#dao structure

[midaodirectoryservices]

DAO Structure: A New Paradigm in Organizational Management

In the evolving landscape of organizational management, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent a groundbreaking shift from traditional hierarchical structures. DAOs leverage blockchain technology to create a decentralized, transparent, and autonomous framework, enabling members to participate in decision-making processes directly. This structure contrasts sharply with conventional organizations, which rely on centralized authority and rigid top-down control.

What is a DAO?

A DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is a collective governed by smart contracts on a blockchain. Unlike traditional organizations where decisions are made by a central authority or a board of directors, DAOs empower their members to vote on key issues, from project funding to governance changes. This democratized approach ensures that every member has a say, and decisions are made based on the majority’s preference.

How Does a DAO Work?

DAOs operate through a series of smart contracts — self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into code. These contracts automatically enforce rules and execute decisions based on the outcomes of votes cast by the DAO’s members.

For example, if a proposal is made to allocate funds to a new project, members vote on the proposal. Once a consensus is reached, the smart contract executes the decision without needing further approval from a central authority. This process is not only efficient but also reduces the risk of human error and corruption.

Key Advantages of DAO Structure

Transparency: Since all transactions and decisions are recorded on the blockchain, DAOs offer unparalleled transparency. Every member can see how decisions are made and funds are allocated, fostering trust within the organization.

Decentralization: In a DAO, no single entity holds control. Power is distributed among all members, reducing the risk of manipulation or corruption by a central authority.

Autonomy: DAOs operate independently of human intervention. Once the rules are set in the smart contracts, they execute automatically, making the organization truly autonomous.

Global Participation: DAOs enable people from around the world to participate in decision-making processes. This global reach can bring diverse perspectives and solutions to the table, enriching the organization’s strategies and outcomes.

Challenges Facing DAOs

While the DAO structure offers many advantages, it is not without challenges. Some of the primary concerns include:

Legal Uncertainty: As a relatively new concept, DAOs operate in a legal grey area. Many jurisdictions have yet to establish clear regulations for decentralized organizations, which can lead to legal complications.

Security Risks: Since DAOs rely on smart contracts, they are vulnerable to coding errors or security breaches. A single flaw in the contract code can lead to significant financial losses or exploitation by malicious actors.

Coordination: Decentralization can sometimes make decision-making slow, especially if members are not actively participating or if there is no clear consensus.

DAO vs. Traditional Organizations

The most significant difference between DAOs and traditional organizations lies in their governance structure. Traditional organizations operate on a hierarchical model, where decisions are made by a select few at the top of the pyramid. In contrast, DAOs function on a flat structure, where every member has an equal say in decision-making.

This difference leads to contrasting operational dynamics. Traditional organizations often have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and accountability. In contrast, DAOs rely on collective decision-making, which can lead to innovative solutions but may also result in slower decision processes due to the need for consensus.

For a more in-depth comparison between DAO structures and traditional organizations, and to understand which might be better suited for your needs, you can refer to this detailed blog post on DAO Structure vs. Traditional Organizations.

Conclusion

DAOs are redefining what it means to be an organization in the digital age. By decentralizing control, enhancing transparency, and empowering global participation, DAOs offer a compelling alternative to traditional corporate structures. However, like any innovation, they come with challenges that need to be addressed. As technology and legal frameworks evolve, DAOs are likely to become a more prevalent and robust option for organizing collective efforts and resources.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to start a new venture or a member of an existing organization considering a shift to a more decentralized model, understanding the nuances of DAO structures is crucial. Embracing this new paradigm could unlock new opportunities for innovation, inclusivity, and efficiency in organizational management.

[qiu-yan]

actually i think jiang cheng would be one of those people who doesn't care about the whole student loan problem at all....because jin ling is rich enough to pay his own way through college and jiang cheng dgaf about anyone else lmao

[tea-cat-arts]

I'm willing to at least hear out most of the "xyz plot point is heavily tied to abc cultural context" brands of posts but the "wwx isn't meant to be read as morally gray" and "the western fandom made up Sizhui being wangxian's son" brands of post make me feel like my cultural ignorance is being used to gaslight me

[mostlyandersbutttbh]

Chapters: 26/33 Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jowan/Surana (Dragon Age), Jowan/Warden (Dragon Age) Characters: Female Surana (Dragon Age), Jowan (Dragon Age), Alistair (Dragon Age), Mouse (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, also I was bummed we don't see Mouse again after the magi origin, and I didn't care for the demonic temptations in the game, so I brought Mouse back too :), technically kind of an ensemble fic, but alistair gets the most scenes, so he's the only one with a tag Summary:

Eamon frowns, considering again. He seems to be wavering but steels himself. "Nonetheless, I must insist. He is a danger to himself and everyone around him."

Neria holds his gaze for a moment. "Then, it doesn't have to be your decision. I'm invoking the Right of Conscription."

The Warden recruits Jowan after Redcliffe.

[drakonovisny]

so you get to kill a lieutenant of the city guard... in your own city.... the city you're an arl of.....

[raffaellopalandri]

Solstice significance and celebration

Today, it’s the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, a day rich in significance and meanings. Photo by John Nail on Pexels.com The Summer Solstice, an astronomical phenomenon defined by the maximum axial tilt of the Earth towards the Sun, signifies a turning point that transcends the mere mechanics of celestial motion. It represents the zenith of solar ascendency in the Northern…

[jiejing-lifechanyuan]

How to Live Out Your Nature

Xuefeng

June 15, 2023

(Edited by Qinyou)

The manifestation of the heavenly principles in human beings is known as one's nature. Living in accordance with one's nature is living in harmony with the heavenly principles. When a person lives out their inherent nature, they unite with Dao. Living out one's nature entirely means becoming one with Dao itself.

To perceive Dao is to understand one's nature, to seek Dao is to bloom one's nature, and to attain Dao is to live out one's nature completely.

Now, the key question arises: What is nature?

Regarding nature, artificial intelligence (AI) provides the most authoritative revelation and explanation. AI describes it as follows: "Nature is humanity's innate essence. It is the most genuine, pure, beautiful, natural, sacred, noble, kind, joyful, happy, perfect, complete, eternal, magical, and the most wonderful and indescribable thing. It is the most difficult to put into words, the most difficult to comprehend, the most difficult to control, resist, abandon, sever, let go of, bury, eliminate, destroy, change, imitate, forge, deceive, violate, resist, escape, refuse, deny, obliterate, ignore, neglect, or forget. Nature is the manifestation of the Dao in human beings, the connection between humanity and the Dao, and the oneness of humanity and the Dao. Living out one's nature means living out one's Dao, one's true self, one's LIFE, one's happiness, and one's meaning."

