#conventional-machine-learning

[cybereliasacademy]

HyperTransformer: G Additional Tables and Figures

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[clumsypuppy]

if escape rooms as team building exercises became popular im not sure if id be more excited or terrified

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny is the Tibetan Monk

So! When Bruce was travelling the world, finding masters to teach him how to fight and investigate, he came across a strange building in Tibet.

He had followed rumors of an ancient Monk who lived atop a mountain just on the edge of a Village, who had learned how to conquer Death itself, and stole its secrets for himself. Hoping to find a new Teacher, Bruce climbed the mountain and found the home of that Monk.

What he found was strange though...

The building seemed much more modern than he had been expecting, built with metal and drywall rather than ancient bricks or stones as he had assumed. There was also a strange machine on the top of the building, and if he didn't know any better he would have said it almost looked like a spaceship.

Hesitantly, he knocked on the wooden door and waited.

The man who answered looked nothing like he had expected, but so far nothing had met his expectations so he wasn't really surprised at that point. He looked relatively young, in his late 20's or early 30's, and was wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans. He had short black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin that didn't exactly match the tone of the other people living in the area. In fact he looked as if he could have been an American, rather than Tibetan.

Bruce introduced himself, explained why he was there, and managed to convince the Monk that he deserved his training.

It was unorthodox, certainly very different from the training he had recieved in the League of Assasins, but the Monk said that he was well suited for this style of training.

Under the monk he learned a variety of techniques. The ability to shield his mind from Telepaths, how to Astral Project, how to completely hide his presence from others, even from those with enhanced senses, and so much more.

By the time he was finished training with the Monk, he was confident that he could finally achieve his goal of saving Gotham from itself. He bid the monk farewell, and returned to his home ready to begin the legend of the Batman.

Meanwhile Danny had just sent his most recent student off after a few months of training.

He had to do this every once in a while. There were hundreds of Liminal and Ecto-Contaminated people out there in the world who didn't know how to manage their abilities. They didn't know how to innately seperate from their physical bodies so they could more easily feed on natural Ectoplasm, or how to shield their minds from the volatile stray emotions of the people around them thay may influence their thoughts.

It was dangerous for people with that level of Ecto-Contamination to live without knowing how to keep themselves healthy. So every once in a while, Danny would find a way to contact them and to teach them all they needed to know to stay healthy.

The "Centuries Old Monk" routine was an old favorite of his for this purpose. He would intentionally spread rumors where he knew they would hear, add in some incentive like "conquering death" to make sure they would follow those rumors, and than meet them and take them under his wing.

A few of his other favorite routines were the "Circus Act who knows more than he should", "Mechanic with great advice", and sometimes even just "Life Coach" for the more conventional cases.

And if he heard Bruce's story and decided to teach him how to use a few extra useful Ghostly Abilities, like hiding your presence or merging with Shadows, then who could really judge him? The kid had taken up a huge burden, he needed all the help he could get.

Besides, its not the first time he's ever done that.

...

Years later, Bruce met Dick and found out that he also knows how to Astral Project and Guard his Mind. He couldn't merge with the shadows or hide his presence nearly as well, but he could apparently slow how fast he fell and bend in ways even bruce couldn't.

Apparently he was taught how to do so from an old member of Haley's circus, who told him that they were meditation techniques to get "in the zone" for his trapeze acts.

Then he met Jason, who could also Astral Project and Guard his mind, and he could also heal faster than normal people and read other people's emotions. He learned from a Mechanic who used to live on his street, who told him it was just some street skills that would let him avoid the people who would hurt him or give him trouble.

Then Tim came in, also with Astral Projection and a Telepath-Proof mind, and he could apparently last for weeks on end with no food or even water, and could hide his presence from even Batman. He was taught by a butler his parents had briefly hired while away from home, though Tim's parents didn't know what he was talking about when he brought it up to them later. He was told it was just a way of "keeping his spirits up" when he was alone.

Stephanie had also been taught by an old Mechanic on her street. Same as all the other she could leave her body behind and guard her mind, but she could also read emotions and convince people to do what she said. The mechanic never gave a reason for why he was teaching her, but did say that it would help her gauge the people in her life easier. He left barely a week before Steph realized her dad was the Cluemaster.

Damien was, suprisingly, trained by the same Master that Bruce had been taught by. Talia had sent him up the mounting saying that his Father had learned from the man on the mountain, and he would as well. He was taught the same as all the others, though instead of merging with Shadows like his Father he was taught how to converse with Animals.

Cass had been taught by a man while she was running from her Father. He never said why, only that it would help her live a better life. She had the "normal" abilities of Astral Projection and Guarding her Mind, but she could also Merge with Shadows and Perfectly Read other people's emotions beyond their body language.

Duke was taught by a man who had also taught other members of "We Are Robin" during the cataclysm. He said it would help them survive their attempts at heroism, though he gave Duke extra training for some reason. He had taught Duke even more than he had taught the other Bats, alongside the now typical Astral Projection and Guarding his Mind, Duke could also talk to the Dead, See into the Past, and even Phase through Walls. With enough effort he could even Fly.

A few of his abilities were attributed to his Metahuman Powers, but he claimed that they were never that powerful before that man came along.

He also said that the man "Glowed" in a strange way. He was the only one who could see it among the members of We Are Robin, even the others he had taught.

Bruce had long since decided he needed to pay his old Master a visit.

