A Tumblr

I got a party banter between Bellara and Taash about how the Lords of Fortune steal elven artifacts. And then Taash clarifies later that they have a Dalish expert on the team so they can check to make sure the Lords don't sell something culturally important and instead return it to the elves.

Like. I get it. You want the Lords to be fun swashbuckler Disney pirates and Robin Hoods instead of actual pirates who steal and plunder. Because we're only now in Western society realizing that stealing from indigenous groups is, uh, bad. But like. Writing really uninteresting factions for your "dark" fantasy (tho lbr Dragon Age hasn't been dark fantasy since DA2) isn't gonna solve real-world neo-colonialism, ya know? The Lords not stealing priceless elven artifacts and returning them to the elves doesn't signal to me that the Lords are total rascally good guys, it signals to me that BioWare itself is trying really hard to seem morally conscious. "See? We know stealing from other cultures is bad!!!"

And man. Not to be a "political correctness has poisoned media" grifter on main (tbh it's less political correctness itself and more the commodification of real-world activism) but I couldn't help but imagine how this convo would've played out in earlier games, potentially even Inquisition.

You could've so EASILY made this interesting while giving the Lords and Taash and Bellara a lot more depth, while also making it clear that stealing from indigenous groups is wrong.

Just have the Lords, yeah, actually sell those artifacts. But also establish that the Lords take in and help elves from all walks of life. That they free slaves, or collaborate with alienages. Then you could have Taash defend the practice by saying to Bellara that little orphaned elf kids being sold as slaves probably don't give a flying fuck about some artifacts they're never gonna see, but the money from selling those artifacts goes to buying them food. And have Bellara fire back that preserving elven culture is also part of its survival, and that there are Dalish clans that would be willing to pay for them or offer something in return. Or have her say that the Lords are doing charity for the sake of recruitment rather than actual altruism. And then Taash responds that those high and mighty Dalish elves don't do shit to help abandoned city elves, just because those aren't part of their correct elven subculture, and they care more about reclaiming old glory than helping the people that exist here and now.

Then you could have side missions or at least codex entries that describe maybe some Lord recruit being conflicted about what they're doing. Maybe a few of them are collaborating to hijack a deal or steal back an artifact. Have implications that some high-ranking Lords are, in fact, using those artifacts for their own gain, despite claiming otherwise. Have some Lords genuinely trying to help, and believing that gold and trinkets don't matter as much as people's lives, so they sell them in exchange for safety for refugees or slaves or some other helpless group.

But no. Instead it's "hey do you steal from my people?" "nah lmao we have a cultural advisor don't even worry about it" "oh wow so cool and woke of you!" And then that's it. No need for any further discussion. No conflict and no complexity. No bad actors and moral quandaries.

Weh.

Source | Day 142

anyway yeah DELETE YOUR FUCKING ADVERTISING IDS

Android:

Settings ➡️ Google ➡️ all services ➡️ Ads ➡️ Delete advertising ID

(may differ slightly depending on android version and manufacturer firmware. you can't just search settings for "advertising ID" of course 🔪)

iOS:

Settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ tracking ➡️ toggle "allow apps to request to track" to OFF

and ALSO settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ Apple advertising ➡️ toggle "personalized ads" to OFF

more details about the process here via the EFF

Also don't take your cell phone with you if you are participating in activities you would like the government to not know about, or keep it fully powered off and I'm a faraday cage if you must have it for emergencies.

sheogorath is a textbook case of a character mentioning liking a food and having it become their entire personality

“Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of madness, is quite fond of cheese and will often cater celebrations with it.”

literally the most normal thing he does

Kidnapped and experimented on by aliens but I was in the control group so nothing happened

I can be trusted with photo mode

This is just davrin's phone gallery

ok well this blew my mind

This is also true with filmmakers. Western filmmakers pan their cameras mostly left to right and Iranian filmmakers do right to left.

Time seems such a universal concept and then I find out the different ways people perceive everything and remember “it’s all appearances to consciousness”

But the coolest part of that time-direction study, was there didn’t seem to be a consistent pattern to how aboriginal Australians arranged the images, until it was realized that the issue was where the participant was sitting, because they were consistently arranging them East to West.

Because these languages have absolute direction. They don’t use left/right, but north/south/etc.

Wait hang on pause I glossed over it before but dhawan!master was on earth for seventy seven straight years? He saw his own run as prime minister. Wh

I think Mr Saxon randomly got an egg chucked at him during a speech one time and then the date rolled around for Spymaster and he had a realization & absolutely booked it to a grocery store

#....hang on does this mean he lived through The Year That Never Was too#he Knows he's not going to remember it#that doesn't make him feel any better when martha shows up going 'hey let me tell you about the one amazing guy who's going to save us all'#he ends up accidentally giving martha an impassioned speech about how she's the one actually fighting to make things better for everyone#while that bitch the doctor does nothing at all#also he's Never going to give martha the attention and admiration she deserves!! no he's not projecting. shut up.#you know what what if he just kills himself and then doesn't have to live through the rest of the shitty fucking Saxon Year (x)

DOCTOR WHO

14.07 | The Legend of Ruby Sunday

Peter Capaldi at the Doctor Who Experience.

ADORKABLE

personally i just think it should be illegal to have more than 2 things going Bad with your body at a time. it's just excessive. i want to speak to a manager. the current hardware was not designed with the user in mind.

Skyrim actually really did something by creating a video game grey morality™️ conflict where the issue isn't that both sides have a point it's that both sides absolutely suck balls and barely have any semblance of a point about anything. unclear if what they did was good or bad but they did do something