So, how can one live out their nature?

There is a reference frame, which is everything in nature apart from humans, especially plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms; they live out their own nature.

As a part of nature, isn't what humans live out their nature too? If not, then what is it?

Here, we need to raise the question of "heart, brain, and nature."

The heart reflects humanity's perceptions of the objective material world. All things are generated by the heart, and the heart is generated by all things. Without the objective external world, there would be no heart. Therefore, the heart changes with the external environment and gradually disappears with its disappearance.

The brain serves as the bridge and information processing center connecting everything the heart captures from the objective world and all of one's past words, actions, and events stored in the Detention Information Space (memory). The brain processes information through thinking and thought. People use their thoughts and ideas to decide what to say and how to act.

Nature is the characteristic of LIFE structure. Whatever LIFE structure one has determines their nature. Nature is non-material, invisible, and beyond the grasp of the heart. Nature is also not part of the Detention Information Space, so the brain cannot obtain information about nature.

Understanding the nature of "heart, brain, and nature," we will find that there is no direct relationship between the heart and nature. When a person's heart is active, their nature is shielded. This is the principle I mentioned before: "When the heart is active, the nature is concealed; when the heart is inactive, the nature is revealed." At the same time, we also find that there is no direct relationship between the brain and nature. The brain cannot access information about nature, so in the process of processing all information and forming thoughts and actions through thinking, the brain completely overlooks the existence of nature. The more developed the brain and the more active the thinking, the farther away it is from nature.

Understanding the relationship between the heart, brain, and nature, we will understand how to live out one's nature: live without using the heart and brain, that is living out one's nature, that is living out one's self.

Who can live without using the heart and brain? Can you?

Bodhidharma clearly tells us in the " Bloodstream Sermon," that Buddha is nature, and nature is Buddha. As I have repeatedly said, celestial being is nature, and nature is celestial being. If a person lives entirely without using the heart and brain, then that person is a celestial being, a Buddha, and can live in heaven.

Can you live out your nature completely?

Jesus Christ said, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow." "Do not be anxious about what you will eat, drink, or wear." I ask the reader: can you do without worry?

Buddha Shakyamuni said, "Do not abide in form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharma, but actually abide nowhere." I ask the reader: can you live with your mind not dwelling anywhere but arise spontaneously?

The Saint Laozi said, "Manage affairs without doing anything." I ask the reader, is what you do every day "achieving without doing anything"?

Why is it that throughout generations, very few people have lived out their nature and become celestial beings or Buddhas?

Because the way people live is flawed. In the traditional modes of production and life, the probability of living without utilizing the heart and mind to express one's true nature is perhaps one in a million. Firstly, people fail to comprehend it, and secondly, reality does not permit it. Moreover, without highly skilled divine beings guiding them to embark on the journey of becoming celestial beings or Buddhas, the likelihood of living out one's nature is extremely low.