[lectern-fullcauldron]

things I really appreciate about hermitcraft:

I love that the hermits clubbed together to buy tfc a new pc and monitor in 2020, with a massive screen aimed at combatting his migraines and motion sickness

I love that cubfan has Joe Hills twitch emotes as part of his collection. Joe won't sign a twitch contract and can't have his own emotes, so cub just made some for his subscribers to play with on Joe's streams

I love that Keralis keeps sending computer mice and other gear to the other hermits whenever they mention computer problems (because when you own a hardware company, why wouldn't you be your friends' sugar daddy)

I love that Joe has mentioned that grian will resource gather for other hermits off camera in his free time, just because he can

I love that when iskall talked about his hermitcraft downtime, he said that none of the others tried to force him to make a video, they all just popped in and out, offering his various projects they were working on to see if he wanted to join in

I love that the hermits always have lots of advice for each other - whether it be parenting advice for doc, or just in having worked with mumbo since he was 17 and in sixth form college, of talking about tfc's wisdom (and sometimes we even get to learn about tango's washing machine and international taxes)

I love that hermits will take on infrastructure projects, like netherhubs and railways and roads and enderfarms

I love hermits helping hermits

I love stream weekends

I love that some hermits are dedicated enough to neglect their own bases and spend weeks helping out a friend - particularly Cleo, moving into stress' season six castle and Scarland and more to build diorama after diorama.

I love the dedication that the hermits have, and I appreciate how hard they worked for the king arc, the crossover, and the charity stream.

I love the strength of the community when a charity stream comes around.

I love that hermits will rush across the server or panic log in when someone needs help - killing doc's escaped withers, collecting gear, clearing lava after a tactical log out, turning off farms

I love that they offer each other building advice and redstone help (even if it is just scar and iskall being judgy about block choice)

I love scar's first reaction to ever seeing grian in person was 'you're drowning in fans at this convention, I wish I could help you, but we don't know each other yet'

I love Hypno and Joe singing karaoke at minecon in 2012

I love that they do make a wish hermitcraft guests and hermits who can help will be there

I love shared farms and shared resources, and a hermit flying in unprompted to drop off a shulker of that thing you mentioned you needed for no charge

I love hermitcraft as a community

[hbmmaster]

I used to think of braille like it's a digital text encoding scheme (if you know a little bit about how braille works and a lot about how computers store text, it feels "obvious" that braille dot patters are six-bit binary encodings of characters) but the more I've learned about it the more I've understood how wrong that is.

for one, braille is not an encoding of the latin alphabet. you can transliterate between the latin alphabet and braille the same way as you can transliterate between any two writing systems, but they really are completely separate scripts that follow completely different rules. converting to and from braille is a hard problem that depends on the specific orthography of the language being used, and within individual languages still is often very context sensitive.

for example, english braille (in some standards) spells the word "a" differently from the letter "a": they both use the same character that's used when the vowel appears within longer words, but when the letter "a" is used as a letter and not as the word, it (in some standards) requires an additional character to specify that you mean the letter.

also, braille isn't digital at all. it's designed for people, not computers. the earliest version of braille is from 1824, decades before the earliest machines you could reasonably describe as computers. braille was designed for humans, and it follows conventions that are reasonable for people but make no sense for computers. it's rare for two related dot patterns to be differentiated by "flipping one of the bits" like you'd do with a binary text encoding; instead you get things like rotating flipping or moving the pattern, which certainly feels a lot more like a writing system than an encoding of a writing system.

[wheeloffortune-design]

I think an important skill to develop is traveling alone. Or just doing things alone.

I often go to events or conventions in neighboring cities (neighboring in a canadian way, meaning 3+ hours of travel) and most of the time I do it alone. I take the car, bus, train, with my clothes and my books and my art and my cpap machine and always a book that I won't read, and I do the Event, sometimes I see friends, meet colleagues.

But there are many hours where I find myself in a new city, and I learned to make myself visit new places, go to cafés with a notebook or sketchbook, visit museums, get a pint in interesting pubs, eat yummy food at cool restaurants, visit the tourists traps. Take selfies and send them to mom.

And at night, I go back to the hotel room and I make myself a cup of tea (because I brought teabags from home), watch local tv, try to read the book.

Work made me travel to Ottawa, so yesterday I saw a friend but after I ate delicious fish and chips at an irish pub, today I went to a gaming pub and beat a childhood videogame for the first time, tomorrow I'll be flying in a WW2 biplane.

If I had to wait for the stars to align and for someone to do things with me, I wouldn't do anything.

So I guess as long as I can grab my little suitcase, my backpack and my cpap machine, I'll keep going to places. Qui m'aime, me suive.

[dark-l-angel]

I love your omnilingual reader…i require more…pretty please with a cherry on top😫‼️🙏🏽

A/N: We're making it a series, Huh? 😂

Batfam x Omnilingual Reader - PART 5 : The UN Called, They Want Their Interpreter Back

~ Batcave - 10:42 PM ~

Bruce is doing his usual brooding-in-the-dark routine, while the rest of the Batkids are gathered around the table arguing over who broke the coffee machine again. Reader walks in, sipping Yerba Mate like a world peace delegate on vacation.

Dick: "Okay but can we talk about how you straight up seduced a weapons dealer in Romanian?!"

You answered "Correction: I flirted in Dacian Latin. Man was a sucker for ancient dialects. Not my fault he folded like a lawn chair."

Tim (holding his head): "Do you realize how much damage control I had to do?! I had to pretend to be a UN translator and accidentally told the ambassador’s wife she smelled like wet ham!"

Jason (genuinely impressed):

"Lowkey though, that’s a power move. ‘Yo girl, you smell like deli meat’ Boom. Dominance."

Damian arms crossed, offended: "Tt. That’s not even the worst part. They managed to negotiate a peace treaty between two gangs. In Tagalog. With puppet theatre."

You said innocently : "Puppets transcend violence. Learn the art, gremlin."

Alfred passing by with a tray of cookies: "If anyone needs me, I’ll be re-reading the Geneva Convention to see if ‘Diplomatic Menace’ is a chargeable offense."

