#These are not apology tour spoiler free

[blitzwhore]

Stolas playlist 🎶

It was about time I made a Stolas playlist to go with the Blitzø and Stolitz Angst ones! Hopefully someday we'll have reason for a Stolitz Fluff playlist to exist 🥲

(👆🏼 this one is dedicated to Stella, not Blitz)

I'll add more songs in the reblogs when I gather a few more! Recs are welcome 😊

[mossattack]

babe wake up new merch just dropped

[sorrygotthesesacks]

Just watched Apology Tour and I have some thoughts. Not very well formed as I'm fresh from having watched it, and I will need to rewatch as well, so this is more my initial impression and whether it lived up to what I'd hoped for.

Spoiler: yes and no

But for real, spoilers under the cut.

I'd seen a lot of that in the trailer for the rest of S2, but in context, the whole thing with Blitz saying he didn't want to be this way anymore? Did not see that as being said to Verosika.

It was obvious that she was the dumpee because otherwise why have the party? Stolas was right on the mark with that, telling Blitz right, you're so difficult to love that there's a whole ass party of broken hearted exes and it's held EVERY YEAR.

I was glad to see Blitz's eyes opened. I legit had tears in my eyes when his eyes got all shiny during Stolas' song. I'm glad Stolas finally laid it out for Blitz. I'm glad he used his fucking WORDS and left nothing to the imagination.

I'm glad Blitz slipped up and mentioned the first time Striker tried to kill him. I'm glad Stolas reacted as he did.

The way that Blitz started to reach out to touch Stolas, only to pull his hand back - yeah, I see the similarities with that episode of Ozzie's, even if Stolas' reaction wasn't to deliberately pull away, I think he would have. I am so happy he told Blitz what he wanted, after laying out the big grand rom com moment he wanted.*

Which I mean. That's what he was hoping for in Full Moon. We all know that.

I'm glad he was asked to dance. I'm glad he had someone show interest in him just because they enjoyed Stolas' song, and understood Stolas' heartbreak. I'm glad he got to dance with someone, no strings attached.

I'm glad Blitz was jealous. So so glad.

And Verosika is right, the best thing is to say "good for him; hope he gets laid" because as much as it kills me, Stolas has only been with Stella and Blitz ever in his life. Blitz has been fucking around all over the place while in this Thing with Stolas.

But I also kind of hoped for a grand gesture, even though I knew it would be the wrong thing to do, in the wrong time, where he jumped down there to announce his feelings for Stolas, in front of everyone.

I know it was better that he didn't, because he is too emotionally fragile in this moment, and Stolas deserves his time to see what life is like without Blitz.

*But I do hope Stolas gets his declaration in the rain. It doesn't have to be at the train station, but it has to be in the rain, damn it!

Blitz realizing what he lost is important.

That all said.

I hope when he does come back to Stolas, expressing that he wants there to be a THEM, that Stolas recognizes that maybe he was a little bit hasty in not giving Blitz a chance to talk. Whether at Stolas' place or at Verosika's party or whatever, just that he tells Blitz that he's had time to realize that maybe he was expecting a little too much.

I'm saying this all poorly. I'd love for Stolas to realize / recognize that he was being unrealistic with his expectations - and giving Blitz the perfect opening to give him exactly that.

Maybe a beautiful declaration at the train station, where he says his feelings and whatever, and then some ridiculous thing goes wrong. But he said the words Stolas needed to hear, and while Blitz is fucking pissed it didn't work out, it was perfect to Stolas, because it wasn't about the rain or the train station (again, Stolas still deserves that) - it was about Blitz trying to give Stolas what he wanted.

I would also like to see Stolas enjoying being a bachelor and all - (and of course we know there's still that whole thing with Octavia from the trailer about not loving Stella and loving Blitz instead) - but I do want him to see that the casual sex life is still not what he wants.

Should he date someone else? I think where he is, he shouldn't. Or at least, dating is fine, but not a relationship. He's not in a place where one would work, and I don't want this whole "what doesn't break us makes us stronger" bullshit for them.

Blitz sees that someone else finds Stolas hot, someone else can make Stolas blush.

Once again, Stolas is controlling the narrative and not giving Blitz a real chance to respond in a meaningful way.

Yeah yeah, when Blitz came back to talk to Stolas the next day, but ... it's still ... everything is still very fresh for both of them.

The party was amazing, and I am loving seeing Blitz's emotional journey, even if the ride is bumpy and those bumps hurt like a bitch.

(Side note: yay for the crystal working and for Blitz using it. You know that every time he touches that thing, he can't not think of Stolas. Wants to feel like he earned it... uh huh. I see you, Blitz, and that wounded heart you keep buried in your chest.)

[paleshroom]

Facts and Parallels in the Latest Helluva Shorts: Mission Antarctica *SPOILERS*

From this 4-minute animation, we learn the following:

- Work as usual is happening post-Apology Tour and Blitz is bad at portals. (This makes me so especially fucking giddy because it gives more canon-compliance to that speculative fic I wrote before Apology Tour came out).

- Loona is conspicuously absent, even from the office when they’re going in and out of the portal.

- More evidence of Blitz’s dyslexia, struggling with the order of the alphabet and so on. I love the added detail of Blitz dictating things to Moxxie for him to type out.

- More (?) evidence that Blitz is exceptionally terrible at math and likely has the wombo combo of both dyslexia AND dyscalculia. Yowza.

- [edit: After seeing some discussion, I don’t think he’s necessarily bad at oral overall, but there’s a lot he does with Stolas that he certainly did not do for Ver or anyone else, and again cunnilingus is VERY different from rimming.] Blitz has terrible head game, throwing back to when Verosika accused him of not reciprocating. Or, at least, he’s bad with cunnilingus. We can only assume his rim game is better, given the coughed up feathers (Harvest Moon Festival) and the implication of a request to “[face]plant that feathered ass” (Loo Loo Land).

- Blitz considers himself a top.*

- Moxxie has good head game thanks to Millie and being a good partner.

- Blitz still has the Moxxie and Millie minis from the “let’s three-way” scene right before Stolas calls him in Loo Loo Land.

- Millie echoes Asmodeus’s sentiment that lust is not about “brute force.”

- Blitz panics at the idea of treating the crystal “gently” like a lover. He doesn’t do gentle caresses. That’s gay, and the night before (or a few nights ago?) was gay enough.*

- Penguins have multiple xenophobic slurs.

Feel free to add on here!

*Headcanon below the cut.

*HC: this motherfucker is a service top but there have been hints (ie: the strapon in Full Moon) that he and Stolas have likely switched a few times. I think he glosses over this and doesn’t tell anyone about it because he’s told himself he’s fulfilling Stolas’s fantasy, but really this motherfucker wants to put his trust in someone too. If apologies are “for pussies and no one fucking deserves them anyway” but Stolas is the exception, what does that mean for being vulnerable gentle in sex? Actual intimacy? The kind where that person shares the same desire for connection that you do? It’s fucking TERRIFYING. It’s easy to shift glances, sneakily take a picture when the other person doesn’t know, look at it on your phone and dream a hopeless dream in private, reminding yourself that it’s only a dream, that you won’t have it, don’t deserve to have it, and will only end up hurting yourself and everyone around you if you even dare to chase that dream of loving and being loved by another.

I love him so much he’s such a fucking mess.

[acealistair]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard GameInformer Article Transcribed

I saw some people lamenting that they had no way to read the GameInformer article, and while MVP dalishious posted screenshots of the article here, I figured that might be a little difficult to read, plus people with screen readers can't read it of course. So I've gone ahead and transcribed it! Full thing below the cut!

As a note, I transcribed it without correcting any typos, capitalization errors, etc. that the article itself had (as much as it pained me, omg the author capitalizes so many things that shouldn't be and vice versa). There may be some typos on my part as I did this as quickly as I could, so apologies in advance for any you might encounter.

