's no power struggle, and in the end all we've done is revert to the status quo, (except i guess Treviso is no longer occupied).

Except for the south. The south is dead. but we didn't have anything to do with that for some reason. Couldn't even be bothered to house some refugees in our safehouse that was built specifically to house refugees. The Inquisitor, who has access to the eluvians, couldn't figure out how to get other people through them or something so... sorry, every single Orlesian, Fereldan, and Marcher.

[moonchild-in-blue]

I'll never not find supremely funny the fact that Tumblr remains the only social media that is "actually" social. The place where all the weirdos and introverts and mentally ill and severely associal people are.

Because everything else is just a "look at this photograph" type thing (read: 30 second hyper stimulating videos of nothing burguer) OR "I know exactly when you saw my message and you MUST reply IMMEDIATELY or else".

It's very reaction-based, rather than meaningful and continuous engagement with others. There's no back and forth. But here we're all doing our thing, being weird and anonymous and unfiltered about whatever it is, parallel playing on the dash like it's another day at the playground.

And someone can go "ooh let's play knights" and others will be doing mud cakes, or playing catch, and others are just quietly reading a book, or trading cards, or doing personality quizzes, or sharing earbuds. And there's collective snack time where we all consume the same thing, and sometimes there's a new fun game for everyone, and it's nice.

[remuspenus]

also I hate people implying that Patton somehow changed Janus or is the first side Janus actually cares about and is friends with. as if Janus’s love for the other dark sides isn't deeply important to the story as a whole. The fact that Janus’s role as Thomas self care/preservation leads him to care about EVERY aspect of Thomas, including the most unloved parts of himself, the parts that Thomas was desperate to deny and accept. Thomas wasn't ready to accept them yet, but Janus WAS. It's so obvious that the reason Patton and Janus get along is because of the deep care they have towards Thomas and the rest of the sides, not because Patton changed Janus to be more caring or something

[emmabirb8]

Y'know... not to bring this up, but as a fat girlie I feel like it needs to be said-

Nandermo getting decimated after the build-up of what was seeming to be something grand and amazing up thru s3 not only for queer representation but also a fat character finally getting to have a happy ending with their more conventionally attractive love interest just feels like such a letdown in, like, five categories at once, lmao

Shadows started going downhill for me after the s3 finale, and luckily some other hyperfixations swooped in to occupy my brain by the time s5 rolled around, so I'm not nearly as bitter about the whole thing as I could have been. But still. STILL.

We really lost out on SO MUCH. And for what?? So the writers could stay in their dumb little comfort zone??? Gimme a fuckin' break.

We could have had a CANON VAMPIRE/HUMAN MIXED RACE MIXED WEIGHT EXPLICITLY ROMANTIC GAY PAIRING, but they decided "sitcom vibes" and shoehorning in "lol throwbacks" to s1 were more important (and truthfully, those aspects only made the finale that much more unfunny).

Anyway, in short, Nadja's hypnosis tragically did NOT work, and another fat character got cheated out of a satisfying culmination to (what was once) a stellar narrative lmao

[ultravioletbrit]

“brace” - Jegulus microfic - @into-the-jeggyverse - 266 words

The match had been going on for hours. It was heated and aggressive and even from the stands James could feel the intensity. The score had been close the entire game and it all came down to who could catch the snitch first, but neither seeker had seen it the entire game.

That was until Regulus spotted it hovering in the corner of the pitch only centimeters above the ground. James saw the moment Regulus found it and he didn’t hesitate to go after it. He shot across the pitch faster than James had ever seen him fly and James had to brace himself on the front of the stands as he watched Regulus dive directly towards the ground. It was a risky move because Regulus would have to pull up at the very last second so he didn’t crash into the ground or the side of the pitch. 

It felt like time slowed down and James held his breath the entire time. Regulus reached his hand out and wrapped his fingers around the snitch at the same time as he pulled his broom up and spun to the side to fly straight up along the side of the pitch. It was beautiful. And ridiculously stupid.

Regulus had the biggest smile on his face as he flew over to James.

“You are insane.” James told him. “But that incredible. You’re incredible.”

“For you.” Regulus held out the snitch.

Instead of taking the snitch, James wrapped his hand around Regulus’ wrist and pulled him down for a kiss.

“For you.” James said when they broke the kiss.

[sfblah]

You should literally never shut up about using AI for anything other than getting the menial, grueling email-work done. Using it for creating ENTIRE WORKS OF ART is a fucking abomination. I wish I could double follow for more fire AI takes tbh

I genuinely think genAI is one of the great evils of our time. Not to the extent that it's going to directly destroy us or anything quite like that, but it's just such a creative black hole. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for making things easier. I am lazy as shit bro.

If generative AI really was just a dinky little toy doing fun stuff for free then I'd have much less of a problem with it. But the reality is it's this gigantic mess of everything that's wrong about how we handle technology under capitalism. It wastes natural resources, it's trained on the creations of others without their consent, and before it does anything genuinely noteworthy it's going to be used to put people out of work for the sake of corporate bottom lines.