~ Flashback : Earlier That Week

In gotham museum gala ~

You’d been tasked with “behaving” and “blending in” Naturally, that meant playing interpreter for Bruce while he schmoozed politicians. But somewhere between the second flute of champagne and the Prime Minister of Spain asking you out, chaos ensued.

Prime Minister: "¿Te gustaría venir a Madrid conmigo? Tengo un yate."

You Translating : "He wants to know if you'd like to visit Madrid and see his boat."

Bruce flatly: "Tell him I don’t date politicians."

You in fluent Catalan, smirking : "He says your boat is probably compensating for something."

Dick trying not to snort champagne :

"That’s the y/n we know and love."

~ Back to the Batcave ~

Tim typing furiously: "I tried to look up what you said to the German arms dealer yesterday and all I got was: (Your soul is as soft as a day-old pretzel.) What does that even mean?!"

You(dead serious): "It’s a German idiom. It means he's emotionally constipated."

Jason slamming the holy ghost of the table : "I knew it. That guy did look like he hadn’t cried since 1997."

Damian: "You’re a linguistic weapon of mass destruction. Father should lock you in the vault."

You tilted your head: "Aw, sweetie. If I’m a weapon, then why did you just ask me to help you write a love letter in Arabic last week?"

Entire cave goes dead silent.

Dick: "Ooooooooooohhhh.. exposed."

Jason (laughing so hard he chokes on a protein bar): "You used the love language cheat code?? You sly little demon."

Damian reddening: "She understood the cultural nuance! Do you know how hard it is to convey sincerity in romantic MSA?!"

You with smug : "Maybe next time don’t call her ‘a rose that blooms even in bloodshed.’ That’s... a bit intense for a first date."

Bruce (rubbing his temples): "We’re banning all languages but English in this cave."

You smiling sweetly : "Fine. But you’ll miss me when the next French assassin refuses to speak English and you accidentally offer him custody of Gotham instead of a ceasefire."

Tim googling 'can one person cause an international incident' ):

"Yup. We're doomed."

~ Later that night ~

~ Rooftop Patrol ~

Jason: "Hey, how do you say 'You’ve got pretty eyes' in Russian again?"

You : "Твои глаза, как два сапфира в ночи."

Jason smirking : "...Damn baby girl. Say that again but like, lower. Slower. With a little bit of threat behind it."

You leaned in : "Твои глаза... как два сапфира в ночи."

Jason: "...Okay, now I have to kiss someone or commit a felony. Possibly both."

[planckstorytime]

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/

[yandere-sins]

The Octopodes' Tale - Chapter VI

Took a bit longer again, but let's find out more about our little Leomaris, shall we? :3 Not sure yet if I'll be able to write another post for next week as I will be on convention, but I'll try! :D

Fandom: Original Content   Pairings: Yandere!Octopus Merman x GN!AFAB!Reader Words: ~2k  Warnings: Yandere, Monsters (Tentacels, Oversized Mention, Mermaids, Monster Appearances, Sharp Teeth, Claws), Minor Sexual Content (Discussion of Procreation, Mention of Penis), Fear of potential harm, Mention of Depression (in animals/monsters), Mention of Death

If I were in his position, you thought, I’d want some space, too. 

Nodding to yourself, you turned away from the pool, instead slipping on the stool next to the research table, and took a deep breath. You allowed yourself to roll your head and your shoulders to sack first, feeling the tension that had built up in your joints and muscles over the morning. There was no way of denying it, but you slept surprisingly well despite being surrounded by a giant half-octopus that made the faintest snoring noises while curled against you. Leo had kept you secure with his body wrapped all around you, but he neither crushed nor forced you into an uncomfortable position. It had been a little weird, sure, but for the space you two had in your little apartment, it worked very well. 

But from the second that the Professor marched into this scene, you had been on edge. So had Leo. You tried to explain what was going on without making it seem weird. However, it had been very messy getting Leo out of the cramped space and making yourself presentable, the hasty morning now catching up to you as you rubbed your eyes. There was no time to waste when it came to this research; the Professor made that crystal clear. And even if everything was okay right now, you still needed to finish up and leave, your boundaries getting pushed more and more every day. 

You still had a hard time forgetting how clinically brutal it had been as Leo was fished out of the pool by the capture machine. The way the metal arms hovered over the water, then suddenly snapped forward. The mechanical sounds of exhaustion as his heavy body was pulled from the water, and the way he was wheezing and gasping as the machine tightened its hold on him constantly. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and although Leo seemed to understand that he needed to stay still, you could see how much he struggled against every metal clasp instinctively, his body rejecting the idea of being captured like this. Even at night, while he seemed completely asleep, his tentacles would sometimes move and check the surroundings, ensuring everything was safe. You doubted they could truly stay still even if he willed them to, as it went against his very being. 

Resting your arms on top of the table, you looked down at the stack of papers between them. It felt reassuring to know someone had been here before, in your very position, documenting all the things you had never imagined finding out about. Whatever happened to the person, whether they left or died—the thought running a shudder down your back still—you were thankful for their hard work. You started at the top of the pile, diving right into the unknown yet mesmerizing research of Leo’s previous caretaker, reading every word carefully. 

Time passed as you made new discoveries, from Leo’s prescribed diet, height, and weight to how they learned to communicate with each other with hands, feet, and tentacles until their languages matched, Leo proving to be a quick learner. Every word was written down in proper scientific speech, but it didn’t hide the feelings of success or disappointment the caretaker was feeling as they made progress with him. As one might expect, Leo was initially much more aggressive and reserved during the first few weeks of his imprisonment at the facility. The caretaker continued to write about him being restless and bored in his enclosure until they convinced the higher-ups to provide him with food that was alive and needed to be hunted and also occupied him with various items that quickly evolved from children’s toys to much more complex puzzles, as he proved too clever for simple tasks. 