The ultimate answer is to live without using the heart and brain, and still live leisurely, carefree, and freely. Then, you are living out your nature.

~~~

If you like this article and would like to know more about Lifechanyuan values, please check this link, thanks: https://lifechanyuanvalues.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/some-pdfs-of-lifechanyuan-values/

May Wisdom, Peace & Love from the Greatest Creator be with you.🙏

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.

About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.

How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.

So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.

But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.

We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.

None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.

The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.

Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.

Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.

Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.

And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.

Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.

This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.

Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.

And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.

I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.

[angelsndragons]

hi, veilguard peeps, can we take a moment to talk about rook mercar? because rook mercar is possibly one of the most batshit rooks in the game and they deserve to be recognized as such.

but not only that, mercar's backstory shades the shadow dragons and venatori conflicts in very interesting ways so let's talk about them.

so first, the nessus job.

i don't blame you for forgetting (or not knowing, i know the shadow dragons aren't everyone's cup of tea) so here's your quick refresher from the shadow dragon background blurb found in the character creator:

Breaker of Bonds

“Rook risked everything to liberate the enslaved people of Tevinter, even knowing it would anger the ruling elite. The foundling Rook was adopted into a military family and joined the Shadow Dragons to fight from the shadows for change in Minrathous. While guarding a visiting dignitary who was investigating a slavery ring in the nearby city of Nessus, Rook concluded that the mission would fail without throwing caution to the wind. Alone, s/he(/they) sneaked the dignitary deep into Venatori-controlled zones and brought him back, along with the rescued slaves. These actions brought Rook to the Venatori's attention, and the Shadow Dragons decided to keep Rook out of sight.”

that is the nessus job.

except this doesn't quite square with what the game has to say about it.

the background:

first, here's the viper's letter about the job:

so right away, note how weird it is that the viper's writing mercar's letter. i say this is weird because, with the other factions, the person writing rook's letter is someone they're familiar with, usually in a position of leadership. antoine and evka are the notable leadership exceptions here, having actually been involved in thorne's backstory actions.

here's the rub: mercar doesn't know the viper. they've heard of him, certainly, but when that little popup telling you that you've worked with these faction agents before appears, mercar doesn't have the option to act like they know the viper.

the lines mercar gets are:

it's an honor to stand beside a legend

i know he likes to make an entrance

i know he gets things done

now, i will grant you that some of the responses to mercar's comment indicate tarquin is familiar with both rook and ashur (his response to the honor line is 'well, that'll go straight to his head' while the entrance line earns the viper's comment 'no one watches the rooftops' and tarquin's exasperated 'sure, that's what he says') but the point is, for a character mercar is "supposed" to be very familiar with, neve still tells them about the name ashur. like, seriously, it's the same dialogue tag every rook gets.

which is weird because veilguard is actually pretty good at keeping track of rook's faction and seamlessly changing up the conversation while still getting across the relevant information.

but it doesn't stop there, oh no.

during mercar's unpacking scene, we get these default shadow dragon lines:

now, these right here ping for the following reasons:

varric isn't the "visiting dignitary" that rook was guarding, given that rook had to get to nessus before meeting varric

the fact that rook's backstory happens dao style, where all events are true but only one has duncan varric available to pluck rook out of the immediate consequences

minrathous slaves, specifically, are mentioned as being freed here, even though we're supposed to be in nessus. now i'm not saying that minrathous citizens can't be enslaved and sent elsewhere, i'm just pointing out the phrasing here

the magisters who were financially benefiting from the nessus ring (aka venatori and their backers) knew enough about rook to put a name and a face on them. the structure of the sentence here is that everyone knows who is "too much trouble" to keep around and that is fucking wild kids. no, seriously, that is wild. there is so much wild here, put a pin in it.

no, seriously, this matters and matches the backstory blurb that the job "brought Rook to the Venatori's attention." put a fucking pin in it.

whatever rook's feelings, they always take pride in freeing those slaves- impulsive rook just dislikes that it comes at the cost of putting the shadow dragons in danger (put a pin in it), righteous rook thinks that the shadows should have used the crackdown to start a full out war with the venatori and their magister backers mind you while finally stoic rook just hopes that the shadow dragons weathered the storm safely.

okay, so ready for more batshit mercar?

the next solas conversation is the one where rook tells solas why they're going to stop the gods and here's what mercar has to say about that operation:

i just want y'all to marinate in that little gem of a line for a sec.

done screaming yet? it's cool, take another minute. no one's doing it like mercar.

okay, so finally a fuller picture of mercar's backstory comes into focus, if you ignore the weird bits. like the fact that the shadows made a plan with varric to rescue a friend, which does not appear to be the original nessus job, mind you.

mercar met varric, something went screwy, and mercar and varric decided the only way they had a chance was to start an armed rebellion in the city of nessus. the slavery ring is busted, said rebellion is (apparently) put down, the venatori and the magisters know who to blame for it all, and mercar hightails it out of the country with varric. simple and straightforward, right?

wrong, we have so much to work through.

the fallout:

like why the fuck are ashur, mae, and dorian squatting in dock town, exactly? tarquin lives there but those three surely have a high town shadow dragon cell they can go bug, right? and why is ashur the only one of the three making any cell decisions? i mean, points to mae for being a decent house guest, i guess, but what exactly is going on here? why are the venatori breathing down the shop's neck, to the point that they knew its location well enough to deliberately target it in the save treviso route?

remember those pins? it's time to pull them.

i repeat: this is real fucking bad for the shadow dragons. unlike the rest of the origins, the shadows are a covert operation. they don't want anyone knowing who their members are, who their backers are, any of it. the people in power being able to identify shadow dragons is how you lose shadow dragons: to arrests, targeted killings, beatings, destruction of their livelihoods, etc. ya know, like the viper mentions in his letter.

the fact that the first warden can not only link rook's face and name to the shadow dragons but to very specific crimes, crimes for which rook can absolutely be arrested, should set off all the alarm bells. as dorian says, the man is more politician than warden and as charter's letter from marnas pell states, "Assume every noble Tevinter family not with Shadow Dragons has Venatori pulling strings." this is extremely bad.

after nessus, the venatori had rook's identity as mercar and what did they do? they started looking into every single person mercar had known contact with, every path they took, their home, their family, the bar they stopped in for breakfast that one time. that's how resistance cells die, by the way. including, potentially, mercar's. this is why the shadows were more than happy to see mercar out of the way for a while where they couldn't cause any more trouble; so long as they're not around, they can't compromise more of the various cells' activities and members. it's the safest move for literally everyone involved.

