#helming talk

[marciaillust]

trapped in amber

[zonky-zara]

Songs of Valor, Old Girl.

[numberonetribble]

Another practice dump! This time digital! + Piston!

[swordmaid]

brienne but she's wearing 1949 cocteau's beauty and the beast inspired fit!!! this is the inspo pic i used if ur curious.

gonna be posting more of this redesign thing (and also jaime's ver) some time in the future but i just wanted to share this one <3

[powerbottomblake]

i think my favorite thing abt pentiment is that no matter who you point your finger at during act 1 it'll leave you feeling hollow even if you're convinced of their culpabilibity bc ultimately they were all victims of the baron who is the system and class privilege personified

[animentality]

I forced my friend who hates epic fantasy to watch Lord of the Rings with me, and I mean that legitimately, like she literally said I'm not watching that, and I said while you're in my goddamn house, you're watching it. There's no negotiation.

Anyway, she spent the first half of the Two Towers bitching and complaining and saying everyone was boring and no one was pretty - she also called Aragorn mid, which honestly, to be honest, to be truthful, if I killed her, I'm pretty sure a judge and a jury would side with me for that one.

But I digress.

She spent the first half of the movie saying the movie sucked- and then she shut her goddamn mouth for the second half.

Because even the biggest epic fantasy haters in the world shut their whining mouths when they see the battle of helm's deep.

There is literally TOO MUCH cool shit happening for even the most normie of normies to hate on it.

Seriously. Elves showing up when the humans need them most, elven archers with the amazing long range volleys, orcs with ladders, orcs with HOOKS, bombing the wall down, Legolas riding down a shield as he shoots arrows, Aragorn throwing Gimli's ass at the bridge...

Gandalf arriving on his white horse with the Rohirrim to save the damn day...and yes, elsewhere, the Ents being awesome and fucking shit up...

Doesn't matter if you're a hater of all things epic fantasy.

This shit too fire for even you to resist the burn.

[thevalleyisjolly]

Thinking about how many of the main characters in Andor Season 1 are, from their perspective, living in different stories and genres. Syril is the classic disgraced detective obsessing over the failure of his last case. Dedra is the brilliant lone career woman in a high-pressure male-dominated workplace. Skeen, Nemik, Taramyn, Gorn are the unlikely band of misfits attempting to pull off the heist of the century; Vel and Cinta are embroiled in espionage intrigue with Luthen. Mon Mothma's deep in the midst of a political thriller, complete with the trope of a troubled home life. Kino and all the prisoners of Narkina 5 are caught up in a grim prison drama.

Part of the brilliance of the show is that it embraces each of these characters as the protagonist of their own narratives. Dedra is very clearly an antagonist to most of the other characters, but in her interactions with her colleagues and Syril, you can sympathize with how she is dismissed and put down and harassed. Syril's scenes wouldn't be out of place in a detective show - the lone officer, demoted from his position, waking up every morning to a depressing house and a mindnumbing job yet continuing to pursue his self-identified duty with a relentless sense of righteousness and persecution. Mon Mothma's story tangentially intersects with Cassian's, but both enriches and is enriched by the contrast in perspective - the broader context of galaxy-wide politics with the immediate realities that people live with, including for Mon herself through the impact on her family life.

And then we come back to Ferrix. Maarva, Bix, Brasso, Bee, Wilmon, the Daughters, the Time Grappler, the whole community. Where the season starts and where the season ends, with a call to fight the Empire and a community that answers. A community full of different people with different motivations and methods and views and yet maybe that's the point of the whole story. Even though on an individual level, characters might seem like they're in different stories or genres, facing their own challenges and seeking their own goals, everything occurs under the context of Imperial fascism. No one can escape it, no matter what story they think they're in or how big or small their role in it.

Syril and Dedra aren't just lone agents dismissed by their superiors, they're people embracing a fascist system and doing everything they can to uphold it despite how they themselves have been treated by that system. The Aldhani team, Mon Mothma, Luthen, their enemies aren't really the garrison at the dam or the ISB's surveillance or the endless rebel infighting; they're only the immediate faces of the Empire's oppression and division. The Narkina 5 prisoners aren't just trying to live. If all they wanted was to stay alive, they could have continued working until they died. It's the Empire who is responsible for how they're being treated, and they'd rather die trying to take them down.

The uprising on Rix Road brings it all home. After all the places that the season has taken us, all the challenges and arcs that these characters have faced, it comes back full circle to where we started - with ordinary people living under fascist rule. Some work with it, some against it, most try to keep their heads down and survive it. All alone in their personal stories and obstacles...except they aren't, not really. The Empire's rot is in all their lives. There is no escaping the reach of fascism, no matter what kind of life they try to lead or what decisions they make. Individualism won't save anyone - in fact, it's what the Empire wants. For everyone to feel alone, either singular and insignificant against an insurmountable force or otherwise striving endlessly to be the exception above the masses, the heroic underdog who overcomes massive obstacles (and everyone else) to save the day and get what they want.