You snorted as you read about his adventures of breaking out from the enclosure as he became too intelligent to be contained and too curious for his own good. How very octopus of him, you thought to yourself as you read about him being found in different pools of other species, although your heart raced as you read about the countless fights he got into and the wounds obtained by both parties. It showed that despite his good-willed nature towards you, he had a much darker side. An aggression you weren’t familiar with. 

There were some, albeit very few, notes about actual research being conducted on his body by them. Apparently, there had been some setbacks, especially whenever they got close to unraveling the secrets of his reproduction. Leo completely withdrew from them and even lashed out to the point that they sustained injuries and couldn’t get close to him anymore after a few attempts. There were loads of brief documentation of days that were simply spent repairing the lost bonds and how his caretaker tried to mend their relationship. 

Finally, the caretaker’s notes became shorter permanently. Research barely happened anymore, as force proved to cause severe reactions from the subject, and they hadn’t found a sedative that worked on him yet. Instead, they talked about how Leo was drawing back from them more regardless of what they did, showing signs of depression. How he engaged less and less, asking to be let go and return to his “mate”, and hid for hours, not resurfacing or coming out of hiding even for food. He wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him anymore, although he had seemed eager to explore everything in the beginning as well, creating mutual understanding and trust at first. 

You could see the decline of the previous caretaker’s research and relationship with Leo from how they wrote. The tone of frustration and desperation as they documented cuts to their pay and stricter limitations, more urging from above. Eventually, they deemed the research to be at an end and fruitless, switching from formal speech to a list of tasks to wrap it up. At the very end of the list, it said: “Kill specimen,” the task never crossed out, and you gulped. 

For a while, you simply stared at the white papers, feeling like they had created more questions than answers, and yet, you were definitely wiser than before. Your head was buzzing with thoughts and assumptions, and you realized you had yet to drink or eat anything. Maybe a brief walk to the staff room wouldn’t hurt, although you dreaded meeting any colleagues and possibly embarrassing yourself further. 

Sighing, you realized that you had no choice, sliding off the chair instead until your foot bumped into something beneath the table. Looking down, you saw a cardboard box. In it, there were lots of colorful things, such as a deflated water ball, various board and card games, dog fetch toys, and other trinkets that you assumed were the things Leo was entertained with. Feeling nostalgic for a memory that wasn’t yours, you pulled the box forward, sitting down next to it on the floor and combing through it, reading the instructions of the games and browsing the items until your fingers hit the bottom.

However, instead of cardboard, you felt paper against your fingertips, driving your hands over it until you found an edge to dig beneath. A manilla envelope crumbled through the toys until it surfaced, and you raised a brow at it, wondering what kind of things were kept inside of there. Another game? Something like drawings? There was only one way to know, and you tore open the flap, looking inside first. 

A bunch of papers greeted you, and you nearly groaned, not really in the mood to read anymore, especially while your head was still full from the research documents. But something was brewing in your gut, a feeling that this wasn’t just slightly boring scientific papers, considering they had been stuck beneath all the toys of the previous caretaker. You gave a quick look around, assuring yourself that there was no one near you. The cameras, which you had noticed in the corners of the room, were now also out of sight, unable to see you beneath the table. 

Digging in, you pulled the smaller stack out of the envelope, confused when you could barely make out row after row of observations scribbled on them in gray pen. The words were tiny and handwritten, but numerous timestamps and named locations within the facility were written down. “G1456 18:43 Reception,” you whispered out loud, confused about the meaning. Were those some sort of coordinates? A treasure hunt?

Skimming through the pages, they were all full of the same kind of information, and you slowly began to have an inkling of what they were. Observations. Presuming it was the work of the last caretaker, they had been observing several things or people moving around the facility for a very long time. However, there were no explanations or instructions. On the last page, finally, they used a darker pen, but whatever it said, it was a language you couldn’t understand. In fact, it didn’t look like a language at all, although it could have been hieroglyphs judging from the little symbols you could make out. None of this made a whole lot of sense to you, but perhaps you were just overworking yourself the longer you wrecked your brain around it. 

One thing was clear: whoever put the envelope into the box didn’t want just anybody to find it. 

Not knowing where else to put it, you buried it back beneath the toys, feeling your racing pulse for the first time since you picked it up, and took some deep breaths to calm yourself. As if everything hadn’t been strange enough, it was getting even stranger by the day. But for now, the only thing you could do was concentrate on yourself and your well-being, and judging by how faint you felt all of a sudden, you were not doing a good job.

Getting back to your feet, you walked across the enclosure, looking down through the gaps in the floor to try to spy on your protege. Disappointingly, there wasn’t even a tiny spot of red in the blue, no sign of Leo even when you reached the door. You punched in the code quickly before stepping outside, back first, wondering if maybe the sound of the door would alert him. Still, he didn’t show, completely withdrawing from your eyes, much like the previous caretaker described him in the later stages. Reflecting on it made your heart clench, even though you tried to remain professional.

Not lingering too long, you eventually reached the staff room, a few tables occupied by other researchers, most of them looking exhausted and drained while they sipped their drinks or stuffed their faces with food. You scoured the displays with various pastries and the few lunch options available, allowing yourself a quick meal before fetching something sweet and a fresh bottle of water to take back to your research station, trying to stay unseen and unheard as best as you could. Having an embarrassing encounter with someone who witnessed all that happened the previous day was on your list of things to avoid, like the pest.

Strangely enough, the only place you could find yourself taking a deep breath in was Leo’s enclosure, your back hitting the door after it closed behind you, arms packed with provisions for the day. Outside, you were treading with anxiety at every step, but here, you felt safe. Ironic, considering the giant predator you were locked up with. 