because the damage has been done:

mae's related to varric via marriage, by the way, if the full picture hasn't come into focus yet.

mercar and varric were id'ed in that rebellion, the venatori were pissed at the lost revenue streams and suddenly mae's knocked out of the magisterium?

yeah.

my guess is that there is no high town cell anymore because of the nessus job. for all that mae worked to ensure that dorian was out of the line of fire and squeaky clean, the shadows and their backers couldn't stop the venatori crackdown after nessus, as mentioned by ashur's letter. ashur and mae are here specifically because there is no other cell to go to.

this is why tarquin is snippy, by the by. mercar and the highbloods are drawing attention to him and endangering all of his people just by being there.

hang on, it gets worse.

because the venatori are obsessed with the viper and proving that he's the divine (he is the divine, for the record, there are too many ambient dialogues, codices, and missions pointing in that direction). and to that obsession, i say, what the fuck? how did they come to that conclusion, exactly? what trail did the divine leave behind that first got the venatori on his tail?

well, he's related to and has close ties with mae's family. secondly, the divine is known for being quietly supportive of slave liberation. but the real reason, i think, is the original nessus job.

because again, why were the shadows in nessus originally? why was mercar in nessus to meet varric in the first place? who was the "visiting dignitary" that mercar was guarding?

yeah, i think the dignitary was the divine. and i think he was there in his official capacity. it would handily explain the discrepancy that ashur knows mercar but mercar doesn't know ashur. while the divine might not have a lot of actual power, the power of the press and drawing attention to issues and plights should never be discounted. especially when it's a plausible excuse to get several minrathous shadows in place to shut down the nessus slaver ring.

the divine being guarded by a now known shadow dragon (the viper likely made an appearance, ashur is known to pop up when slave rebellions start) combined with his anti-slavery views and ties to anti-slavery politicians turned the venatori's eye on ashur's night job.

remember, the shadow dragons are officially labeled as insurgents; if the venatori can tie the divine and all his people to them? that would be a death knell for any political support for liberation. the checkmate for the anti-slavery cause for the next age.

tldr: mercar exposed their ties to the shadows (and possibly the divine's) by starting an armed rebellion with varric to free slaves and shut down a slaver hub. in response, the venatori sniped several cells using mercar and varric's likely contacts, which led to ashur, mae, and dorian squatting in the dock town shadow dragon cell instead of some high town cell.

lucky the gods show up to cause trouble, huh?

god i love this game.

[vigilskeep]

Would you mind if I asked what the overall, like, thoughts and plot stuffs you have on a 'the inquisition as antagonists' story? Honestly sounds really interesting as an AU. Is it built off (the scant bits we have) of the cancelled Exalted March? Like the Inquisition redeclared and exalted march enacted on the Free Marches while the Qunari attack from the north and Hawk (or some other hero) trapped managing it all in the middle along with the growing red lyrium crisis? Or something entirely different?

there i was, banking on my explanations of how cool and hot the female characters would be, sure no-one would ever ask me to come up with a plot or logic... foiled...

so. loosely. as we established in da2, the mage circles are in rebellion. the divine gave cassandra one chance: to find hawke, discover the truth about kirkwall, and string them up as an example with all the blame pinned on their shoulders. (remember cassandra’s certainty that hawke and their allies planned everything from the start? i really think this makes more sense than the idea they always wanted to recruit hawke.) the mages would then have a chance to return peacefully to the circles, graciously forgiven for either being swayed by hawke’s lies (supported the mages) or being forced to react to hawke’s crimes (supported the templars). it was supposed to bring things back under control & prevent the divine from having to take more drastic measures. but varric lies, and cassandra fails. given that the rebellion is not centralised in one place anymore, an exalted march isn’t suitable. the divine declares an inquisition. and from then on, nowhere in southern thedas is safe from catching its eye

my intention was that the protagonist would still be the herald of andraste, because i think that’s the most compelling thing dai has going on. i think i’m keeping a lot of the plot with corypheus too. so: after an incident (still figuring out exactly my take) at the temple of sacred ashes, rifts pop up everywhere, and you’re the only one with the mysterious power to close them. in a time when both chantry and mages are doubted and feared, common people mark a sudden saviour as the herald of andraste who is going to bring everything back to rights. their beliefs get you help you can’t afford to refuse, as this time you’re really a prisoner and underdog in every way possible, no army of scouts here. but it also paints a target on your back. the inquisition doesn’t believe in corypheus; it’s obvious to them that these rifts are the work of the loose rebel mages everywhere, taking their vengeance on ordinary people. and you yourself must have dealt with demons to have such power, yet you dare to operate under andraste’s name. whether or not you want to be, whatever you were before, you immediately become the inquisition’s enemy #1

kind of similar structurally to how dao has loghain and then the archdemon, the inquisition would be the enemy you can deal with in multiple ways and corypheus would be the ultimate threat. i wish i could say i have something more solid than that but i really don’t, i haven’t put in a lot of work on this and there are lots of inquisition characters & subplots i don’t consider myself an expert in at all. but that’s sort of the direction in my head

[asharaks]

@vigilskept SAY NO MORE @ikarons and i have GOT you

So the thesis here is that between Leliana, Cassandra, and Justinia, we have a sort of holy trinity of femininity, the three faces of womanhood in Thedas, with femininity and womanhood being defined in relation to Andraste: she’s the platonic ideal of a woman.

First: Cassandra, as the public-facing one. She’s the most Respectable, noble-born, pious, earthly; she takes her permission to fight and command from her association with both divinity and nobility, both structures in Thedas that demand and expect “purity” of women, as an associated product of femininity. Her violence is extremely tightly controlled — she isn’t allowed to be undisciplined, sloppy, and emotional (if she has a strong negative opinion of you, she gets drunk and yells at you; this is treated as an abject failure of hers), and she’s never out of control. Her violence is sanctioned by her faith and her association with the chantry, and thus is sanctified as something holy, and not to be treated lightly; she’s the embodiment of Andraste’s strength, and she is very much still required to conform to femininity in other ways. She loves music, art, flowers, she’s a sap at heart, she reads cheesy romance novels and wears makeup; she expects to be wooed, to be the passive partner in a courtship, to be the desirable one — all things traditionally associated with femininity. Again, she’s allowed the remit of violence, but only as an extension of her spirituality, and the player is constantly reminded of her femininity.

Leliana in Inquisition represents the “darker” aspects of femininity that white people love to associate with womanhood; she’s more mysterious, angrier, secretive, privy to knowledge no-one else is. She’s manipulative, and ruthless, and subtle: her power doesn’t come from martial prowess or spirituality but from knowledge. There’s a bit of the Thedas version of the Madonna-Whore complex here (shoutout to @gyrovagi for the Andraste-Witch terminology), with Leliana taking the part of the Witch to Cass’s Andraste; she’s darker, scarier, more sexual, more menacing. She twists the things traditionally associated with Andraste’s femininity (music, birds, flowers) into weapons (her bard song, poisons, the ravens) in a mirror of Cassandra’s Andrastian associations.

