#transcript for articles from screenshots

[theghostiedyke]

[Photo of Tal Mitnick]

Tal Mitnick, the 18-year-old Israeli teenager who refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces for opposing the occupation of Palestine and killing of civilians in Gaza, speaks to press in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 25, 2023. Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images

IN ISRAEL, NEARLY everyone is conscripted into the military when they turn 18, but Tal Mitnick refused. He became the first Israeli 18-year-old to conscientiously object to joining the Israel Defense Forces as nationalist sentiment soared during Israel’s assault on Gaza. In response, the government sentenced the teen to 30 days in prison, potentially with more if he continues to refuse. The sentence is out of step with the normal precedent: Many objectors in the past faced up to 10-day stints behind bars.

Like many so-called refuseniks, Mitnick also faces mass ostracization and threats in a society where objecting to serve is often seen as a national betrayal — made all the worse amid Israelis’ shock and the government’s fierce response to Hamas’s October 7 attack. Still, Mitnick was steadfast.

In September, things would have been different. Dissent was on the rise. The Israeli left and anti-government bloc had been growing over the past year, as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for a judiciary power grab. The protests had begun to include objection to Israeli authoritarianism, in particular against Palestinians in the occupied territories. Mitnick said his refusal to serve was about these very issues: “I do not want to take part in the continuation of the oppression and the continuation of the cycle of bloodshed, but to work directly for a solution.”

Whatever sentiment against the occupation had been unearthed during the protests, though, fell away after October 7 — especially for conscientious objectors seen to be abandoning their country.

“To refuse to serve is considered to be betraying your country — certainly now in a time of war,” said Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli American journalist and senior Israel–Palestine analyst with the International Crisis Group. “Even people who are against the occupation, or who consider themselves to be leftist, they’ll argue that you’re leaving the difficult job of defending Israel’s borders to other people, and how could you, and 1,000,001 things that people will say is betrayal.”

“The process of conscientious refusal is not an easy one.”

Mitnick is not alone. He is part of a growing network of young Israelis refusing military service and encouraging others to join them — even as pressures mount after the October 7 attack. Along with some of the others, Mitnick is part of Mesarvot, Hebrew for “we refuse,” where young people support each other as they prepare their Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, refusals. Mesarvot provides conscientious objectors with support in preparing for imprisonment and legal cases, and, perhaps most importantly, by giving them a community.

“The process of conscientious refusal is not an easy one,” said Iddo Elam, who plans to refuse when his conscription date arrives a few months after graduation and is part of Mesarvot. “You can feel very secluded as an outsider. So this network basically gives a home to the people who decide to refuse. I even remember many talks with refusers that came back from jail before their next sentence, and talked with each other about how the past, for example, two weeks have been in prison. It raises their morale to go again, and to not give up.”

Anti-Occupation to Refusal

Elam’s views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict were clarified by his activism, which had taken him to the occupied West Bank and brought him into contact with Palestinians, whom he befriended. His stances were hardened not only as he watched the Israeli military’s treatment of his new friends, but also in how the soldiers viewed him. “They treat me as a traitor. They laugh at my face when they see me with Palestinians,” he said. “I realized that this whole system is very corrupting.”

“They treat me as a traitor. They laugh at my face when they see me with Palestinians.”

As he concluded that he planned to refuse, Elam sought out others. Even Israelis who opposed the occupation sometimes didn’t understand: Some soldiers seek to not serve in combat units, but even were incredulous at the idea of full refusal. It wasn’t surprising: Israeli education laws require preparing students for IDF service.

The expectation that everyone serves is so pervasive that few register that this makes them part of a system that oppresses Palestinians. “A lot of the Israelis that do not consider that is because they were born into Israeli society, a society that from kindergarten teaches us about previous wars, about Israeli nationalist heroes,” Elam said. “I would almost say I cannot blame the people who do join the army. But at the end of the day, us refusing is us attempting to bring this up into conversation to make more people do it.”

Yona, another soon-to-be refusnik who asked The Intercept to withhold her last name because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that as more people over the past year have connected the erosion of democracy to the occupation, Mesarvot has played a pivotal role in providing community, demystifying refusal, and preparing young Israelis for the consequences.

“There are plenty of people who are, you know, at the level where they could afford to do it and just don’t consider it as a possibility or don’t consider it as something viable, as something worthwhile,” Yona said. “And that’s certainly something that Mesarvot helped change — bringing that voice, making people realize it exists. It’s something people do proudly, it’s something that is important, and it makes noise.”

Democracy and the Occupation

For Mitnick, Yona, Elam, and others, preparing for refusal with groups like Mesarvot doesn’t come without precedent, nor in isolation. The Israeli teenagers have spent much of the past year protesting the Israeli government’s anti-democratic moves, its treatment of Palestinians, and the occupation more broadly.

Last February, Mesarvot activists were present when protesters traveled deep into the West Bank villages of Masafer Yatta to protest the eviction of some 1,300 residents from their homes. The Israeli military had declared the area a closed “firing zone” — ostensibly for security and training purposes — decades before, with the aim of getting the Palestinian villagers out. With the push to expel residents last year, the activists showed up in violation of the law, since entering closed zones was forbidden.

The group also organized protests on Israel’s side of the Green Line, which roughly demarks Israel’s internationally recognized borders from the occupied territories. In May, Mesarvot activists gathered at Beit Sokolov, a building in Tel Aviv which houses the Israel Journalists Association, in honor of the anniversary of the IDF’s killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

The following month, as members of Mesarvot demonstrated in memory of Sarit Ahmed Shakur, an 18-year-old victim of a homophobic murder, a member of the group said an activist was attacked by undercover police officers who tried to confiscate a Palestinian flag. The group said the activist was arrested after he tried defending himself and was subject to “contemptuous and degrading treatment, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic curses.”

With protests against the government’s seizure of the judiciary swelling nationwide, Mesarvot gained steam, connecting the refusal to serve with Israel’s anti-democratic turn. While the protests had come as a surprise for much of the outside world, the country’s left wing had long since warned that the occupation, holding millions of Palestinians in stateless subjugation, was bound to bring authoritarianism creeping back into Israel. Now Mesarvot activists were among the small minority of Israelis connecting the erosion of democracy with the occupation itself.

“The dictatorship that has existed for decades in the territories is now seeping into Israel and against us,” said a September letter by 230 Israeli teenagers announcing their forthcoming refusal to join the IDF. “This trend did not start now — it is inherent to the regime of occupation and Jewish supremacy. The masks are simply coming off.”

The teens had planned an event at a Tel Aviv high school to declare their refusal publicly, with the support of their principal. The school’s board of directors tried to block the protest by suspending the principal and canceling the event. The principal resigned in solidarity with the teens, and they hosted the event anyway, in front of a crowd with additional hundreds more. Since then, at least 50 more young Israelis have signed on to the refusal letter and, in recent months, some of the signatories burned their conscription orders as they announced their refusals.

“Very Militaristic”

Since October 7, Israel has maintained a widespread crackdown against dissenters, particularly against Palestinians. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi pushed in October for the arrest of those deemed to be a threat to the “national morale.” Later, he tried to sanction Haaretz, a liberal daily newspaper, for its criticisms of the war effort in Gaza and for purportedly being a “mouthpiece for Israel’s enemies.” Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai said in mid-October that there would be “zero tolerance” for anti-war demonstrators — threatening to send them to Gaza.

There was little tolerance. Officers arrested protesters at will, including those who’d lost family members in the October 7 attack. In early November, Israeli forces arrestedOpens in a new tab former member of Parliament Mohammad Baraka, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who was on his way to an anti-war protest, along with four other protesting Palestinian politicians. Meanwhile, Israeli police have pursued at least 250 prosecutions — largely against Palestinian students, largely for social media posts — targeting dissenters. This weekend, Israeli police cracked down on anti-war demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, detaining a handful of protesters and throwing some to the ground.

This is the atmosphere, the post-October 7 world, that the activists of Mesarvot find themselves in. Yet few have wavered. Support, Elam and Yona both said, especially from the international community, played an encouraging role as they continued to tie their wider protests to their refusals. “It strengthens me, makes me feel less alone,” Yona said. And she sees their protests as part of a larger struggle for dignity and equality being led by Palestinians.

“Israeli society right now is very militaristic,” Elam added. “I want to say to the world that peace and anti-apartheid, anti-occupation activists do not feel safe. A lot of them have been attacked, have been doxxed, have been threatened, arrested.”

Elam singled out the arrests of Palestinian citizens of Israel, often for terror-related charges linked to little more than denouncing the Israeli war on Gaza. “Someone sees that the police arrest people because of online posts about this war, that is an issue that should bring up massive protests to the extent that we saw against Netanyahu,” Elam said. “We cannot say that we live in a democratic country when not only people are being silenced, but people are being actively arrested and oppressed for only saying stuff online.”

