#also one more quest before endgame i think!

[nadas-dirthalen]

Dragon Age: the Veilguard Was Packed with Lore — But Many of Us Overlooked It

— PART TWO —

[ 1 ]

Welcome back, friends and travellers. If you've been here a while, you'll know that I wrote 30,000 words of predictions in the week and a half before DA:tV released. But here's the most surprising thing—I was right, for the most part.

I spent my first Veilguard playthrough grinning (and then sobbing) at all the lore reveals. And here's the thing: I think most of us missed a lot of them, including even me.

So let's unpack some more.

Titans: Dark and Light, Compassion and Rage, the Eternal Hymn and its Endless Listeners (2/2)

This is your warning: This post will contain spoilers for the entirety of Dragon Age: the Veilguard, and all Dragon Age content made before Veilguard.

I've spoken a lot about the titans before. In fact, they make up the bedrock (lol) of many of my pre-Veilguard theories. While a lot of what I said a month ago has since become canon in Veilguard, there's a lot that remains as speculation.

Today, I'm going to talk about why I still stand by my theory from October: that the titans and the spirits have far, far more in common than we think, and that this is of vital importance for the next game(s).

Today's Discussion:

What Solas' Creation and Harding's Personal Quest Have in Common

Not Only Do Titans Behave as Spirits... Spirits Behave as Titans

The Dark and the Light, Sundered

Atonement Solas' Promise: He (Still) Seeks Regeneration

What Solas' Creation and Harding's Personal Quest Have in Common

Thanks to Veilguard (and the hints that came before it, if you're coming here from my previous posts), we know that Solas and Harding have far more in common than they think. Both are inexorably connected to the titans: Solas because his body was crafted from lyrium, and Harding because of how her Stone magic awoke after touching Solas' lyrium dagger.

I've theorized before that I think Solas is still connected to Isatunoll, but that the creation of the Veil altered or harmed this connection somehow. Veilguard touches on this with its implications: Solas says the blight senses his presence during the Minrathous portion of the endgame, and says during his Atonement ending that he is able to soothe the titans' anger. It also asserts, during Solas' Memory #3, that the ritual to create the Veil went wrong, wounding Solas in the process.

Both Solas and Harding, then, have to do with both the titans' past and their future. The Temple of Solasan is referenced when this codex in Trespasser mentions the titans needing to be forgotten, and we know now that Mythal and Solas would come to sunder the titans with the lyrium dagger. Solas is the reason the titans were forgotten, and is likely the source of the song "I am the One."

Harding, by contrast, is one of few dwarves whose magic has awoken. The Titan Shade in her personal quest demands that the world remember the anger and pain it has forgotten: the titans' sundering (as well as her own anger). The titans have no future without acknowledgement of their past, and so both Solas and Harding have instrumental roles to play going forward (assuming both are alive and have agreed to this).

It is evident, also, that the pain of being forgotten is traumatic to the titans. Cole mentions this several times in Inquisition, as referenced in the last post. Songs that once sang the same; titans stuck asleep, forgetting how to wake.

And here is where Solas and Harding's parallels really come to light.

This trauma forces Harding to make a choice with her Titan Shade. In every scenario, she acknowledges the Shade's pain. Her choice, then, is to embrace that pain and carry it in Compassion... or embrace the titans' anger, as well as her own. In other words, as is referenced by Stalgard...

I drew close, and the sound became something more. I could feel it, Lace Harding…. Rage, sorrow, and a vast loneliness. — Codex: Letter for Lace Harding

Rage. Harding must choose between Compassion and Rage. We've seen this before. It comes up in Down Among the Dead Men, a story in the Tevinter Nights anthology:

Following a trauma, spirits are pushed toward changing. For so long in this franchise, we called these changes "demons," and still do. But the creature itself is not different—it just exists in a different state.

Emmrich says exactly this, equating spirits and the Titan Shade.

I once communed with a soul who shared a tale of deep sorrow from his youth. "So that the truth wouldn't be lost," he said. Interestingly enough, he could only bear to recall the event after death, when the memory had lost its sting. (l cannot share the tale. A Watcher must keep the confidences of the dead.) Your experience with what you call "the Titan's Shade" brought this anecdote to mind. As you say, in the first moments of your transformation, you were unable or unwilling to confront the depth of the Titans' sorrow. But unlike my friend, this pain was never quite your own. Instead of being trapped within, it fled elsewhere. — Codex: From Emmrich, on Sorrow Denied

We see, now, that the titans do the same thing. The only difference is that Harding is connected to the titan through Isatunoll; her spirit is not, itself, inside the titan. Put through a trauma, though, the titans turn. This is something I theorized as happening to Solas' titan upon his creation, because the trauma of the elves making bodies from its lyrium caused the titan to lash out and fight back, just like Cole says in DAI.

This is why both Solas and Harding are capable of soothing the titans' anger. It doesn't matter that Harding is a dwarf and Solas is one of the elvhen: both are still connected to their titan.

But as much as Veilguard tells us about the Titans being more similar to spirits than previously thought, it does not stop there. No: if you listen closely, Veilguard whispers to you that this similarity goes both ways. Spirits are more similar to titans than we ever could have imagined.

