vhenanshiral

It’s been stated repeatedly that Trespasser was meant to “wrap up” the story line of the Inquisition, and more importantly the Inquisitor (because they need a new protag for the next DA, apparently.) Even outside the realm of a Lavellan who romanced Solas, I have an issue with this (namely, Solas’ involvement in the Inquisition and potential closeness to its members.)

Strictly related to the plot of a Lavellan who romanced Solas, I can not see at all with any stretch of my imagination how this wraps up her story AT ALL. The last slide in the epilogue is about how he visits her in her dreams (that she is not even sure are dreams.)

Lavellan can pledge to try to change his mind. She can also say she agrees with him (mine didn’t, however.) She can be mad as all hell and swear to stop him. A mighty good bit of these options are available to Inquisitors who didn’t even romance him. How does “I’m going to be all up in the business of your mighty world-ending plan” translate into a “wrap up,” exactly?

The ending cutscene around the table is the Inquisitor and everyone else there dedicating themselves to stopping him/changing his mind. How does “we’re gonna do The Thing all up in his business” translate to a “wrap up,” exactly?

I am desperately fighting the urge to write a very strongly-worded letter. Because how the hell by any stretch of the imagination does that wrap up and finish the Inquisition and the Inquisitor’s story line? Am I supposed to believe that these people who came to know Solas so well after running around Thedas with him are just going to sit back and let someone who doesn’t know WTF lead the charge against him? Am I supposed to believe that my Lavellan, who not only loves him, but was in a legitimate romantic relationship with him would be okay with sitting on her ass, twiddling her thumb while a bunch of strangers discuss various ways to deal with the man she’s completely and totally in love with and attempting to mend her broken heart over? Like she wouldn’t get some goddamn prosthetic to attach to her arm and dedicate the rest of her life to doing exactly what she said she’d do (try to change his mind)…? Especially considering the fact that even after he left through the Eluvian, he continues to make contact with her through her dreams? WTF he leaves her and he still isn’t out of her life, he still isn’t gone, but I’m supposed to believe that it’s “wrapped up”…? I’m supposed to be okay with some other protag coming in and taking the reins?

These are spam bots flooding tags and the website in general with spam links. They often do not have anything sexually explicit on their blog (although they often have implicit material). Plus, these two reports get very different results. Reporting explicit material gets the bot slapped behind an 18+ wall, so minors can't check if they're a bot or not. Reporting spam gets the bot taken down.

And I hate it because, yes, 9/11 was a tragedy. But compared to other countries and incidents? Terrible things happen the world over, all the time. But this one, because it happened here and (despite the school shootings and everything else) there’s this collective “things like that don’t happen here” mentality the nation went batshit.

The media started whipping shit up, the 24-hour news cycle really amped up, and patriotism became The Thing. Like everything was just coated in a veneer of the stuff. And if you objected? You were the antichrist.

Also, certain songs like TNT got taken off the radio, everyone suddenly had an American flag somewhere, my peers were rabidly signing up for the military (with very, very racist commentary the whole way), etc.

Everyone fell for it and they fell hard.

I remember them talking about going to Iraq after Afghanistan and everyone just acted like that was always the plan. And me, being a teenager still in English classes, just had a flashback to reading 1984:

“On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns—after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces—at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.”

Then this happens:

“The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.”

I will never forget this scene in the book because watching as the war shifted in real life and the way my country reacted to it was like seeing it play out in real-time.

And when I pointed it out to people?

You all know how big a rabbit is.  Jack Rabbits and hares are much bigger. they’re the size of large cats or small dogs or just-walking-age children.

They also like to hang out in gangs of a hlf dozen to over 30.

and in the middle of backcountry dirt roads.

perhaps they’re dustbathing

or blood sacrifce

I don’t know because when you come up the road at night because your dog has a tiny bladder and needs to go out at midnight and you have no yard so you’re walking him on the dirt road around your neighborhod because you might aw well get some stargazing in, and you come just over the ridge to see a coven of twenty jackrabbits in the middle of the road

and

they

all

stand

up

not just onto all fours like a proper prey animal

No they get up on thier hind legs and don’t just sit but STAND like tiny rabbit-skinned toddlers, wobbing slightly as they stare directly at you eyes shining in your flashlight’s glow

…Blood Red.

And a chill goes through you on that warm july night because while they’re a puntable size and allegedly herbivores they’re standing and watching you just like people and you are vastly outnumbered.

everyone freezes

you’re considering your odds aganst roughly 200lbs of Suspiciously Humanoid Hare

and they’re considering their odds against you

the only sound in the never-ending high desert wind 

somewhere in your peripheral vision you can see the streetlights but they seem awfully far away

The nearest Jack Rabbit

Blinks

and takes a single shuffling step

forward

You area an overdevloped monkey and your prefrontal cortex is capable of some amazing feats but it runs very slowly compared to the reflexes of a rabbit and you’re frozen as you desperately scramble for the appropriate course of action, hands feeling thick and useless, mouth dry and feet imeasurably heavy there’s no way you’d outrun THESE, god there’s a rabies outbreak going around that shit’s not curable-

The Dog

L U N G E S

It’s only the briefest of movements but the animal you’d picked out for his gangly legs and floppy ears and goofy smile is suddenly a dark shape of muscle and teeth and had flung himself at the horrible goblin rabbits faster than mere physics should dictate, appearing in the circle of the flashlight for only the briefest of moments before the jolt from the leash makes you stumble and the light falters

The Jack Rabbits

Scatter

Vanishing into the faintly starlit sagebrush in as so many faint gray shapes that might be mistaken for the dustclouds they kick up

Later, you sit on the couch disquieted

and you wonder

If the sight of the Jack Rabbits standing and studying you was frightening enough to make you yearn for the safety of the yellowed streetlights

what must it be like from thier end?

what terrifying creature 

deliberately ties itself

to something so horrible

CONGRATULATE, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING FOR.

(tags via @littlepaperboatyo )

It’s because it’s not written as a joke! That scene is *signaling*, just like the cut from Mary getting upset over the boat model to Ed getting super excited over it. A closet joke would have some hamfisted line like “I spend all my time in the closet” with a wink to the audience, meant to be a cheap laugh. That scene doesn’t play for humor at all: the point is Ed’s wonder and delight, and Stede practically glowing as he shares that side of him. And then all wrapped up in an episode titled “discomfort in a married state” while we see them both so comfortable and unguarded.