Now more than ever, the teenaged activists of Mesarvot see themselves as but one aspect of a movement, just one way to pierce the bubble of repression and nationalism surrounding Israeli society. They want their movement to grow and for the larger movement for democracy and justice to grow, too — to regain and then sustain the momentum they’d gotten before October 7.

Resistance is out there, Yona said. That’s what the refusals to serve in the IDF can show. She knows because it showed her a path to more than merely joining a movement. “It makes you feel like you’re not just taking on the mantle,” she said. “You’re doing something that is even more important in my eyes, which is working towards an equal society for everyone who lives between the river and the sea.”

Update: January 23, 2024

Tal Mitnick was sentenced to another 30 days behind bars on January 23, according to Mesarvot. Before returning to prison, he tweeted in solidarity with a Cypriot conscientious objector. “International solidarity between us is the way to fight against oppressive systems in each of our countries,” he wrote.

At least 280 Israeli teenagers have announced their forthcoming refusal to join the Israel Defense Forces by signing a letter that condemns “the regime of occupation and Jewish supremacy.”

[puckpocketed]

(THE END OF) BC’S FRESHMAN LINE sources & transcript below the cut

Screenshot of BC vs DU, 2024 Frozen Four Finals // Frozen Four: Boston College loses to Denver in national championship // Gabe Perreault // Ryan Leonard // Fortesa Latifi // Leonard has unfinished business // Gabe Perreault Returning // John Banville // Smith signs with the Sharks // Another Nightmare - The Vaccines // Celebrini, Smith becoming fast friends // Gold and Bones, Friday Pilots Club // the NHL will wait // Samson, Regina Spektor // Smith, Perreault // Leonard, Perreault // Smith, Leonard // BC Line // five more minutes

ID’s are in order of appearance.

(1) Black text on a lilac background, the beginning of Fortesa Latifi’s poem The Truth About Grief. Text reads:

all my grief says the same thing:

this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

(2) Screencap of the 2024 Frozen Four Championship match broadcast. The final score reads DENVER 2 - BOSTON COLLEGE 0. The broadcast is zoomed in on Boston College Eagles player Will Smith, who is kneeling on the ice with his helmet cage partially lifted. The chin guard obscures his mouth, he rests his chin on his glove. His hair is dark and stuck to his face from sweat. His eyes, seen through the cage, are red rimmed and haunted.

(3) Photo of Boston College Eagles player Gabe Perreault after BC’s loss to Denver. He stares out at the ice with his stick still in his hands. Captain Eamon Powell’s head can be seen at the bottom of the photo — he is at Perreault’s feet having fallen to his knees after the final whistle.

(4) Photo of Boston College Eagles player Ryan Leonard during the same loss. He is on his knees and curled up with his head bowed on the ice, hidden between his fisted hands, overwhelmed by grief. He looks small against the empty sheet of ice.

(5) Black text on a white background. It is a headline that reads: ���Frozen Four: Boston College loses to Denver in national championship”

(6) The end of Latifi’s poem, black text on lilac:

and the world laughs.

holds my hope by the throat.

says:

but this is how it is

(7) Black text on a white background. Headline reads: “Leonard has unfinished business before making jump to NHL with Capitals” subheading reads: “Forward, No. 8 pick in 2023 Draft, focused on Boston College quest for NCAA title this season”

(8) Black text on white. Headline reads: “Boston College Hockey Forward Gabe Perreault Returning For Sophomore Season”

(9) From John Banville’s The Sea. Grey text on pale green. Text reads: “The past beats inside me like a second heart.”

(10) Black text on white. Headline reads: “Smith, No. 4 pick of 2023 NHL Draft, signs with Sharks.”

(11) From Another Nightmare by the Vaccines. Black text on orange. Text reads:

You announced to the stadium that

You knew that you were leaving and you’d never come back

Even for love

It wasn’t enough

(12) Article excerpt: “I think it was time to take the next step,” Smith said. “It’s the best league in the world and you’re getting the best players every single night. That’s definitely something that factored in wanting to make that decision.

“It was a really tough decision because of just how much I love BC and my teammates there,” Smith said. “We had a really special bond. Honestly, before I left for [2024 IIHF World Championship] I’d made up my mind that I was going to sign, but I wanted to make sure I did it at the right time.”

(13) From Gold and Bones by Friday Pilots Club. White text on black. Text reads:

Between feeling alive and feeling fine

But I won’t beg, and I won’t look back

‘Cause somewhere deep I know you want that

(14) Article excerpt: “It doesn’t matter the players that left or the players that come in, our coaching staff is going to put together a team that wants to win a national championship,” said Leonard.

(15) From Samson by Regina Spektor. White text on red. Text reads: I LOVED YOU FIRST, I LOVED YOU FIRST

(16) White text on teal. Headline reads: “Sharks roommates Celebrini, Smith becoming fast friends”

(17) Photo of San Jose Sharks teammates Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith grinning at each other during Sharks Development Camp. Other Sharks prospects mill about around them.

(18) Black text on white. Headline reads: “World Juniors: BC Line of Hagens, Leonard, and Perreault Looking Historic for Team USA”

(19) Article excerpt: Part of the reason that this line has been so impactful for the Americans is that the trio plays together at Boston College, driving the offence for their NCAA squad as well. Hagens was a natural fit with Leonard and Perreault after their former NTDP center Will Smith left BC to turn pro with the San Jose Sharks this season.

(20) From Spektor’s Samson again. White text on red. Text reads: I HAVE TO GO, I HAVE TO GO

(21) Cropped photo of Gabe Perreault (left) and Will Smith (right) during a celly. Smith cradles Perreault’s head as they bump helmets. Smith’s eyes are closed, his mouth is open in a laugh.

(22) Cropped photo of Ryan Leonard (left) and Gabe Perreault (right) during a celly. Their arms are around each other tightly, they smile joyfully. Just visible behind them is the top of Will Smith’s (#6) helmet.

(23) Cropped photo of Ryan Leonard (left) and Will Smith (right) during a celly. Smith has jumped into Leonard, they share a joyful embrace. Smith grins wide and Leonard appears to be mid-yell.

(24) Photo of Ryan Leonard, Gabe Perreault, and Will Smith on the bench during a match. They all lean forward over the boards and have put their heads together, presumably to conspire.

(26) Black text on white. Text reads: “In another universe we had five more minutes”

[thesandyhooktragedy]

was adam lanza a pedophile?

this is a topic of hot debate. personally i don’t believe it add or subtracts much from his case, but nevertheless people love to discuss it. so let’s discuss!

why do people think he’s a pedophile in the first place? from a young age, lanza had a fascination with violence against children. in elementary school, lanza wrote several stories featuring violence against children.

later in life, lanza would write a 35-page essay defending pedophilia as part of his college application. in this essay, lanza postulated that pedophile rights were part of the “liberation of children”, and that children should be able to make decisions as adults would. lanza also stated that he believed an “adult-child relationship” could be “beneficial for both parties”.

lanza would expand on this essay on his youtube channel, CulturalPhilistine, in an 8 part series titled “On pedophiles and children”. the transcripts for these videos can be found here

after lanza’s attack on Sandy Hook, police would find notes and basic sketches of scenes for a play called “Lovebound”, written by lanza, on his hard drive. the play would depict a relationship between a 10-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man.

many users of the forum that lanza was on, Shocked Beyond Belief, seemed to have an impression of him that included him having an attraction to children.

(full sources of picture one and three can be found here and here! these specific screenshots were found from a post by lanzagf.)

so, was he a pedophile? we have no definitive way of knowing, and there’s an equal amount of evidence suggesting that he wasn’t one. when police searched lanza’s hard drive, they found no sexual content featuring children.

it’s well known that lanza was an odd man all around, so perhaps his fascination with violence against children simply came from his “antinatalism” and general violent thoughts rather than an actual attraction to children. maybe the impression that other SBB users had of him came from his awkward personality.

the biggest question, i think, is does it matter?

an article published by the Connecticut Post puts it best—

Dr. Charles Herrick, the head of psychiatry at Danbury Hospital, said it is difficult with the information released to date to know if Lanza's interest in pedophilia had any influence on his behavior.

"The material related to his obsession with mass shootings is far more compelling about what is driving his behavior," he said.

although pedophilia could be a possible motivator of lanza’s attack on Sandy Hook, his fascination with mass shootings—something which appears to be a trend in a lot of mass shooters—is far more relevant. however, the Connecticut Post’s article offers an explanation on how lanza being a pedophile could’ve motivated him to attack Sandy Hook.