I have also created a plot-spoiler-free version of the article for those who would like to learn more about the mechanics of the game without learning more plot info than they want!

Throughout my research and preparation for a trip to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office for this cover story, I kept returning to the idea that its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly subtitled Dreadwolf) is releasing at a critical moment for the storied developer. The previous installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC a decade ago. It was the win BioWare needed, following the 2012 release of Mass Effect 3 with its highly controversial and (for many) disappointing ending. Inquisition launched two years later, in 2014, to rave reviews and, eventually, various Gameo the Year awards, almost as if a reminder of what the studio was capable of.

Now, in 2024, coincidentally, the next Dragon Age finds itself in a similar position. BioWare attempted a soft reboot of Mass Effect with Andromeda in 2017, largely seen as a letdown among the community, and saw its first live-service multiplayer attempt in 2019’s Anthem flounder in the tricky waters of the genre; it aimed for a No Man’s Sky-like turnaround with Anthem Next, but that rework was canceled in 2021. Like its predecessor, BioWare’s next Dragon Age installment is not only a new release in a beloved franchise, but is another launch with the pressure of BioWare’s prior misses; a game fans hope will remind them the old BioWare is still alive today.

“Having been in this industry for 25 years, you see hits and misses, and it’s all about building off of those hits and learning from those misses,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay, who’s been with the studio since January 2020, tells me.

As McKay gives me a tour of the office, I can’t help but notice how much Anthem is scattered around it. More than Mass Effect, more than Dragon Age, there’s a lot of Anthem - posters, real-life replicas of its various Javelins, wallpaper, and more. Recent BioWare news stories tell of leads and longtime studio veterans laid off and others departing voluntarily. Veilguard’s development practically began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When I ask McKay about the tumultuousness of BioWare and how he, as the studio manager, makes the team feel safe in the product it’s developing, he says it’s about centering on the creative vision. “[When] we have that relentless pursuit for quality, and we have passion and people in the right roles, a lot of the other stuff you’re talking about just fades into the background.”

That’s a sentiment echoed throughout the team I speak to: Focus on what makes a BioWare game great and let Veilguard speak for itself. Though I had no expectations going in - it’s been 10 years since the last Drag Age, after all, and BioWare has been cagey about showing this game publicly - my expectations have been surpassed. This return to Thedas, the singular continent of the franchise, feels like both a warm welcome for returning fans and an impressive entry point for first-time players.

New Age, New Name

At the start of each interview, I address a dragon-sized elephant in the room with the game’s leads. What was Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Why?

“These games are reflections of the teams that make them, and as part of that, it means we learn a lot about what the heart and soul of the game really is as we’re developing it,” Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me. “We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions. And when we took a step back, as we always do, we always check our decisions and make sure they still represent the game we’re trying to build.”

Dreadwolf no longer did that, but each member of BioWare I speak to tells me The Veilguard does. And while I was initially abrasive to the change - lore aside, Dreadwolf is simply a cool name - I warmed up to The Veilguard.

Solas, a Loki-esque trickster member of the Elven pantheon of gods known as the Dread Wolf, created the Veil long ago while attempting to free the elves from their slave-like status in Thedas. This Veil is a barrier between the magical Fade and Thedas, banishing Elven gods and removing Elven immortality from the world. But players didn’t know that in Inquisition, where he is introduced as a mage ally and companion. However, at the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which sets the stage for Veilguard, we learn in a shocking twist that Solas wants to destroy the Veil and restore Elves to their former glory. However, doing so would bring chaos to Thedas, and those who call it home, the people who eventually become The Veilguard, want to stop him.

“There’s an analogy I like to use, which is, ‘If you want to carve an elephant out of marble, you just take a piece of marble and remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,’” Veilguard creative director John Epler says. “As we were building this game, it became really clear that it was less that we were trying to make The Veilguard and more like The Veilguard was taking shape as we built the game. Solas is still a central figure in it. He’s still a significant character. But really, the focus shifts to the team.

“[We] realized Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual, whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team.”

Creating Your Rook

Veilguard’s character creator is staggeringly rich, with a dizzying number of customizable options. Busche tells me that inclusivity is at the heart of it, noting that she believes everyone can create someone who represents them on-screen.

There are four races to choose from when customizing Rook, the new playable lead - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves - and hundreds of options to customize your character beyond that. You can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is, and so much more. There must be hundreds of sliders to customize these body proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin, and just about anything else you might adjust on a character. Oh, and there’s nudity in Veilguard, too, which I learn firsthand while customizing my Rook.

“The technology has finally caught up to our ambition,” Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes tells me as we decide on my warrior-class Qunari’s backstory, which affects faction allegiance, in-game dialogue, and reputation standing - we choose the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune.

Notably, instead of a warrior class, we could have chosen mage or rogue. All three classes have unique specializations, bespoke skill trees, and special armors, too. And though our Rook is aligned with the Lords of Fortune faction, there are others to choose from including the Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, The Mourn Watch, and more. There is some flexibility in playstyle thanks to specializations, but your class largely determines the kind of actions you can perform in combat.

“Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin,” BioWare core lead and Mass effect executive producer Michael Gamble tells me in contrast to Inquisition’s destiny-has-chosen-you-characterization.

“Rook is here because they choose to be, and that speaks to the kind of character that we’ve built.” Busche adds, “Someone needs to stop this, and Rook says, ‘I guess that’s me.’”

Beyond the on-paper greatness of this character creator, its customizability speaks to something repeated throughout my BioWare visit: Veilguard is a single-player, story-driven RPG. Or in other words, the type of game that made BioWare as storied as it is. McKay tells me the team explored a multiplayer concept early in development before scratching it to get back to BioWare basics. The final game will feature zero multiplayer and no microtransactions.

Happy to hear that, I pick our first and last name, then one of four voices, with a pitch shifter for each, too, and we’re off to Minrathous.

Exploring Tevinter For The First Time

Throughout the Dragon Age series, parts of Thedas are discussed by characters and referenced by lore material but left to the imagination of players as they can’t visit them. Veilguard immediately eschews this, setting its opening prologue mission in Minrathous, the capital of the  Tevinter Empire. Frankly, I’m blown away by how good it looks. It’s my first time seeing Veilguard in action and my first look at a Dragon Age game in nearly a decade. Time has treated this series well, and so has technology.

Epler, who’s coming up on 17 years at BioWare, acknowledges that the franchise has always been at the will of its engine. Dragon Age: Origins and II’s Eclipse Engine worked well for the time, but today, they show their age. Inquisition was BioWare’s first go at Ea’s proprietary Frostbite engine - mind you, an engine designed for first-person shooters and decidedly not multi-character RPGs - and the team struggled there, too. Epler and Busche agree Veilguard is the first RPG where BioWare feels fully in command of Frostbite and, more generally, its vision for this world.

We begin inside a bar. Rook and Varric are looking for Neve Gallus, a detective mage somewhere in Minrathous. The first thing players will do once Veilguard begins is select a dialogue option, something the team says speaks to their vision of a story-forward, choice-driven adventure. After a quick bar brawl cutscene that demonstrates Rook’s capabilities, there’s another dialogue choice, and different symbols here indicate the type of tone you can roll with. There’s a friendly, snarky, and rough-and-tough direct choice, and I later learn of a more romantically inclined “emotional” response. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you’re welcome to ignore this option. However, your companions can romance each other, so giving someone the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm embrace of another. We learn Neve is in Dumat Plaza and head into the heart of Minrathous.

Rhodes explains BioWare’s philosophy for designing this city harkens back to a quick dialogue from Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. Upon entering Halamshiral’s Winter Palace, the largest venue in Dragon Age history at that point, Dorian notes that it’s cute, adorable even, alluding to his Tevinter heritage. If Dorian thinks the largest venue in Dragon Age history is cute and adorable, what must the place he’s from be like? “It’s like this,” Rhodes says as we enter Minrathous proper in-game.

