✿ Ash // florashark ✿ This is my reblog/fandom blog, featuring a lot of video game-related content, books, monsters, & reptile/critter content. I even draw sometimes :P POPULAR TAGS: bloodborne || venom || dead by daylight || dark souls || dragon age || animal crossing || splatoon || reptiles || my pets
Dude absolutely has not "fallen by the wayside". He just doesn't put out loads of 10-minute videos anymore.
He puts out some of the most vicious, heavily-researched videos out there that take months to put together, like his huge video on the anti-vax movement, which actually got him a shoutout from the reporter who blew the fucking lid off Andrew Wakefield, the scumbag responsible for the whole "vaccines cause autism" lie that's done immeasurable harm to, well, humanity as a whole.
I was lucky enough to be on that stream a couple of times. H. Bomberguy remains one of the best people in the world and that stream shows the power of collective action for a good cause with the goofiest of starting points.
Also, make sure to look every TERF like Graham Linehan straight on and ask, sincerely, without malice or recrimination, but with the mightiest need in your voice: "Do you know how to beat Beaver Bother in Donkey Kong 64?"
I was really into the signs all over ReptileFest- they all sent home messages of responsibility and the actual challenges of owning different species. Very refreshing- you never see stuff like this at breeder shows (because they want everyone to buy things)!
as someone who has gone long stretches without electricity, let alone an internet connection
BACK UP YOUR WORK---YES, EVEN PHYSICAL COPIES. HAVE OFFLINE RESOURCES. KEEP YOUR LANDLINE. CARRY CASH. DON'T GET IMPORTANT APPLIANCES THAT RUN ON WIFI. LEARN TO READ A PAPER MAP
If you do not have electricity, the radio may be your only source of information!
Local radio will: give weather updates, give updates on restoring power, let you know if you need to evacuate or are on evacuation alert, and as a bonus, it can provide entertainment/music.
y'all sleeping on this post/info. this isn't about "oh, but natural disasters don't happen where i live" this is about
"natural disasters are going to start happening here as the climate keeps changing"
"one shift in government regulations or corporate ownership and essential needs become artificially scarce"
"they haven't updated the infrastructure since the 1940s and it's about to blow"
"one financial downfall and i'm living out of my car"
"i can live without basic needs for a while, but my kids/pets/dependents can't"
also, some of you are living in countries with unstable govts or with conflict right next door and you need to be at least a little prepared in case the unthinkable happens. PLEASE
wound tending is everything. unparalleled intimacy. let me care for you. let me touch the skin around your open flesh. let me stain my hands with your blood. let me get close and breathe in the same air as you and stare into your eyes for a few seconds too long. let me make you think of me every time you see the bandage, or scar
As tradition, my Rook's tarot card 💜 I cannot express my gratitude to the many people who worked on this game's development over the years. The Dragon Age franchise has always been a huge inspiration to me and I'm so happy to say that Veilguard carried that torch beautifully. I can't wait to play this game 10 more times ✨
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.
The world of Thedas is full of injustices. Humans persecute elves, fear qunari, and belittle dwarves. Mages of any race are treated like caged animals in most places. The nobility is corrupt. Although, Dragon Age has not always handled these injustices well, mind you. Many, many times I’ve found myself frustrated with moments that just feel like a Racism Simulator. But what makes it worth it, is when you can actually do something about it. These injustices are things that a good-aligned character strives to fight back against, maybe even for very personal reasons. Part of the power-fantasy for many minorities is that this fight feels tangible. I cannot arrange the assassination of a corrupt politician in real life, but I sure can get Celene Valmont stabbed to death in Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example. Additionally, these fictional injustices can be used to make statements on real life parallels, like any source of media. For example, no, the Chant of Light is not real, but acting as a stand-in for Catholicism, through a media analysis lens we can explore what the Chant of Light communicates on a figurative level.
When starting Dragon Age: The Veilguard and selecting to play as an elf – this should be unsurprising to anyone who is familiar with my bias towards them – I was fully prepared to enter the streets of Minrathous and immediately get called “knife-ear” or “rabbit”. But this did not happen. I thought perhaps it was just a prologue thing, but returning to Minrathous once again, there was not a single shred of disapproval from any NPC I encountered that wasn’t a generic enemy to fight. And even the generic enemies, the Tevinter Nationalist cult of the Venatori, didn’t seem to care at all that I was a lineage they deemed inferior before now. This is a stark difference from entering the Winter Palace in Dragon Age: Inquisition and immediately getting hit with court disapproval and insults. Are we now to believe that Tevinter has somehow solved its astronomical racism and classism problems in the ten years since the past game? Or perhaps are we to believe all the characters who have demonstrated Tevinter’s systemic discriminatory views were just lying or outliers? Because it makes absolutely no sense at all for this horribly corrupt nation to not have a shred of reactivity to an elven or qunari Rook prancing around. But here were are, and not a single NPC even recognizes my character’s lineage. And because this is so different from every single past game, it feels weird.
As an elf, you have the option to make a comment about how “too many humans look down on us” in one scene early in the game. You can also talk to Bellara and Davrin, the elven companions, about concerns that people won’t trust elves after finding out about the big bad Ancient Evanuris… but this is presented as if elves don’t already face persecution. It’s all so limited in scope that it could be all too easily missed if you are not paying very close attention, and coming into the game with pre-existing lore knowledge.
All this made it easy to first assume that the developers simply over-corrected an attempt to address the Racism Simulator moments. And if that was the case, than I would at least give credit to effort; they did not find the right balance, but they at least tried. However, the sudden lack of discrimination against different lineages in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not the only sanitized example of lore present.