[Dr. Fred] Berlin said one could speculate that Lanza, if he had pedophilia tendencies, could have targeted the elementary school in an attempt to eliminate temptation.

"The idea is that someone who has a strong desire for something and they're forbidden to act upon it, they can be angry at the source of temptation," he said. "It's not unreasonable, given what happened. There must have been a tremendous amount of rage inside of him."

as i stated, there’s no definitive way of knowing whether or not adam lanza was a pedophile. either way, i don’t believe it adds or subtracts much from his case, as it does little to change much about his moral character. i don’t believe there’s any point in arguing about something that only serves to make a tragedy more disturbing.

what do you think? was adam lanza a pedophile or not?

[felassan]

Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) – Dragon Age: The Veilguard story

The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Update: this issue of this magazine is now available to buy from UK retailers today. it can be purchased online at [this link]. [Tweet from Edge Online] also, Kala found that a digital version of the magazine can be read at [this link].

This post is a word-for-word transcription of the full article on DA:TV in this issue of this magazine. DA:TV is the cover story of this issue. When transcribing, I tried to preserve as much of the formatting from the magazine as possible. Edge talked to BioWare devs for the creation of this article, so the article contains new quotes from the devs. the article is written by Jeremy Peel. There were no new screenshots or images from the game in the article. I also think that it contains a few lil bits of information that are new, like the bits on companions' availability and stumbling across the companions out and about on their own in the world e.g. finding Neve investigating an abduction case in Docktown.

tysm to @simpforsolas and their friend for kindly telling me about the article!!

-----

[image source]

Article introduction segment:

"[anecdote about Edge] We were reminded of this minuscule episode in Edge's history during the creation of this issue's cover story, in which we discuss the inspiration behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard with its creators at BioWare. Notably, director John Epler remembers the studio experimenting with a number of approaches during the early phase of development before eventually locking in to what the game was supposed to be all along, above all else: 'a single-player, story-focused RPG'. As you'd expect from BioWare, though, that was really just a starting point, as we discovered on p54." BioWare draws back the Veil and ushers us into a new Dragon Age

"BEHIND THE CURTAIN BioWare's first true RPG in age age is as streamlined and pacey as a dragon in flight. By Jeremy Peel Game Dragon Age: The Veilguard Developer BioWare Publisher EA Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Canada Release Autumn

The Dragon Age universe wasn't born from a big bang or the palm of an ancient god. Instead, it was created to solve a problem. BioWare was tired of battling Hasbro during the making of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and wanted a Dungeons & Dragons-like setting of its own. A small team was instructed to invent a new fantasy world in which the studio could continue its groundbreaking work in the field of western RPGs, free of constraints.

Well, almost free. BioWare's leaders mandated that the makers of this new world stick to Eurocentric fantasy, and include a fireball spell - since studio co-founder Ray Muzyka had a weakness for offensive magic.

Beyond that, BioWare’s storytellers were empowered to infuse Dragon Age with their own voices and influences, leaning away from D&D’s alignment chart and towards a moral grayness that left fans of A Song Of Ice And Fire feeling warm and cozy.

In the two decades since, the world of Thedas – rather infamously and amusingly, a shortening of ‘the Dragon Age setting’ that stuck – has taken on a distinct flavor. It’s something director John Epler believes is rooted in characters.

“There’s definitely some standard fantasy stuff in Dragon Age, but everything in the world, every force, is because of someone,” he says. “The idea is that every group and faction needs to be represented by a person – someone you can relate to. Big political forces are fine as background, but they don’t provide you with those interesting story moments.”

Dragon Age: The Veilguard bears out that philosophy. The long-awaited sequel was first announced with the subtitle Dreadwolf, in reference to its antagonist, Solas – an ancient elf who once stripped his people of immortality as punishment for betraying one of their own. In doing so, Solas created the Veil, the thin barrier through which wizards pull spirits and demons invade the waking world. In other words, many of Dragon Age’s defining features, from its downtrodden elves to the uneasy relationship between mages and a fearful church, can be traced right back to one character’s decision.

“The world exists as it does because of Solas,” Epler says. “He shaped the world because of the kind of character he was. That’s, to me, what makes Dragon Age so interesting. Everything can tie back to a person who to some degree thought they were doing the right thing.”

Perhaps BioWare’s greatest achievement in slowburn character development, Solas is a former companion, an unexploded bomb who sat in the starting party of Dragon Age: Inquisition, introverted and useful enough to get by without suspicion. Yet by the time credits rolled around on the Trespasser DLC, players were left in no doubt as to the threat he presented.

Determined to reverse the damage he once caused, the Dreadwolf intends to pull down the Veil, destroying Thedas as we know it in the process. The next Dragon Age game was always intended to be his story.

“We set that up at the end of Trespasser,” Epler says. “There was no world where we were ever going to say, ‘And now let’s go to something completely different.’ We wanted to pay off that promise.”

Yet almost everything else about the fourth Dragon Age appears to have been in flux at one time. In 2019, reporter Jason Schreier revealed that an early version, starring a group of spies pulling off heists in the Tevinter Imperium, had been cancelled two years prior. Most of its staff were apparently moved onto BioWare’s struggling Anthem, while a tiny team rebooted Dragon Age from scratch. That new game was said to experiment with live-service components.

“We tried a bunch of different ideas early on,” Epler says. “But the form The Veilguard has taken is, in a lot of ways, the form that we were always pushing towards. We were just trying different ways to get there. There was that moment where we really settled on, ‘This is a singleplayer, story-focused RPG – and that’s all it needs to be’”.

Epler imagines a block of marble, from which BioWare was attempting to carve an elephant – a character- and story-driven game. “We were chipping away, and sometimes it looked more like an elephant and sometimes it didn’t”, he says. “And then we eventually realized: ‘Just make an elephant’. When we got to that, it almost just took shape by itself.”

2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was an open-world game commonly criticized for a slow-paced starting area which distracted players from the thrust of the plot. The Veilguard, in contrast, is mission-based, constructed with tighter, bespoke environments designed around its main story and cast. “We wanted to build a crafted, curated experience for the player,” Epler says. “Pacing is important to us, and making sure that the story stays front and center.”

Epler is very proud of Inquisition, the game on which he graduated from cinematic designer to a lead role (for its DLC). “But one of the things that we ran into on that project was an absentee antagonist,” he says. “Corypheus showed up and then disappeared. You spent ten hours in the Hinterland doing sidequests, and there wasn’t that sense of urgency.”

This time, The Veilguard team wants you to constantly feel the sword of Damocles dangling above your head as you play – a sense that the end of the world is coming if you don’t act. “There’s still exploration – there’s still the ability to go into some of these larger spaces and go off the beaten path to do sidequests,” Epler says. “But there’s always something in the story propelling you and the action forward, and allowing you to make decisions with these characters where the stakes feel a lot more immediate and present. And also, honestly, more real.”

No sooner have you finished character creation than Dragon Age: The Veilguard thrusts you into a choice. As your protagonist, Rook, steps into focus on the doorstep of the seediest bar in town, you decide whether to threaten the owner for information or make a deal. Brawl or no, you’ll walk out minutes later with a lead: the location of a private investigator named Neve Gallus, who can help you track down Solas.

You proceed into Minrathous, the largest city in Thedas and capital of the Tevinter Imperium – a region only alluded to in other Dragon Age games. It’s a place built on the backs of slaves and great mages, resulting in tiered palaces and floating spires – a kind of architecture unimaginable to those in the southern nations.

“When your Dragon Age: Inquisition companion Dorian joins you in Orlais, in one of the biggest cities in Thedas, he mentions that it’s quaint and cute compared to Minrathous,” Corinne Busche, game director on The Veilguard, says. “That one bit of dialogue was our guiding principle on how to realize this city. It is sprawling. It is lived-in. Sometimes it’s grimy, sometimes it’s bougie. But it is expansive.”

Immediately, you can see the impact of BioWare’s decision to tighten its focus. Around every other corner in Minrathous is an exquisitely framed view, a level of spectacle you would never see in Inquisition, where resources were spread much more thinly. “When you know that you’re gonna be heading down a canyon or into this plaza where the buildings open up, you have those perfect spots to put a nice big temple of Andraste or a mage tower,” art director Matthew Rhodes says. “You get those opportunities to really hit that hard.”

BioWare’s intention is to make strong visual statements that deliver on decades of worldbuilding. “People who have a history with Dragon Age have thought about what Minrathous might be like,” Rhodes says. “We can never compete with their imagination, but we can aim for it like we’re shooting for the Moon.”

