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Isabelas voice too. Is full on anouncer mode until she hits 'and his spirit-friend' then she rushes thru like reading the terms and conditions or drug side effects.

Got sidelined by his own fucking demon 😭

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Ok. Lets actually look at what choices would matter from origins, 2 and inquisition.

One by one. Cause my thesis is, not that friken many!

Lets start in origins, what big major choices were there to begin with? You could choose not to recruit some chars, but lets assume you recruited everyone.

Does Liliana die? What do you do with the ashes? Neither of those matter at all because She shows up in DAI and the ashes get blown up.

The real choices that matter here are who ended up on the throne and who kills the archdemon. No matter what, archdemon dies. There is a 'Hero of Ferelden' who kills it no matter who that is. Or if they die or not. That might matter to a warden. But to the greater north almost 20 years later? Not so much. Same with who rules. Ferelden is considered a backwards nation, the boonies. Nobody in the north cares at all.

Morigans baby. Existing or not, old god soul or not, that is tied up in DAI. He'd be a young man in DAV, off on his own and she'd likely want him far from this nonsense.

NOW on to 2.

Anders blows up the chantry. Meridith and orsino fight. Varric lives, becomes viscount. All of these happen without input from the player.

Do you betry isabella or keep her? Either way she lives.

I honestly can't think of any choices Hawke makes that have far reaching consequences beyond kirkwall besides the chantry mage Thing.

And then we're on to DAI.

Mages or templars, the war happens, and who you side with really only matters in the south. Tevinter was never involved. In Rivain you do get a small quest from Rowan about her circle getting annulled due to some over zelous templars. Does Antiva even have circles?

Who's on the throne in Orlais? It doesnt matter. Inky is dealing with the south, which is getting nuked by darkspawn. You're never going to be involved with them as Rook, so why care who has the biggest hat? You've got more important shit to worry about.

Lastly, the Well. Who got to drink? If it was your inky, they should have that Knowledge and be more helpful. Or at least made a reference to it. Thats one of the only missteps i think DAV made.

The other being Hawke. If the ended up in the fade, we assume nightmare ate them? But it would be nice to KNOW. If the warden ally did, Hawke goes to Weisshaupt, so where are they? Are they there for the siege? This is the one choice that would have benefited from being explored. I can understand ignoring it from a dev perspective but it does feel like a big empty plothole.

For Morrigan, she ends up with that knowledge anyway, if not thru the well then from Mythal.

So really, all these choices but in the scope of the story they were telling, did any of them have impact seperated by decades and miles?

On the game dev side, pulling back and not spending time iterating for all these choices even in flavor text makes sense when only a small percentage of players will see or care.

The Keep made sense when the games were all in the same area and relatively close in time, and it was such a cool concept and feature! But it doesn't need to be included if it's not going to add anything.

So idk maybe lets all think critically about what choices actully would have been worth including.

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fish fish fish 🐠🐟🐠🐟

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fish set

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Being in the dragon age fandom for like 12+ years is like

Dragon Age 2 release week: this game fucking sucks, they ruined the lore and the companions are cringe

Dragon Age 2, 5 years after release: this game is fantastic albeit rushed, the companions are my favorite

Inquisition release week: this game fucking sucks, they ruined the lore with these new implications

Inquisition, 5 years after release: this game is fantastic, I love the lore implications

Veilguard release week: this game fucking sucks--

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Rook being a very physically touchy person and Lucanis avoiding touch at all costs from built up trauma from childhood, his work as a Crow, and the Ossuary. Them always asking for Lucanis' permission to touch him, and before Tearstone Island, they hug him and he still flinches but he holds them tight

As Rook is taken into the Regret prison and they see a vision of Lucanis' body on the ground, they scream his name out of concern and fear but all Lucanis hears is them screaming for him to help, and then they're gone. They're gone. He thinks they were screaming his name, begging him to save them and now they're gone.

Weeks into Rook being taken into the Regret prison and now a man who couldn't be touched without reflexively drawing a blade is craving the warmth of his partner who he thinks he'll never see again

Lucanis pulling Rook out of the prison, knowing it's them right away because of their hands. He missed their hands, he missed their touch, he missed their warmth, he missed them.

When Rook gets back, Lucanis' touch is slow and soft, almost unbelieving. Weeks of stress and torture and pain and guilt and regret, and now they're here. Once they're finally together, he feels as though the world is in their arms and if killing a god is the only way to stay there, he will do what a Crow does best and fulfill this contract

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I don't think there are actually any straights in Veilguard. I haven't found one. All the relationships are queer. They looked at all the queers in bg3 and said hold my coffee.

Anyway. I finished my first run and i can say i loved it. Top game for sure. I have lots of feelings and opinions I'll write down soon~

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Im out. From politics, from activism, from world news, from country news, from it all.

