#Don't try to shove a character you personally dislike into a contrived storyline that really didn’t serve DA or the people who love it well

[kaija-rayne-author]

Did not think I could possibly dislike Epler and his 'hate/revenge on Solas Fanfic', more, but I actually could.

Read some confirmations of some of the rumors about, yeah, he really does hate Solas, and the entire game was based on that. (Anyone with two braincells can see that.)

But Varric dying, the blood magic fooling of Rook, soooooo much of it was used just so the player would hate Solas. Epler is on record several places actually saying those things. I'm not pulling it out of my ass.

Anything sympathetic is locked behind certain characters and certain interactions. And there isn't that much empathy to start with.

Is it wildly disturbing to anyone else that a supposed professional lets their own viewpoint of a fictional character in a game ruin a whole 250 million dollar project?

Because it's pretty obvious at this point that DAV has tanked soooooo bad. I've said all along that I was shocked that Trick wrote Solas like that. But maybe it's really the best Trick could get past Epler's hatred? IDEFK. I could still be giving Trick more credit than deserved because I actually trusted Trick to write a good story that didn't villanize Solas. It was half the reason I even played DAV. I know Trick can write better than what we got. They've said they love Solas too.

But that is not what we got. We did not get a well-written story where the writer obviously loved the character.

I want to stop thinking about Veilguard. But it was a special interest for years, and the absolute destruction of that makes it almost impossible for me to move on. I keep trying to figure out whyyyyyy? This would be (one of) the negative portions of having an autistic special interest, for anyone following along.

Is Epler the reason they scrapped Joplin? Was it too sympathetic to Solas?

Would it actually have required deeper storytelling that made Solas and the elves' rebellion a sympathetic cause?

Argh.

Bad writing annoys me to start with, but having something I love as much as Dragon Age (and Solas) besmirched this way really pisses me off.

Whoever put Epler into the position where he could have that much control over a game franchise people really loved made a huge mistake.

I was starting to wonder if I was blaming the wrong people, but no. It looks like Epler does actually just hate Solas. Is irritable because people didn't like DAV, and has gotten pissy on main about it. Grow the fuck up.

As a professional creative? You're supposed to make a product most consumers who love the thing will at least find acceptable. Not... this.

We deserved better and so did Dragon Age.

[thattimdrakeguy]

What did DC do this time?

There's just so much stuff mixed together that made DC the opposite of what it was just a few years ago, but in the worst way.

I can't handle this stupid sanitized fan-service obsessive DC style they have now. Just doing things, not because it actually makes sense but because they know it'll give them praise because it's easy to do.

Jason lost what made him unique, and now he's just boring. Tom Taylor is horrible at writing characters, and I don't care how many random sentimental moments he adds in, that doesn't make it a good fucking moment just 'cause it's sentimental or a bit funny, it still has to work within that character and moment. Cass--like--gosh I've only read a story and a half, but what they're doing with her just feels so insulting. That whole Batgirls thing has this style of writing and presentation that feels so forced together and held by duct tape, I can't even describe how. Batgirls feels infantilized for children. I just wanna read Cass doing Cass stuff being Cass. Not being another character forced into a box they don’t fit into.

Like I'm using these vague words "contrived, forced" crap like that, but that's just because I'm not going to go in detail when I know so many people like this junk.

The dudes behind the current Damian comic said he's the one that knows how cool Batman is, that he's the punk-rock Robin, and stuff that doesn't represent who he is at all. They said the series was manga inspired--and within the comic itself they have Damian reading manga--which, it's better than Cheese Viking. But--it's so painfully unsubtle that I had second-hand embarrassment.

They're trying to make all these different things something  because the fans want it, but being in an environment where fans want all these things that are so contradictory to what they’re supposed like to begin with, makes things so dull to me.

These characters don't feel like people anymore. They're not authentic now. They don't feel real. They feel like paper cut outs being used as dolls to tell these stories you wouldn't get with the real deal, but it's just play time now.

That whole Wayne Family Adventures just being fanon in a comic, and having everyone obsess over it made me not even look at anything for weeks. It took proper strength to make me not block everyone that even referenced it. I dislike it so much.

What made the characters interesting is just gone. There's nothing to them. They're bland nothing characters. All redesigned in personality to be a bit more generically pleasant.

I can't handle the sanitized vision of everything. It's so fucking dull. The least sanitized thing is the Damian series, but I’m not reading that after the few things I’ve seen. It just plain looked ridiculous. And that scene where Damian hugs Jason just to distract him felt hideously out of character, not so much for Damian--’cause he’s a sneaky shithead that would totally be a fuckhole like that. But Like, seriously? Is Jason going to fall for that? He’s not a moron.

And do I need another scene that gives every Robin one trait each? Is that supposed to make them seem more interesting, ‘cause all it actually does it make them look weak as personalities--which, hmmm, lately they are. So fitting actually.

Tim’s going to be boring as shit again. So, what, am I supposed to look forward to that? Just let the character be the character and stop fucking forcing him into random shit. Do we really need to be told AGAIN that Damian earned being Robin when he’s been Robin for 12 fucking years? Just let shit set for a bit.

I’m not going to care about Tim again until they just let Tim be Tim and stop messing around with him. That’s what made his coming out storyline work. Sure, you can say they were messing with the character, but unintentionally or not he was so gay coded it worked.

I don’t need another “All right let’s just shove Tim over here again, let’s try this for the third fucking time now.”

Obviously Tim isn’t going to be very interesting for quite a while if they don’t think they can actually do it without making more random changes. I don’t care he’s my favorite DC character, he’s been boring for years. Turning him into a pretentious judgmental ass (no, there’s being a teenage boy, and then being a proper ass, if you can’t tell the difference, I don’t want to bother talking to you, ‘cause you’re not what ever you think you are), a smart ass rebel, Batman Jr, the most mentally damaged Bat-Family member that doesn’t murder, someone that actually blew up a building, a future child-murderer, and--well, Bendis didn’t do much with him which was the problem with him.

If they can’t just give Tim his own life again, and write something engaging with that. I am not interested. If it’s not going to be Tim doing Tim stuff as himself, without having to push him in another random direction for the 10th time it feels like, I am over it before it even begins. It is so tedious watching everyone think Tim needs this or that. As if he wasn’t a genuinely popular character at one point in time. They keep acting like he was never successful, when the only stuff that stopped that was their constant changing of his character to the point he felt so unimportant.

I’m not going to pretend like all of Tim’s stories are the best ‘cause he’s my favorite, ‘cause I’d be lying to myself. Most of his shit straight up sucks. That’s the same for most characters in the DC catalogue. 

It’s all just so freaking dull. I just want the characters to be the characters, and in engaging situations.

This isn’t Fast and the freaking Furious, I have no interest in forcing deeper connections between characters and retconning shit, for stuff to “work”. Just for the sake of “family”. Who needs anything interesting when you got generic tropes you’ve seen a million times?

If you can’t write anything interesting about the characters, without randomly changing shit for no reason, or making them so sanitized, I have no interest in your work on the character. Characters with only two character traits to make everyone different is boring.

Do I like the pleasant young man that teases, or the pleasant young man that teases? Or do I like the character they haven’t gotten right in years ‘cause all they do is regress him, get him wrong, or infantilize him?