Not Only Do Titans Behave as Spirits... Spirits Behave as Titans

Something caught my eye during my very first Veilguard playthrough, super early on. Of course, I played the whole game through the lens of my own theories, wondering if there could be a connection between titans and spirits.

Immediately I saw, on the floor of a cell in the Ossuary:

I am Nyrys I was Nyrys I we were we are Nyrys — Note: Inmate Scribbling

Immediately, I was reminded of Harding's description of Isatunoll: "It means 'I am here.' But no, not 'I.' 'I' is singular. But it isn't 'we,' either. 'We' is multiple, but also separate... Isatunoll is the eternal hymn that encompasses all time. All spaces. I am. We are. This. That. Here. There. Now. And forever."

That seems to suggest that Nyrys, an inmate who was probably turned into an abomination, might be connected to Isatunoll. The note is written almost the exact same way that Harding is speaking. "But Lore," I hear you saying, "Couldn't that just be an abomination thing, a spirit struggling to share a body?"

I thought so, too. Right up until this.

Late after— (the handwriting abruptly alters:) a PEACE cut from the ALL golden stranded weaves PROTECTION CAGE keep them OUT keep me IN (Drawn below is a decagonal diagram of perfectly even, intersecting geometric lines.) — Codex: Lucanis' Logbook, 2

Understanding that Spite is likely writing with a phonetic understanding of the common tongue, we can interpret his words as 'a PIECE, cut from the ALL.' While I cannot say for certain what the rest describes (it could be Spite's opinion on the Ossuary, a reference to the titan's sundered dreams, or anything in between)... I know that these two first lines clearly talk about a spirit who has been cut away from something larger and grander than itself. The "all."

Now that sounds like Isatunoll, to me.

If you've been here since my October posts, you know where this is going. I've got to find a way to check this idea against other sources. And the first place I go, usually? The Chant of Light, for all the Chantry's evident faults.

I'm reminded of the creation of the Maker's first and second children.

Then the Voice of the Maker rang out, The first Word, And His Word became all that might be: Dream and idea, hope and fear, Endless possibilities. And from it made his firstborn. — Threnodies 5:1

That exact phrasing—"dream and idea, hope and fear, endless possibilities"—is used both in the creation of the Maker's first and second children. The spirits and the second children's souls. It is not used anywhere else in the Chant of Light.

At last did the Maker From the living world Make men. Immutable, as the substance of the earth, With souls made of dream and idea, hope and fear, Endless possibilities. — Threnodies 5:5

I've said before that I believe that all spirits originate as thoughts—namely, the thoughts of one or more of the titans. I think that even the souls of living people apply, here, despite what some of Emmrich's codices discuss. When you consider how Solas speaks about the Inquistor's spirit in DAI, it seems apparent that (at least to Solas) spirits and souls are interchangeable terms, when they belong to a living person.

Additionally, there is a manor in the Hossberg Wetlands that features an Obsession demon locked away that Rook must kill once they get to its location. The party speculates how the demon may have gotten there, and (I believe Rook) comments on how it is possible that the person from the manor themself may have become the demon.

That would imply that their soul was capable of doing so.

Now, let's go back to how spirits (the Maker's first children) and dwarves (the Maker's second children) are in possession of the same souls, per the Chant of Light. Understanding that the Chant of Light is flawed and that I do not believe that Solas is the Maker (rather, that Solas may have come from the titan that Andraste spoke to), I want to draw attention to this verse.

Then the Maker said: "To you, My second-born, I grant this gift: In your heart shall burn An unquenchable flame All-consuming, and never satisfied. From the Fade I crafted you, And to the Fade you shall return Each night in dreams That you may always remember Me." — Threnodies 5:5

It's important to note that the Maker says to his second-born (the dwarves) that they shall return to the Fade each night in dreams. Remember: the dwarves were once able to dream. More than that, though, the Maker says that the dwarves may visit the Fade each night in dreams to be able to connect with the Maker. They were, in fact, crafted with the "flesh of the Fade," a reference made to lyrium.

That implies a direct connection between the titans and the Fade. It suggests that, once, the titans also shared the Fade with other living creatures—or, perhaps, even more. I still believe that the Fade is the collective consciousness of the titans, and that reconnecting with the Fade is part of reconnecting with the titans because of that fact.

The Dark and the Light, Sundered

In a previous post, I theorized that, because Solas created the Veil and it seemed to have sundered the titans in addition to separating the Fade from the waking world, the Fade must be the titans' shared consciousness. We know now that those were two separate acts: Solas sundered the titans and put part of their dreams into the orbs that became the Evanuris' foci. For a time, I thought that this theory must be wrong.

However, in the same series of memories, we learned one more fact: his ritual to create the Veil went wrong. In Memory #3 (Blackened Hearts), he cries out in pain during the moment the Veil is created. This not only hurt the world, but exhausted Solas. Hurt Solas.