Minrathous is huge, painted in magical insignia that looks like cyberpunk-inspired neon city signs and brimming with detail. Knowing it’s a city run by mages and built entirely upon magic, Rhodes says the team let its imagination run wild. The result is the most stunning and unique city in the series. Down a wide, winding pathway, there’s a pub with a dozen NPCs - Busche says BioWare used Veilguard’s character creator to make each in-world NPC except for specific characters like recruitable companions - and a smart use of verticality, scaling, and wayfinding to push us toward the main attraction: Solas, attempting to tear down the Veil.

All hell is breaking loose. Pride Demons are rampaging through the city. Considering Pride Demons were bosses in prior games, seeing them roaming freely in the prologue of Veilguard speaks to the stakes of this opener. Something I appreciate throughout our short journey through Minrathous to its center below is the cinematography at play. As a Qunari, my character stands tall, and Rhodes says the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters loom over those below. On the flip side, the camera adjusts for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature compared to those around them.

This, coupled with movie-liked movement through the city as BioWare showcases the chaos happening at the hands of Solas’ Veil-break ritual, creates a cinematic start that excited me, and I’m not even hands-on with the game.

Eventually, we reach Neve, who has angered some murderous blood mages, and rescue her from danger. Or rather, help… barely. Neve is quite capable, and her well-acted dialogue highlights that. Together, Varric, returning character Lace Harding, who is helping us stop Solas and is now a companion, Rook, and Neve defeat some demons. They then take on some Venatori Cultists seizing this chaotic opportunity to take over the city and other enemies before making it to Solas’ hideout. As we traverse deeper and deeper into this hideout, more of Solas’ murals appear on the walls, and things get more Elven. Rhodes says this is because you’re symbolically going back in time, as Minrathous is a city built by mages on the bones of what was originally the home of Elves.

At the heart of his hideout, we discover Solas’ personal Eluvian. This magical mirror-like structure allows the gang to teleport (and mechanically fast-travel) to Arlathan Forest, where Solas is secretly performing the ritual (while its effects pour out into Minrathous).

Here, we encounter a dozen or so demons, which BioWare has fully redesigned on the original premise of these monstrous creatures. Rhodes says they’re creatures of feeling and live and die off the emotions around them. As such, they are just a floating nervous system, push into this world from the Fade, rapidly assembled into bodies out of whatever scraps they find.

I won’t spoil the sequence of events here, but we stop Solas’ ritual and seemingly save the world… for now. Rook passes out moments later and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to the voice of none  other than Solas. He explains a few drops of Rook’s blood interacted with the ritual, connecting them to the Fade forever. He also says he was attempting to move the Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, part of the Evanuris or Elven gods of ancient times, to a new prison because the one he had previously constructed was failing. Unfortunately, Solas is trapped in the Fade by our doing, and these gods are now free. It’s up to Rook to stop them; thus, the stage for our adventure is set.

The Veilguard Who’s Who

While we learned a lot about returning character but first-time companion Lace Harding, ice mage private detective Neve Gallus, and veil jumper Bellara Lutara, BioWare shared some additional details about other companions Rook will meet later in the game. Davrin is a charming Grey Warden who is also an excellent monster hunter; Emmrich is a member of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch and a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred; Lucanis is a pragmatic assassin whose bloodline descends from the criminal House of Crows organization; And Taash is a dragon hunter allied with the piratic Lords of Fortune. All seven of these characters adorn this Game Informer issue, with Bellara up front and center in the spotlight.

The Lighthouse

After their encounter with Solas, Rook wakes up with Harding and Neve in the lair of the Dread Wolf himself, a special magical realm in the Fade called the Lighthouse. It’s a towering structure centered amongst various floating islands. Epler says, much like Skyhold in Inquisition, the Lighthouse is where your team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign. It also becomes more functional and homier as you do. Already, though, it’s a beautifully distraught headquarters for the Veilguard, although they aren’t quite referring to themselves as that just yet.

Because it was Solas’ home base of operations, it’s gaudy, with his fresco murals adorning various walls, greenery hanging from above, and hues of purple and touches of gold everywhere. Since it’s in the Fade, a realm of dreams that responds to your world state and emotion, the Lighthouse reflects the chaos and disrepair of the Thedas you were in moments ago. I see a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance, which signals an optional dialogue option. We head there, talk to Neve, select a response to try our hand at flirting, and then head to the dining hall.

A plate, a fork and knife, and a drinking chalice are at the end of a massive table. Rhodes says this is both a funny (and sad) look at Solas’ isolated existence and an example of the detail BioWare’s art team has put into Veilguard. “It’s a case of letting you see the story,” he says. “It’s like when you go to a friend's house and see their bedroom for the first time; you get to learn more about them.” From the dining hall, we gather the not-quite-Veilguard in the library, which Busche says in the central area of the Lighthouse and where your party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next. The team decides it must reach the ritual site back in Arlathan Forest, and Busche says I’m missing unique dialogue options here because I’m Qunari; an Elf would have more to say about the Fade due to their connection to it. The same goes for my backstory earlier in Minrathous. If I had picked the Shadow Dragons background, Neve would have recognized me immediately, with unique dialogue.

With our next move decided, we head to Solas’ Eluvian to return to Arlathan Forest and the ritual site. However, it’s not fully functional without Solas, and while it returns us to Arlathan Forest, it’s not exactly where we want to go. A few moments later, we’re back in the Arlathan Forest, and just before a demon-infested suit of mechanized armor known as a Sentinel can attack, two new NPCs appear to save us: Strife and Irelin. Harding recognizes them, something Dragon Age comic readers might know about. They’re experts in ancient elven magic and part of the new Veil Jumpers faction. The ensuing cutscene, where we learn Strife and Irelin need help finding someone named Bellara Lutara, is long, with multiple dialogue options. That’s something I’m noticing with Veilguard, too - there’s a heavy emphasis on storytelling and dialogue, and it feels deep and meaty, like a good fantasy novel. BioWare doesn’t shy away from minutes-long cutscenes.

Busche says that’s intentional, too. “For Rook, [this story’s about] what does it meant to be a leader,” she says. “You’re defining their leadership style with your choices.” Knowing that Rook is the leader of the Veilguard, I’m excited to see how far this goes. From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out. That’s demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion’s character screen.

Redefining Combat Once More

Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prolgoue’s events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and after loading up a new save, we’re in control of a human mage.

Following the trend of prior Dragon Age games, Veilguard has completed the series’ shift from tactical strategy to real-time action, but fret not: a tactical pause-and-play mechanic returns to satiate fans who remember the series’ origins (pun intended). Though I got a taste of combat in the prologue, Veilguard’s drastic departure from all that came before it is even more apparent here.

Busche says player complete every swing in real-time, with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling. There's a dash, a parry, the ability to charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows you to use potions at your discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even “bookmark” combos with a quick dash, which means you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward. It looks even cooler than it sounds.

Like any good action game, there is a handful of abilities to customize your kit. And, if you want to maintain that real-time action feel, you can use them on the fly, so long as you take cooldowns into effect. But Veilguard’s pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition’s without the floating camera view, lets you bring things to halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy.

In this screen, which essentially pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies. Do what you need to here, let go of the combat wheel, and watch your selections play out. Busche says she uses the combat wheel to dole out her companions’ attacks and abilities while sticking to the real-time action for her player-controlled Rook. On the other hand, Epler says he almost exclusively uses the combat wheel to dish out every ability and combo.

Busche says each character will play the same, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with hte same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select. But a sword-and-shield warrior, like we used in the prolgoue, can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas our human mage uses that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks. The warrior can parry incoming attacks, which can stagger enemies. The rogue gets a larger parry window. Our mage, however, can’t parry at all. Instead, they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically so long as you have the mana to sustain it.

“What I see from Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who left BioWare in 2021 before joining the Veilguard team last year as a consultant, tells me. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in the party.”