The people of Tevinter use magic as it if were electricity, as evidenced by the glowing sigils that adorn the dark buildings – street signs evoking Osaka’s riverfront or the LA of Blade Runner. They’re just one of the tricks BioWare’s art team uses to invite you to stop and take in the scene. “A lot of what you start to notice when you’re the artist who’s been working on these big, beautiful vistas and neat murals on the walls is how few players look up,” Rhodes says. “We design props and architecture that help lead the eyes.”

For the really dedicated shoegazers, BioWare has invested in ray-traced reflections, so that the neon signage can be appreciated in the puddles. There are also metal grates through which you can see the storm drains below. “The idea behind that is purely just to remind the player often of how stacked the city is,” Rhodes says. “Wherever you’re standing, there’s guaranteed to be more below you and above you.”

One of BioWare’s core creative principles for The Veilguard is to create a world that’s actually worth saving – somewhere you can imagine wanting to stick around in, once the crises of the main quest are over. To that end, the team has looked to ground its outlandish environments with elements of mundanity.

“A guy’s normal everyday life walking down the streets of this city is more spectacular than what the queen of Orlais is seeing, at least in terms of sheer scale," Rhodes says. “One of the things we’ve tried to strike a balance with is that this is actually still a place where people have to go to the market and buy bread, raise their kids, and try to make it. It’s a grand and magical city, but how do you get your horses from one place to the next? Where do you load the barrels for the tavern? It’s really fun to think of those things simultaneously.”

Normal life in Minrathous is not yours to behold for long, however. Within a couple of minutes of your arrival, the very air is ripped open like cheap drapes, and flaming demons clatter through the merchant carts that line the city streets. A terrible magical ritual, through which Solas intends to stitch together a new reality, has begun.

“We wanted the prologue to feel like the finale of any other game we’ve done,” Busche explains. “Where it puts you right into this media-res attack on a city and gets you really invested in the action and the story right away. When I think back to Inquisition, how the sky was literally tearing open – the impact of this ritual really makes that look like a minor inconvenience.”

Our hero is confronted by a Pride demon, imposing and armored as in previous games, yet accented by exposed, bright lines that seem to burst from its ribcage. “They are a creature of raw negative emotion,” Busche says. “So we wanted to actually incorporate that into their visual design with this glowing nervous system.”

When a pack of smaller demons blocks Rook’s route to the plaza where Neve was last seen, battle breaks out, and The Veilguard’s greatest divergence from previous Dragon Age games becomes apparent. Our rogue protagonist flits between targets up close and evades individual sword swings with precision. In the chaos, he swaps back and forth between blades and a bow. He blends light and heavy attacks, and takes advantage of any gap in the melee to charge up even bigger blows.

“Responsiveness was our first-and-foremost goal with this baseline layer of the combat system,” Busche says. Unless you’re activating a high-risk, high-reward ability such as a charged attack, any action can be animation-cancelled, allowing you to abort a sword swing and dive away if an enemy lunges too close. “We very much wanted you to feel like you exist in this space, as you’re going through these really crafted, hand-touched worlds,” Busche says. “That you’re on the ground in control of every action, every block, every dodge.” Anyone who’s ever bounced off a Soulslike needn’t worry: The Veilguard’s highly customizable difficulty settings enable you to loosen up parry windows if they prove too demanding.

Gone is the overhead tactical camera which, for some players, was a crucial point of connection between Dragon Age and the Baldur’s Gate games that came before, tapping into a lineage of thoughtful, tabletop-inspired combat. Epler points out that the camera’s prior inclusion had an enormous impact on where the game’s battles took place. “We actually had a mandate on Inquisition, which was, ‘Don’t fight inside,’” he says. “The amount of extra work on getting that tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”

Gone, too, is the ability to steer your comrades directly. “On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook – you’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions,” Busche says. “We very much wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions. You, as the leader of this crew, can influence and direct and command them, but they are their own people.”

It's an idea with merit, albeit one that could be read as spin. “It’s not lost on me,” Busche says. “I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, it might feel like something was taken away. But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”

There may be a couple of reasons for that. One is that Dragon Age’s newly dynamic action leaves little room for seconds spent swapping between perspectives. “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game,” Busche says. “It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we’ve found is it wasn’t actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character.”

Then there’s The Veilguard’s own tactical layer, as described by BioWare. Though the fighting might be faster and lower, like a mana-fuelled sports scar, the studio is keen to stress that the pause button remains as important to the action as ever. This is, according to Busche, where the RPG depth shines through, as you evaluate the targets you’re facing and take their buffs into account: “Matching elemental types against weaknesses and resistances is a big key to success in this game.”

You pick between rogue, warrior and mage – each role later splitting again into deeper specialisms – and draw from a class-specific resource during fights. A rogue relies on Momentum, which is built up by avoiding damage and being highly aggressive, whereas a warrior is rewarded for blocking, parrying, and mitigating damage.

Those resources are then used on the ability wheel, which pauses the game and allows you to consider your options. The bottom quadrant of the wheel belongs to your character, and is where three primary abilities will be housed. “Rook will also have access to runes, which function as an ability, and a special ultimate ability,” Busche says. “So you’re bringing five distinct abilities with you into combat.”

The sections to the left and right of the wheel, meanwhile, are dedicated to your companions. Busche points to Lace Harding, the returning rogue from Inquisition, who is currently frozen mid-jump. “She is her own realized individual in this game. She’s got her own behaviors: how she prioritizes targets, whether she gets up close and draws aggro or stays farther back at range. But you’ll be able to direct her in combat by activating her abilities from the wheel.”

These abilities are complemented by positional options at the top of the wheel, where you can instruct your companions to focus their efforts on specific targets, either together or individually. Doing so will activate the various buffs, debuffs and damage enhancements inherent in their weapons and gear. “So,” Busche explains, “as you progress through the first two hours of the game, this full ability wheel is completely populated with a variety of options and different tactics that you can then string together.”

BioWare has leaned into combos. You might tell one companion to unleash a gravity-well effect that gathers enemies together, then have another slow time. Finally, you could drop an AOE attack on your clustered and slowed opponents, dealing maximum damage. The interface will let you know when an opportunity to blend two companion abilities emerges – moments BioWare has dubbed ‘combo detonations’.

“I like to think about this strategic layer to combat as a huddle,” Busche says, “where you’re figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergize together.”

Deeper into the game, as encounters get more challenging, Epler says we’ll be spending a lot of time making “very specific and very focused tactical decisions”. The proof will be in eating the Fereldan fluffy mackerel pudding, of course, but Busche insists this shift to fast action isn’t a simplification. “What really makes the combat system and indeed the extension into the progression system work is that pause-and-play tactical element that we know our players expect.”

The autonomy of The Veilguard’s companions doesn’t end with combat. BioWare’s data shows that in previous games players tended to stick with the same two or three beloved comrades during a playthrough. This time, however, you’ll be forced to mix your squad up at regular intervals.

“We do expect that players will have favorites they typically want to adventure with,” Busche says, “but sometimes certain companions will be mandatory.” Others may not always be available – part of the studio’s effort to convince with three-dimensional characters. “They do have a life outside of Rook, the main character,” Busche says.

"They'll fall in love with people in this world. They’ve had past experiences they’ll share with you if you allow them in and get close to them.”

Being separated from your companions, rather than collecting them all in a kind of stasis at camp, allows you to stumble across them unexpectedly. Busche describes an instance in which, while exploring the Docktown section of Minrathous, you might bump into Neve as she investigates an abduction case. “If I go and interact with her, I can actually stop what I’m doing, pick up her arc and adventure with her throughout her part of the story,” Busche says. “What’s interesting is that all of the companion arcs do ultimately tie back to the themes of the main critical path, but they also have their own unique challenges and villains, and take place over the course of many different intimate moments.”

Some parts of a companion’s quest arc involve combat, while others don’t. Some are made up of large and meaningful missions – as lavish and involved as those along the critical path. “While they are optional, I would be hesitant to call them side content in this game,” Busche says. If you choose not to engage with some of these companion-centered events, they’ll resolve on their own. “And it might have interesting implications.”

The Veilguard promises plenty of change, then, even as it picks up the threads of fan-favorite characters and deepens them, honoring the decades of worldbuilding that came before it. This is perhaps the enduring and alluring paradox of Dragon Age: a beloved series which has never had a direct and immediate sequel, nor a recurring protagonist. Instead, it’s been reinvented with each new entry.

“It’s a mixed blessing to some degree,” Epler says. “The upside is always that it gives us more room to experiment and to try new things. There are parts of the series that are common to every game: it’s always an RPG, it’s always about characters, and we always want to have that strategic tactical combat where you’re forced to make challenging decisions. But at the end of the day, I think what makes Dragon Age Dragon Age is that each one feels a little bit different.”"