Ferrix wakes up and in doing so they wake everyone up. None of them exist alone. Everyone is part of this, whether they are for or against the Empire. And when all these people and their stories come together, meeting, clashing, struggling, harmonizing... that's when a revolution starts coming into its own.

[hercarisntyours]

elita

[himulrai]

Have you watched transformers animated?

yes i have! animated megatron is one of my favourite versions of megatron ever he's so eloquent and cunning and i love his stupid little smirk he's insufferable

[ramshacklerumble]

do you ever feel your ocs react so viscerally to something you see. like unprompted they start telling you their thoughts and opinions on an article or some shit like that and you're just like: well damn.

[solasfenheral]

some bemused vg bitching below the cut

i am. very bemused by the way this game seems to pull its punches at certain moments. like its afraid to really step on your toes and get in your face thematically. which is a deeply strange experience considering i've never ever felt this way about a dragon age game before???

to be honest. I half wonder if it is a product of this game being a sequel that came out so long after it's previous title and right off the heels of two games that received cold to lukewarm reception critically and within the community. I know there would've been extreme pressure internally for this game to be a critical and commercial success and you see that in how polished it is, how there have been huge technological improvements in things like hair which bioware has always gotten some flack for. and I can't help but feel that history contributed to how. cautious of me this game feels at times.

but its just. strange. it feels so strange to get something like the push up scene at the end of taash's personal quest chain. like what are you doing, with this lukewarm defense of trans identity. have some BITE about it man, I know you care about this! it's like the game doesn't want to commit to locking you out of companion content because they wouldn't tolerate transphobia but also doesn't want to accept it, so you end up with this bizarre kind of. half ass defense of transness without really standing its ground about it.

and one hand I get it because I don't want taash's storyline to be about defending themselves from player transphobia when they're already struggling with coming to terms w their identity throughout the game, but this scene man. its so damn strange.

and like. the way this game handles religion is so damn bizarre to me! which is a critique I've again, never felt for a da game! it feels SO strange for bellara to be like. lol yeah the gods being evil actually makes it EASIER for me to let them go like ffdsjkfhjks what....? epler I am in your HOUSE, this is not how faith worksssss

in trying, it feels like, to avoid steeping on toes about what the revelation of the gods would MEAN to the elves, vg just. really fails to grapple with the importance of faith in people's lives and the pain of what losing that or it being challenged means.

i wouldn't even be as annoyed if like. at least ONE of our dalish companions had complicated feelings about their faith and it was something they could discuss between them! it would be really interesting to contrast davrin's pragmatism, his preoccupation MORE with the lived reality elves might suffer with this knowledge come to light under the current systems of oppression, his understanding of the dalish mythology as important to his culture and his sense of SELF w/o ever having really believed in them personally, with someone like bellara who DID believe and is working through an arc about grief and trying to find a new understanding of what dalish culture looks like now with such a key tenant being challenged!

how do you understand death and what comes beyond death when such a central pillar of your life has been challenged! oh my GOD the depth the funeral scene gains when u have this subtext.

there's not a single banter on how harding reconciles her understanding of the Titans to her belief in the maker!

its just. CRAZY to me that this game seems to be trying to dodge the religious and political bite of its own story fsdhfjkds aaaaaaaa

man this isn't even touching how bizarrely fast rook's regret prison does its switcheroo and goes from neve/bellara's blaming rook for losing them to rook going don't worry your death wasn't my fault to davrin/lace like my GOD lemme stew in the survivor's guilt man ur not even giving me an understanding of why rook can process this!! lace or davrin literally died like! 10 minutes ago to their understanding!!!

[bayetea]

‼️🤯 NEW FANDOM RULE JUST DROPPED 🤯‼️ no more infantilizing hazel no more refusing to ship her with anyone but frank no more excluding black characters from being desirable love interests. you have to think about hazel making out with One character who was never one of her canon love interests for at least 3 minutes sorry

[jt1674]

[fivie]

I just watched LOTR The Two Towers for the first time in probably over a decade and it was great and reminded me that there's some good in this world and it's worth fighting for etc BUT I did almost choke on my drink bc I forgot there's just a pure, undisguised Wilhelm Scream during the Battle of Helm's Deep

[noirrelite]

assorted older warframe stuff dot jpeg (with some touch ups) also old sierra fashion

[local-ghoul12]

WHY IS THE OFFICE FANDOM SO DEAD??

LIKE IM THE ONLY PERSON LEFT AND I HAVE NOBODY TO TALK ABOUT TO IT

And most people who watch it dislike Andy Bernard😭😭 I love Andy sm though.. he’s my pookie I know so much about him

His favorite color is white because it contains all the colors

His favorite cake is ice cream cake but specifically fudgie the whale

He was in a-capella while in college and loves singing

AND HE CLEARLY IS ON THE SPECTRUM LIKE ME 😞

He’s sweet and I just love him