The same one that was sitting at the edge of the pool, tentacles splashing in the water. You noticed his eyes on you when you realized he had come out of hiding, but Leo quickly looked away again, slowly sliding back into the water as you crossed the walkway. 

“Hey!” you called out, and he bopped in the water, his back turned to you, making it clear that he was listening, although not yet comfortable enough to give you his attention. The mood between you two felt awkward, as if you two had a fight but shared an apartment. You thought about how to address the situation without making Leo draw away again. If his assumption about his last caretaker’s death were correct, you really couldn’t afford to lose him to the same reclusive depression. As weird as it was, you two were fairly dependent on each other now, regardless of how that made you feel. 

Shoulders slumping as Leo didn’t engage further, you walked to your desk, setting down the goods you grabbed from the staff room, your eyes lingering on the brown paper bag. Dogs die when they eat chocolate, but would a small treat like a fruit pastry do the same to Leo? With his size alone and the approximate weight of a car, there was a high chance it wouldn’t really mess with him too much. Besides the sugar, that was. 

Then again, maybe it would help him, and, in turn, he would help you. 

You still had lots of questions in your mind. About the restrictions on his body and the strange letter you received. Who put those tarps and ropes on him, and why? Clearly, given his emotional state, they were either concealing something precious or something dangerous. If something was hurting him beneath the cover… you had to know. Even if he was a siren, if a wound or infection spread, who knew how fast it would be over for him? And otherwise… was there any reason to hide it from you other than shame? It was not like Leo had been very shameful or embarrassed around you before.

What about the letter? After eating something and refreshing your mind with enough water, you remembered how the caretaker wrote about them learning to understand each other and speak the same language. If that was the case… maybe those signs, too, were something Leo understood. And if not, perhaps he at least knew what his caretaker had been writing down every day before storing it in the box. Maybe they told him something!

Holding the pastry in your hand, you thought about how to approach him first, given that this might be your only chance if something went wrong with him eating the sugary delight.

Thoughts and reasoning as always, are welcome! ♥

[fixyourwritinghabits]

hello, hello! i have a question

I'm currently trying to write my first book, but I couldn't figure out a P.O.V (first person P.O.V (limited), first person P.O.V (omnipotent), third person P.O.V (limited), third person P.O.V (omnipotent), etc) to write it witg

can i please ask for a post that compares each P.O.V. and/or how to write them?

POV breaks down to:

First-person singular (aka limited) - The story is told in first person, from the perspective of the person experience the events of the story, with no insight on events happening elsewhere at the same time unless learning about them afterward. It can be in present tense or past tense, but often you'll see it in present tense. YA is often written in first person because the emotional perspective of the main character is often one of the most important aspects of the story.

First-person plural - The story is told in first person by a couple of characters, usually changing POV chapter by chapter. Often limited to two, maybe three characters at the most. This is done when you need that close character perspective, and their emotional journey is important. (Romance, for example, is another genre besides YA you'll see this a lot.)

Second-person - The story is told by a narrator addressing the reader as "you." Very rarely done, extremely difficult to pull off. See the second book in Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series, Harrow the Ninth, for how this can be done.

Third-person limited - You are telling the story of the main character as if watching over their shoulder, sometimes relating their thoughts, but you are only focused on that one character's limited perspective. Widely used.

Third-person omniscient - You are telling the story of all the characters as if you are a god who can see what everyone is doing and thinking at any time. Popular if you've got a massive cast and a complicated plot, but this is surprisingly hard to do, because "head-jumping" is something you need to resist doing from paragraph to paragraph, as it's very easy to confuse the reader.

POV seems complicated, but it's a matter of asking yourself some questions to figure out the right angle to take.

Who is your audience and what do they want? Is your main character someone you want everyone to focus on or do you want your readers to have some distance to the character?

A hard-boiled detective novel, for example, may often use third-person limited, but keep the readers from peering into the detective thoughts (especially if he has a past to hide). Middle grade fiction, on the other hand, tends to split solidly between first-person/third-person limited, but rarely uses a plural POV. Too complicated for the readers.

You don't have to have a specific readership in mind, but if you're thinking of genres, its good to look at conventions. What is the dominating POV format used, and why does it work for that genre?

Is the character's emotional/inner journey extremely important to the narrative?

Both YA and Romance fiction tends to lean into first-person limited, but third-person limited is still useful in these genres too. However, if you're jumping from multiple characters, pulled away as if observing from afar, you'd likely be using third-person omniscient. The character's inner thoughts and journey can still be conveyed, but they are caught up in a much bigger tale.

Who's story is it?

The best way to determined POV is to figure out who your main character is, their importance to the external plot (destroy the ring, defeat the dragon, etc), and how important of their inner journey (resolving trauma, learning to change and grow, etc) is to that plot. YA uses a lot of first-person limited because the main plot is essential to what the characters realize about themselves. High fantasy often uses third-person omniscient because your main characters are often cogs in a bigger machine, pulled forward by events that aren't really about them.

And finally, sometimes you have to write a book and realize it's in the wrong POV. I've done that, it sucks, but the process of fixing it taught me a lot about how to pin down the right POV for the next book. Often, you can avoid this agony by writing a few chapters and taking some times to reflect on if the POV feels right for the story you're telling. It's all up to you on what to use!

[antisnookdog]

I made a humans are weird pamphlet

⸻

[Welcome to Earth!]

Diplomatic Briefing Pamphlet: The Human Species

(For Official Use Only – Do Not Leave in Orbit)

⸻

Species Designation: Homo sapiens

Common Names: Humans, Earthlings, Gremlins with God Complexes

Status: Emotionally volatile. Excessively curious. Terminally dramatic.

Threat Level: Vibes-based. Somehow both harmless and extremely dangerous.