"He broke the dreams to stop the old dreams from waking. The wolf chews its leg off to escape the trap." — Cole dialogue

This refers to the creation of the Veil. We know now that Solas created it, in part, to stop the blight from escaping—that would be the old dreams waking that Cole refers to. What's interesting is that Cole refers to this as Solas chewing off his own metaphorical leg to escape the trap. There was always a personal consequence for Solas referenced here.

But why? Why would being cut off from the Fade outside of dreams hurt him? Spirits exist on Thedas all the time. It is only the trauma of being pulled through the Veil against their will that turns them to demons.

To understand that, we must understand what the Fade even is. How it relates to the titans, and what that means going forward.

First, I want to take a look at this codex from Inquisition, which suggests that the water in the Abyss (the realm of the titans) may be the exact same thing as the emerald waters in the Fade.

It is possible—even likely—that the "emerald waters" Andraste refers to are the substance of the Fade, which began as an "ocean of dreams" (Threnodies 1:1) and was reduced to a well—bottomless but limited in scope—by the Maker's creation of our world. —Codex Entry: Here Lies the Abyss

There are other similarities between these two things that come up in Veilguard, if you're looking for them. The first, for me, is a codex.

What determines which sections of the physical world are echoed in the Fade? Is there an underlying logic, or glacial patterns past comprehension? Do our collective fears and longings craft what we see? The will of a mage is especially potent. We may learn to shape the Fade's pathways, if we are ever-mindful of the dangers this invites. — Codex entry: The Obverse of Reality

The phrasing here is very interesting. We know that Shaping is something that the titans once did. The dwarves, to this day, have the Shaperate, in charge of the Memories. To see that language applied to a mage's influence on the Fade implies that mages may exist the same power to manipulate the Fade as the titans did on the Stone, which suggests that the Fade and the Stone can be Shaped in the same ways. The similarity here does lend itself to a theory where the titans and the Fade are parts of the same being/collective.

The second is that one of the revenants—the Slaughtered Pillars, from Elvhenan's Haven—have a line of dialogue that jarred me the first time I heard it.

"Light and song, stolen."

We know that the titans being sundered took their songs away, for the dwarves (save for a few, now) do not hear the titans' songs anymore. It's the word light that gave me pause.

Three guesses as to where I looked for more instances of the word light. If you guessed the Chant of Light, the gigantic piece of lore with light in its title, you are correct!

The first mention I want to note is the very early in the Chant

Opposition in all things: For earth, sky For winter, summer For darkness, Light. — Threnodies 5:4

Note that Light is capitalized here, implying significance. Again, it appears here. Here, we're implying that capitalized Light refers directly to the Fade.

(11) Above them, a river of Light, Before them the throne of Heaven, waiting — Threnodies 8:11

And, lastly, and most prominently in Veilguard: the Lighthouse. Its name, in the elven language, is "Vhen'Theneras." Translated, though, that would mean, "core of dreams." Unless, of course, dreams and Light are the same thing.

But if the Light is indeed the Fade, and there must be opposition in all things according to the Maker, then where have we seen dark before?

We've seen it in the Abyss—aka, the Void. We've seen it in the darkspawn. Those blighted beings that emerge from the Deep Roads, aka the Abyss/Void. Remember that the blight itself is the escaped maddened dreams of the sundered titans. Darkspawn refers to the product of those escaped dreams—the ones not in the Fade/Light.

Crucially, the darkspawn behave in much the same way as anything connected to Isatunoll. They hear a Calling that, at first, belonged to the archdemons, but Antoine now says is coming from somewhere else, as well.

It's the description of Isatunoll that ties this all together for me: titans/their children and spirits, Abyss and Fade, dark and Light.

In a letter from Dagna to Harding, she describes Isatunoll — but in that description, she focuses on this idea that beings connected to a hivemind "know their purpose." Purpose is a word used by Solas all the time in DAI. Spirits have their own purpose.

Think about ants. Ants know what they are. They know their purpose, and they must understand, instinctually, how that purpose fits within the whole. But what if it doesn't end there? What if their consciousness isn't just individual? What if the nest itself knew what it was? A collective sentience of some kind. Nothing says the ants don't have a collective sentience. We just assume they don't, because they're ants. Ants. Or bees. Or darkspawn. Now, there's a thought. — Codex Entry: Thoughts on "Isatunoll"

What if consciousness itself is not individual? asks Dagna. What if the nest itself knew what it was? This explains the darkspawn, after all: the blighted beings who are all connected to the song of the Calling, and the maddened dreams the blight originates from.

The nest, except for that small trickle of escaped blight, is the Fade. The Fade, which is a place that responds to the collective wants and memories of those inside it. The Fade, whose pathways are shaped by the thoughts and wants of the people—especially mages—within it.

My theory is this: the creation of the Veil may have hurt Solas because Solas was still connected to his titan, and to Isatunoll. Some of his love of the Fade may be because he misses the titans' shared dreams—and, by extension, the shared dreams of every living person on Thedas (except the dwarves, and we know why that is).