“This is really the best Dragon Age game that I’ve ever played,” he adds, noting his bias. “This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren’t making compromises.”

Watching Busche take down sentinels and legions of darkspawn on-screen, I can already sense Veilguard’s combat will likely end up my favorite in the series, although admittedly, as a fan of action games, I’m an easy sell here. It’s flashy, quick, and thanks to different types of health bars, like a greenish-blue one that represents barrier and is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks, a decent amount of strategy, even if you don’t use the pause-and-play combo wheel. Like the rest of the game, too, it’s gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack our mage unleashes. Though I’m seeing the game run on a powerful PC, which is sure to be the best showcase of Veilguard, Epler tells me the game looks amazing on consoles - he’s been playing it on PlayStation 5 and enjoying it in both its fidelity and performance modes, but I’ll have to take his word for it.

Pressing Start

The start or pause screen is as important to a good RPG as the game outside the menus. Veilguard’s contains your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear here for Rook and your companions, build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat, and customize you and your party’s abilities and builds via an easy-to-understand skill tree. You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. That means a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25 percent against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like a Wall of Fire to your arsenal (if you’re a mage). As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100 percent bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization, of which there are three for each class, complete with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy here is “about changing the way you play, not statistical minutiae.”

Companion Customization

You can advance your bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and by including them in your party for main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. Busche says the choices you make, what you say to companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members. And with seven companions, there’s plenty to customize, from bespoke gear to abilities and more. Though each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take three into combat, so it’s important to strategize different combos and synergies within your party. Rhodes says beyond  this kind of customizable characterization, each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete. “Bellara has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you’re on,” Rhodes says.

In Entropy’s Grasp

As we progress through the forest and the current “In Entropy’s Grasp” mission, we finally find Bellara. She’s a veil jumper, the first companion you meet and recruit in-game (unlike Neve, who automatically joins), and the centerpiece of this issue’s cover image. Because our mage’s background is Veil Jumper, we get some unique dialogue. Bellara explains we’re all trapped in a Veil Bubble, and there’s no way out once you pass through it. Despite the dire situation, Bellara is bubbly, witty, and charming.

“When designing companions, they’re the load-bearing pillars for everything,” Rhodes says. “They’re the face of their faction, and in this case [with Bellara], their entire area of the world. She’s your window into Arlathan Forest.” Rhodes describes her as a sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts. As such ,she’s dressed more like an academic than a combat expert, although her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies.

Unlike Neve, who uses ice magic like our Rook and can slow down time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you, something Busche says Dragon Age fans have been desperate to have in a game. Busche says if you don’t direct Neve and Bellara, they’re fully independent and will attack on their own. But synergizing your team will add to the fun and strategy of combat. Bellara’s electric magic is effective against Sentinels, which is great because we currently only have access to ice. However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels.

As we progress through Arlathan Forest, we encounter more and more darkspawn. Bellara mentions the darkspawn have never been this far before because the underground Deep Roads, where they usually escape from, aren’t nearby. However, with blighted Elven gods roaming the world, and thanks to Blight’s radiation-like spread, it’s a much bigger threat in Veilguard than in any Dragon Age before it.

I continue to soak in the visuals of Veilguard with Arlathan Forest’s elven ruins, dense greenery, and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules; it’s perhaps the most impressive aspect of my time seeing the game, although everything else is making a strong impression, too. I am frustrated about having to watch the game rather than play it, to be honest. I’m in love with the art style, which is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable, a welcome reprieve from the recent gritty Game of Thrones trend in fantasy games. Rhodes says that’s the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic.

“The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on,” he says. “It’s something we’ve been planning for a while because Solas has been planning all this for a while. In the past, you could hint at cooler magical things in the corner because you couldn’t actually go there, but now we actually can, and it’s fun to showcase that.”

Busche, Epler, and Rhodes warn me that Arlathan Forest’s whimsy will starkly contrast to other areas. They promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Busche likens it to a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. For now, the spunky and effervescent Bellara is that thread.

As we progress deeper into the forest, Bellara spots a floating fortress and thinks the artifact needed to destroy the Veil Bubble is in there. To reach it, though, wem ust remove the floating rock rings, and Bellara’s unique ability, Tinker, can do just that by interacting with a piece of ancient elven technology nearby. Busche says Rook can acquire abilities like Tinker later to complete such tasks in instances where Bellara, for example, isn’t in the party.

Bellara must activate three of these in Arlathan Forest to reach the floating castle, and each one we activate brings forth a slew of sentinels, demons, and darkspawn to defeat. Busche does so with ease, showcasing high-level gameplay by adding three stacks of arcane build-up to create an Arcane Bomb on an enemy, which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack. Now, she begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to the staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack.

After a few more combat encounters, including one against a sentinel that’s “Frenzied,” which means it hits harder, moves faster, and has more health, we finally reach the center of the temple. Within is a particular artifact known as the Nadas Dirthalen, which Bellara says means “the inevitability of knowledge.” Before we can advance with it, a darkspawn Ogre boss attacks. It hits hard, has plenty of unblockable, red-coded attacks, and a massive shield we must take down first. However, it’s weak to fire, and our new fire staff is perfect for the situation.

After taking down this boss in a climactic arena fight, Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from a pedestal, destroying the Veil Bubble. Then, the Nadas Dirthalen comes alive as an Archive Spirit, but because the crystal used to power it breaks, we learn little about this spirit before it disappears. Fortunately, Bellara thinks she can fix it - fixing broken stuff is kind of her thing, Epler says - so the group heads back to the Veil Jumper camp and, as interested as I am in learning what happens next, the demo ends. It’s clear that even after a few hours with the game’s opening, I’ve seen a nigh negligible amount of game; frustrating but equally as exciting.

Don’t Call It An Open World

Veilguard is not an open world, even if some of its explorable areas might fee like one. Gamble describes Veilguard’s Thedas as a hub-and-spoke design where “the needs of the story are served by the level design.” A version of Inquisition’s Crossroads, a network of teleporting Eluvians, returns, and it’s how players will traverse across northern Thedas. Instead of a connected open world, players will travel from Eluvian to Eluvian to different stretches of this part of the continent. This allows BioWare to go from places like Minrathous to tropical beaches to Arlathan Forest to grim and gothic areas and elsewhere. Some of these areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. Arlathan Forest is an example of this, but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things. There’s a minimap in each location, though linear levels like “In Entropy’s Grasp” won’t have the fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of Veilguard’s bigger locations. Regardless, BioWare says Veilguard has the largest number of diverse biomes in series history.

Dragon’s Delight

With a 10-hour day at BioWare behind me after hours of demo gameplay and interviews with the leads, I’m acutely aware of my favorite part of video games: the surprises. I dabbled with Origins and II and put nearly 50 hours into Inquisition, but any familiarity with the series the latter gave me had long since subsided over the past decade. I wanted to be excited about the next Dragon Age as I viewed each teaser and trailer, but other than seeing the words “Dragon Age,” I felt little. Without gameplay, without a proper look at the actual game we’ll all be playing this fall, I struggled to remember why Inquisition sucked me in 10 years ago.

This trip reminded me.

Dragon Age, much like the Thedas of Veilguard, lives in the uncertainty: The turbulence of BioWare’s recent release history and the lessons learned from it, the drastic changes to each Dragon Age’s combat, the mystery of its narrative, and the implications of its lore. It’s all a part of the wider Dragon Age story and why this studio keeps returning to this world. It’s been a fertile franchise for experimentation. While Veilguard is attempting to branch out in unique ways, it feels less like new soil and more like the harvest BioWare has been trying to cultivate since 2009, and I’m surprised by that.

I’m additionally surprised, in retrospect, how numb I’ve been to the game before this. I’m surprised by BioWare’s command over EA’s notoriously difficult Frostbite engine to create its prettiest game yet. I’m surprised by this series’ 15-year transition from tactical strategy to action-forward combat. I’m surprised by how much narrative thought the team has poured into these characters, even for BioWare. Perhaps having no expectations will do that to you. But most of all, with proper acknowledgement that I reserve additional judgment until I actually play the game, I’m surprised that Veilguard might just be the RPG I’m looking forward to most this year.