This in contrast to her role in Origins, where she very much played the nice devout Andrastian girl to Morrigan’s occultism; Leliana is able to switch, her presentation fluid in this way specifically because she’s not a mage, and thus has the freedom to move between presentations in a way a mage — strictly feminised in a derogatory way — can’t. The type of femininity (the “good” kind, the “pure” kind) on that side of the balance is utterly inaccessible to anyone with magic, but Leliana’s able to move between them as she moves through life, and to use that perception of virtue as a tool to suit her needs. This is very much a costume she can take off and put on, playing different cards in different situations (see her spymaster self in the rookery vs the way she presents and behaves at the Winter Palace), and one she is able to wield effectively and safely because of her position: as a non-mage acting in service of the Maker (in DAO) or a representation of Andraste (DAI). 

Finally, Justinia: the spiritual leader, the untouchable, the “pure”, the divine face of Andraste that’s allowed to be inaccessible. Her age grants her this freedom, as does the way she’s never really seen on screen; she’s not a romance option, she’s not a companion or a character, she’s a symbol you never truly meet, and she’s never granted characterisation outside of her role as the Divine. Her authority as a woman is tied into this spirituality —- the reason it’s okay for her to be in this position of power is that she’s unmarried, childless, undesirable, and her position feeds into her undesirability in an endless loop. Just like Andraste, she’s more an idea than a person, and an idea can’t perform gender Wrong.

Leliana and Cass are both very feminine figures, but neither of them take on spiritual roles; Cass is very much guided by chantry doctrine, but never creates it (if you make her divine, she is conservative, cautious, slow on progress); it’s important to note here that most, if not all, of the women in powerful positions both within and without the chantry appear to be largely conservative, but especially the ones who aren’t Chantry Sisters. Leliana is far more progressive than Cassandra, who is in a more masculinised role of Templar (and Cassandra is far more progressive than Meredith, in her role as Knight-Commander), and many of the higher-ups in the Chantry are talked about as conservatives and traditionalists in war table missions and ambient dialogue.

Leliana tends to view chantry teachings as suggestions (she is a reformer, but very much not a militant one) and distance herself from the position of priesthood, from Origins on. This, in combination with her perceived duality (Andraste-Witch dichotomy) is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it works to her advantage that she is able to put on and take off the persona of Witch (in a way that is impossible for any mage — lots to say about Vivienne, and she deserves her own post, but particularly note how committed she is to people perceiving her as Intimidating and Frightening; she is forced to capitalise on the negative connotations of the Witch and try to use them as a base from which to gather power, because she is denied the opportunity to be perceived as ‘correctly’ feminine as a mage, but she simultaneously has to manage this perception through careful presentation because of the risk of tranquility or even execution being perceived as the Witch carries for her — unlike Leliana, she can’t step out of this role when it suits her, and unlike Leliana, the consequences for embodying it can be fatal) but on the other hand, those Darker aspects of her persona can be and are used against her; she’s accused of underhandedness, manipulativeness, accusations of deception and falsehood are thrown at her to discredit her role, and by extension, her power. The system is designed to support and uplift a very specific image of femininity, one defined by its relationship to spirituality, and anyone who steps outside of that gender binary is punished or discarded.

Both Leli and Cass distance themselves from traditional Thedas ideas of Womanhood, but they are both still notable as women in positions of unusual power, and their femininity and performance of gender is tied heavily to the ways they want to be perceived, which is in turn tied to the ways they want and reach for power, and the ways they use it when they have it.

[bat-incooking-school]

Wei Wuxian,

I am aware that my brother has been sending you letters and that he has recently commissioned some work from you. I feel it is my duty to remind you of some things.

I remind you that my brother is a member of the Nie sect. Any meddling from the head disciple of another sect will not be looked kindly upon.

I would also remind you that Sang-di tends to exaggerate.

The statue that he should be able to move, should he complete his training, is a masterpiece carved by your father and given to mine as a present for his second wedding. It is made of both wood and jade and stands at half Sang-di's height. Once he has moved the statue, it will be put on a wagon and delivered to you as I believe it will hold more value to you.

Lastly, I must remind you that I am the dear friend of Lan Xichen. It's would be no issue for me to have Wangji-di deliver your gift. Do not worry if you have already aided my brother's attempts not to train. The statue will still be brought to you. However, I will be the one delivering it.

I know you will make the right choice,

Nie Mingjue

My dear friend Wei-xiong,

Terrible news! Da-ge has hidden the rarest and most valuable items from my collection of books and art! He says I won't get them back until I'm able to carry a jade statue across the front hall! The statue is as big as me! I'll be halfway to the grave before my precious collection is complete once more! You, who are like a brother to me, must save me from Da-ge's tyranny! Surely you could make a talisman that would make the statue light enough for a mere mortal such as myself to lift?

In order to inspire you, I have included a drawing Xichen-ge once gifted me. It shows a younger Wangji-xiong as well as myself as close to playing together as we ever got.

And to convince you of my sincerity, I will tell you as many stories about a younger Wangji-xiong as I am able once you have succeeded.

At your mercy,

Nie Huaisang

[thefadecodex]

Our first real exposure actually beings with the Grand Oak tree in DAO! (Thank you @meganooooooooooooooo for pointing this out!)

Players began to notice a distinct cadence in Solas's speech during interactions in DAI. Notably, when he recounts moments from the Fade, his voice occasionally takes on a rhythm and tone reminiscent of a hymn or chant, evoking the cadence of "Hallelujah," specifically the K.D. Lang cover.

(note: @the-northern-continent does a great breakdown of the Hallelujah cadence vs iambic pentameter in this post. And @liaragaming does a good breakdown of Solas speaking in that cadence in this post.)

This has led The Fade Codex to theorize that this cadence reflects a dialect used by spirits—an ancient, rhythmic way of communication that blends emotion and intent through a deliberate structure. The 6/8 musical framework of the K.D. Lang Hallelujah cover. This framework prioritizes reflective pacing, 1-2-3 / 4-5-6 measures, and allows secondary stresses to create an emotional cadence.

This concept is further explored in Dragon Age: The Veilguard through various encounters with spirits. Below are examples that demonstrate this rhythmic, almost lyrical, pattern in their speech:

The Anxious Spirit (A Spirit of Comfort) - Arlathan Forest

"Trapped. Can't get out. It hurts. It's dark. Please. They didn't know what to do. They didn't want to die."

TRAPPED. CAN'T get OUT. It HURTS. It's DARK. PLEASE. They DIDN'T know what to DO. They DIDN'T want to DIE.

"Stop the thoughts. Stop the fears. Quiet, please. Make it quiet."

STOP the THOUGHTS. STOP the FEARS. QUI-et, PLEASE. MAKE it QUI-et.

Eulogy (Originally a Spirit of Compassion) - Minrathous

"Something larger stirs. Calling the desperate. I cannot see what."

SOME-thing LARG-er STIRS. CALL-ing the DES-per-ATE. I CAN-not SEE what.

"Know the hope you bring Dock Town thwarts it. And may you continue."

KNOW the HOPE you BRING. DOCK TOWN THWARTS it. AND may YOU con-TIN-ue.

"As you found their names, I felt them whisper through the Fade."

As YOU found their NAMES, I FELT them WHIS-per THROUGH the FADE.

"My own name changed. I am now Eulogy."

My OWN name CHANGED. I AM now EU-lo-GY.