Q&A Matthew Rhodes Art director

Q. Early BioWare RPGs were literary, with the emotions and detail mostly happening in dialogue boxes. How have you seen the studio's approach to visual storytelling evolve? A. This has been my entire career. When I first showed up at BioWare, it was at the tail end of Jade Empire, and then I was working on Dragon Age: Origins and early Mass Effect. The games had taken that next step out of sprites and 2D models, and it was like: 'How do we say more? How do we communicate more clearly?' During those early days, a lot of games depended on words to fix everything for you. As long as your character was talking bombastically, you could lend them everything that they needed. But as time went on it also became a visual medium, and it's been this long journey of trying to establish art's seat at the table. I've worked with some great writers over the years, and art is also an essential part of the storytelling. From Dragon Age: Inquisition on, I've been trying to stress with my teams that we are a story department.

Q. Is part of that also letting writers know that your storytelling assistance is available, to help them show rather than tell? A. On The Veilguard, that principle has been operating the best I've seen it. Where you would need a paragraph of dialogue in one of those exposition moments where a character just talks to you, we could sell that with a broken statue or a skeleton overgrown with vines. We've had more opportunities to do that on The Veilguard than most of the projects I've ever worked on combined.

To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so in every department, writing will try to solve it with more words, and art will try to solve it with more art. I've bumped up against moments where it's like, 'As much as we could keep hammering on this design, I think this is actually an audio solution.' And then you take it to audio, and you don't get that overcooked feeling where each team is just trying to solve it in their silo. It's a really creatively charged kind of environment.

[main body of article ends here]

Additional from throughout the article --

Image caption: “Spotlights shine down from the city guards’ base as they pursue you through the streets of Minrathous.”

Image caption: “While most of your companions can be sorted into comfortingly familiar RPG classes, The Veilguard introduces two new varieties: a Veil Jumper and a private investigator.”"

Image caption [on this Solas ritual concept art specifically]: “The name previously given to the game – Dreadwolf – was a direct reference to Solas. Your former companion, now on his own destructive mission, still features, despite the name change.”

Text in a side box:

"RATIONAL ANTHEM The hard lesson BioWare drew from Anthem was to play to its strengths. “We’re a studio that has always been built around digging deep on storytelling and roleplaying,” Epler says. “I’m proud of a lot of things on Anthem – I was on that project for a year and a half. But at the end of the day we were building a game focused on something we were not necessarily as proficient at. For me and for the team, the biggest lesson was to know what you’re good at and then double down on it. Don’t spread yourselves too thin. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things you don’t have the expertise to do. A lot of the people on this team came here to build a story-focused, singleplayer RPG."

Image caption: “In combat you no longer control your companions directly – this is a faster-paced form of fighting – but you are able to direct them in combat, and can even blend their abilities in ‘combo detonations’.”

Image caption: “You’ll be exploring new regions across Tevinter and beyond – Rivain is a certainty, and that’s only accessible via Antiva travelling overland.”

Image caption: “There are three specializations per character class; on the way to unlocking them you’ll acquire a range of abilities.”

Text in a side box:

"MEET YOUR MAKER “Full disclosure: Dragon Age has traditionally not done skin tones well, especially for people of color,” Busche says. “We wanted to do a make-good here.” In The Veilguard’s character creator, you can adjust the amount of melanin that comes through in the skin, as well as test various lighting scenarios to ensure your protagonist looks exactly as you intend in cutscenes. “Speaking of our first creative principle – be who you want to be – we really feel these are the kinds of features that unlock that for our players,” Busche says. “We want everyone to be able to see themselves in this game.” For the first time in the series, your body type is fully customizable too, with animations, armor and even romantic scenes reflecting your choices."

Image caption: “Your companions are a mix of old and new – Lace Harding is a familiar face. Veil Jumper Bellara is new, with a new occupation, while Davrin is a new face with a familiar profession – he’s a Warden.”

Image caption: "Arlathan Forest is home to the ruined city of the elves, now a place of wild magic, Veil Jumpers and (allegedly) spirits".

Image caption: "Bellara is driven by a desire to learn more about the elves, rediscovering the shattered history and magic of her people."

[source: Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) - it can be purchased online at [this link].]

[tevanbegins]

Idk why I never read/saw this Oliver Stark interview with Gay Times before (It's a transcript of this YouTube video interview)

Maybe I totally avoided it because it was being heavily promoted from that other fandom's perspective 😅

But these bits where Oliver talks about Lou (article screenshots below ⬇️ // 7:33 to 9:52 in the YT video) from the interview are quite precious and speak volumes! ❤😀

___

[spjohnv-blog]

If you're familiar with the South Park Archives, pretty much the only SP fansite still online - there's over eighteen years of history there, pages and renders for tons of characters and locations, thousands of screenshots, a pretty dedicated staff, transcripts of every episode, and so much more. When I made my start writing shitty fanfics, it was a super useful resource, and that was a small chunk of what it is today.

FANDOM has today unveiled a new Offensive Terms Policy which continues a trend in the last few years been suggested in events like Community Connect, where it has previously been suggested wikis avoid references to canonical sex. The avoidance of slurs is something I would be super supportive of generally -- we don't need to see that kind of stuff on Wookiepedia or like, a wiki for Bluey. It'll keep people from vandalizing children's wikis with adult content for kicks. I am generally in favor of content filtering, especially for family-friendly-oriented content.

...but, this is going to cause a lot of problems for the South Park Archives, a show with a major character who frequently uses slurs and is firmly anti-censorship. You don't need to be an editor to think about that. If you're a fan, you know what kind of show we're talking about.

This is a show with episodes called "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", "Major Boobage", "Reverse Cowgirl" and "Titties and Dragons". There are songs like "Fuck the Police" and "Jacking it in San Diego". There is a character called 'Retarded Fish'. The names of these songs and episodes, bear in mind, are legally registered copyrights, not our choices -- how do you change that? Move an article to Episode 1601? What about "Fuck the Police", which isn't even a South Park original song?

You can clean up a synopsis, and formalize language on a character page, I've done both of those things when I was an editor, but you can't undo all of this. How do you?

That's not even getting into the transcripts pages, which are intended to be 100% accurate to the actual dialogue, continuing the tradition from the good ol' South Park Scriptorium...

Within the day of the policy change, FANDOM has already started to make changes to remove slurs from the transcript pages that are unable to be modified as it is directly related to global policy. I don't know that the staff were communicated with about this personally either, but I'm not in the know like I used to be.

No doubt some of this move is prompted by advertisers - FANDOM previously cited advertiser feedback as a motivation for inserting all sorts of videos on top of wiki pages (similar to their later push to include AI-generated content) and understandably many advertisers may not want their brand name mere inches from a discussion of cartoon eight-year-olds using slurs. I mean, shoot, I wouldn't if I were in charge of a major company, and I get someone needs to keep the lights on, but...

I don't know man, it's a shitty position to be in. It's a well-intended policy that I'd support in almost any other context but literally this narrow exception, and I definitely hate the thought of looking like I'd be defending use of offensive terms, but like, how do you cover "everything" about South Park, an explicitly adult show that is so firmly anti-censorship, that builds entire episodes around these kinds of jokes, or even analyze it from a critical perspective, in such a family-friendly, sanitized way, without betraying its spirit and creative intent?

You can imagine how many staff members there are probably scratching their heads or bashing them into lamp posts, trying to figure out what to do or how to move forward after this. They could apply for an exception, but would it even be granted? What would the alternative be? Are restrictions like this worth it or do they render the whole thing moot? How much responsibility lies with FANDOM? Are advertisers forcing the whole internet down this road? There are so many questions in the air on this. I certainly don't have answers.

[thespacebetweenworlds]

Tiktok video by @ tinawithana dated May 7th 2023. Headline reads "the recent commodification of fanfiction/fandom"

Transcription:

"So, in the past few months we have seen three things: One, we saw Quinn the erotica audio app use AO3 in order to market an erotic audio that they came out with featuring Jamie Campbell-Bower. Not only did they use screenshots from the Dramione tag page on AO3, they also had the AO3 logo in those screenshots."

[Image description: screenshot of an instagram post by the account @ tryquinn, the verified official account of Quinn, an audio erotica platform. Posted on March 4 (2025). The caption is a "Face With Monocle" emoji. The post itself is a screenshot of AO3, showing the signature logo and header bar. The open page is the Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy tag. No works are shown, but the numbers are: 33,987 works.] Link to the post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGycH8pSZ8s/

"Two, we saw The Cut put out an article talking about The Pitt fanfiction, and then also, recently, I think in just like the past couple of days we saw a journalist published an op-ed talking about why they do not support a specific ship from The Pitt fandom – which is crazy."