[drama-glob]

SPOILERS FOR "THE FULL MOON!!!!"

Well, the thing we all knew was going to happen happened. ;_; ;_; ;_;

I had a feeling the episode would start with the duet we were shown earlier this month and it's so funny as well as entertaining, but the heartfelt longing we get from Stolas definitely encapsulates what we were waiting for. ;_;

I had a suspicion too that this would be when we saw the cherubs and DHORK agents team up, so I'm glad to see that weird combo (which will likely happen again ;) ). My, how the cherubs have fallen into sin with Collin being the only one to still have a conscience and not be consumed with vengeance. :/ Poor Collin. It'll be interesting to see what could happen if the DHORK agents actually get the portal to fully work because they sure have a lot of weapons and manpower now; maybe we'll see them again in "Mastermind" since we didn't see Blitz meet the DHORK agents again like we saw in the trailer. :/

I do appreciate that the cherubs wind up in Lust because if there was any ring that was going to expose them to so much that they consider vile and sinful (beside Pride ;) ), it was going to be Lust. ;) XD I laughed so hard at them thinking all the sex stuff was for torturing humans. XD XD XD The thing that definitely made me so happy though was we got to see Fizz and Blitz hanging out as friends again, with them even fist-bumping (that was sooo cute) and Fizz helping Blitz find some new toys for him and Stolas. ^_^<3<3<3

It doesn't surprise me that the cherubs were dumb enough to wait to attack Blitz instead of just doing it when they had the chance; plus, they were indeed not very covert as Moxxie pointed out. ;) I thought the fight was cool and showed that even with high-tech weapons, IMP are indeed the professionals. ;) Hopefully the cherubs don't help DHORK get actual angelic materials since before they were banished from Heaven they could summon their crossbows, but who knows if they still can. :/ I do find it funny that Agent One likes to wear a Loona furry suit, but hey, if it makes him happy. :)

That ending though was so tense and angst-filled as we hear Blitz spiral and beg to keep the book, only to then be confused as to why Stolas is giving him an Asmodean crystal, and the whole time you can see the tinge of sadness in Stolas even when he's smiling because he knows there's a chance he'll be rejected, but he just wants Blitz to be free. ;_; ;_; ;_; My heart broke at Blitz dismissing Stolas's feelings for him as some kind of role-play because although Blitz's belief that no one could possibly love him is why he can be so dismissive, it's just so sad to know Stolas has been giving Blitz signs that he cares about him but that it seems like they've been ignored/don't matter. My heart then broken again into tiny splinters at Stolas crying over Blitz's harsh words towards him because damn that was brutal to hear Blitz say such things that he can't take back and ones that felt cruel. ;_; ;_; ;_; It ending with Blitz trying to apologize only to be teleported out of the palace so as to show Stolas removing him from his life/he doesn't want to talk with Blitz right now is certainly a way to leave a cliffhanger, and now we're left waiting to see how they do broken up. ;_; ;_; ;_;

Here's hoping Blitz and Stolas make some progress in "Apology Tour."

[worldsbiggestnerd101]

intro post!!

hi there! my name’s emmy, welcome to my blog! i’ve been here for a good while now but since i’ve started to gain more attention, i figured it was time to make an intro post!

basic info:

name(s): em/emmy/emeline, angie/angel (no preference)

age: minor (NO NSFW BULLSHIT PLEASE)

birthday: january 4 :D

orientation/sexuality: bisexual (femme/wlw leaning)

gender: cis girl

pronouns: she/her (they/them is ok but not preferred)

nationality: born and raised in the US of A (new york babyyyyyyy), but my parents are guyanese, so i’d say guyanese american

race: mixed, my mom has light skin (she gets mistaken as hispanic a lot) and my dad has medium brown skin so i’m somewhere in the middle (i too get mistaken for hispanic a lot)

other info: i’m neurodivergent, possibly autism or adhd (or both) but i was a “gifted” kid if that counts for anything, oh and i have anxiety

fandoms:

this a multifandom blog, so while i do have my phases/eras/hyperfixations, i will be posting about multiple fandoms at once, even if one’s taking up more posts than the others combined.

here are some of my mains!

roblox piggy

murder drones

hazbin hotel + helluva boss

gravity falls

ride the cyclone

welcome home

it’s easiest to tell what my current main hyperfixation is by just looking at my pfp/blog theme, as i’ll usually set it to something related to my current biggest hyperfix. i’ll update this list as needed, but i’m also active in the percy jackson, american girl, and stranger things fandoms. i’m also into a lot of cartoons, like she-ra and the princesses of power, steven universe, the owl house, carmen sandiego, mlp gen 4, etc. so feel free to ask about those! i’m also a major theater kid, some of my favorite shows are hamilton, dear evan hansen, wicked, mean girls, beetlejuice, and six, so you can ask about any of those too! (i’ve only seen wicked and hamilton 😭)

links

ok so all my links to other posts or blogs or accounts or anything really are here!!

youtube: here!!

hazbin hotel high school au masterpost: here!!

discord server bullshittery masterpost: here >:3

tags

#em rambles - original post tag

#asks - any and all asks i get!!

#mutuals - any asks from/posts about my mutuals will be tagged with this, and it's like a guarantee that you'll get your own name tag too!!

#anon - if you send me an anon ask, just look here to find it :D

#emmy’s edits - all my original edits!! they’re up on my youtube too but you can find them here under that tag

#hazbin high school au - my own au!! i made this by myself with a few ideas from friends but this is like my own creation that i'm working on!!

EDIT: AS OF 07/06/2024, ANYTHING RELATING TO HELLUVA BOSS S2E9 APOLOGY TOUR WILL NOT BE TAGGED AS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE I ADVISE AGAINST SCROLLING.

edit: as of 07/16/2024 i have a girlfriend!! her name is hannie, aka the wonderful amazing absolutely adorable @furryrainbowscreature i love her so much <333

dni:

homophobes, transphobes

supporters of israel

queer exclusionists (anti "conflicting" labels, terfs, etc)

racists

blogs with heavy amounts of nsfw content (i’m a teenager so. please.)

sexists/misogynists

pedos/“maps”

so yeah i think that’s about it!! thanks for reading y'all <3

also: FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

[hannamoon143]

California Dreamin'- The beach boys

Seo Changbin with California Dreamin from the Beach boys for the fall series

Genre: Angst, hurt/no comfort

Warnings: none really, reader is just a shitty person

Wordcount: 808w

a/n: this req, by @lina-linny as it seems we are getting lot more angst than fluff in the fall series lol. I'm working on it alrrr. I have some fluff in mind too, (hehe spoiler its with lix) So now as always, take ur blanket, a hot cocoa (or a coffee, man i'm craving coffee rn (no i didn't drink two cups just an hour ago)) And have a cozy falll <333

Chills went through Changbins body as he walked on the little side path, the wind seeping into his bones. When he was looking around he saw all the trees, leaves being brown, seemingly lifeless. Just like he felt. And the weather wasn’t the best for a walk either. The sky was grey. Heavy, dark clouds hovering above changbins head. With some luck he could make it home before it would start to rain. He wrapped his jacket around himself a bit tighter, watching his breath come out in little white clouds.

People were passing by, leaves were falling down, and everyone seemed to be distracted from the coldness. But changbin could never ignore it. The heavy, cold air, and his frozen hands were only a sharp reminder to you, and California. Yes, while he was here, freezing in the streets of seoul, you were in the oh so beautiful california.  When he only was thinking of the sunshine and the warm breeze there it was shaking him already. But not only the warmth of sunshine was missing for him. It was your warm hand in his. Your sunny, comforting presence next to him, that made every single day seem less cold. But what could he do? He couldn’t just fly over to california, all his responsibilites were laying on him heavily, and with the comeback album and the upcoming tour he could never leave the boys alone. And even if he’d come, would it change something between you?