⸻

1. General Overview

Humans are a carbon-based bipedal species that developed intelligence, opposable thumbs, and the alarming tendency to either love or destroy everything they encounter.

They are fueled by caffeine, spite, and memes.

Despite their fragile physiology, humans are incredibly persistent. If an environment is considered “inhospitable,” a human will attempt to live there for fun or content.

⸻

2. Cultural Duality

Humanity exists in a state of constant contradiction. Examples include:

Dark Side Wholesome Side

Warhammer 40k Stardew Valley

Doom Eternal Animal Crossing

Final Destination Pride and Prejudice

The Crusades Bake-Off Competitions

Exploiting labor via colonial empires Adopting stray animals and crying

They are simultaneously writing love poems and building orbital death platforms. Proceed accordingly.

⸻

3. Violence (See Also: Sports)

Humans made rules about how to be less evil during war, then immediately violated them. These are called the Geneva Conventions.

They also made sports out of fighting each other for trophies, fame, or vibes.

Favorite pastimes include:

• Beating each other senseless in a cage

• Running at 40 km/h for fun

• Climbing lethal mountains

• Jumping out of flying machines

Note: They will say it’s “for the experience.”

⸻

4. Denial Reflex

Even in the face of literal interstellar beings landing on their lawns, many humans will:

• Claim it’s CGI

• Blame the government

• Insist it’s demons

• Ask for merch

They evolved this reflex to avoid existential crises and somehow made it a cultural cornerstone.

⸻

5. Reproduction & Romance (Warning: NSFW)

Human mating behavior is chaotic and often ritualized via elaborate apps, confusing signals, and courtship dances involving memes. They:

• Invented robots for companionship

• Wrote fanfiction about everything

• Made “tentacle romance” a genre

• Occasionally attempt to seduce supernatural entities

Proceed with caution and boundaries. Consent is important. They learned that… eventually.

⸻

6. History (Not for the faint of core)

Earth’s timeline is packed with:

• Empires built on slavery

• Religious wars over metaphysical real estate

• Repeated cycles of “oops, genocide”

• Philosophers who were also warlords

• Burning witches. And books. Sometimes both.

They also recorded these events, dramatized them in film, and won awards.

⸻

7. Interaction Tips

• If a human offers you food, accept it. Then ask if it’s poisonous. Sometimes it is. They eat it anyway.

• Avoid debates unless you have 6 hours to spare and a tolerance for shouting.

• They will name you. Prepare to be called “Steve” or “Gary.”

• Do not show fear. They can smell it.

• Show them a shiny rock and they might worship it or mine it. Possibly both.

⸻

8. Warning List

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE:

• Mention their oceans. Even they don’t go down there anymore.

• Bring up Australia without mental prep.

• Assume they’re peaceful just because they’re smiling.

• Take them to space before explaining that aliens exist.

• Say “Warhammer is real.” Some believe it already.

⸻

Final Summary:

Humans are unpredictable, violent, hilarious, empathetic, and incredibly weird.

They’ll destroy a planet for oil and then cry over a 2-minute animal rescue video.

They are terrifying and lovable, like if a raccoon had a PhD and nuclear codes.

We recommend extreme caution, cultural immersion, and bringing snacks.

⸻

Issued by:

GCIR – Department of Chaotic Species Affairs

Document: Earth-001-HowToHuman (Rev. 2.0 – Updated after Florida Incident)

⸻

[cybereliasacademy]

HyperTransformer: A Example of a Self-Attention Mechanism For Supervised Learning

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[gunsandspaceships]

MCU Timeline: Avengers: Age of Ultron

19th century - Black Panther kills Ulysses Klaue's great-grandfather during his attempt to annex Wakanda.

1990s - Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are born (12 minutes apart).

Between 1992 and 2008 - Tony meets Ulysses Klaue at an arms convention, before Klaue got his tattoos and branding.

~2000 - the Maximoff twins become orphans. They remain trapped with the unexploded shell for 2 days.

May 4/5, 2012 - STRIKE hands the Scepter over to Dr. List.

Early 2014 - Maximoffs volunteer for Hydra's experiments and become mutants.

Spring 2014 - Spring 2015:

The Avengers become Tony's private paramilitary organization under Cap's command.

The team moves in the Avengers Tower.

September/October 2014 - Clint is on vacation.

Tony creates the Iron Legion.

Tony and Bruce create Veronica and Hulkbuster.

The Avengers raid Hydra bases in search of the Scepter.

The main events take place in early or mid-April 2015.

Day 1 (Thursday), April 2nd or 9th:

Afternoon in Sokovia - The Avengers attack the local Hydra base.

3 pm in NY (several hours later) - they return to Avengers Tower. Clint is being treated by Dr. Cho.

Evening - Tony convinces Bruce to use the Scepter to try to create a global peacekeeping AI, Ulton.

Day 1-3 (Thursday-Saturday), April 2-4 or 9-11 - Tony and Bruce work on Project Ultron.

Day 3 (Saturday), April 4th or 11th:

Evening - the birth of Ultron.

The farewell party.

Night - Ultron's attack on Avengers Tower.

Day 4 (Sunday), April 5th or 12th:

Early morning in Sokovia - Ultron takes the Scepter, goes online, and, after connecting to Strucker's castle in Sokovia, begins creating a new body and many Ultron Juniors.

The Avengers discuss the situation.

Days 4-8, April 5-9 or 12-16:

Ultron builds his body.

Maximoff twins join him.

Ultron and the twins are emptying laboratories and weapon facilities.

Ultron tries to get his hands on the nuclear codes, but J.A.R.V.I.S. holds the line.

The Avengers try to find him and find out his plans.

Rhodey returns to his duties in the Air Force.

Thor tries to reach Heimdall, to no avail.

Ultron kills Strucker.