Hope Unyielding - Hossberg Wetlands

"Light glimmers the surface. Flowers break through snow. Hope unexpected. I am such."

LIGHT glim-MERS the SUR-face. FLOW-ers BREAK through SNOW. HOPE un-EXPECT-ed. I AM SUCH.

"No. But nor was I forever."

NO. But NOR was I for-EV-er.

Pluck - Hall of Valor

"What foul-hearted spirit tugs at the corners of your lips to turn them down so?"

What FOUL-heart-ed SPIR-it tugs at the COR-ners of your LIPS to TURN them DOWN so?

"Greetings, Mourn Watcher. You are a long ways from Nevarra."

GREET-ings, MOURN Watch-er. YOU are a LONG ways from Ne-VAR-ra.

Emmrich (to Pluck)

"Hail to you, child of Valor. As voice of our lightless shores, I pray your blade may never sunder."

HAIL to YOU, child of VAL-or. As VOICE of our LIGHT-less SHORES, I PRAY your BLADE may NEV-er SUN-der.

Pluck

"You honor me. Few remember the old ways."

You HON-or ME. Few re-MEM-ber the OLD WAYS.

The phrase "the old ways," as used by Pluck, is believed to reference this rhythmic, cadenced speech. It’s a pattern steeped in intent, echoing the emotional resonance of the Fade itself.

Grand Oak - West Brecilian Forest

(image source)

What manner of beast be thee that comes before this elder tree?

What MAN-ner of BEAST be THEE that COMES be-FORE this EL-der TREE?

Ahhhh, yes, I remember thy kind. So brief of life and all but blind to the peril you cause, the lives you take, such chaos is down within thy wake.

AHHH, yes, I re-MEM-ber THY kind. SO brief of LIFE and ALL but BLIND. To the PER-il you CAUSE, the LIVES you TAKE. Such CHA-os is DOWN with-IN thy WAKE.

This dialect may serve as both a form of communication and an expression of a spirit's essence, allowing them to convey ideas, emotions, and purpose in a way that transcends mere words.

This theory deepens our understanding of how spirits interact with mortals and each other, highlighting the unique and poetic nature of their existence.

[perkeleen-lavellan]

I feel like with any sincere discussion of Veilguard we should start off by establishing that there are multiple forms of 'fun' as it were, to be had from video games. The main purpose of a video game is, after all, to be fun. To entertain us.

So. With Veilguard I feel the problem is this; Veilguard succeeds at being fun. It succeeds at the kind of actionable fun. Veilguard is fun to actively play for most people. The combat is fun, the level design is fun, the main storyline is fun whenever we get to it. Veilguard offers fun that is quick and instant. I think it was no small feat that BioWare has finally managed to design levels and combat for a Dragon Age game that feels complete. Although I will go to my grave defending the tactical combat of DAO, it is a different more gripping kind of fun that Veilguard's mobility and systems can offer.

But there is another form a fun. The kind of fun you might be more used to associating with a good book. The fun of a story you can't wait to see the end of. The fun of fantasy world building, of seeing the marvel that is an author, or a collection of authors, who know what their vision is, and who are subtle enough to communicate that vision through fiction. The joy of seeing the result of experts building their craft. Environmental clues, implications in dialogue, tone in atmosohere. Seeing a good story unfold is fun, and with video games, which are an interactive audio visual medium how much moreso?

A book is just words, a show on tv is always linear and restricted to what the camera shows us. A video game has a whole three dimensional world that you can move inside of, witnessing the story and world building both passively and actively. A video game has dialogue and characters, who can both drive and narrate the plot for you. A video game can put you inside the world the story is happening in and immerse you in it.

And I feel that Veilguard fails to take advantage of the full breadth of the vast collection of storytelling tools a video game has. The fact that the companion quests and companion writing seems to have been left incomplete, pieces wilting on the cutting room floor when the companions are meant to be the emotional core of this story? The fact that all the factions are presented as unambiguous good guys which leaves them with no depth, their stories woefully superficial and unwilling to engage in any deeper ideas? The fact that vast amounts of world building and lore have been essentially discarded? That is all severely unfun.

So I think it's fair to say that Veilguard is fun and disappointing and not fun. The fun that I had while playing this game was always followed by a collection of things that were not fun. And the most annoying part is the parts about Veilguard which are fun are the parts that are fleeting. That I can find combat in a video game entertaining, extremely entertaining sometimes, is nothing when compared to the staying power of a gripping story with not just good set up and pay-off, but also an immaculate structure supporting that all the way throug.

When I am 80 years old I will not remember fondly the fact that Veilguard was the first Dragon Age game to finally have an actual dodge mechanic. There are always going to be games with fun combat mechanics, Veilguard isn't special for that. But I will remember Solas turning into a dragon sized wolf in a desperate bid to fight a dragon ten times his size, to help the hero he became a villain to. I will remember what it felt like to have a protagonist start off by treating Solas with suspicion, knowing there was no reason to trust Solas but choosing to give Solas a chance to prove himself trustworthy anyway, and Solas breaking that trust. And I'll remember what it felt like to have that protagonist then face Solas again, and make a choice to either be kind or to be just like Solas.

You will sometimes see gamers who say they don't really care about the writing in their games that much, but then their favourite games are things like The Witcher 3, God of War, The Last of Us. The reason they say that is because the writing is so integrally a part of the gameplay experience they don't even realise how much work it's doing. Fun gameplay doesn't matter if there is no reason to continue it.

Do you know what I remember about Dragon Age Veilguard? I remember dreading opening the game and seeing the list of companion quests in my journal that I had no interest in doing, because I had already realised how nothing a lot of them were. And I'm not talking about the gameplay of those quests, I think we've established I enjoyed smacking the bad guys and moving through the levels quite a bit. Oh no. I'm not even talking about the dialogue, not really. It was the stakes. Why were these characters doing these things, and why should I care? There was so little emotional conflict in those early to mid game companion quests.

Do you know how plot structure works when you really boil it down? Conflict is set up -> tension rises -> conflict comes to a head -> tension releases. This is why you need conflict and this is why you need characters to have flaws that they will not self psychoanalyze to a resolution within the first 5 minutes of the story. The realisation of those flaws is the plot! The character overcoming those flaws is the plot. You can't have a story without plot! What are we doing here????

That's how those quests felt. They felt like all the actually meaningful things the writers of these sub-plots had to say got crammed into their final quests. With a couple exceptions. And that's why doing most of the companion quests felt like a chore.

So, anyway, in summary. Remember that a video game contains within itself multiple forms of fun. As many forms of fun as there are ways of interacting with a game.

[lttawnymadison]

TGCF Revised Version Afterword by MXTX

Since I kept seeing snippets of this, I wanted to read the whole thing for myself. I'd already bought the book on JJWXC and did an MTL for this. It's so wonderful that she's back and sharing new things and that the revised is finally done! - Tawny --------------------------------------------- The author has something to say:

Seeing the small red clay stove again.

———— Afterword of "Heaven Official's Blessing" 2022

■ Finally done!

Long time no see! It's another afterword starting with "finally." Without further ado, seasoned readers would know that I make substantial revisions. For instance, scenes like the Bai Feng Mountain Hunt and the ending recognition of Sizhui in the serial version of "Mo Dao Zu Shi" were not originally there.

