#to create Narrative)

[r0setyler]

thinking about how the memory tardis had one piece of rose in it, her missing poster, and how that is representative of rose's narrative, she's missing... there are pieces of all the other doctors, of yaz, of river, but rose's thing isn't the jacket donna found, isn't some sort of actual rose, but is literally just her missing poster, because even to the memory tardis, to the doctor, she is missing. where is she? have you seen rose tyler?

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[girlbossvicvega]

ik it was intended primarily for funny show reasons but shassie is just a crazy dichotomy. Guy with commitment issues vs guy who commits too hard. Guy with no dad vs guy with too much dad. Guy with net negative social skills who desperately wants them vs guy with incredible insight into people who hates himself for having it. Guy who’s surly and mean to hide need to be loved vs guy who’s breezy and charming to hide need to be loved

[keferon]

May I ask what were the best transformers media you ever saw/read?

Well Transformers Prime, Transformers 1986 and IDW comics are having the first place that’s for sure

And then the second place is kind of shared by Fall of Cybertron, Exodus, Prime wars trilogy, Robots in disguise(2001) and Transformers One.

The third place goes to G1, Animated, Earthspark, Armada, War for Cybertron Netflix series, Aligned Robots in disguise, Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts and Cyberverse because I only liked some little parts of them.

And then I also saw some of the Bay movies, Victory and Headmasters and didn’t like them at all.

Separate first place for J-Decker. It is not exactly Transformers but it is a show about giant robots and I loved it

[hymnsofheresy]

what are your thoughts on your religion stealing every single one of its holidays from pagans? xo

That in order to relieve themselves of guilt and discomfort, white people create and believe narratives that deprive their European ancestors of any autonomy whatsoever. Casting their ancestors as victims of the church rather than active participants.

[destiel-wings]

this is dean directly speaking to us with the fanfiction writing power and living outside of the narrative he's trapped in, asking us to do what chuck and the cw don't allow him to have

[mysterycitrus]

their relationship is complex and not entirely definable but if u look me in the eyes and tell me that dick grayson isn’t bruce waynes first kid im not gonna take u super seriously. sowwy

[sunlight-shunlight]

thinking about veilguard and bioware in general, i think we are reaching a point where people need to grapple with the inherent limits of what stories can be told in our Current Society and in AAA gaming companies.

on a labour level: mass layoffs, tons of developers leaving despite previously talking about how passionate and happy they were to be involved, not even paying severance, and crunching employees to the point of burnout. this is unfortunately pretty standard for AAA game companies.

on a cultural level: it is SO white and SO centrist-ly Canadian. i wrote up these asks outlining how. it is a repeated pattern of writing in which they go into tortured racial oppression allegories at best, while constantly peppering in a "but BOTH SIDES were wrong and made mistakes :( :( :(", in between their fictional atrocities that are clearly mirroring irl genocides and enslavement. or at worst, it's "the qunari are radical islamic borg" which has even less nuance. i personally thought, since dai came out in 2014, and a lot has changed since then about the world and in public awareness, that this would have filtered into the narrative and resulted in more satisfying and historically grounded writing. unfortunately not the case. it's shocking if you compare it to how sharp and aware and unflinching something like disco elysium is.

so what does this mean?

under these conditions, it is unavoidable that we get development by people who are rapidly cycled out of the company or demoralized into burnout. we get digestible, easy little soundbites of lore without much substance, because any complexity needs more time and coordination rather than the process of "quick, we have these assets, a lot of people involved in making them just got laid off, we need to make Something by next quarter to show the CEO". we get very little cohesion between games, despite the clear intent from dai to have so many plot points set up to follow through in a sequel, because the team and development are so chaotic that they can't hold onto a vision and complete it.

we also get this inherent caution and "conservatism" from the narrative, because on an ideological level, they're largely white people who want cops to be included in pride. so any major change to even a fictional society is Bad and Scary, and shouldn't be done without making sure that every character finger-wags appropriately at non-state violence. there is clearly not much ideological or even ethnic diversity within the leadership; or at least not enough that anyone there felt comfortable even speaking up on minor issues like the Incredibly Orientalist Isabela Outfit, let alone anything larger.

i don't personally think there's too much value in trying to analyze veilguard's plot or lore at this point. the final product is chaotically developed and does not seem to reflect the goals of the creators as set up in prior games, it's basically a ship of theseus in terms of the people and ideas involved in making it. this is sad for all of us, who were interested in the story, and attached to the characters, and were creatively fulfilled by engaging in the fandom. it's probably worse for the developers who have lost their jobs, burnt out, or feel unhappy with the game that they spent years of their life working on. it's certainly miserable as an indictment of The Industry, as well as the general societal climate of white Canadian centrism.

the solution is to create a society where people can develop games in peace and prosperity and stay on projects for longer, rather than constantly getting turfed out without severance pay. and to get some genuine leftists, poc, and indigenous people on staff who can weigh in and provide significant input, rather than a Council Of Liberal White Edmontonians every time.

in the meantime, at the very least, let's please stop preordering AAA games and supporting companies who notably abuse their employees.

