laserandom

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Sits, you know, here. Damned devil

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Yes, I'm still struggling with this. And I still need to draw clothes.

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Yes, I'm still struggling with this. And I still need to draw clothes.

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Literally made an account just to vent my thoughts because DATV is beyond disappointing and actively destructive of the previous games/media in the series.

The story/lore choices made concerning what happens in the south of Thedas during DATV are devastating and a clear attempt to create a 'clean slate' for the franchise going forwards.

Spoilers to the game are mentioned going forwards -

Simply put: Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches have basically been wiped clean - any previous influences that our characters may have had on these areas is wiped away by the Blight (aka BioWare) and therefore will likely not be mentioned in any games going forward.

Ferelden is basically left blighted, save for Redcliffe and small pockets of resistance in Denerim.

Ferelden, if it ever appears in the franchise again, will likely never address who rules the nation or whatever influences the Warden had on the land. The land will claw itself up from the ashes devoid of the influence we had on it.

Kirkwall suffers the same fate, and what remains of its residents have fled to Starkhaven.

Kirkwall has been over-run and those who escaped are held up in Starkhaven. Whatever influence Hawke had on the lives of those within Kirkwall has been waved away and destroyed by the Blight, likely to never be mentioned again.

Orlais has been over-run outside of resistance around the area of the Winter Palace, and venatori infiltrators have made the political situation within Orlais tenuous.

Orlais has been set-up with the venatori threat for a coup to completely invalidate whatever choice of ruler was made in DAI. Whomever the Inquisitor backed will likely be assassinated, and if Orlais appears in the game again it will be with a new ruler.

As someone who has been so invested in the lore, characters, and story of the game...this is devastating. It would be one thing if the game was bad but the story contained to Tevinter, for example - but this goes beyond as it retroactively changes everything for the worse and literally wipes everything clean. The greatest appeal and strength of this series was that it felt that you shaped Thedas - I adored every little bit of dialogue or codex entry that popped up in DA2 and DAI about things that happened in previous games!

It's baffling, and honestly comes across as mean-spirited, making the decision to deliberately target the places that our characters had the most influence.

The Warden may as well have let Urthurmiel win since Ferelden appears to be utterly blighted and Denerim, the heart of its nation, is destroyed.

Nothing Hawke did ever mattered, at all - and what little mattered was never from their own agency thanks to the Executors.

The Inquisitions efforts to restore order across Thedas was all for nothing, because nothing remains of them from in-game.

Unless if Dorian pops up in a DLC with his bloody time amulet and big reset button for the game then this is world of Thedas that remains.

With each game in the series up till now I finished each game with the feeling that the world was getting bigger, more complex, and now it just feels empty, shallow, and hollow.

Also fuck the Executors.

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Process

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Qunari from "Veilguard"? Bruh.. No thanks.

I'd rather keep making up my headcanons

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Qunari from "Veilguard"? Bruh.. No thanks.

I'd rather keep making up my headcanons

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“The Qun isn’t a prison, people can leave if they want” ……..yeah which totally aligns with a everything we know about those who defect from the Qun……. If only we had a companion in one of the games in which we figure out just how easy it is to leave and what happens when you do…

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Nothing left to do but meme about it

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Calling it now:

If there's ever any future installments of Dragon Age there will be no mention of the differentiation between the Dalish or City Elves.

Like in DATV they will simply all be 'elves' and the vallaslin will be reduced to 'cool looking tattoo's that some veil jumpers have' - no mention of the elven pantheon either, because why bother! They're all dead now!

They're all dead and responsible for every lore plot point in Thedas, and there's nothing of mystery or substance left in the world now.

No mention of the culture in the alienage, of the vhenadahl tree, of the horrific racism and systematic abuse the elves have been through...now its just elves. With the way the Veil Jumpers have been set up, and the fact that the elven gods were the enemy in DATV, I find it extremely unlikely that the Dalish will even exist as a group either. Why would they? Their Gods returned and blighted the world - not that the fact is even truly discussed in the game. Elves are just elves, and the notable elves are Veil Jumpers.

Maybe you'll walk in a city, pick up a codex, and get a copy and pasted explanation of history from a DAO codex - a reminder of what we used to have and what BioWare absolutely demolished in their attempt to build a new IP on the bones of Dragon Age. The absolute whiplash in writing, story, and character between DAI and DATV is staggering. How on earth could the studio that made such a gorgeous, rich world of lore surrounding the elves in one game end up utterly bastardizing and reducing it to nothing?

How can you look at a place like the Temple of Mythal and go from those gorgeous golden murals and emerald tiled roofs that reached to the heavens to a place like the Lighthouse? From the Emerald Graves to the ruins of Arlathan - devoid of halls that reach to the heavens and golden murals replaced with stained glass? The entirety of the Trespasser DLC had more character and reverence for what the elven empire once was, and DATV feels as though it's approaching it with the perspective of 'generic elven bullshit with triangles everywhere'. All that unique architecture has been obliterated by adding in World of Warcraft focus crystals and automatons.

How can you go from the atmospheric/environmental storytelling of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen to Solas just blurting everything out? No weight, no double truths or hidden meanings - just blurting it out, getting it said and done with no gravitas? That was Solas' entire thing! People have made threads literally dissecting what Solas says and does not say - now he spits lore out as though it were common, everyday knowledge.