Day 8 (Thursday), April 9th or 16th:

3:30 - 5:40 pm - the Avengers learn of Strucker's death and finally track down Ultron, which leads them to Ulysses Klaue.

Note: It's always Thursday on computers in this movie. It's highly doubtful that this is true for all of them, and is most likely just a result of the laziness of whoever was in charge of the screens. I'll accept this as true for the first appearance only, since it also makes sense for the number of days that have passed.

Rhodey heads to the Middle East. Tony updates War Machine's encryption against Ultron's cyber attacks.

~Day 9 (Friday), April 10th or 17th:

Afternoon in South Africa - The Battle at the Salvage Yard.

Evening in Africa/Morning in the US - The Duel of Johannesburg.

Night in Africa/Day in the US - the team is on their way to Barton's farm.

Afternoon - team arrives at Barton's farm. Thor departs to London. Fury sits in ambush in Clint's barn.

Evening - Bartons and Co are having dinner. Fury gives the Avengers a pep talk.

~Day 10 (Saturday), April 11th or 18th:

8 pm in Korea/6 am in the US - Ultron takes control of Helen Cho and her Cradle in Seoul.

6 am in the US - the Farmers Avengers split up: Tony heads to the Nexus facility in Oslo; Rogers, Barton, and Romanoff head to Seoul; Fury drops Banner off at the Tower, picks up Hill and Rhodes, and then goes to dust off the original Helicarrier.

Night in Korea/Morning in the US - Ultron and Doctor Cho work on Ultron's new vibranium-organic body.

Afternoon in Oslo/Morning in the US - Tony retrieves what's left of JARVIS from the net.

Afternoon in London/Morning in the US - at the University of London, Thor picks up Erik Selvig and takes him to the Water of Sight.

Afternoon in the US - Tony restores JARVIS.

Morning in Seoul/Evening in the US - Ultron begins uploading himself into the new body. The twins learn of his plan, remove his control from Dr. Cho, and escape.

The Battle of Seoul.

The twins join the Avengers. Ultron takes Natasha to his castle in Sokovia. Clint brings the Cradle to Tony and Bruce.

Night in NY - Natasha wakes up in the castle. Ultron creates a new body out of vibranium. Tony and Bruce work on Vision. Clint connects with Nat.

Note: on this computer screen it's Thursday (again) and 3:28 PM, which obviously doesn't match the time in the movie. It's night there, so we have to ignore this unreliable evidence for both the day of the week and the time.

The birth of Vision.

The Avengers prepare to battle Ultron. Tony chooses FRIDAY as his new main AI.

~Day 11 (Sunday), April 12th or 19th:

6 am (local) - the Avengers arrive in Sokovia and evacuate the city.

7 am - the Battle of Sokovia.

Tony and Thor save Earth from the artificial meteorite. Pietro dies saving Clint. Vision kills Ultron. Hulk takes the Quinjet and leaves the planet.

Evening in the US - Clint comes home.

April - September 2015:

Barton retires.

Tony builds a new Avengers Compound in upstate New York.

~June 2015 - Nathaniel Pietro Barton is born.

Note: babies usually start giggling around 4 months of age. At the time of the main events, he was about 2 months away from being born, then add about 4 months to that Compound scene.

September 2015:

The new team has been assembled, now including Wanda, Rhodey, Sam and Vision.

Fury, Hill, Cho and Selvig work at the Avengers Compound.

After making sure that the team is assembled, the Compound is built and everything is ok, Tony tries to retire. Again.

Thor goes to investigate the situation with the Infinity Stones.

Note: I take it the makeup artists thought this scene took place right after the Battle of Sokovia? That's why Thor still has scratches on his face. But as practice shows, children are not born and do not grow up so quickly (see the previous note), so we will have to accept the fact that Thor has already managed to fight with someone again.

Forever - Clint Barton lives.

MCU Timeline: The Infinity Saga

[zeldronic]

I now have access to an old cricut machine! I tested it out with these designs I made to see if it works, and they turned out so cute!! (Although I made the rookie mistake of covering the entire paper with the holo laminate, so it had a hard time finding the info it needed to make the cuts. But eyy I learned something new.)

I originally made them to hand out to fellow Trigun enjoyers when I cosplayed as Vash at a convention a few months ago, but they're perfect as stickers too.

[emmasmoke8]

Been thinking about a Sonic movieverse swap, so you guys will have to listen to it:

First movie - Shadow’s asteroid crashes on Earth in the present. Instead of farmers and G.U.N., Maria Robotnik finds Shadow. Her grandfather is currently at a convention in San Francisco, leaving her home alone. She and Shadow bond until G.U.N. comes to investigate the asteroid drop. Maria and Shadow escape, deciding to get to Maria’s grandfather since he’ll either be able to protect Shadow or send him back to space. They road trip.

They’re pursued by Agent Stone, a high-ranking agent in G.U.N., and Stone’s assistant, Dr. Ivo Robotnik (which confuses Maria b/c Gerald never told her she had other family). Ivo makes robots, and Stone commands them like a general. Although Ivo’s the assistant, he’s still very egotistical about his position and how robots are superior. Stone, for his part, is so military-minded that he doesn’t even realize he puts up with Ivo’s BS because he loves—I mean, whatever Paramount says Stone feels about Ivo (they’re not fooling anyone)

The plot from there is mostly the same (tho Maria’s the reason they end up at the bar lmao). Shadow is allowed to stay with Gerald and Maria at the end, and they banish Stone to the mushroom dimension using a machine that Gerald made that repurposes Shadow’s chaos abilities (since they don’t have rings)

