It’s a real nice night for an evening

*gripping the table in front of me so fucking hardd* GRGAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *throws books off of shelves with my mind* that character would NOT BE A MOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *somewhere in the world a building explodes

da2 isn't the best dragon age game *because* it's openly a tragedy, but being a tragedy forces a level of narrative coherence that the other games in the series don't have, and *that's* what makes it a better game.

okay, so. dragon age 2 runs on nested foreshadowing and a limited set of themes that almost every character and plot beat fall into: love is not enough, wealth is not enough, power is not enough, good intent is not enough. the problems you run into are structural, rather than individual, and your ability to resolve them as one person is strictly limited. the arishok is a central figure for this, because he prefigures every other tragedy and makes the game's thesis statement as clear as possible. he doesn't want to be in kirkwall, but he is compelled to remain until he gets back what was stolen. he doesn't want to lead a coup attempt, but he is compelled by qunari codes of justice to act. he does not want to die and fail his duty, but but he is compelled to by the other two impossible demands. every tragedy in kirkwall is the result of too many people with wildly different definitions of justice crammed into one place specifically designed to maximize human misery and suffering, and so you get a wonderfully nested narrative onion where each quest reinforces that idea, where there are no good options, just positions you can take — even the affinity system plays into that, where constantly gassing up your friends or constantly pushing them to change are equally correct ways to go, but ones that won't ultimately make a huge difference in their lives or characters, because no matter how much they like you, they're not under your control.

this coherence is even justified by the framing device. of *course* the moral of the game is "insisting on a dogmatic, narrow idea of justice destroys individuals and societies," it's a yarn being spun by varric the con artist to a chantry cop!

neither origins or inquisition play with that sort of narrative complexity. origins is a jaundiced hero's quest, certainly, but it's still basically a hero's quest; inquisition has a number of characters who question what you're doing and why, but the multitude of voices pulls the game in too many potential directions. DA2 was so constrained in its production that it pulled on decidedly ancient theatrical traditions, and it worked so, so well

generally i make fun of the orlesian version of an organisation more than any other but i’ve got to admit there’s no bitch as useless as a kinloch hold templar

lying awake at night thinking abt how jowan escaped. jowan. one singular blood mage apprentice. who was jowan. he was in the middle of the tower. the whole thing was planned by the templars. they knew he was coming. they caught him. in the middle of the circle. and then he. and then he just. how can i even say this without laughing. how did he get across the fucking lake

presented without comment

@leggywillow

hey kids I'm talking to you: are we still forming bands in our garages??? I know I'm out of the loop but I am also worried it's either uncool or unsustainable in the streaming era. is anyone listening to new bands anymore? do new bands still exist??? help

it's almost 2025 which means we're halfway through the decade. I need recommendations. send me your favorite bands (not solo artists) with a debut album in the last 5 years 🙏

(I realize covid probably fucked this like it did everything else so if the debut was like from 2018+ I guess that's ok too)

sorry i'm being an absent friend i'm being an absent self too

Dragon age fan type 1: I'm so happy party members say encouraging things when I'm in the fight

Dragon age fan type 2: I miss when my party used to tell me to kill myself

unrelated but one of the bad fanfiction lines that has been trapped in my head for LITERALLY 22 years was a beauty and the beast fanfic in which belle said “be careful, im a virgin in my vagina”. this has been on the tip of my tongue threatening to burst out of my mouth for decades

this one is SOOOO  good thank for you sharing. im going to be thinking about po’s honda civic too now

Vorgoth: A MALICIOUS ENTITY STALKS CITY STREETS, SEEKING LIVES TO DEVOUR

the haunting in question:

EMMRICH VOLKARIN in Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)

Happy anniversary to my all time favorite shot in spn 

I know they made him fall the wrong way to put the hand print on the right side to match 4x01, but it’s extremely funny to imagine there’s another wall off screen and dean bounced off it and went back the other direction

Artistic rendition

I put more work into this animation than the editors put into the entire confession scene

i love the 😌 and 😔 emojis so much because they convey such specific emotions, but also those emotions are absolutely not "relieved" and "pensive"

"i sure hope no elven deity breaks free from their prison in the fade and starts wreaking havoc on thedas"

the nefarious ghilan'nain:

you stick your fingers in my cage... my pitch black cage. you feel something cold and wet...you retract your fingers and to your horror you realize i painted your nails! :) i hope you like them

gone fishin'