Atonement Solas' Promise: He (Still) Seeks Regeneration

We know that the Fade is the collective consciousness of the Titans. Their shared dreams. We also know that not all titans are blighted, because the one in Descent is not. Harding's titan also is not, by the end of DA:tV. I posit that this is why much of the Fade, according to Solas in DAI, is far preferable to the Nightmare's domain that we get to see in DAI. Some of that shared consciousness is still healthy.

Easing the titans' anger, therefore, means fixing all of the Fade. Reconnecting the two might mean that the collective consciousness between all spirits could return to Thedas—and since at least elves' and dwarves' souls likely come from the same origin, it could do a lot to bring some of the people of Thedas together.

This, to me, is part of Solas' grand plan. It is not only to bring back the world from Mythal's time—it is to bring back the world before they broke so much of it, before the titans were sundered by his hand. After all: Solas seeks... regeneration. And that's something he promises us after Mythal leaves.

It's important to me, therefore, that Solas says the blight can feel his presence during the fighting in Minrathous. Not that Elgar'nan can detect Solas through the blight, but that the blight itself can feel him. Neve/Bellara, depending on who is taken, can reach out to protect Solas the very same way: by communing with the blight itself, feeling what it wants, and redirecting its course. We see, here, a hivemind in action.

We also know that Atoned!Solas promises to "soothe the titans' anger." This is something he promises to do from Fade Jail, implying that he is able to interact with the titans and their anger from the Black/Golden City. This implies that the Fade itself, as a realm, is a means of communing with the titans, not just a specific spot within it.

The Veil coming down was always going to un-sunder the titans, and that was always one of the true aims of Solas' goals. Even if it meant blighting the world at first and effectively causing the apocalypse, the titans would eventually feel soothed. The Veil is a wound inflicted on this world, Solas has said before... and we know now that it was.

This section, short as it is, is just me telling you that Solas is still able to achieve those ends from Fade Jail. Just because the Veil is now bound to Solas' life force does not mean that the titans can no longer heal.

This buys us valuable time, allowing the titans' anger to soothe before their consciousness is restored, so that the transition is gentler. It promises hope for all of Thedas going forward. It might even promise a healthier, more stable Fade, shaped by dream, idea, and hope more than fear.

But what will that mean for future games? What could the Fade have to do with what's to come?

Why is now the time that the Executors and "those across the sea" want to make their big planned move on Thedas? Why is now when the "poison fruit" has ripened?

Like many of you, I hope to figure it out—and I feel that every day, I get closer.

Stay tuned. :)

___

If you read this far, you're a hero, now and always.

Like I keep saying: I have to absorb this lore day by day! I cannot inhale the entire wiki in a day, much as I'd like to believe I could! That means that future posts can't adhere to a strict schedule, as they depend on me unearthing enough codices, notes, and connecting threads to provide a post's worth of material.

In future, I'm hoping to learn more about: the Forgotten and Forbidden ones, as well as the connections between them; the Executors, those across the sea, and the connections between THEM; the areas across the sea; the Devouring Storm and what it could mean for Thedas' existence... and maybe how Ghilan'nain was ever connected to any of it.

Stick with me on this journey, if you like. It's fun to keep theorycrafting and yelling with you all. <3

[mirandaputsherbestbuttforward]

... honestly if I wasn't head over heels for Neve, these two would actually be a close second

[taliesin-the-bored]

Tag game: tag nine people you’d like to know better.

Tagged by: @oneshoulderangel (Thank you for tagging me!)

Last song: At the moment, I have "Losing Your Memory" by Alan Star stuck in my head, which I suppose makes it my current song, not my last song. Hm. I get songs stuck in my head very easily, but the last one I had there for a significant amount of time was a mashup of different language versions of "Les Rois du Monde" for about a week. "Lehetsz Király", the Magyar version, is probably my favorite of them. It's worth a listen.

Currently watching: Normally, the answer would be "random mostly terrible old movies/shows" or "nothing much", but I currently have a hyperfixation on the musical Roméo et Juliette and have been watching it in multiple languages. (Thus, the song).

Three ships: This is hard. Maybe as a result of being on the ace and aro spectrums, I'm more likely to care about which characters are interacting than whether it's romantic or platonic. Here goes:

Kedivere/Bedikay. It can be romantic, platonic, or queerplatonic, but whichever way, I'm here for it. I probably spend too much time thinking about how in Cullwch and Olwen, when Cai gets mad at Arthur and marches out, Bedwyr stays behind, keeps acting like nothing's happened, and isn't the one to avenge Cai's death. The feeling of betrayal on both sides has a lot of unexplored potential. And the version where Bedivere dies and Kay fights to bring his body back safely while mortally wounded himself... And the version where Bedivere survives Camlann and Kay isn't said to fight in it, so they might be left together after their world has fallen apart...

Platonically or queerplatonically, Galahad and the Grail Heroine. I really like the tragic Grail Quest friendships, but I like theirs most, maybe because there's something weird and otherworldly about them both. I like it when characters are strange and endearing and doomed by the narrative.

Ever since reading John Matthews' retelling, which I read before the original, I've had a soft spot for Caradoc and Guinier. The Story of Caradoc is very disturbing, and I have some major qualms with Caradoc over a detail Matthews cut out, but all the same, there's a reason these two have the best track record with magical fidelity tests. Each of them would go to the ends of the earth for the other, and together, they're stronger than any curse.