In Dragon Age: Origins, Zevran Arainai is a companion who is from the Antivan Crows; a group of assassins. He discusses in detail how the Crows buy children and raise them into murder machines through all kinds of torture. The World of Thedas books also describe how the Antivan Crows work, echoing what Zevran says and expanding that of the recruitment, only a select handful of those taken by the Crows even survive. When you start Dragon Age: The Veilguard as an Antivan Crow, you immediately unlock a re-used codex entry from the past, “The Crows and Queen Madrigal”, that says the following:
“His guild has a reputation to uphold. They are ruthless, efficient, and discreet. How would they maintain such notoriety if agents routinely revealed the names of employers with something as "banal" as torture.”
Ruthless, efficient, and discreet. Torture is banal. This is what the Crows were before Dragon Age: The Veilguard decided to take them in a very different direction. The Antivan Crows in this latest game are painted as freedom fighters against the Antaam occupation of Treviso. Teia calls the Crows “patriots”. And while I can certainly believe that the Crows would have enough motivation to fight back against the Antaam, given that it is in direct opposition to their own goals, I cannot understand why they are suddenly suggested to be morally good. They are assassins. They treat their people like tools and murder for money. Even as recent as the Tevinter Nights story Eight Little Talons, it is addressed that the Antivan Crows are in it for the coin and power, with characters like Teia being outliers for wanting to change that. It makes the use of the older codex all the more confusing, as it sets the Antivan Crows up as something they are no longer portrayed as.
I personally think it would have been really interesting to explore a morally corrupt faction in comparison to say, the Shadow Dragons. Perhaps even as a protagonist, address things like the enslavement of “recruits” to make the faction at least somewhat better. (They are still assassins, after all.) Instead, we’re just supposed to ignore everything unsavory about them, I suppose…
We could discuss even further examples. Like how the Lords of Fortune pillage ruins but it’s okay, because they never sell artifacts of cultural importance, supposedly. Or how the only problem with the Templar Order in Tevinter is just the “bad apples” that work with Venatori. I could go on, but I don’t think I have to.
It is because of all this sanitization, that I cannot believe this was simply over-correction on a developmental part. Especially when there is still racism in the game, in other forms. The impression I’m left with feels far deeper than that; it feels corporate. As if a computer ran through the game’s script and got rid of anything with “too much” political substance. The strongest statements are hidden in codex entries, and I almost suspect they had to be snuck in.
Between a Racism Simulator and just ignoring anything bad whatsoever, I believe a balance is achievable; that sweet spot that actually has something to say about what it is presenting. I know it is achievable, because there are a few bright spots of this that I’ve encountered in Dragon Age: The Veilguard too. For example, some of the codex entries like I mentioned, and almost all the content with the Grey Wardens thus far. It is a shame there is not more content on this level.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is overall still a fun game, in my opinion. But it’s hard to argue that it isn’t missing the grit of its predecessors. The sharp edges have been smoothed. The claws have been removed. The house has been baby-proofed. And for what purpose?
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looking at any kind of trans supplies focused online shop is depressing because there will either be a complete absence of anything for transfems or like. a really sad transfem section with 5 items at the end of a list full of binders and packers and harnesses
thebreastformstore.com For breastforms + care, shapewear, wigs, shoes and jewlery
enfemmestyle.com For clothing, breastforms + care, shapewear, tucking and wigs
translife.uk For clothing, cosmetics, breastforms and tucking.
I get the frustration, but ultimately if you want stores that do sell things specifically for trans feminine people, searching for them and sharing them is the way to go.
If you are looking for lingerie style bras for a flat chest, those are marketed towards cis woman, who had cancer related breast reduction surgery.
And I get that it is frustrating that a lot of these thing are also marketed towards crossdressers, but the reason for this is the same as to why a lot of binders are marketed as "sports bras": sellers put every (vaguely) related term into their website in the hopes of selling to more people. Which obviously isn't great either, but at least I can better tolerate it, knowing it is marketing bullshit and not misgendering me for the sake of it.
Been a long time since I did the legwork of finding places but here's all my bookmarked lingerie brands that make lingerie for transfems and have transfem models.
Carmen Liu Lingerie - trans woman owned lingerie company that makes bras and panties specifically for transfems, also has plain cotton kids' underwear.
Juniper & Eve - cis woman owned from what I can tell but her starting point with the company was "make lingerie for a trans woman friend" and underwear types are sorted by style (flat front, gaff, or pouch front) rather than by gender.
Origami Customs - I kind of think of OC as more transmasc-focused but since I last checked their site they've added the option to select gusset width on non-gaff undies which I'm pleasantly surprised by. They also do custom sizing at no extra cost.
TomboyX also does breastform bras and tucking panties now but idk anyone who wears them so I can't comment on that specirfically. Just buying their underwear over the years I feel that the quality has dropped off while the prices have doubled. I get stuff on sale only. YMMV.
It’s wild to me to see transvestigator conspiracy theories online that could be so easily explained by natural human variation. That woman has a deep voice? Yeah, sometimes they do. A woman has broad shoulders?? Maybe she plays rugby or hits the gym a fuckton. There’s a “bulge” in her tight pants?? Maybe her vulva is just fat. All the “markers” of trans woman that transvestigators use to harass any woman aren’t even things unique to trans women.
Transphobes talk about women like they’re Barbies. Have you forgotten the existence of cameltoe? Tiny boobs? Narrow hips? Broad shoulders? Why do you think choirs have altos and not just sopranos? What do you think female athletes look like? Do you think a woman that lifts weights and plays contact sports will look like a 90s supermodel? At what point in history did we collectively forget that human bodies have natural variability???
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
2087
gracieabrams
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