I'm strangely calm, while my spouse raged and grieved I feel nothing. 71million people spoke and said they didn't care. Why should I care? I cared deeply for two decades and it's just givin me an ulcer and nothing else. So I'm out.

All the things ive worked for, my art, building communitys online, queer rights, all of it is just gone. Why be an artist when a computer can do it faster and better then you ever could? Why invest in online communitys when they're full of bots and lies and hate? Why keep fighting when everyone is telling you to disapear?

So I'm going to refocus on MY life, here in the real world. I'll care for my dogs and my spouse and my friends in front of me. I'll enjoy my hobbies by myself. The rest of the world can burn. They'd let me burn. They Have let me burn.

I'll still be here on this blog and on blysky for posting my art (maybe) but nowhere else. I won't be engaging at all with anything 'political' in any stretch anymore.

🙂

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Warm autumnal colors for this antique outfit, pairing a yabane (arrow fletching) kimono, and an momiji (maple leaves) obi in perfectly matching hues.

The vibrant haori features plump Kôrin momiji (maple leaves in the style of famous painter Kôrin).

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Having Thoughts and Feelings tonight about gender identity and video games.

CW: gender feels, internalized transphobia, unfinished thoughts

Most games that have 'representation' have a minor npc mention (outright or veiled) being trans (i include nonbinary under the trans label for brevity) and occasional you can interact with them about it, a few voice lines maybe, a codex entry sometimes. Or you get to choose your player characters pronouns and that is a simple insert choice into dialog. And that was a celebration! An amazing step forward yay!

Then BG3 came along and let you play potatohead with your PCs body. Voice, shape, genitalia, pronouns, all independent of eachother. And wasn't that amazing! Of course its all treated as perfectly normal in game so it never comes up. But hey, headcanons.

And now, Veilguard. From the very beginning the dragon age franchise has always been Queer Positive. (Actual queer people building it from the ground up will do that) but boy they went All In.

You not only pick your body, voice, pronouns independently, but also can be explicitly trans. As in it will come up In Game. When I hit that first voice line/choice where I got to define my PCs gender I was floored. It was amazing.

Then it came up again in a convo with a potential romance, and I was shocked. It wasnt just a insert pronouns here.

Then i had a convo with a Major Companion NPC who is starting her own Questioning Journey. We cracked this poor girls egg.

And i got uncomfortable. And i thought, this is too much isn't it? This is going to push People Away, make People Angry.

And then I stopped, and thought WTF was that?! Where had that thought come from?! Here was my PC, describing my exact IRL gender journey/experience in a video game, something i thought gods damned impossible, and my instinct is to hide it?! To what, pretend it didn't happen? I should be celebrating, weeping in joy, i shouldn't be uncomfortable over the feelings of people i don't know and certainly dont care about.

That's respectability politics though isnt it? Trying so hard to fit in as a form of protection. Masking. Takeing care to not bring it up too much, or to be more forgiving then you should or more lenient then you want.

Maybe. If you choose to make a trans character you're opting into those conversations, but when its an NPC on your main team. That convo is going to happen to everyone. Thats putting it right up front and not letting anyone back out or pretend we don't exist. And that should be amazing, but instead it's just scary.

Being on the front lines in a culture war is so exhausting, and despite being very much Out in ways that I cant hide, lately I've been tiered. I want to go back to being invisible. But thats not right either is it. Thats a different kind of protection, but the kind that causes suffering.

Maybe its all internalized transphobia. (I did spend my youth queer in the american south after all) maybe its scars from gamergate (it nearly ended my marriage) or maybe its something else.

I suppose I'll have to keep playing and see how it shakes out. As momentarily uncomfortable as that made me, i still hope theres a convo about your identity with your romance.

For now these are just internal thoughts, i wont be tagging anything

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When I first played Dragon Age Origins, I knew nothing about it and found out very quickly that the combat was a bit miserable (at the start) So, big shout out to Alistair for keeping me interested in the game long enough for me to fall in love with it ❤️

(Also, lads, how many of these do we think I can finish before Veilgaurd comes out? I’ve got like 20 thumbnails done lol)

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I got to see a medium lorge Sturgeon at the aquarium and was very much Not Normal about it. Luckly my spouse finds this hilarious.

It’s always a fucking trip to see a sturgeon next to someone, because on their own they just look like fish, but when there’s a guy there you see how fucking big they are

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“i asked chatgpt-” ohhh ok so nothing you are about to say matters at all

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The captain

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if shes your girl then why have i slowly been replacing her parts until there’s nothing left of her original body? is she then still your girl?

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"if you are over 30 on Tumblr the mental illness won" "the aging fanbase of Tumblr" motherfucker if you are over 30 and have been here the entire time it means the mental illness didn't win we are still alive WE MADE IT