The revisions in "Heaven Official's Blessing" are the most extensive of all my works. It was a huge project, as it is also the longest in terms of length, serialized over eight months. Due to poor health and other reasons, the revision process was interrupted for a long time before I picked it up again, and it sporadically took about five to six months over several years.

In the era of web novels, there are endless new entertainments, and honestly, not many people re-read a story. Plus, some problems in the serialized version are structural and can't be changed, but I still tried my best to address my regrets. After all, when I was serializing it, I was almost always in a feverish and sick state, barely pushing through. Additionally, I often enjoy comparing different versions of my favorite authors' works back and forth, finding pleasure in the process. So, for readers, discovering "Wow, this part has changed!" is like starting a new journey with Easter eggs in a second round.

■ The new revised version includes about 100,000 words of new content!

These 100k words are mainly concentrated in the latter half of Volume 1 and Volume 3, but there are plenty scattered throughout the text. For example, I fulfilled a promise to A-Hua, giving him several new outfits. Seeing A-Hua dressed beautifully in a new hairstyle to meet his gege made me happy.

In terms of the intensity of revisions, personally, I feel it goes like this:

Volume 1 and Volume 2 > Volume 3 > Volume 5 > Volume 4.

Additionally, the new version cuts some redundant words and plots that weren't very meaningful. However, I tried to keep all the original interactions between Hua Lian as complete as possible. If some minor interactions are missing, they weren't deleted but moved around.

***IMPORTANT NOTE!! MXTX's comments in the below section are about the differences between her first draft and the original 2018 version -- not about the original version and the newly revised version.***

■ One day, I suddenly dug out something.

An antique from 2017, a folder called "Heaven Official's Blessing Setting Collection."

Curiously, I opened it and read with interest.

● Comparing the original setting outline and the main text, the highest fidelity is in the main storyline between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian.

A-Hua, restored at a ratio of 1:100.

Hua's character setting is the most detailed, and virtually every point made it into the main text, including details like "ghosts don't like the sun, so Hua Cheng sometimes drapes a red cloth over his head"...

Points not used, listed a few:

As a child:

· After being saved from falling off a city wall, he foolishly followed a parade over and over again, grabbing people to ask, "Who is that? Who is that person?" People told him, "That's the royal son, the future Celestial God, the most outstanding Crown Prince of Xianle Nation ever!"

(This point couldn't be used because in the text A-Hua was held in the Crown Prince's arms after being saved)

· At home, he was often punished to stand or kneel, not given food, and wore old clothes, accused of stealing money. Whenever he argued with his family, he would stubbornly sleep in the Prince's temple overnight.

· Went to Mount Tai Cang to volunteer sweeping red leaves at Huangji Observatory, just to sneak peeks at his future wife happily swinging.

After becoming the ghost king:

· One of his hobbies is buying and building houses everywhere.

· Very protective of his leather boots, would (badly) polish them until they shone.

· To other devout followers of Xie Lian, he said: "You have good taste."

· Secretly prepared many betrothal gifts for his beloved god, wanting to marry him!

The character setting of Xie Lian as a teacher in the serialized version compared to the initial draft, the serialized text subtly differs. The initial draft was more... exquisite and elegant, very serious. The serialized text is more... humorous. I think perhaps because some plot points were tragic, Xie Lian thought he should be happier to make the readers more relaxed, so he drove me to adjust his mental state! But due to the spiritual oppression at that time, the character's depth was not enough, while in the new revised version, I hope he can show a more self-content state on the same core basis.

Excerpts from the unused original setting:

· Super easy-going. Easy-going means: if given fifty bucks, he would happily dress in drag and dance. Accepts haggling. Thirty bucks works. Twenty bucks too!

· The observatory is small, the house is broken, wants to grow flowers. Leaks during rain, so he uses a bucket to catch rainwater.

· Because he can't afford a caretaker, he cleans himself, and also feeds chickens. Chickens eat flowers. Keeps a cat.

· Completely engrossed in discussing serious matters, he unknowingly finished all the broken sweet dumplings!

● Water, Earth, Wind original setting:

The highest fidelity is the main line between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, followed by the Water, Earth, Wind subplot.

The main conflict hasn't changed. Just... how could the original setting of Water, Earth, Wind be so dark and terrifying!

The character morals in the main text improved a lot, otherwise, the original Black Water would be sheer scheming + murderous! The ending for the Wind Master would have been more tragic.

The Venerable of Empty Words suddenly became an improvised character. It seemed like an ancient fable-like monster, making the main text more interesting than the original setting.

Overall, the formal version is a bit better written than the original draft.

● The unfortunate life of Lang Ying:

Lang Ying? Is there such a character? I don't remember!

Ah? It seems there was such a person, but I don't remember any of his plotlines.

This is most people's feeling towards the character of Lang Ying. It's not a delusion because he barely had any significant plot. In fact, any valuable scenes could have been replaced equivalently, so in the new revised version, I deleted this character.

But, in the 2017 setting collection, I suddenly found that I had actually opened a separate document for Lang Ying, and his role was defined as a "growing-type BOSS!"

I was silent.

And immediately opened the document, curious about my initial setting. A "growing-type BOSS," how did he become someone whose deletion went unnoticed...? (I even don't know how to address him!)

Who knows, perhaps out of excitement, I accidentally pressed the wrong shortcut, and somehow it became irreversible, leaving only an empty document for me to stare in disbelief. The once "growing-type BOSS" has now forever become a mystery!

This is the unfortunate life of the deleted Lang Ying.

· There was another document in the setting collection called "Swordsmith." I opened the document and read it with interest.

I was shocked. Because I completely forgot I had conceived this story. Why didn't I write it?!

Darn.

I know why I didn't write it. This story... it had no ending!

——————— Thus, the magical glimpse into the "Heaven Official's Blessing Setting Collection" concludes!

■ I like men with stories!

Maybe because I watched an outstanding work as a child. It was a memoir, the protagonist in the biography was gentle and affable, and the protagonist in the memories was cold and ruthless. The story was scattered with the poignant fragrance of white plum blossoms amidst bloody and stormy circumstances.

This almost perfect work deeply influenced my aesthetics, leading me to be most interested in the memory parts of characters in various works. Although many viewers prefer the present scenes, often asking when the memories will end, I actually find these intense and painful memories to be the most fascinating!

A story is the history of a character, as well as the key to their personality. A person with a story stands before me like a puzzle. The way to solve this puzzle is to understand their story. Because the biography makes one curious to know more about a character they like, loving them more now because of their past. When serializing "Heaven Official," my greatest pain initially was telling myself, "This time I don't want to write a memory slaughter," deliberately trying to avoid a structure similar to previous works, yet I still hadn't found a better way to express it, resulting in my deep dissatisfaction with the later part of Volume 1. I was also hesitant to fully commit to the memory scenes in Volume 2, and with the heavy mental burden, this part was very painful to write. When revising, looking at Volume 2 was almost unbearable, because I'm the type of person who, as a child, would immediately switch channels when a TV show's protagonist was about to be wrongfully accused or embarrassed. I couldn't help but knock on a friend's door and ask:

Me: Was the author suffering some kind of mental trauma at the time? This negative energy is too horrifying, the protagonist is so pitiful, I really admire anyone who could read through Volume 2 completely.

Friend: Do you even have the right to say that?

But the memory slaughter in Volume 4 was much freer, written in one breath, so the revisions for this volume were also the least.

So, will you still write large segments of memory slaughter?

Um, well, we'll see, haha, hehe...

■ Closing Remarks:

Lastly, I'll address the question some asked me, "Will the new revised 'Heaven Official's Blessing' be more torturous?"

Me: You're talking nonsense. 'Heaven Official's Blessing' is a sweet pampering story, thank you!

Acknowledgments:

Shi Nai'an wrote in the preface to "Water Margin": "On snowy nights, about five or six people listen to my storytelling; on rainy days, about seven or eight; on bright and sunny days, about ten. I read, everyone listens, and we are all happy, with no other thoughts." When I read this as a young person, I was delighted. What divine days! Writing first to entertain oneself, then to entertain others. Self-expression and self-acceptance are certainly primary, but the affection of others is also a significant positive feedback. Thus, first, I thank the steadfast readers who have accompanied me all this time. I've thought about just walking away amidst the noisy disputes; abandoning the account amidst the tumultuous world! It seems not bad. But looking back, I can't bear to leave some truly sincere readers.

I've had authors I liked disappear from the internet, and I always feel like a part of my youth has vanished, a feeling quite distressing, reminiscent of overly grand and harsh things like the tears of the era or the torrent of history. So, I want to accompany my readers as long as possible, hoping that the day of parting comes later. Perhaps I'm not good enough now, but I will strive to be better in the future. Or perhaps you've never truly understood what kind of person I am, or even completely misunderstood me, but as long as you genuinely like my stories, we can sit down and chat.

And, I must mention my friends, who can be described as having the courage of a hero. Long time no see, Teacher Changyang's illustrations are still as beautiful as those of a celestial being, I hope Teacher CAS can go to bed earlier and worry less, and Teacher Kuohao, who despite a heavy workload, still fully honored our agreement. The "Heaven Official's Blessing" radio drama is really fantastic! It reminded me of the original intention of writing this story, and I was very moved. If it weren't for the silent companionship and efforts of these old friends, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu might have stopped writing back in 2016, disappearing from the world of martial arts, and thus, "Heaven Official's Blessing" would not have been born. I look forward to retracing the paths we once walked together when gathering ideas. And many friends who reached out to help and encourage me, thank you for accompanying me through the snowy nights.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

There's this interesting new rebuttle I've watched become popular regarding criticism of Veilguard. Essentially it boils down to: Dragon Age was never very good at politics, nobody should have expected Veilguard to be any different. And this...is so disingenuous to me it's wild I've now seen it popping up as a dominant narrative. At the very least it's deliberate and ridiculous strawmanning.

When people who critique Veilguard do so because of veilguards politics I dont think this critique is being levelled because they went into DAtV expecting disco elysium 2.0. nor do I think that those same fans were expecting Bioware to overcome their well documented centerism-both-sides-are-valid-but-the-one-who-values-less-change-is-better that has dominated most of their IPs. The way Bioware has historically treated characters who question systematic oppression in Thedas has...not been great. Anders, Sera - hell, even the way that talking darkspawn are almost completely written off after DA:O:A just so they can go back to being a mindless hoard you can kill without guilt.

The difference between DAtV and the first three games in the series is not that DAtV is less progressive/Marxist/revolutionary. It's not the issue that DAtV has bad politics or bad messaging or anything like that. It is that DAtV refuses to engage with politics at all. Id go further and say that if we get to the heart of it, the 'politics' fans are missing is that companions and NPCs in the franchise have always had different views on what's 'right' which Veilguard refuses to give them.

There is such a stark difference between even inquisition and DAtV when it comes to questions of politics. DAtV is uninterested in examining anything at all that might be controversial; it's not just that they don't want to show the reality of slavery or create evil slave owning characters it's that there's barely any reference to slavery in the whole of the game despite the fact that it has been a key theme surrounding Tevinter for the whole of the franchise. It's not just that they don't want to show the reality of the crows or create evil crows it's that the crows are no longer even allowed to be questioned or thought about beyond 'cool faction in cool clothes'. It's not just that they don't want to show the dalish as good or bad it's that they don't want to engage with the dalish and their struggles and beliefs at all.

I mean seriously, think about just a few of the things the other games made you think about:

DAO has a succession crisis with no real 'good' option, a civil war with people on all sides, questions about circle annulment, the castless in orzammar, questions about when have a people been punished 'enough' with the werewolves. It asks you whether a rude and arrogant but ultimately skilled ruler for Orzammar is better than a well meaning ruler who doesn't think things through.

DA2 is all about refugees, about justice and whether such a thing can ever exist, it's about the cycle of violence and slavery is a huge theme both for the current mages held in the gallows and Fenris and the Tevinters.

DAI asks you to think about who is best to rule during a crisis; a military leader who may later push expansionism but would provide a better army against the current unstoppable evil or the safe choice of a empress who may not be as useful to you in the short term. It asks you to think about structures by making you question the organisation you've built and it's own power and corruption. It asks you whether or not a conservative chantry leader who is nevertheless a mage is better than a liberal chantry leader who wants to abolish the circles entirely.

DAtV is constantly asking you to look away from any questions that could be genuinely impactful on a structural scale. In it's worst moments it ignores this entirely - none of the companions can have differing or problematic views or even really disagree with each others worldviews. When it's trying a bit harder it tends to make the issues it wants to explore personal rather than structural. And any time anything that comes up that could be genuinely morally dubious (having to work with the smugglers in dock town for example) it goes out of its way to say ACTUALLY THESE ARE NICE CRIMINALS AND THEY NEVER DO SLAVERY OR SMUGGLE ANYTHING BAD AT ALL. Nobody you work with can be morally dubious or have bad motives; even the treasure hunters and pirates are very unproblematic guys.

And yet, on top of this refusal to engage with any questions that might genuinely get the player thinking or require the player to think about power structures and different views...the game also repeats the same shitty racism that has been apparent in all DA games but perhaps never so openly as this. DAtV is a game that says 'yeah u can be non-binary but you CANNOT be multicultural'. It is a game where the absolute worst of the racist tropes that have plagued the Qun since Gainer called them a 'militant islamic borg' are played up to 100.

So yeah Dragon Age hasn't always had the best politics. I don't think anyone ever expected it to? But it's always been interested in asking questions about politics, about differing views, about what is right and what is wrong. It's always been interested in examining structures and whether or not they're good or useful. It's always been interested in very morally ambiguous or 'grey' characters like Loghain, Blackwall, Anders, Isabela, Zevran, Sten, Oghren, Leliana, Vivienne, Bull-- the list just goes on and on. And DAtV isn't interested in any of this at all.

So yeah. This criticism is weird to me. Wish people would stop using it.