But he also couldn’t convince you to come back. Not right now. You hated the cold. And probably him too right now. He didn’t even want to think of your last words before you flew off to your beloved hometown L.A.. It didn’t matter now anyway. What mattered was that you left him, here alone on seouls street in the sharp cold. Without you there to warm him, and giggle about how he would blow warm air into his hands he slowly began to despise the cold just as much as you did.

But all he could do about it was to wait. To wait and hope you would come back. Maybe in spring, when it was getting warmer again. Maybe in summer, or maybe just anytime soon. He never entirely understood why you left. When you announced you would, he was apologizing a thousand times, not even knowing what for. He was making even more time for you, if that was somehow possible, since all his free time was already yours. Could he have done more? He didn’t know. And maybe he never would. All you said was that you „needed space“, right after you complained to him about how he was not giving you enough attention. After that, he knew that all that were just excuses for you to leave, altough never entirely admitting it to himself. He didn’t know if space was for you to stay away for a few days or weeks, or just your way of breaking up with him.

The cold was getting suffocating, and it felt as if it only added to his heavy, anxious thoughts. There was a little church by the sidewalk. He didn’t think much into it and just went in, hoping the cold would be less intese in there.

He got down to his knees pretending to pray. It just didn’t feel right to use the church only to clear his thoughts or make the cold go away. Especially when a preacher was standing in the front oft he church, a few people listening.

But now, without the walking it only got colder. Until now, Changbin still tried to talk your actions and words good, to somehow romanticize everything, but now, as the  cold seeped not only into his bones, also into his mind, he started to see clear. Your words were an excuse to leave. And nothing more. An excuse to maybe come back, or maybe not. It was all in your own hands, and options were open for you, since you could do your job from everywhere too, and your family would surely like if you’d stay in california. But deep inside he probably knew you weren’t gonna come back. And somewhere in him, he promised himself to let you go, to not wait for you forever, with no idea if you’d come back or not.

But in this moment, he could feel the cold stone under his knees, hear the wind howl around the walls of the little church, and smell the cold autumn. In this moment, all he could do was dream of california, of you. If he was there with you right now, he would be way warmer for sure. But this wasn’t going to happen. And sooner or later he had to accept that. He had to stop with the california dreamin someday…

[minnaci]

okay. whipped out my laptop again for apology tour. same disclaimers apply: i'm not a hellaverse blog (or, if i am, i'm very much in denial about it), i enjoy the show and the characters, and my opinions are informed by my personal lived experiences. apology tour spoilers ahead.

i've done a lot of scrolling through comments and posts since watching apology tour and, while many good points were made, i'm not sure that any of them sufficiently sum up how conflicted i feel about this episode. i'll try to hopefully stumble my way into a coherent analysis.

full warning, it will be blitz-centric, but there is enough nuance in my heart to be sympathetic to stolas, too. both of them fucked up! i just happen to identify more strongly with blitz.

tldr: the showrunners said it best. stolas is not quite as self-aware as he should be, and blitz... is blitz. cw for spoilers and discussions of american racism (particularly antiblackness) and classism.

this crux of the issue in apology tour continues to be miscommunication, which is heavily influenced by 1. both blitz's and stolas's pasts and 2. the sociopolitical context in which they operate.

1 . STOLAS

stolas was a victim of emotional neglect in his childhood, and then a victim of his emotionally abusive wife in his adulthood. he, as he so aptly implies in apology tour, has never truly felt wanted beyond what he could provide to his family. one of the only times we have ever seen stolas happy was at the circus as a child, where he developed a fleeting, parasocial admiration for blitz.

in this way, stolas is painfully, achingly relatable. while he grew up in a disgusting amount of material wealth, he has been deprived of the one thing you cannot buy with money: unconditional love. he yearns for the type of romance he reads about, the type of passionate desire that he watches in his telenovelas, and when blitz comes along— the one, shining memory in stolas's otherwise dull childhood— stolas falls into the fantasy.

and that's exactly what it is. in the beginning, stolas doesn't really want blitz. he wants what blitz represents— a charming, seductive figure to ravish him, to hold him close, to show him that he is desirable and make him feel wanted. it's a fantasy at the price of the key to stolas's job— a fantasy that is, from an outsider's perspective, easily explained by racial fetishization. more on this later.

to stolas, it's a small price to pay. the grimoire, a token piece of power to the goetias, in exchange for the one thing that stolas has always wanted? sign stolas up! stolas has never had to worry about his livelihood, nor his safety— not in any way that matters. not in any way that blitz would have had to.

stolas is ignorant. he is naive and unaware of how the world works. this remains true when he falls for blitz, when he plans to "set them free" (a la "when i see him"), even after he confesses and his fairy-tale fantasies come crashing down around him. he is not in a place where he can comprehend the effects of class on his relationships because it is not something he has ever had to consider before.

all that said, none of that invalidates the way that stolas feels when blitz explodes at him in full moon. stolas setting his boundaries at the beginning of apology tour ("i feel uncomfortable when you talk to me that way") is valid. it's actually an example of communication gone right in this episode, in that stolas explicitly communicates how blitz's actions make him feel.

his resultant upset when blitz keeps pushing him and antagonizing him is similarly valid. his decision to go to verosika's party is valid. my main point here is: while i don't particularly enjoy stolas's actions in full moon or even in apology tour, i can empathize with wanting to be wanted by someone so badly that it basically ruins your life.

again, stolas is ignorant. he lacks self awareness. he is emotionally immature and lacks empathy. but the message here isn't "rich people can't feel heartbreak", at least for me. the message is "even though he is hurt, stolas needs to understand that his actions have consequences, and that blitz experiences relationships (and the world) in a fundamentally different way than stolas as a product of the differences in socioeconomic contexts in which they were raised."

2. BLITZ

oh, blitz. where to start? this is where i admit that there are a lot of similarities between the way blitz and i grew up, and a lot of similarities in the ways that we view relationships now (read: i may project a bit. apologies in advance).

from when he was young, blitz has learned that the only successful type of love is love that is transactional. he loved his mother, and she died in a fire he started. he loved fizz and barbie, and he ruined their lives. the only "successful" love he has experienced is love where he provides something (read: gets "used") and receives something in return. so, unless he can provide something of value to his partner, blitz prefers to keep it casual. in blitz's mind, people don't care about blitz, and people shouldn't care about blitz. loving blitz has always been a recipe for disaster, because in his perspective, if he can't provide something to his lover that offsets the destruction that he causes, then he's not worth it.

it's normal for blitz to feel used. it's normal for blitz to feel less-than, or unwanted, or unloved, and it hurts blitz less to believe that. sex is fun. he can "do sex", and he can do sex good, and maybe to him, that's all that he can do good. he certainly can't hold down a relationship. his employees only care about him because he provides a stable source of income. his daughter only cares about him because he gives her shelter. it's normal. blitz feeling hated is normal, and the normalcy brings him so much comfort that he purposefully pushes people away to maintain that awful, vicious cycle of a status quo. it's a self-fulfulling prophecy.

blitz's approach to stolas in the beginning of apology tour is his desperate bid to return to normal. stolas being so short and angry with him is almost comforting— blitz knows how anger feels. he knows how hate feels. stolas is just another person who finally, finally realized what blitz knew all along— love is something that isn't possible for blitz, because he always fucks it up (at least in his perspective). and if stolas lets blitz fuck him, lets blitz provide this service to him, then maybe, blitz can "earn his way to earth" (read: "earn" stolas's affection back). affection, to blitz, is something for him to work tirelessly and endlessly to receive— a sisyphean affair. he is not ever intended to actually receive it.