How can anyone justify the sudden emergence of magical automatons everywhere in old elven ruins? As if Dragon Age didn't have a host of enemies/creatures available to use in their stead - or the ability to create something unique to the forest of Arlathan. What happened to the spirit guardians? What happened to the lingering echoes of the elves slaughtered by humans in wars ages past like in DAO? Magic was their very existence - spells taking years or centuries to cast, weaving in and about each other - and you're telling me the ancient elves spent their time creating magical transformers?! It feels/looks so utterly seperate from everything we know of the elves from Dragon Age.

Or look at the Crossroads - listen to how Morrigan speaks of it - the reverence for the past, the misty atmosphere, and the heaviness of this pocket of the world that carries the fading memories of a world and people that no longer exists...now it's reduced to a hub world! People are just popping in and out of it at will!

In Trespasser, the few eluvians that we were available to travel to led to the most lonely, desolate spots of Thedas, which ensured their survival over the past millennia. The mirror in the Deep Roads, the mirror in the ancient stronghold in Ferelden...now they're everywhere!The 'few surviving' eluvians are in every major settlement of Thedas and all are in operating order! More than that, everyone who sees an eluvian knows what it is - this ancient marvel of a world long gone has lost all worth and is reduced to a 'world building' justification for fast travel.

Poor Merrill, slaving for a near decade to try and restore a small sliver of her history, only to have all gravitas and wonder of her discovery utterly made void. All that accomplishment wasted, especially when Bellara can wave her magic omni-tool and fix an eluvian in a matter of hours.

If you took every specific Dragon Age terminology out of the Veilguard and replaced it with generic fantasy bullshit you would never be able to tell the difference. The world of DATV is so divorced from its predecessors its astounding.

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Collages reflecting my ideas about fashion in Thedas (part 2).

Thanks for all the feedback you gave me on part 1! It really means a lot to me! The following references were used: Rivain: Pakistan and Indian fashion, Middle Eastern costumes in general Avvar: Scandinavian costumes Chasind: Costumes of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, costumes of Native Americans Par Vollen: South Asian and Greek Fashion

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Collages reflecting my ideas about fashion in Thedas (part 1).

The following references were used:

Ferelden: Fashion of Tudor England

Orlais: French and Venetian fashion

Tevinter: Byzantine and Ottoman costumes

Antiva: Italian Renaissance

Nevarra: Art Nouveau Fashion

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Yes, unfortunately, I agree with every word. "Unfortunately" because the game is really bad. It took me two days to play it to understand that I feel nothing while playing it. That what is happening seems cardboard and unreal. As if it were a play at a children's matinee. Sweet, good-natured… With no negativity. Whatever the player chooses, it will not affect anything globally. Even the character… The player cannot try to make him a different character, except for kind and caring… Simply because there are no such dialogue options. And since there are no dialogue options, the companions also do not show negativity towards Rook. Never. Only positive reactions and approval.

I think my official stance on this game is: it’s bad. Very little to nothing redeemable about it.

I’m someone who notoriously likes “bad” games (fallout 4 is one of my fav games of all time, is it good? No. Do I love it? Yes) and generally have no problem with suspension of disbelief when it comes to video games, but I just can’t do it with veilguard.

The writing sucks, I care very little for the characters, and the constant egregious retcons and destroying of lore throughout are slaps in the face one after another. This was a fumble of astronomical proportions 10 years in the making.

Veilguard is just a several hour long death knell of a beloved world and franchise, and because of that it is just a genuinely unpleasant experience throughout.

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"M̷̦͖̋y̸̞͂͘ eyes... Ḭ̵̽ can't look at the official DaV shader... so Ḭ̵̽ made it 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧🌀"® Before / After

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Hey Bioware, what the heck

VEILGUARD CHARACTER SPOILERS!!! . .

. Does nobody at Bioware know how people age? Never met a woman anyone in their 40's/50's?! I'm seriously baffled. We've got Old Granny Wynne, white-haired and bewrinkled, moaning about her advanced years at the ripe old age of... 49? And it's not just women. Let's not forget the travesty that was Teagan Guerrin during Tresspasser. Now in Veilguard, we've got Dorian "I use at least five products in my nightly regimen" Pavus having aged unusually hard for his age and character type. Plus we have a romanceable companion of an older persuasion. Male, of course. If you can smooch an older companion, he will be, without fail, male. Then there's the flip side. We've also got Morrigan and Isabela, both whom were introduced 20+ game years ago. They are canonically now in the same age range Wynne was in during DAO. And yet, miraculously, they've sported no signs of aging at all since the very moment we laid eyes on them. Nary a wrinkle, gray hair, or bodily 'flaw' in sight. Unlike Wynne, who was not a romance option, Morrigan & Isabela have to still look fuckable, which apparently means they don't get to visibly age. I mean yeah, I think they're sexy. But there's zero need to keep them perma-young. Middle aged women are sexy as fuck too. (See: Vivienne de Fer, also not romanceable.) But we rarely ever get to see an accurately depicted lady in her sexual prime, much less romance her! The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Cassandra, who turns 40 around the time of Tresspasser. And that's frustrating. So, again, Bioware. What the heck?! I know a bunch of you ARE middle-aged, so what gives? Why are 40somethings in your games either perky and nubile OR wizened and crawling inexorably towards the grave? Plz advise.

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i don’t know how yall create feminine human rooks cuz all my attempts look like a parody

jaw is square and masculine af, every completion has this weird blue stubble

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Dental hygiene