Favorite Color: Blue, particularly royal blue and some teals.

Currently consuming: Black licorice with chocolate.

First ship: This is a hard one, since through elementary and most of middle school, I tended to go along with whatever I thought the author's intentions were and was more likely to unship something. The first non-endgame ship I got invested in was Sonya/Nikolai in War and Peace. I didn't like Nikolai, but Sonya did, and she was my favorite character, so I wanted her to be happy. The first non-canon couple I thought was meant to be together was also in War and Peace: Marya Bolkonskaya and Julie Karagina. My eighth grade self did not think their letters could be interpreted platonically. I still don't.

Last movie: If the musical doesn't count, the last movie I watched was Quest for Camelot, which was awful. Though not Robot Monster-level bad, Robot Monster has an elegance to its simplicity which Quest for Camelot lacks.

Currently working on: Various fics, most of them Arthuriana or CotRK-related (I am woefully behind on the Badfic Bingo), and (theoretically) an epic-style poem, though I haven't gotten much of it written for quite a while now.

Tagging: @gawrkin, @emperorcandy, @wildbasil, @gorewound, @knightsofsomethingorother, @ladyminaofcamelot, @tasosotaso, @amashelle, @gingersnaptaff (I have no idea who's been tagged so far, apart from the people on @oneshoulderangel's post, so I apologize for any multi-tags)

[thewertsearch]

Resolution to the summoner's mutiny is foggy, as I only understand what has 8een rel8ed to me through the 8rief answers I thought to solicit. Ultim8ely, the ire of the Condesce would 8e such that in the settling dust of the conflict, she would 8anish all from the homeworld, except the young. […] I cannot imagine how she would come to enforce such an upheaval in our civiliz8tion. Though I suppose she will have on her side the advantage of an unparalleled lifespan, and the leverage extended 8y the hideous psychic prongs of her deep undul8ing monstrosity.

Attention is drawn to the prodigiously long lifespan of the Condesce - the empress of Mindfang's time, and Feferi's probable ancestor. I used to think that the modern Empress was a different troll, but now that we're aware of fuchsiablood longevity, I'm pretty sure the two are one and the same.

Based on a line from Feferi's introduction, I was assuming that she was the only fuchsiablood in the universe - but let's take another look at the way that line's phrased.

You are 'the only of your kind' known to possess this blood.

That doesn't necessarily mean she's the only fuchsia troll, does it? For example, it might just mean she's the only Alternian with fuchsia blood, because the Empress doesn't actually live on the planet.

I really want this to be Mama Peixes, because the existence of a living Ancestor has so much story potential. Just how much does she know, and what's her agenda?

Nevertheless, I take the prediction as truth, and find it amusing that a homeworld domin8ed 8y children will 8e the gr8 summoner's legacy. One of them, at least.

Anyway, the Summoner - the boy who could fly - is the reason Alternia is a planetary Neverland, making it clear that he was the original inspiration for Pupa Pan.

It's also notable that we've only just started delving into Alternian history, and we've already learned about two massive rebellions against the social order. Contrary to what Alternians have been led to believe, this oppressive culture clearly isn't natural to them, and they've been fighting it every step of the way.

They don't want to be a murderous empire - they're forced to be, again and again and again.

More importantly, and less amusingly, his legacy will 8e my demise. You see, I first learned his name when I asked who would 8e the one to kill me.

And here's yet another layer to the Quest Cocoon Incident. Vriska wasn't content with living like Mindfang - she wanted to die like her, too.

Given that Vriska knew about the Summoner, one can only imagine how weird she must have been around Tavros. Not only was she constantly berating him, she was also putting him on this bizarre pedestal, comparing him to someone I'm damn sure he never knew existed.

And she'd never tell Tavros about the Summoner, either, because that would allow him to derive confidence from something other than her tutelage. No - she just silently compared him to a legendary hero, and he constantly failed a test he didn't know he was taking.

Seems like something's going very wrong in the Veil.

This seems like a sign that the session is on its last legs, and we're running out of time before it completely turns to static. We're entering the endgame.

The oracle I will resolve to part with. I will conceal it in a crypt 8earing the sign of the expatr8, with a map to its loc8tion hidden in this journal.

The cueball was sequestered in an Expatriate chest, which makes me speculate about whether Equius ever got his hands on it.

He can't see inside it himself - but like Mindfang said, it shouldn't be too hard to find a technological workaround, and Equius is a roboticist. I wonder if either Zahhak ever used it for themselves?

To whomever finds it, 8e wary, for the truth it tells may leave its new keeper 8lind as I was. Though no more.

She warned you, Vriska.

She told you it would leave you as blind as she was.

And it did.

