#(western eivor that didn't last long)

[syninplays]

Not to brag but I had my sims looking all wild west-inspired before ts4 announced the new pack 🤠😤

[peridot-tears]

Valhalla DLC was set in France? Lmfao, damn. I didn't play past Odyssey, so all I know are genderfluid Eivor, Basim the Iraqi is a Norse god (??????), Kassandra shows up and is very shippable with Eivor, and also Eivor spends most of the game in England but eventually is buried on Haudenosaunee land. Also, helmet-eating pigs.

Yeah, I didn't realize Forsaken was such a controversial book when I read it, but then I actually played ACIII and it clicked. I was watching playthroughs and cutscenes from that game years before I actually played it. The ending monologue that was cut was actually what cemented my love for Connor. I stan that man so hard.

Also, TRUE. Corporate bureaucracy, over-delegating, and also executive decisions -- whether literally everyone else even a chip under them in hierarchy actually agrees or not -- are the unsung villains of wonky creative decisions. But do we know if they are the actual ones who decided Aya shouldn't be the real protagonist?

A lot of the time, I think about how actual inclusive decisions -- like well-written female protagonists, BIPOC characters whose design and storyline are actually decided by people of their respective cultures -- are things that marketing teams, writing teams, etc. actually push for, but someone -- executive teams, or hell, maybe it's the other way around and it's the marketing or creative teams -- decides it's too envelope-pushing or risky or unimportant. Which is how we end up with Ubisoft having a male and female protagonist share the screen (Syndicate, Origins), or having us pick a gender (Odyssey, Valhalla), instead of actually having an unquestionable female protagonist. And the marketing usually emphasizes the male character (side-eyeing Odyssey so hard).

Actually, I agree with you on the lore dumping via text take. It's more economical (although, I do think sometimes the main storyline is too tight; ACIII bothers me the most because they just casually drop a bomb like "oh btw Ratohnhaké:ton is the grandson of the Clan Mother" and you're like, Literally NOTHING in the gameplay shows ANY indication of that). I think Syndicate especially did a good job on that front, because we got to see Shaun and Rebecca banter, and also Shaun be extremely British, in the database notes.

But the thing that bothers me in particular is the Isu info-dumping. Like, ooooof. In ACIII, I just could not take to running around the cave listening to Juno tell the story of how she had to kill Aita. Same with Odyssey, where I ran around the entrance to Atlantis listening to Aletheia talk through each and every pillar. You just...kind of stand there and listen to them drone on and on about Isu history, in the vaguest terms possible. It's not even written, you just sit there listening to someone monologue.

Also, I'm new to video games in general (started playing in college, and so far every game I've actually finished is AC -- listen, listen, one of the only other games I played was Sekiro, and that thing is rage quit fuel ok), but is this much text normal?

Omg I was also hoping Shao Jun would be the Jade protagonist, but all we got was a Qin-era game that looks like a sad attempt at imitating Wo Long Fallen Dynasty lol. Missed opportunity -- Ming Dynasty is such an interesting time period, the last Han-ruled era sandwiched between two long periods of foreign rule. But try telling Ubisoft that, especially the western side.

Omg, idk if you're familiar with Mo Dao Zu Shi (the Chinese sword gays you see all over Tumblr), but there are so many adaptations of the book, and the book is so focused on telling us that everyone is an unreliable narrator, even ME, the NARRATOR, that like. If you don't live off fanon, you don't actually have a lot of material lol.

Also, headcanon accepted. Finally, a way to reconcile Ziio telling him to fuck off because he'd "lied" and her own in-game monologue about fearing his ambition and influence on Ratohnhaké:ton.

(The kiddo grew up just fine, you and the Turtle Clan did such a good job on him 😭😭😭)

"Except ACIII. You get the remaster for free. ONLY the remaster," Ubisoft says.

"But Mr. Ubisoft," we cry, "when will you remaster ACI?"

"Who?"

Irt Shao Jun's Name

Why is it even spelled "Jun"? Even in her first appearance in Assassin's Creed: Embers, Ezio and Sofia pronounce it "Shao Yun."

It's...a mixed bag in Chinese fandom, as far as I've seen. There are no official characters for her name, and without them, we don't know what her name means or even how to correctly pronounce it because there are no tones. Fans usually pick a number of characters to spell out either Shao Jun or Shao Yun, which means her name is usually pronounced differently, with different meanings.

Tbfh, I always favored 绍君 for her name, AKA Shao Jun with "Shao" being a surname to mean "carry on" and "Jun" being a word to describe a gentleman/someone of noble birth and bearing. It bears a lot of power.

In the official AC novels by Yan Leisheng, he uses the 少芸，or Little Yun, which has me taken aback because I've always read Shao Yun as her full name, meaning "Shao" would be a family name, not a prefix. I guess both would work, given that she's a palace concubine. The "yun" he uses means "rue," the flower, which is fitting for a concubine, but doesn't bear the same weight and power as the "jun" I chose for her.

Either way, Ubisoft can't commit to her name. They spell it one way, then pronounce it another. Even the novelization is apparently officially non-canon, meaning once again, the VIBE of this girl is completely up to fanon.