The Cut article by Emily Gould: "The Best Fanfic About The Pitt" published on April 6, 2025 : https://www.thecut.com/article/best-pitt-fanfiction.html

Article by Alisha Grauso: "I See You, The Pitt's Mel & Langdon Shippers, And I Need You To Stop": published on Screen Rant. The article is offline, but the Wayback machine still shows it: https://web.archive.org/web/20250506042034/https://screenrant.com/pitt-max-mel-king-langdon-ship-romance-terrible-idea-op-ed/

"Three: I actually just reposted it very recently as well, as one of my mutuals, Princess Weekes, did a video on it, which is that the publisher of "The Irresistible Urge to Fall In Love With Your Enemy" which is written by the same author who wrote "Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love", or "being in love", whatever it's called, the publisher of that book came out with like a graphic, saying "What is Dramione?" and then talking about Dramione fanfiction as like a way to market the new book written by the author who wrote that fanfic."

Princess Weekes is @ princesspendulum on Tiktok, link to her video: https://www.tiktok.com/@princesspendulum/video/7501753109744487722

The graphic that promotes the writer's new book using Dramione, with the book's ISBN and the logo of Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin Books, in the bottom right corner.

"All of these things happening within the past few months... and although we have seen fanfiction becoming a lot more mainstream, and we're seeing it in Booktok spaces, and we're seeing it being treated like another type of way you would treat a regular published book – goes to show that no matter what we do – and obviously I'm talking within the confines of fandom, but this could be applied to so many other communities – everything is going to be commodified. Everything is eventually going to be taken from us and applied to... I guess you could say the capitalistic machine of "how are we going to be able to make money off of this and turn it into what we need it to be", for longevity popularity popularity reasons. "Unfortunately I don't know if I have the ability, right now currently in my brain, to like, really dissect this. I just want to say very plainly, very simply: it is hard to be in the camp of "I support fanfiction authors moving on from fanfiction if they want to into published fiction". I think that that is great, I think that that is absolutely a feasibly goal for these fanfiction author, and I applaud their success. "But also I'm in the camp of "this sucks". Like seeing all those three occurrences that I just discussed, seeing those things, that sucks. Because it is so so funny, seeing the change of fanfiction being incredibly taboo, "we do not talk about it", "it is cringey", "it is for the freaks", seeing it go from that, to now?! "Actively, multiple different companies are making money off of it. Indirectly, but they're doing it. The Cut article – that was behind a paywall. People got paid for that Cut article promoting fanfiction written my other people. NetGalley literally making a graphic about "what is Dramione fanfiction", publishing a book under the guise of "this is published Dramione fanfiction". Quinn, an app I actively support, but [it is] also using AO3 branding in order to make money, to support and promote their new erotica audio that had come out. "I kinda feel like I'm living in a simulation. And like I said, I don't really have the capacity right now to like, deep dive, analyze, and get into it, but I – [hand gestures with open hands, a clap] – I guess that's what I have to say right now. "Feel free to give me your opinions and your takes on this, because I feel weird about it for sure. And I'm not the first person to talk about this in any stretch, I'm actually a little bit late on a couple of these things, but seeing the Dramione NetGalley thing and then just kinda like the domino effect – it feels like we're just, like, really reaching this incredibly weird point. Engage in the comments and I will be reading. I will be reading!"

Link to tinawtihana's video on tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tinawithana/video/7501778613616823594

or subscribe to her on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tinawithana

[neonnautilus]

Possible Rule Change Regarding DM Screenshots on Tumblr

Due to an ongoing conflict between Automattic (WordPress/Tumblr) and WPEngine (a WordPress hosting service), CEO Matt Mullenweg has proposed a rule change banning the sharing of DM/private message screenshots (source) (edit: Kellie's article that set off this exchange).

Given the slapdash way this whole situation has been handled, I wouldn't be surprised if the change was implemented and began being enforced without warning.

Transcription of highlighted exchange below cut

matt: Discovery is fair game and goes through the courts to determine what is salient to be included as part of the public record. I'm 100% fine with all my interactions with the plaintiffs being part of discovery; in fact, I think it helps our case.

Kellie Peterson (source): FWIW publishing DMs/texts isn't even against the community guidelines of Tumblr. https:/www.tumblr.com/search/text%20message?src=suggested_search

matt: (replying to another part of the conversation) Are you now suggesting I treat women differently than men? I vehemently deny that. matt: Thank you for pointing out the failure that publishing DMs/texts without permission is not currently enumerated. I will make sure it gets added to WordPress and Tumblr's community guidelines.

Kellie Peterson: So you'll make the internet safer by preventing victims of harassment from sharing proof. Got it champ.

zachflauaus (other participant): This is not the decision you should be making as a result of this conversation, Matt. That you took this so personally, you're changing the rules on a dime to further protect your feelings without considering why (among the many reasons!) people publish DMs, is wild. To quote myself from earlier: But it would, at the very least, get me to reflect on what happened for them to have shared those messages. (Not to mention you are further reducing the content that people will feel safe to publish on your platforms (see: Tumblr).)

[deramin2]

The absolute irony of this AI scrapper "news site" stealing an article about AI theft. One for the block list. This cyberpunk dystopia is so bleak.

ID: Screenshot from Bluesky.

From the Critical Role feed.

ByteFeed @bytefeed.bsky.social • 7h

Al Dungeon Master experiment exposes the vulnerability of Critical Role's fandom…

Link to the bytefeed.ai website article

Al Dungeon Master experiment exposes the vulnerability of Critical Role's fandom. End ID.

And here's a link to the real article on Polygon:

(Point of clarification: Critical Role do pay people to professionally caption the show. The fan Sil takes those captions from YouTube with permission and converts them to a searchable linked transcript database. Geek & Sundry did rely on fan captions/transcripts, but when Critical Role went independent moving to pro captions was one of the first things they did.)

[wakfu-weekly]

Covering the Wakfu MMO as a story: Forethoughts

I’ve been meaning to do sort of a live-blog / coverage of the game for a while now. While I feel unsure in my abilities to do so, I’d rather make something imperfect than nothing at all.

My aim will be to cover and provide commentary on (ideally) every single questline and story in a chronological order, starting from your character's incarnation in Incarnam, to your adventures in Astrub, and the stories of the other islands and so on.

The format will be one similar to a liveblog. I'll be replaying, and going through my footage to see what I have to comment on, as well as provide a small synopsis and explain stuff when needed so you can keep up with my write ups without having had to play the game.

Before we fully start, I'd like to highlight a few tenets:

These write ups will focus, first and foremost, on interpreting the game as a cohesive narrative.

Since I have a deep love for this game I will probably not shut up about random trivia and highlight other stuff, but the main purpose here is to treat this from a story lense.

I believe that the story contents of the game are worthy of literary analysis.

In my undertaking, I want to argue that the stories presented in the game are worthy of discussion the same way the stories in other pieces of Krosmoz media are.

These are my own, overthought, interpretations. While I cannot fully promise, I will try my best to make the content I will be discussing as accesible as possible.

Asides from my own commentary, for the sake of adding external sources I will try to link either the fandom wakfu wiki article of the questlines and / or the methodwakfu article. Fandom wiki is, well, scary, and sometimes inaccurate or incomplete; and methodwakfu is a useful fansite but it is only available in French. There’s also the official site Encyclopedia in case you want to search specific items or mobs. If things are too dire, I may cave in and provide either extensive archives of dialogue screenshots and transcripts, or even upload some of my footage to my YouTube for the sake of archival. None of these things should be necessary to check if you just want to go through this off-brand live-blog.

This way, you too will be able to draw your own overthought conclusions.

[felassan]

this post is just some info on yesterday's DA:TV Fandom party at SDCC. :>

What was this party? [Here] is a post with the pre-event information that was made available. [Here] is a pre-event article that contains an interview with the organizer. And [this article] on the event contains some additional information, like on the versions of this party held in previous years, which helps for context. There was no new DA:TV information of note from the party

Links to Fandom (the company's) Twitter account, their Instagram. If you look at these (including on the Instagram Stories), you can see some pictures and stuff from the party. for those interested in watching a video version of some of these, Ghil Dirthalen posted a video recording that she made last night of Fandom the company's Instagram posts [here]. there are also more pictures and stuff from the party that you can see if you click through to [some of] the source links below here in the rest of this post.