[butchvamp]

i finished Davrin's quest last before going into the endgame and i have a lot of mixed feelings about it. i know a lot of people were really upset with what they did to Isseya (i don't know anything about the Last Flight so i can't speak on that) but i think it was interesting what they tried to do-- the Grey Wardens have always asked "do the ends justify the means" and i think his quest has potential to tie up nicely with the overall theme of choice and regret-- Davrin choosing the Wardens, choosing that sacrifice versus Isseya, who was forced to follow orders and ultimately regrets her choice.

but Davrin's quest, like the majority of companion quests, is hindered by racism (thinly veiled anti-indigenous racism filtered through the elves as well as anti-black racism). we had a chance to explore real reasons why he felt compelled to leave his clan and join the Grey Wardens-- he's a monster hunter, sure, but he is also a protector. maybe he felt he could better protect them in this role? but Dragon Age loves their "the Dalish are boring and too stuck in the past and tradition, so i left to find something better" shtick, and they are clearly caught up in dichotomies in this game which we also see with Taash (and the rest of this quest, too). Davrin cant be Dalish and a Grey Warden and proud of both-- only one. but this doesn't even really align with Davrin's attitude that we see later.

i mean he named his griffon Assan, he clearly does hold the Dalish close, and we get to learn about how he used to tend the halla with Eldrin-- he comes back to this after surviving Weisshaupt, something he probably never imagined he'd be able to do, and i wish the game had dug into his feelings more rather than shifting immediately to focus on Assan.

Davrin survives Weisshaupt, he survives killing an archdemon, and he clearly has a lot of guilt about it-- Rook can tell them that he did the Wardens proud, but he retorts, "Did I? Because I'm still here and they're not." he made his choice, was prepared to make the sacrifice, and it was taken from him, and he survived when so many others died. "I feel like a blade sharpened all these years to confront the worst darkness in the world. And my blade struck true at Weisshaupt. What now?"

so now he has a new choice, one that he doesn't feel he's earned. and they try to convey this through the griffons, trained by the Grey Wardens for one singular task until it ultimately killed them... but now reborn, Rook and Davrin are given the chance to release them from their service to the Wardens and potentially find a new path. like Davrin, they weren't supposed to survive, either, and only did because of Isseya. throughout the quest we can see Davrin shift his opinion of the Gloom Howler, insisting on calling her Isseya, giving her back her name in the end to stop her. we see other wardens who have lived past their calling, past their "purpose," and how twisted they have become-- Davrin clearly sees some part of himself reflected in Isseya because of this, on top of being both a Grey Warden and an elf, too. unlike Isseya, though, Davrin has pushed through his guilt and regret and found new purpose with the griffons.

i think this is a good set-up. but in my opinion the execution is weak because after a certain point the story just starts to ignore Davrin in favor of the griffons. Davrin is the one that is both the monster hunter and the shepherd, but we only focus on Assan, and the ultimate choice is about the griffons, not Davrin himself. with the blight ending, why didn't we get to discuss what it is Davrin wants to do once everything is over? does he want to return to the Grey Wardens? he fulfilled his purpose, he killed an archdemon. does he want to become the griffons' shepherd now instead? there is no option, the griffons (besides Assan) are just handed over to someone else in the end. does Davrin join them after the final battle? does he help train them with Evka and Antoine? or does he leave the wardens and join Eldrin in Arlathan? the fake-out goodbye with Assan makes it seem like he doesn't do either, but we really don't know, since his end slide in the credits is just about the fucking griffons! it's so frustrating.

i also think him being the possible sacrifice at the end is a poor choice. the point of Davrin's story is that he survives. he survives! he has to live with it and accept it and find a way to move forward, reconnecting-- through raising Assan-- with a life he had previously sworn off. all of that development only for the game to potentially just kill him anyways.

Davrin has some of the best banter and relationships in the game, he deserved better, i really wish we got to explore his character more beyond using him as a stepping stone to reestablish griffons in Thedas.

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

Finished Felvidek and had a grand time!

Thought I'd do a lil list of things/moments/details I loved off the top of my head:

gave cursed coffee bean to a chicken and it mutated. Did it for science

game's got some twin peaks vibes, some monty python, a tad of hylics, along it a bunch of other ingredients, but it feels very much its own thing with its own identity

pear man and his daughters deserve the world, wish we hung out more

there's a fight with an invisible enemy, all your attacks miss because your guys can't see shit and I was laughing just imagining Pavol and Matej swinging their swords at nothing hoping to slay the forest fiend. Very Don Quixote, I love it.

the PS1 style cutscenes are sooooo beautiful I love them to pieces, they drip with style and charm. I knew I needed to give this game a go the moment I watched the trailer and was greeted by the cinematics. God I love them so much. And not just the syle but the directing itself, the way shots are framed, god...

I love the character portraits for everyone. There's so much detail and everyone feels unique/like an actual person with distinct features. From the Priest's very punchable face, to Pavol's grin to Josef's sexy ass... From main characters to NPCs to enemy sprites, I love everyone's design and colour coding (don't know if it was intentional but the purple for the cultists was neat, seemed to subtly imply early on that they were being funded by rich folk, since pruple is associated with nobility, power and wealth)

speaking of character design, shout-out to this lil guy, look at him please

Numnut the drunkard my beloved, I recruited him and less than a minute later he fell on flat ground into a nearby river (and drowns???). I reloaded a previous save to see if I could have him in my party a lil longer. I took a different path, got into a fight. "yay I get to see him in action!"- I thought. I used his one special move, called: 'good idea', and Numnut proceeds to punch his own face, dealing 90 damage (not even in the endgame did I deal such high numbers!). THE Character of all time, he drowned again after that and I'll never forget him.