stolas doesn't recognize this. stolas doesn't even try. but in stolas's defense, blitz doesn't exactly make it easy. i may empathize with blitz, but i think i would also be a little less prone to empathy if the object of my affections mocked my feelings by brushing them off in favor of sex and then screaming "GAY" in my face when i refused.

the rest of blitz's apology tour is borne out of pettiness towards stolas, because in his eyes, stolas is the one who wronged him. stolas was the one who accepted the rules of engagement with blitz (i.e., a transactional relationship: the grimoire for a bit of fun, kinky sex). stolas is the one who has all the power. stolas is the one who can choose to ruin blitz. stolas is the one who ruined the good thing they had going.

except... blitz doesn't really believe that. deep down, subconsciously, blitz knows he loves stolas, and by being in love, he's done to stolas what he did to his mother, to fizz, to barbie: ruined his life. maybe, if blitz could seduce stolas and make their relationship transactional again, he could correct their course and save stolas the pain of believing that blitz is deserving of love. it's a trolley problem: pull the lever, and blitz is the only one who gets hurt. let the trolley continue, and stolas will inevitably get caught in the crossfire of loving blitz.

blitz can handle a little pain. he handled it when his mother died. he handled it when fizz hated him. he handled it when barbie left him. he handles it over and over again, being used as tool for sexual pleasure or physical violence. he earns his pain, just as he feels he must "earn" the grimoire. just as he feels he must "earn" the little tokens of stolas's affection.

as an aside: the grimoire is more than a symbol of blitz's livelihood. it's a physical representation of the stark difference in class between blitz and stolas, as well as a representation of the transactional nature of all of blitz's relationships, not just the one between him and stolas. it is one magical book among thousands that the goetias own— a veritable drop in the bucket of the immense power, wealth, and influence that the goetias, and by extension, stolas, wield. that same book which is inconsequential to stolas and the goetias is everything to blitz. without the grimoire, he loses his job and everything that comes with it, including (in blitz's transactional view of relationships) millie, moxxie, and even loona's companionship. but i digress.

it's been said before that there is nobody who belongs at the blitz hate party more than blitz himself, and it's true— there is nobody in hell who could hate blitz more than he hates himself. because as much as he might present himself as a little dumb, he's anything but. he knows what he's doing will destroy him. he knows if he continues to do what he's doing, he'll "die alone", which, in some ways, is what he fears more than anything. he even tells verosika that he "doesn't want to be like this forever", but he can't seem to stop himself. he doesn't know how to stop himself.

after all, he's right. everyone hates him. it's evident in the party they've thrown for him. and the worst part thing is: it's his fault, and he knows it. he knows he's hurt all of these people, and even though he plays at callousness, he can't quite hide his hurt that stolas in particular won't hear him out. he can't hide his hurt that stolas can't seem to understand where blitz is coming from. because blitz does try to talk to stolas in apology tour. he tries to tell stolas what he's feeling, and how he regrets how he's spoken to stolas, but stolas is too drunk and too upset to care (which, btw, not blaming stolas for that. if i were a drinker, i'd be right there beside him).

stolas, in this moment, focuses entirely on himself and the pain that blitz put him through (again, not blaming stolas for that), but it tells blitz that stolas really, really does not care about him anymore, if he ever did. and wasn't that what blitz wanted? isn't that what blitz deserves? so it's easy to let a bigger, taller, more handsome, more suave imp sweep stolas off his feet and out of blitz's life. the imp is, by his t-shirt's estimation, "better than blitzo", after all. and don't they say that to love someone is to let them go?

verosika's advice to blitz only cements this. stolas is moving on. stolas deserves better. and blitz? all blitz deserves is to be used, so can he really be mad that some better imp is giving stolas what blitz never could? and again, blitz has dealt with the people he loves hating him before. his father sold him for $5. his best friend hated him for years. his sister still does. at least with stolas, he got the asmodean crystal out of it, and he won't lose the only semblance of companionship he has left.

3 - SOCIOECONOMIC CONTEXT

i saw a post that said that fans are focusing too much on the class difference between stolas and blitz, and i couldn't disagree more. in fact, i'd say that we are not focusing enough on the class difference between stolas and blitz.

all of stolas's ignorance is magnified tenfold by his lack of understanding of how their class and race difference colors their relationship. all of blitz's self-hatred and self-worth issues are exacerbated one-hundredfold by these same class and race differences.

classism and racism go hand in hand, especially in america. in helluva boss (and especially in the beginning of the stolitz dynamic), there is an implication of racial fetishization. blitz, the "lower-class" poor imp, fulfills stolas (an "upper-class" wealthy elite)'s fantasies of being "ravaged" and "taken" in his own home. stolas canonically enjoys the rough treatment, enjoys the taboo feeling of having blitz fuck him. it's very evocative of how some white american women fetishize and fantasize about black men— a fetish that has its roots in white supremacy (and especially the enslavement and ongoing oppression of black people in america.)

that said, in the context of helluva boss, it is very clear that blitz is aware of his socioeconomic standing the implications thereof— more aware than even stolas, who has ostensibly been educated on the social and economic nuances of the realm he helps to rule. he tries to tell stolas about how this difference in class affects him and amplifies his already awful self-worth ("you're a prince. it's hard to believe you would want me. that anyone would want me"), but stolas is incapable of hearing him.

all this to say, blitz is not solely to blame for their current relationship. that isn't to say that blitz is blameless. in fact, blitz isn't the most emotionally mature either— most of what i have written about him are things that i doubt he consciously realizes about himself. but stolas's ignorance and lack of willingness to consider where blitz is coming from, both emotionally and socioeconomically, make up a huge part of why stolitz continues to miscommunicate.

anyways. yeah. viv was right. things sure did happen.

[sirenssleep]

So uh. Apology Tour got me bad. (No spoilers)

How did I feel nothing over Full Moon but freaking BROKE over this episode. Literally just...crying nonstop. Im still crying. WTF ITS A SILLY HORNY CARTOON SHOW!!

Also damn. Can u believe we get this for free??

[angelshizuka]

A fair warning that my blog is not spoiler free, but I will try my best to tag spoilers with #helluva boss spoilers like I've been doing for the trailer and will also start tagging #full moon spoilers for spoilers from that specific episode until at least a week after it drops (possibly until Apology Tour drops if I feel like it, and then the tag will change to #apology tour spoilers).

[jokertrap-ran]

[Gakuen K] SCEPTER 4 Route: Ditching School Translation

*Translator’s note : MC’s name shall remain as my normal (水嶋ラン) *Gakuen K Masterlist / Gakuen K Mobile Masterlist *Spoiler FREE : Translations under cut ! *T/N: Time for me to unload all the translations I've been hoarding in my drafts because I was too busy to format them into a post but finally got time during the weekends to clear some- ♡

Ran: …*Sigh*

Ran: (I ended up skipping Club too…)

Ran: (I'm starting to dread having to participate in Club Activities tomorrow…)

Ran: Let's just turn in for today.

Ran: (I really hope this gloomy feeling disappears when I wake up…)

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Ran: (It's so quiet here. There’s no one around. I wonder if I can enter the school building…?)

Munakata: Oh? You're here early.

Ran: Munakata-senpai.

Munakata: Classes only start an hour from now. Did you forget something, perchance?

Ran: No, that's not why I'm… Well, I woke up early because I'd gone to bed much earlier than usual last night.

Ran: And then I ended up coming to school early because I didn't have anything better to do anyway. What about you?

Munakata: No particular reason. I always come to school at this hour.

Ran: Really?

Munakata: Really. I'm more productive with my work here than when I stay at home.

Ran: Work? From the Student Council and the Blue Club? What kind of work do you have to do?

Munakata: A variety of things, but let's leave it at that. How are you feeling, if you don't mind me asking?

Ran: Huh?

Munakata: I got a report that you'd taken an absence from our club activities due to poor health.

Ran: Oh… Uh, yeah. That's right.

Munakata: …Are you truly unwell?

Ran: Y-Yes! My throat was kinda sore… so I thought that it was the start of a cold?