It's not about whether AI can draw or write good. Don't get me wrong, it can't, but even if it could, it's still just a sickening attempt to automate and commodify part of what makes us human. A given technology in and of itself is neither good nor evil, but if we can't use it responsibly, we shouldn't have it until we can.

[lightoutage]

PLEASE for the love of GOD, LET AMY BE GIRLY IN STH 4

[minsu-the-cowardly-human]

When someone on Tiktok says Thansu/Thanos x Min Su is a dark/comship:

(I love them but I don't think they're that toxic to be considered as either..they're just toxic friends ok..)

((Also as long as ppl acknowledge that they are at least kinda toxic I don't see any problem shipping them as long as you don't romanticize their toxicity))

[stitcherofchaos]

TBH my ‘vision’ of Maglor is more of a music nerd than any kind of drama queen fanon makes him out to be sometimes.

Like someone who just doesn’t see the political ramifications other people saw in his songs, when it really was just a good metaphor. Someone with messy hair and pulls it back without even brushing it before going to a royal festival. The geeky, melancholic version of Finrod in his own family. A Maglor so obsessed with music and words he thinks about the sheer art of the Oath’s words rather than the context within itself or what it entails. Someone who wasn’t aware of how the Noldolantë could have been taken the wrong way and didn’t even finish it before he vanished from history (or, who knows, he probably forgot to bring the lyrics written with him when the Gap burned), probably had a meltdown when he realized that he had lost it. Someone who loves music so much that, after all is finished, he fades while singing, because it was all he had left.

Someone who once had a joyful, innocent spirit which was brutally killed after he did.

[ohno-the-sun]

Found this old comic in my drafts

[ivrsen]

the way *some* mouthwashing fans portray jimmy (inspired by what i've seen on tiktok)

i'm tired right now so this might not make sense so i'm sorry in advance. ALSO TO PREFACE: THIS IS NOT IN DEFENSE OF JIMMY'S ACTIONS!! just some personal pet peeves. also, I understand that these can be unserious as tiktok is pretty brainrot but i just had to say it somewhere.

i recently watched a mouthwashing play through after my fyp was flooded with memes, edits, and think pieces. the edits did a good job with getting me hooked, i'll admit. however the way some people talk about jimmy's character is kind of annoying? this isn't to police how people interact with media because who am i to say?

we all know that jimmy is a terrible person. that's obvious. he raped anya, one of the worst things -- if not THE worst you can do to another person. HOWEVER, the way people characterize him is quite strange. i see a lot of people say he probably stinks and doesn't take care of himself. a lot of people also choose to portray him ugly and low effort. i find this particularly odd because i feel like it pushes that rapists are ugly or dirty which is not always true? a rapist isn't always a stinky, dirty looking man hiding in an alleyway, it can be a handsome rich guy who drowns himself in cologne. it can be a good friend you've known for years, a family member, a coworker -- which in this case it was. another pet peeve is when they attach all these negative traits to him just because he did what he did -- almost making him some unrealistic level of evil despite him already being horrible.. is it reasonable to assert he may be a misogynist? yes. is it reasonable to say he stomps on puppies and tortures kittens in his spare time? i don't know.

what makes jimmy scary in my opinion is that he's a regular guy -- albeit an asshole. i feel like trying to put him into this stereotypical box of what a bad person looks like is a disservice, i feel.

don't burn me at the stake please.

[optimistic-autistic]

nothing so aggravating as seeing people claim what Hades did was just a misunderstanding because he ''loved Persephone too much''. like i don't know about you, but it's pretty hard for that to turn into building a town based on slavery and later getting a girl and assaulting her (even if it's just implied, he still at least had to pretend to do something like it, because his goal was to make Persephone mad).

[repurposedmeatlocker]

Guess who just graduated university

[ohmytiredheart]

Honestly I feel for Sam but serves him right.

Even if we ignore the potential intermingling of the web or any other other spooky strings that are likely being pulled, there's a lot to unpack here.

I wouldn't say Sam "deserved" it, but Alice tried warning him for months. This is what he gets for sticking his nose in places it didn't belong.

Did I say the same thing about Jon in TMA? Yes and no. Obviously there isn't a story without someone doing something dumb, but I think Jon's situation and Sam's situation are a little different. Jon was an idiot, yes, but he (and everyone else around him) were forced to go in completely blind. He had no idea what he was doing and didn't have any warnings or help at all except from his creepy boss with ulterior motives.

Sam also went in blind, but he was warned several times by several people including the eldritch computer to stop and turn around. He could have avoided this if he just returned Alice's calls or looked at her messages.

But nooooo he had to poke around with his little crushy crush and get himself thrown into a portal to what we can only assume is the TMA universe. Serves him right.

[maddieandangel]

My friends asked for more of this AU concept from my sideblog, so. Here you go Internet, you get this too dgshfshs

Post Embrace the Void AU where Ghost, the Godseeker, and all the Sibling Shades become a consciousness together within the Delicate Flower after it absorbs all the Void