BALLOON IN THE MIDDLE AGES! (possible Andrei Rublev reference? I can dream...)

just, the way things are worded:

cutting people's ears after killing them as spoils (and giving the ears to a maiden, as you do)

there's a quest where you have to cut a man's tattooed buttock to give to another guy, and it's all for nothing, you ruined a man's ass for nothing. I love it. The dialogue during this whole section had me dying.

I love that there's just this guy who lives in the castle's well. And our boy Pavol thinks it's a great idea to throw a bomb in there to make him come out.

this:

there's these lil inisghtful and mournfoul comments on the dead bodies you leave behind. Like, expressing regret at all the senseless violence and death or how cheap life is here. And I'm not sure if it's Pavol or Matej making them. It makes more sense for it to be Matej but I kinda like the idea of it being Pavol's comments, these small moments of introspection and realization in the midst of a drunken adventure. You've been engaging in all the violence while pissed drunk but then after you kill your opponents and look at their corpses... and it's like this sobering moment, before you're back at it with all the merry-making (I also like that a lot of these bodies don't disappear and just remain on screen, and you can see the carnage your guys leave behind in their quest)

the whole adventure felt to me like, this series of odd little events in a knight's life before it's passed down, told by and retold by different people, and after many generations it's been touched up and made more coherent and noble than the clusterfuck it actually was. Before it became a narrative I guess is what I mean

it can get a bit wordy and hard to follow but I really like the old timey way the dialogue is written and its dry sense of humour

there's these little subversions of gaming tropes that I found really fun too! Like as soon as Pavol's wife and your falling out with her is introduced you may expect a reconciliation between the two, or a moment where you have to save her and prove your worth and love to her to win her heart. As you would expect from a story with a knight and a damsel. But no she hates his guts lmao tries to murder him too! (tho I do think Pavol took her in that balloon ride at the end). There's also the fact that I am not allowed to play minigames! Josef wants to play tabletop games but your character always replies no. No minigames for you son! And like, this feels especially catered to me as someone who, more often than not, will dread whenever a game will introduce some sort of card game or the like. I was so happy that wasn't forced on me for once! Couldn't believe it. Kinda felt bad for Josef tho, I'm sorry Pavol doesn't wanna play Pexeso wth you.

the battle animations! I'm particularly fond of the eating porridge one, or the chugging down a bucket of sour cream, and the petard

the little *slaps face* animation

Pavol and Matej as a duo and the whole tavern scene with the two exchanging clothes

the lil moments of humanity where Pavol talks about his broken life and sense of self

the rare moments when Pavol stops grinning

it goes without saying but the art is absolutely gorgeous. Its nostalgic monochrome melancholy speaks to me on a deep spiritual level. Inject it directly into my bone marrow please. Shout-out also to the ost, it fucks and has tons of bangers. The Hrad track, the one that plays on Josef's castle... god... love at first listen, and have been listening nonstop for the last few days now while going on walks.

[musclesandhammering]

Avengers Doomsday Theory

Been a long time since I’ve done a theory post, but I had to get this out there just in case it actually happens.

So I’ve seen everybody saying they think Dr Doom is gonna kill Loki and absorb his powers in order to reach god emperor status, but this is both anticlimactic story-wise, likely to piss off a lot of long-time fans, and also throwing away arguably one of Marvel’s only powerhouse characters/franchises since Endgame. But it’s undeniable that they probably are going to go the Molecule Man route, since that’s the most convenient way to explain Doom getting so strong. So here’s how I think it’ll happen.

Doom will find a way to siphon off the life force of the multiverse- the temporal energy that runs through all the timelines, keeping them alive (which is really just Loki’s power). He’ll use that go on his universe-hopping quest to do god-knows-whatever his endgame is. Since this energy source is theoretically infinite, he just keeps getting more and more powerful along the way.

Loki, of course, can tell this is happening. But the problem lies in his unique position and the way his powers seemingly work now.

Before anyone says anything- yes, Loki can rewrite stories. But we’ve mostly just seen him do it on a larger scale- deleting branches, bringing back dead timelines, encouraging nexus events, etc. Based on all the evidence we have so far, in order to “rewrite stories” on a smaller scale, he has to actually timeslip into the universe he wants to change and manually manipulate events until he gets the desired outcome.

He’s already shown that he has trouble with navigation. He can go to any timeline whether it still exists or not, hop into different universes, access places that aren’t even part of the multiverse- but just because he has the ability to reach these places doesn’t necessarily mean he has the knowledge. From what we’ve seen, it’s only easy for him to do it if it’s somewhere he’s been before or somewhere a variant of his loved ones exists so he can use them as anchor points. It’s implied that he can track temporal auras across the multiverse, but that’s only if he’s familiar with those auras. There’s no real precedent for how he’d navigate if he had none of these things to go on. Just because he’s sitting on the throne doesn’t really mean anything- it’d be hard as hell to find a specific supermarket on a world map if you were looking at it in its entirety and had no idea which hemisphere to focus on. I imagine it would be doable, but very difficult.