As was previously reported the other week, Jason Derulo headlined the party (like as in a gig). Here's an image of him there [source] (the him singing DA stuff part was a joke tho btw hh). They considered having an orchestra because of DA's musical score but they got Jason Derulo

One of the party props was a big background of the DA:TV key art [source]. Here you can see the DA:TV logo on another backdrop. [source] This tweet contains both of these backdrops from a different angle

There was also an archway prop based on this DA:TV key art, and big screens which projected images from the game (including of Varric and this screenshot) [source]. It looks like these images were also projected to television screens? [source]

This tweet contains the questions and the answers to the DA-themed scavenger hunt (transcription of this at the end of this post), as well as a partial look at the map layout of the party

This is how photos taken in the DA themed photo booth look (this DA:TV screenshot was the backdrop) [source]

There was a VIP section at the party [source]. Gary McKay, the General Manager of BioWare, was there [source], as were John Epler and Zach Mendez (Lucanis) [source], Ali Hillis (Harding) [source], Nick Boraine (Emmrich) [source], Kari a BioWare Brand Director [source], Jessica Clark (Neve) [source] and Corinne Busche [source]. Erika Ishii (Rook) also visited but got kicked out of VIP hh [source]. Some cosplayers from the DA community were also personally invited by BioWare & PR at EA Games and attended! like Ladytoxie as Bellara ^^ [source, two], and some celebrities also, such as Doug Jones [source]

Ladytoxie mentioned that they will be posting a Vlog of their experience and coverage of the event, "probably next week" [source], having documented it at the time [source] (tysm!!)

Ladytoxie reported that it was a good, memorable experience and that everyone was lovely [source]

There was supposed to be some DA:TV-related pins and lanyards being handed out at the party, but these got stuck at customs, so there wasn't any goodies being handed out [source]

Links to some more images from the party: [one], [two], [three]

Scavenger hunt text (questions and answers) transcription:

"Clue 1: Step up to spot the flames where Fandom's 20-year tale burns bright, celeberate twenty years of worldbuilding where this terrifying Dragon Age wiki takes flight. Answer: Archdemon Clue 2: Follow the path and find the shining blue gem, discover the wiki of this Dragon Age elven hedge mage for your chance to win! Answer: Solas Clue 3: Search for the place where steel balls ricochet, where the flippers dance and the wizards gather to play. Find the wiki of a dwarf and son from the House of Tethras, known as a Dragon Age rogue with his crossbow, Bianca. Answer: Varric Clue 4: Venture to where 360 degree views are spun, where fans share your favorite #/fandom20 with props that are comically fun. Scan the QR code to reveal this order of warriors who defeat the Blight, and with the invasion of darkspawn, they put up a legendary fight. Answer: Grey Wardens Clue 5: Finish your scavenger hunt quest where Dragon Age lore comes alive, a photo booth adventure where fantasies thrive. Pose in a setting of this wiki's southern continent vast, two moons overhead, in a world built to last. Answer: Thedas"

[source]

[night-dark-woods]

I want to start adding text descriptions to stuff i reblog, do you have any advice? is there a guide or something you use, the style of your IDs is very nice.

hey! thats great that you want to start writing IDs. I've reblogged guides before and ill tag this post with the tag they're in (image descriptions) so its easy to browse!

in addition to those other resources, here's some guidelines i personally keep in mind, & what i structure different IDs like.

for text transcripts: source & type of image, author, date if possible. here are some pretend/template IDs:

ID. a twitter screenshot from user @.[username] dated [date] that reads: "[tweet]." End ID.

i put the period after the @ symbol so it doesnt try to tag a nonexistent (or unrelated) user on this site, and a screenreader will just pause there briefly.

ID. a photo of a page from the book [name] by [author]. text reads: [transcript]. End ID.

if the OP cited the author/book/source, you can just do "Transcript: [text]. End transcript."

for actual images:

type of image is really important!

photograph, edited photograph, reaction image, edited reaction image, painting, digital painting, digital drawing, etc. you should always put what kind of image it is.

keep in mind the purpose of the image!

if its an art piece or a photo of one, its good to describe the medium, style, colors, and subject.

if it's a reaction image or other meme, you don't have to describe the surroundings in loving detail. the "point" of the image is enough.

if its a photograph, it might also be an art piece, or from the news, or someone sharing their pet. the amount and kind of detail again depends on the point of the image.

don't make judgements or assumptions!

dont describe things as badly drawn or badly photographed- and on the flip side, dont describe things as cute or beautiful. describe whats in the image, not how it makes you feel. if you love a certain part of how a photograph is framed, or how the light is painted in a piece of art, say that specifically. "beautiful" means nothing! do you mean realistic? vibrantly colored? "cute" means nothing! do you mean in a cartoony style? or that the subject matter is a cat, which many people find cute? be specific!

dont make statements about the gender or race of the people in the photo or art piece, especially if it's real people (like a news photo) unless you know those things as a fact (celebrities, fictional characters, people you know personally, people where it is mentioned in the article the photo is from). you can just describe things like hair length, skin tone, etc. exceptions to this rule imo are stock photos- eg if im captioning my favorite stock photo of all time, cyber woman with corn, i am going to describe it as "a stock photo of a white woman in a futuristic silver and black wraparound visor, wearing a silver bodysuit and cradling an ear of corn near her face and smiling slightly."

here are some example descriptions, all from images i have on my phone.

ID. a photo of two cats laying head to head on someones outstretched legs, which are under a blanket. one cat is an orange tabby, and the other is a gray and white splotched tabby. End ID.

the point of this image is my cats- im not going to spend time describing the blanket, the couch, the stuff you can see in the background, bc it's not relevant to the image, and adds nothing.

ID. a photo taken through a rainy window at twilight, with the camera focused on the raindrops on the glass, so the lights in the houses across the street are out of focus. the lights reflect on the wet pavement in a warm yellow glow. End ID.

i took this the other night bc i thought it looked cool how blurry it was- id consider this more of an "art" photo, so im describing the aspects of the framing etc that make it that- i wasnt just trying to show how rainy it was, but to take a photo in an interesting way, so those traits are "worth" describing.

ID. a photo of an acrylic painting done on a cardboard packing envelope of a city street at sunset, all the building windows reflecting gold. there are purple fluffy clouds in the sky, lit from below with peach and gold. the USPS tracking number barcode is still visible in the gap between houses at the end of the street. the brush strokes are very visible, the perspective is wonky, and the orange underpainting is visible at the edges. End ID.

this is a new ID for something i painted and already posted and i dont feel like getting the old ID. medium, style, and specific details i think are important are included. the perspective being wonky is a bit of a value judgement i wouldn't make about Other people's art, but it's my own and i think its an important detail so!

ID. an edited catcrumb comic, showing a simple mspaint illustration of a cat happily sorting things into piles with the caption, "sort sort. i love to arbitrarily sort." the cat has been colored in gray and its ears have been colored like homestuck troll horns, and the sorting piles replaced with some classpect symbols. End ID.

this is a good example of a edited image- its important to give (to some degree) a sense of what the original image was, say that its edited, and describe the changes. i dont need to list the classpect symbols i put on there, bc its not relevant to the message of the image- it would do nothing but make the ID longer.

oh- and to cap off the post- here is cyber woman with corn:

ID. a stock photo of a white woman in a futuristic silver and black wraparound visor, wearing a silver bodysuit and cradling an ear of corn near her face and smiling slightly. End ID.

[ohplagg]

I Love Yoo Timeline Part 1/4

The Evidence Part 1

This is part 1 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.

Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.

Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (or as I like to call it, Yooniverse) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.

Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.

----

Seeing Nessa alive in Kousuke's flashback of his highschool graduation day made me question everything I though I knew about the timeline so I have read, reread, and re-reread this webtoon; I've researched old reddit and tumblr posts, Quimchee's old Curious Cat answers, the wiki, and so much more.

(Just in case someone is worried, all information presented is free and publicly available. I was told that in Quimchee's patreon I could possibly find more exact information but I decided against looking there since I wouldn't be able to share my findings outside of patreon and my goal is for everyone who is a fan of I Love Yoo to be able to see this mega post.)

Because of the huge ammount of information I've decided to split my original post in 4 different parts so it's easier for everyone (including myself) to come back and find the information without having to endlessly scroll.

I encourage you all to go read/reread I Love Yoo with the new information you learn with this timeline in mind because oohhh boy does the story hit different. (Also take that opportunity to like all the episodes to support Quimchee!)

----

Turns out there's a lot of information in a 7+ year old, 240+ episode long webtoon; who would have though? Not me!

Anyways, there's so much information scattered all over the place and everything is so connected to everything that it was hard to organize it.

The evidence and information is in ' Whatever Order I Remembered It' order , but even so I tried my best to keep it organized by categories.

----

Episode 222 News articles

Here we got a lot of information in the presentation of news articles. So I'll keep this information as it's own category.

Let's read them up close.

Let's start with "Randulph Hannesson appointed as temporary Chairman of Hirahara Corp"

In it, it states how in March 27, 20WZ Rand gets appointed as temporary Chairman of the Board. At the same time, according to the public, he is "seeing" (dating?) Yui. Before becoming temporary Chairman of the Board (which we know he became permanent) he was CFO of Hirahara Corp. And before that he "founded a successful finance firm, Hannsesson Finance, which Hirahara Corp. has since acquired."

