pleaseeeee use wool guys it doesnt actually hurt the sheep at all and its a really great material and doesnt break down into micro plastics when you're done with it. they need shearing anyway for their wellbeing. farmers have so much of the stuff because no one buys it any more.
just buy wool please please please
rhinoplasty this buccal fat removal that for godssake watch a film produced in a country that isn’t the united states of america read a book read non-fiction learn to sew go to a pottery class go on a walk talk to old people look at medieval manuscripts do something interesting stop looking in the mirror so much someone will fuck you someone will love you and if not it doesn’t even matter that much but do something you don’t need botox you need to build muscle before you’re old and take care of your bones and take max 3 pictures of yourself per year
Self indulgent sketches I cleaned up a bit and added color gradients to.
Tevinter is the heart of slavery in Thedas. This lore has been established in every game, novel, comic, and other extended material in the Dragon Age franchise to date that so much as mentions the nation. But in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, when we are finally able to actually visit this location for the first time… this rampant slavery we’ve heard so much about is nowhere to be found. It’s talked about here and there; Neve mentions The Viper has a history of freeing slaves, as does Rook themselves if they choose the Shadow Dragon faction as their origin, for example. But walking down the streets of Minrathous, you’d never know. Because Dragon Age: The Veilguard, for all its enjoyment otherwise, has one glaring issue: It’s too clean.
i finished Harding's quest... whew... i don't like Harding. or i should say i don't like how nice the game treats her. she gets all of the emotional beats around the lore revelations while the elves are left to go kick rocks.
i pointed this out previously in another post, but the dwarves (and Harding specifically, and thus by extension Andrastians, too) get so much more sympathy from the game than any of the elves. you can clearly see it just in these two screenshots-- compare dialogue choices when comforting Harding after the reveal about the Golden City (and also important to note that the game assumes my elf is Dalish multiple times before this choice, but for some reason i can suddenly make her Andrastian):
versus the first real discussion you get to have with Bellara about the truth of the elven gods:
Bellara implies that everyone is right not to trust the elves, actually, because the elven gods (the same ones that enslaved her people btw) are bad and we should all feel bad about it.
and Davrin is unfortunately distanced from the Dalish, remarking that they're too traditional and stuck in the past (a racist trope that Dragon Age really loves for the elves), and only seems to care about how the elven gods make elves "look bad." we do get to see Davrin reconnect with one of the members of his clan later, which is a sweet moment that shows us a new side of him, but it exists more so to push along the griffon storyline than anything to do with Davrin (a problem i find quite annoying when it comes to Davrin's writing... they care more about Assan and "turlum" than him or his feelings. but that's a different post)
when we finally get to Heart of Stone, Harding has her big, emotional confrontation with a titan, and gets granted the memory of the titan's loss and all of their pain. she says some Choice lines, here.
who is thriving? the elves that were enslaved en masse by the Evanuris? the elves that are still enslaved and live in alienages? that are wholly, systemically oppressed throughout Thedas? then to follow it up with both of these lines, spoken to an elven Rook:
and i understand that this is the titan speaking through Harding, and we can be generous and say that they are addressing the Evanuris, and not elf Rook personally. but. uh. why doesn't my elf get to Say Anything. it's repeatedly insinuated that everything is the elves' fault, that the elves should feel guilty and that they should be held responsible for what happened to the dwarves (and by extension, the blight and everything bad that's ever happened including what's happening right now), and that they deserve to suffer because of what "they" did to the titans.... and there's no option to challenge this line of thinking at all.
and it's really frustrating that none of the elven companions are allowed this kind of emotional catharsis with the Evanuris. up until that one (bad) dialogue with Bellara, all of Bellara's comments/her reactions to the gods are treated as comic relief. none of them get to grieve their gods like Harding is allowed to grieve the titans-- they're not even allowed to be as angry with Solas as Harding is in some scenes. even Andrastians, in that one single dialogue choice, were afforded more sympathy and grief than the elves in this game.
it's a baffling choice, considering the plot, that elves are given so little grace or consideration. and i do think part of it has to do with the way this game has tried to distance itself from previously established lore as well as scrub itself clean of anything morally dubious-- it's all black and white and the game needs someone to blame, so the elves are bad because the Evanuris are bad, nevermind all that other stuff, because see, the elves actually deserved it all along! i don’t even think it’s unreasonable that Harding may have these feelings (even if they’re racist lol) but the fact you just have to accept Blame and the narrative never challenges her or Bellara’s guilt or Davrin’s apathy and instead just agrees with all of them and forces Rook to agree as well is shitty and takes it from “this character feels this way” to “the game is implying that everyone feels this way, and also that they’re right.”
it's really unfortunate because i do think this reveal about the titans and why the dwarves can't dream or use magic is exciting, it could cause some compelling conflict between the companions (but that's not allowed in this game at all unfortunately and you especially Cannot be even slightly rude to Harding, ever). and i do like the idea of her quest and what they're trying to convey here-- confronting this old, repressed trauma, and finding a way to reconcile with it and move forward.... but not at the expense of the elves, who also suffered massively at the hands of the Evanuris (and continue to suffer. right now)
bioware has been criticized repeatedly about their depiction of the Dalish and even the mages, too, and i really do not understand what they were thinking with this, because it's just racist (and exactly what people have repeatedly criticized them for). this is why a lot of "fantasy racism" fails. you can't write a marginalized group as being responsible and deserving of their own oppression, that's not how it works!