[urmumsgyatt]

jkr trying to get us to sympathise with a racist and fascist character (snape) by making james (who was previously stated to be a good and thoughtful person prior to that scene) his 'bully' is so fucking funny to me. like i promise you i do not care whether or not the child abuser was picked on as a little kid, he's still a piece of shit manchild that took out his trauma on literal children and joined a eugenics hate group. anyways stan james potter and fuck fascists

[ph-cutie]

Something pretty remarkable about how disco elysium handles its characters is that their demographic circumstances tend to be addressed very head on by the narrative. race, class, gender etc, ideology/lifestyle to some extent. It often colors large parts of their lives and the context they exist in. And these characters are also appraised by critics for the nuance and interiority, players remark that they feel like "real people", Because the writers cared to write complex personhoods Around these factors, rather than flattening them all into "regular" people, unshaped by demographic, in fear of being accused of propagating stereotypes

[valtsv]

regardless of its other successes or failures one thing i feel that the magnus archives did really well was create a narrative and worldbuilding that refuses to allow you to categorize its characters by the dichotomy of 'abuser' and 'victim' without ignoring major themes that define the shape and course of the entire story. despite one of its most central themes being that "we all get a choice, even if it doesn't feel like one" many of the characters we encounter are faced with genuinely horrifying ethical dilemmas that emphasize just how difficult that choice actually is to make, and allow the audience to sympathize with their plight even if not with their actions and decisions. many of the avatars are arguably just as much victims of the entities they serve as they are perpetrators of the violence they cause, and those who fight them in many cases choose to descend to monstrosity themselves in order to be able to keep pushing back - a choice some of them try to rationalize to themselves by arguing that the magnitude of the threat they face necessitates that the ends justify the means, but which is nevertheless a choice that they make, and one with a devastatingly high cost that is repeatedly, unflinchingly presented to both them and the audience. the human capacity to exercize our free will for better or for worse whilst taking into account the various internal and external influences that may affect the decisions we make is thoroughly explored with a great deal of care and nuance that i appreciate.

[licensedproldier]

can i just say i think about lapin surviving to the sugarplum fairy fight a lot. how would brennan have handled a warlock fighting their patron. THIS specific warlock fighting THIS specific patron. would he reasonably be able to use his class features at all. and HERE i reveal my hand which is IMAGINE lapin taking a few levels of rogue on the journey. abandoning the primogen facade as the world gets more dangerous, resorting to older familiar tactics from his childhood as a thief. understanding that sometimes the greatest power is still a knife in the dark. imagine completing the arc of ruby and jet learning more about their mentors being cool and capable and respectable in lapin sharing a class with them-- having ALWAYS shared a class with them. imagine the SHENANIGANS. imagine what they could LEARN given the time and patience. imagine lapin getting dragged closer and closer to the rocks. imagine the familiarity of being on the run, all the old experience that kept you alive suddenly valuable for someone other than yourself. imagine finding yourself thankful to your brat of a past self who lived a miserable day-to-day fighting for any scrap of power-- that now you have the ability to protect the people who really matter. imagine reaching the sugarplum fairy fight and realizing she wants to fuck with your liege and your kids and your family and that suddenly your magic isn't working anymore. but that's fine. it's never been yours anyway. so you throw down the staff and pick up the knife again, the one that has always served you well, the one that doesn't just serve you, anymore, and you stab that stupid bulbically accurate semi-god in one of its several faces just like it deserves.

[bundlofcigars]

Ooooh! New idea for why lyfrassir was so dramatic in the report: the black box, which was a part of the train, which was powered by kvasir's blood, the source of the mead of poetry, could have affected lyf speech patterns/how they acted, especially with bifrost-contamination stuff.

[fairylando]

behind every gay person there's a gayer and more evil one

[akiacia]

silly next gen thoughts 👶 (inspired by a comment! no one asked for a whole post, but i took the excuse to brainworm 🤣)

[gauntletgirlie]

“The sight of you bound… pleases me.”

You’re all welcome.