Second movie - Stone is rescued by the time traveler, Silver, who wants to defeat Shadow since he believes the Black Arms stole the (Master Emerald? But for the Time Stones). Silver and Stone go after Shadow while the hedgehog is home alone because Maria and Gerald went to somewhere for some reason (maybe a wedding still?). Shadow is rescued by Amy, someone who also came in search of the Time Stones in order to fix Little Planet. The plot also goes the same way, tho Shadow doesn’t so super, he goes… whatever the Time Stones make someone (which I actually have ideas for)

Amy and Silver fix their planet/future. They stay with the Robotniks, becoming the protectors of the Time Stones together

Third movie - Fifty years ago, Sonic escaped from Longclaw getting killed. He was immediately found by G.U.N. Still a young hoglet, he naturally gravitated toward Agent Tom and Dr. Maddie, a guard and scientist, respectively, at the blacksite. Sonic grew up with them as his parents. Eventually, he caused a universe blackout that made G.U.N. deem the project too dangerous. He tried escaping with Tom and Maddie, but Tom was killed. Maddie was imprisoned. Sonic was, too, and put in stasis per Director Rockwell’s orders (she’s switching with Walters)

Once Maddie’s freed, she frees Sonic and they plan to take out G.U.N., the rest of the world be damned by the crossfire. His freedom makes G.U.N. contact Shadow, Amy, and Silver for assistance

Maddie and Stone are not family, but Maddie does get into his head, first by appealing to his militaristic senses and then by learning part of him does want a family. She’s motherly to Stone up until they fight in the Eclipse Cannon

Sonic and Shadow have their Time Stone-powered fight and reconcile. Sonic and Stone sacrifice their lives to stop the Eclipse Cannon

Mid credit scene, I guess Shadow Androids show up, and Tails arrives to help Shadow stop them

Post credit, Sonic picks up his glove

[osamucide]

AKUTAGAWA THIRSTS U SAY….. just imagine finally getting your mouth on him for the first time. he’s so hesitant to let you touch him in any capacity for so long, has only ever associated touch with pain and suffering, so it’s such a big deal when he finally even lets you hug him, let alone touch him like that.

but omg. blowing him for the first time…. just how blushy and whiny he’d be as you take his cock into your mouth, suckling on the tip. he yelps when you start playing with his balls at the same time, and tbh he probably only lasts a few minutes because it feels so damn good and its so foreign JDJDKSJ i love him sm

FLORAAAAAAAAA

yeah. I love that you mention his hesitancy with and mistrust of touch because of his lifelong association of it with pain—I think that’s part of what makes it so fun to imagine situations like this with him. soft aku has my heart I just wanna make him feel loved and safe enough so that he might experience pleasure

can’t stop thinking about taking it so slow with him. hand holding only after weeks of dating (never mind that actually starting to date probably took multiple months/maybe even a year+). hugs only days after that. kisses come much later than they would in a ‘normal’ relationship but he’s not ‘normal’ and you reassure him that it’s just another one of the things you love about him. you love feeling it out and taking things one step at a time, especially if it’s working toward comfortability and stability on his side of things. he’s only ever known erratic instability until you.

can’t stop thinking about him dealing with sexuality and feelings of arousal in less than conventional ways until he’s alright with letting you lead him through it. I wrote in his nsfw alphabet that I think he’s a pillow/blanket humper—this stands. I think it takes him a long time to trust anyone’s touch, even his own. but when he finally feels comfortable enough to let you touch him—fuck, it’s like coming home. it’s like you should’ve been here all along.

you treat his body with such reverence. where he sees himself as a machine, you see him as a work of art. it’s per your insistence on this that he lets you undress him from the waist down and trail kisses across his thighs for what feels like forever—taking it slow. he gains trust slowly.

and the most delicious part of trust, he learns, is the relinquishing of control. trusting you enough to let you near his exposed skin without the thought of harm crossing his mind. trusting you enough to let your string of kisses work across his hips and down one side of his soft v-line. trusting you enough to let his mouth fall open in a gasp and his eyes flicker shut when your gentle tongue flicks across the leaking tip of his cock.

he’s been turned on before, but never like this. never in a way that didn’t make him feel acutely disgusting. he sees himself as a machine, after all. but with you, he’s human—for a second he’s some semblance of the word ‘normal’ but beyond even that, there’s this intoxicating wave of pleasure roving up from his pelvis all the way to his shoulders and he’s making sounds he’s never heard himself make before. cracked, broken, almost like crying, but he’s far from upset; this is what drugs must feel like.

can’t stop thinking about licking a long stripe up the underside of his pretty, pale cock and forcing a stuttered moan from his chest as his face breaks out madly. repeating that motion until his hips start to undulate beneath your touch. letting your fingers roam between the junctures of his groin and his thighs, scratching softly, not enough that it hurts, just enough that he feels it.

can’t stop thinking about your name tumbling from his lips in soft, pious gasps and whispers; can’t stop thinking about his sparse brow stitched together and his lashes fluttering over thin, unshed tears as you gradually coax him toward ecstasy. and when your fingers cup his balls and squeeze softly, and your warm, wet mouth envelops as much of him as feels natural, he moans, almost mutters out “no—” not because he doesn’t want it, but because he doesn’t know if he deserves it, all this pleasure. from you, an angel with a mouth like heaven.

can’t stop thinking about bobbing your head, picking up pace and drooling around him, massaging his balls with one hand and tracing reassurances into his thigh with the other. he cums embarrassingly quick—gasping, rhythmically, jaw slack as he watches you take him, watches you push him over the edge—but he can’t help it, you must be magic, you must have been made for him, you learn him so quickly almost like you’re not learning him at all but simply know him.

he apologizes as you swallow his load—an obscenely large amount of cum that has his face going red probably for the millionth time as he understands what you’ve just done—but you just smile up at him and lean your cheek against the inside of his leg as he goes soft in your hands. you must be an angel from heaven, he thinks. it has his cock twitching back to life in a way he’s never known it to before.