This guy is lucky all we can do is punch him later.
how do you think your hof would have gotten along with the first warden?
Like this:
Da'Renan would NOT have time for his "the blight never changes" bullshit lmao
I can't stop drawing from this game
anyway Spite is my son now
Do you ever notice that men almost never tone police each other, and women rarely tone police men, but every time you turn around there's a woman telling another woman to rephrase what she just said in a way that's softer or more palatable?
Yeah, me too.
Maybe just, I don't know...let women express their genuine thoughts among other women 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 instead telling them what to say and how to say it?
doctors hate her! This woman is experiencing symptoms that might point to a health problem and wants doctors to do something about it
Wow a cult of stupid white people really are holding this country hostage …
Now do the same for women
This is what standing on business looks like
I love romancing Cassandra, don’t care I have to use the lesbian mods. Like yes Cassandra I will be that man and I will romance you with all my powers at hand. This game cannot stop me.
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
Me, years ago: idk it just seems like every time I’ve heard a man say he was being abused by a woman it turns out he was actually abusing her. Is it wrong to just assume that’s the case anytime I hear a man say that since I’ve literally never seen it be actually true?
Commenters: omg that’s so fucked up. Maybe educate yourself on domestic abuse from experts before you go saying things like this??
Experts on domestic abuse: When a man says he is being abused by a woman, you should assume he is abusing the woman in question and wants your help to keep her in line. Abusive men often use this technique in professional settings such as therapy, and it’s important not to buy into it for even a second.
The domestic violence training I went to a few days ago was meant for an audience of EMTs and law enforcement, and the two detectives heading the presentation literally said this. They obviously acknowledge that male victims of female abusers do exist and do deserve help, but the odds of this scenario are slim. They've seen men bash themselves in the face to incriminate their female victim when the latter calls 911. They went over in aching detail how male abusers will buddy up to first responders and play the victim, because they know from experience that it often works. Often, these male abusers will beat their victims to the phone to call for help...for themselves and their self inflicted injuries which they blame on their wives or girlfriends.
They also love to hit and beat their victims until the victims finally retaliate with a small slap or push. Then, predictably, the abusers will tell anyone who'll listen that they are the abuse victim.
One of the presenters said he'd literally gotten camera footage of a male suspect acquainting his fist with his face while pretending to scream as his bruised and battered wife was on the phone with 911, and then, when the cops showed up, he came crying about how she'd beaten him. The idiot did it all in view of his ring camera.
They are very predictable. Unfortunately, there's a reason they're so confident in their tactics: those tactics work on law enforcement, which is permeated with misogyny.
And, doubly unfortunately, I could add all the disclaimers about how male victims truly do exist and deserve help, etc.,....and yet some people will still choose to read this as hatred towards them.
(btw, you know who's usually the perpetrator of DV on male victims? Other men.)
"While these are just observations within our own high school, we believe that this is happening across the country. Young, well-off white boys from liberal families are being tempted by conservatism simply to protect an archaic idea of masculinity that guarantees them inherent power. It is not as if they are against abortion, or care much about the economy or immigration, or even feel remotely attracted to the rest of conservative dogma. But clearly, a shift back toward traditional gender roles is resonating with them now as progression toward female empowerment threatens their already delicate self esteem."
"Boys in our school as young as eight are beginning to exhibit these same misogynistic tendencies that we never remember noticing when we were their age. And the most dangerous aspect of this is how little it’s talked about in mainstream media and how easily it has been overlooked in progressive communities. In fact this is an epidemic that will continue to spread rapidly until we start talking about it."
do you have any ideas about why so many students are struggling with literacy now? I know that illiteracy and reading comprehension have been issues for years and most americans read at like a 5th grade reading level but I’m curious why it seems to be worse now (pandemic? no child left behind?)
It is everything. There’s not one answer. I could talk about this forever so instead I set a five minute timer on my phone and wrote a list of as many of the many things that are causing this on a systemic level that I could think of:
what did I miss.
Cannot believe I forgot to also blame charter schools, voucher programs, and the conservative push to lower the teenage working age and get poor kids tracked out of college prep and into vocational training for this. i have let everyone down