Ran: But I'm good now!

Munakata: So, am I to assume that you are now fit to participate in Club activities?

Ran: Well…

Munakata: Please follow me.

Ran: Oh, okay!

Munakata: Why did you lie?

Ran: What?

Munakata: You weren't feeling unwell at all, were you?

Ran: How did you…

Munakata: Anyone with eyes can see that you're perfectly fine despite having claimed to be absent due to illness only just recently.

Ran: Sorry…

Munakata: I'm not mad at you for your absence.

Munakata: The issue here is your lying tendencies. I approved of your tentative entry to this Club because of your honesty.

Ran: …

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Munakata: Come in.

Munakata: I apologize for suddenly calling you here.

Fushimi: What did you call me here for, Captain?

Fushimi: I was called away while I was in the middle of my disciplinary committee duties, so please be quick about this.

Munakata: I'll cut right to the chase then. Fushimi-kun, did you say something to her?

Fushimi: Huh…?

Munakata: I'd previously entrusted you with the duty of bringing her around for a tour of the place, but she seems to have been rather down ever since.

Fushimi: Can't you just ask her? She's right there, isn't she?

Munakata: And so… it seems like Fushimi-kun isn't exactly aware of his actions either.

Fushimi: Yeah, no.

Munakata: Alright then. Mizushima-san.

Ran: Yes?

Munakata: Please explain to us the real reason why you decided to take a leave of absence from club activities.

Ran: That's because Fushimi-kun…

Ran: He told me not to drag the others down, so I gave it some thought… and the more I thought about it…

Ran: The more I started to doubt if I could really fit in with the Blue Club.

Munakata: I see. So the reason did lie with Fushimi-kun after all.

Ran: No, it's not his fault. I'm the one to blame…

Fushimi: Sure, I did tell you not to drag us down, but I didn't tell you not to come, did I?

Ran: Huh?

Munakata: I suppose that's his way of watching out for you. It's him being considerate, if you may.

Ran: Considerate?

Munakata: Yes, despite how crude it may sound.

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Next Scene: Mentor

[impassociate]

Heads up once I return from my trip tonight this blog will no longer be free of apology tour spoilers.

Leaving for the airport now.

[ender-cloud]

uh, spoilers for full moon under cut, you’ve been warned

FULL MOON HAD NO RIGHT TO MAKE ME THAT SAD WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK! STOLAA AND BLITZ

Sad section:

DUDE

Stolitz man

“I think so very highly of you, I didn’t realize you think so low of me”

I can’t, that part broke me man, Stolas crying too, Aghhhhh!!

“You royal fucks think you can do this every time! Like you can just play with our feelings because we’re smaller and not as important!”

It’s the way that you can tell Blitz actually means it for me, he’s so scared of dying alone and now Stolas is seemingly leaving him! I’m not ready for apology tour after this, I fucking can’t man.

Also Loona saying that Stolas was getting bored of Blitz didn’t help anything, and Blitz panicking when Stolas said that he was keeping the book forever (idk how to spell it:( ). Like god damn, I’ve never been that big of a Blitz fan (I like him he’s just not my favorite) that made me feel so bad for him

Sillier stuff:

Can we please talk about this photo?

Like the way I stopped everything I was doing just to really take it inc

I knew that Loona disguise was gonna be used for a furry joke but I was not expecting this

Also Disney princess Stolas turning into like a Disney villain mid when I see him tonight! AGHSBABSHSH

HES SO PRETTY AND I LOVE HIS SINGING

ALSO JUST WHEN I SEE HIM TONIGHT IN GENERAL?!?! LIKE IM SO GLAD WE FINALLY GET A HIGH QUALITY THAT ISNT JUST THE SNEAK PEEK WE GOT BEFORE

“I’ll fucking die alone if this goes bad!”

“Am I doing something I can’t take back? Would he want me if he was free? And if he’s only here as a prisoner what kind of monster does that make me?”

That part goes so hard oh my god,

Also Baby boy Collin 🫶🫶 I’m so sorry you were forced into all of this but I love you dearly

Finally the Moxie doll being in Blitz and Stolas’s sex toy chest-

Like excuse me?? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU USE THAT FOR

Overall very good episode that made me giggle and cry

[helluvaartcritique]

Thoughts on Apology Tour?

Haven't seen it yet. I don't mind spoilers, so feel free to tell me what happened.

[httpknjoon]

im literally eating up all this a-listers content like it’s my last meal🧎🏿‍♂️

Q&A questions: what made you two decide to spend the holidays together?

has there been a role that took to much of a toll on you (physically, mentally, etc.)?

what’s the biggest argument that the two of you have had?

happy new year and i hope your classes aren’t giving you too much trouble!!

note | oh, anon... here i serve you your ✨𝓃𝑒𝓍𝓉 𝓂𝑒𝒶𝓁✨ I tried not to give out spoilers about stuffs that I'll be posting soon but here it is! thank you so much for sending this, anon! happy new year to you too! i hope you're having a good day.

main masterlist | drabble series

"We had a busy year for 2021." you began, looking at Jin.

He agreed, "Yeah, almost half of that year our circle of friends didn't get to hangout much."

"So yeah, we tried to organize a getaway where all of our schedules would match and we all ended up being free for the holidays. Then, Jin said he is flying to Seoul for it so we just tagged along." you chuckled before speaking again. "Okay, let's move to the next question..."

You didn't mean to sound rush but it did came out like that. When read the question, Jin answered first, saying:

"Yeah, but I don't think it's because of the role. It's because of the circumstances of that time... So, I had a film that began production just two weeks before the lockdowns. It was starting good, we were in Europe. Then, just a couple of weeks there, we were told that we need to fly back here in the US because of the virus outbreak. It stressed me out badly since I really loved the role and the story that we were about to share. But since we had no idea when the virus ends, the production had to be on hold until it's safe."

"Oh, mine is when I was doing this action film. I was so excited to do a certain sequence because I trained for the whole eight weeks before production for the stunts. Then, I looked and felt really good because I was in this catsuit. A freaking tight catsuit in an action film because you know, it's Hollywood." you winked at the camera with the mocking tone in your sentence. "Anyways, so it was the day of filming. I had these wires attached to me. Then I did my sequence. But something went wrong with wires and I fell. Bad. I had an elbow injury and needed to rest for like a month and when I came back, I didn't got a chance to do what I trained for."

By the time you were finished sharing your experience, Jin's mouth was agape. "Oh my god. When was that?"

"I was nineteen, I guess. It was a long time ago. But sometimes I wished I could have done more stunts-- even though I'm an amateur in that area-- for that film."

"Well, will you be able to do stunts in the future again?" he asked out of curiosity.

You nodded, "Yeah, I think I can. If an offer comes, I'll think about it."

Cut to the third and last question, you and Jin looked directly at each others' eyes for a whole minute. Another scenario where you two would communicate telepathically, having second thoughts if you should answer it. You were shaking your head and Jin was nodding. It gets chaotic and you break down giggling.

"Let's just say, we had a fight about something. It was dumb--"

"It was a misunderstanding." Jin cuts you off.

"Okay, it's a misunderstanding. We ended up not talking for a long time. Like, really long time because I was somewhere for press tour and he was somewhere for production." you explained timidly, scartching the top of your head.

Jin butts in again with a mocking tone, "I was trying to reach out but--"

"Yeah, I kinda ignored his messages and calls. It was immature, I know. I apologized for it." you defended yourself. "But yeah, we only patched things up when I send him a picture of Francheskat to break the silence in our dusty conversation."

"Yeah, she said: hi. Then, followed by a picture of her cat. Then, I left it on seen for like an hour because I was about to go film when I saw that. Next thing I see, she flooded my inbox. I swear, I can feel her emotions getting intense in every message she sent." Jin chuckled.

You huffed, crossing your arms. "Then, we had an adult conversation. Just few hours laters, I received flowers with a card in my hotel room that he ordered online."

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