Now let's focus on the newspaper that's right under. In it, it talks about how an ilegal immigrant woman was found dead (assumed to be suicide) and her son is no where to be found. All arrows point to this woman being Nessa, Nol's mom.

It doesn't have a title but it does have a date. Newspapers normally publish these type of news the following morning from which the news happened meaning that Nessa died December 21st, 20XP

No wonder Nol hates his birthday week.

On the US Asia Daily Herald newspaper, "Chairman of Investment Giant Hirahara Corp to Step Down." When Rand was still CFO he was one of the witnesses that helped Young-Chul Kim be held accountable for all the SA he did. So that's where Nol got his sense of respecting and standing up for women. And that this happend in Octobre 31st, 20WY

Not really adding information to the timeline but just in case someone doesn't know, Yu-Jing has the police department interview transcripts for Nessa's death investigation

Lastly we have "Prestigious Prep School Closes SA Investiagtion With No Charges Filed" where it states that on March 20XW the 16-month long investigation of 50 years of SA with over 100 cases was basically dismissed.

Right before Nol was sent to the mental facility

Episode 150

Episode 150 starts with a flashback right after the brother incident where Nol is getting locked up in the mental facility ambulance. (This is confirmed in episode 210 because the dialogue matches up with the one in Kousuke's flashback)

And right after the flashback we get this news article that Yu-Jing has. "Troubled Child, Aftermath of the Hirahara Extra Marrital Affair."

So now we know that the brother incident that got Nol into the mental facility happened 1 year after the supposed marriage reconciliation between Yui and Rand.

Episode 210

We see a glimpse of the immediate aftermath of the incident.

It happened at night while raining.

Kousuke doesn't know what happened.

Yui's hand is bruised.

Nol is taken directly to the "Hirahara Mental Health Institute"

I'm very proud of my following discovery

The trees have no leaves.

Why is leafless trees so important and why am I so proud of my finding? Because trees lose their leaves during the Fall and by Winter they are completely leafless. This whole scene has all trees leafless meaning that it's winter. But hold on, it can't be winter winter because it's raining and not snowing. Bingo. It's early winter. And winter starts December 21st.

Episode 239

The pain I felt reading this after I figured out when in the timeline this happens.. my heart hurts.

This is the brother incident (at least the start of it).

Nol had no prior connection/relationship to the Hirahara's before this (he used the address on the letter's Rand send his mother to find them)

Nol went to Kousuke's house because he needs help, because he has no where else to go because his mother is gone.

If you're having a hard time keeping up, all this basically means the night Nessa died Nol went to look for Rand and his other family for help which is also the same night the brother incident happened which got Nol locked up in the Mental Facility which is why in both news articles Nol's whereabouts are unknown, because he was immediately taken away. (and all of this happened on his birthday :D).

After Nol got out of the mental facility

Episode 99

Nol presents himself using the name Yeong-gi.

Dieter and Nol met on the summer right before their first year of highschool.

Dieter met Nol before Soushi did.

At this moment in time it's been 5 years since Nol last saw his mom.

Episode 157

Nol was trying to befriend Soushi at the same time Kousuke was still in college.

Episode 155

Nol got out of the Mental Facility "roughly 6 years ago"

Nol spent "almost 2 years" inside the mental facility.

Kousuke mentions that the Yeong-gi name was something he started using after he came out of the Mental facility.

Episode 205

A while after Nol got out of the mental facility, Nana arrived.

"Until recently, I've been by myself."

Episode 129

Nana and Yui met for the first time after 5 years

-------------

This is just part 1 of 4. Go keep reading:

Part 2: The Evidence Part 2

Part 3: Math and connecting the dots

Part 4: The Timeline

[foreverlogical]

This week, as the Stormy Daniels hush money trial kicked off, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted the presence of a figure in court whose job responsibility sounded like a joke, writing that her job was to carry around a "wireless printer" to provide the former president with an "ongoing stream of good news from the internet."

But it turns out that the aide is very real. Her name is Natalie Harp, a former One America News anchor who joined Trump's communications team in March 2022. According to reporting that year by the Washington Post, Harp would even accompany the former reality TV host on golf trips in a cart "equipped with a laptop and sometimes a printer to show him uplifting news articles, online posts, or other materials."

This is nothing new, this is from 2017:

Twice a day since the beginning of the Trump administration, a special folder is prepared for the president. The first document is prepared around 9:30 a.m. and the follow-up, around 4:30 p.m. Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Press Secretary Sean Spicer both wanted the privilege of delivering the 20-to-25-page packet to President Trump personally, White House sources say.

These sensitive papers, described to VICE News by three current and former White House officials, don’t contain top-secret intelligence or updates on legislative initiatives. Instead, the folders are filled with screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful.

One White House official said the only feedback the White House communications shop, which prepares the folder, has ever gotten in all these months is: “It needs to be more fucking positive.” That’s why some in the White House ruefully refer to the packet as “the propaganda document.”

The process of assembling the folder begins at the Republican National Committee’s “war room,” which has expanded from 4 to 10 people since the GOP won the White House. A war room — both parties have one regardless of who’s in the White House — is often tasked with monitoring local and national news, cable television, social media, digital media, and print media to see how the party, its candidates or their opponents are being perceived.

Beginning at 6 a.m. every weekday — the early start is a longtime war room tradition — three staffers arrive at the RNC to begin monitoring the morning shows on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News as they scour the internet and newspapers. Every 30 minutes or so, the staffers send the White House Communications Office an email with chyron screenshots, tweets, news stories, and interview transcripts.

White House staffers then cull the information, send out clips to other officials, and push favorable headlines to a list of journalists. But they also pick out the most positive bits to give to the president. On days when there aren’t enough positive chyrons, communications staffers will ask the RNC staffers for flattering photos of the president.

[justcallmeultra]

(REPOST CAUSE FORGOT THE ACTUAL PIC THAT GOES WITH THIS) Transcript of a Reposted Comment from r/AskReddit back in 2016 titled "[Serious] What is the scariest/weirdest/most mysterious thing you've ever witnessed on live television?"

"Repost, as this was commented on another similar post, This Screenshot, taken off a Redditor's CRT back in 2009 while witnessing the Live Broadcast, is one of the Few pieces of Material of the "A Message to Nick: From A.R.R." Segment that has been discovered from the Infamous "Ramsey's Resignation" Incident that occurred during The Ultimate SpongeBob Sponge-Bash Marathon event to Commemorate Spongebob's 10th Anniversary, according to the few Articles and sources that Nickelodeon hasn't Taken Down, A.R.R. (Arnold Raphael Ramsey), Enraged at the Toxic work environment and the increasingly Demanding Deadlines at Nickelodeon Studios, had begun to fuck with the Marathon as a way to get back at the company for his mistreatment, the earlier anomalies weren't too big in scale at first, from removing small details from Backgrounds and Characters during the episodes, to split-second text strings added on top the footage, though these interruptions would Increase in Intensity and become More and More Disturbing as time went on, until, on July 18th, 2009, the second day of the Broadcast, A.R.R. would release his "Magnum Opus" per se, a 2 minute and 50 second Completely original Animatic that he'd created over the span of 4 days before the Marathon using Stolen Art Supplies and Pirated Animation Software, consisting of an "Animated" portrayal of A.R.R. Ranting to both the Higher ups at nick, and Coworkers of his who Assumedly caused him Problems, as shown in this image, with Subtitles Displaying the message "YOU ALL ARE THE WORST FUCKING PEOPLE I'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF WORKING WITH", he would reportedly end off this message with a Formal Statement of Resignation, alongside the statement "so Nick? Consider this a Massive Fuck you"

(Inspired by Lukinspire and other retakes of "The Nickelodeon Resignation Incident")

[eileen-crys]

Ok I am looking for the original interview where John talks about their wives being friends, I clearly remember it and also the bit about him and Veronica being "opposite" and about his father's death and his childhood memories, it was an interview with Brian but for God's sake I can only find my own post and @growfasterfaster 's bit with the quote "They get along very well. Brian’s wife Chrissie, Roger’s girlfriend Dominique, Freddie’s girlfriend Mary and my wife Veronica are all friends with each other."

I don't have any idea of why I'm struggling so much to find the whole interview nor why it's not on deaky.net, I know I haven't hallucinated it. I do have this screenshot saved, but I can't find the whole thing written online.

I only managed to find a photo of the article from the magazine it was written on, but no transcripts/translation... it seems someone transcribed it on tumblr at this point, but I can't find it... any help?