So I think it’s gonna be a case of Loki knowing Doom is sucking power from him and the tree, but not knowing exactly where he is to take him out. He can’t leave his throne for long periods, so it’s not like he could go and search everywhere and gather clues and interrogate people for his whereabouts, etc. The only way for Loki to cut off Doom’s power supply would be to stop powering the timelines altogether. But then they’d all die, so of course he’s never gonna do that.

And there lies the problem. Doom absorbs power from Loki until he’s nearly unstoppable, the whole time going around to different universes wreaking havoc in order to achieve whatever goal he has. Loki’s trapped- acting as the Molecule Man and basically just being a battery for the big bad due to his unwillingness to let the tree die. So how’s he supposed to get out of this pickle? He enlists the TVA and the multiversal avengers to hunt down Doom and fight him, of course!

This even fits with most of the rumors I’ve seen from insiders. Sylvie’s likely the one Loki sends to recruit the new avengers, like folks were saying. Doom does absorb Loki, like they said, just not in a draining-him-dry-til-he-dies kinda way. Loki would be a big part of the movie but have very little screen time (this plot would only require like… a 3 minute intro scene with him and then he could be absent until the last 5 minutes) as was speculated.

Since we know Secret Wars and Battleworld are coming, I would imagine this all ends in the avengers failing and Loki eventually having to leave the throne to try to take care of it himself. This, of course, would lead to the multiverse falling apart and it would also leave the Citadel open to being taken over by someone else while he’s gone (likely Doom). And you know what? Maybe that was his plan all along- to goad Loki into leaving the throne so he could steal it. Who knows.

I’m curious as to what Loki’s role would be in Secret Wars if this happens though. If the timelines all fell apart because he left, that would cause some massive guilt for him. If Doom is now on his throne, there must be something stopping him from just popping in and removing him lol. Maybe he doesn’t realise someone else is occupying the Citadel for awhile? Maybe he’s weak from all the power sucking and has to regain his strength? Maybe there’s something else at play- hostages, new multiverse logic, emotional stuff? I have no idea.

[deuterosapiens]

And that's that for Echoes of Wisdom! A pleasant, charming game to be sure!

There's good and bad to be had, but it's certainly an unusual game. I'll definitely be going back over it to collect those Echoes I'm missing, which luckily for me, is a scant ten, per the post-game break down. One of which, humorously enough, is the damn carrot Echo used to summon your horse. I did not actually bother to do the Horse Ranch quest until just after my fifth (or sixth, depending on how you're counting) dungeon. Just going to drop a break here though, because I want to talk a bit more freely about this game.

So, there are a couple of Echoes I've discovered fairly trivialize most combat encounters. The Wolfos echo, any of the Darknut series echoes (the Level 3 variant I actually used basically as a blender throughout the entire last act, in the Still Ancient Ruins), and the Chompfin echo for water.

This game does a fair job of combining the "play it your way" mentality of the recent Wild era titles with the more strict flow of classic dungeons' puzzles. While you have considerably more options in this game, they will typically amount to being a variation on the same sorts of themes. Use fire to light torches- whether that comes from a Brazier, a Torch Slug or an Ignizol is entirely up to you, for example.

Let's talk about the key feature that honestly probably amounts to one of the biggest draws of the charming little game: DUNGEONS (and their BOSSES).

Let's see, there's three main dungeons, followed by Hyrule Castle, then three more dungeons (plus the endgame). Which means we follow the Ocarina of Time dungeon structure, which actually means we follow the A Link to the Past dungeon structure, which is appropriate, all things considered.

Each dungeon requires the traversal of a short Still World segment, which will bring Pokémon Platinum fans immense joy, before pissing them off at the memory of the Distortion World's absence in BDSP, and Legends-Arceus. These segments are mostly platforming with little significant puzzle-solving. They are the reason the Old Bed echo appears at the front of my Most Used list. But the weird eldritch, distorted scenery is quite nice to appreciate. It really does a fine job of setting up the game's final boss too.

I'm a bit torn on if I have a favorite dungeon. I definitely have a least favorite, in the form of the Lanayru Temple. Oh sweet Demise, these ice puzzles pissed me off. I did, however, find that dungeon's boss (SCORCHILL) to be quite fun, so we've got serious points awarded. Eldin Temple is weirdly small, and kind of hallway-y, if you get my drift, but it has Volvagia which I absolutely refuse to complain about. Hated the Mogryph fight, though I expect that's because I made it significantly harder than it should have been. The Faron Temple is interesting in that it really tries to hide its linearity: the theme is Jungle Temple and it honestly captures that feeling pretty damn well: the miniboss is also immensely fun, at least in how it is presented to you, though it's not particularly challenging: Gohma is, well, Gohma, so I don't think we're winning any Boss points with it. Vocavor is a boss with an interesting design, but underwater fish bosses have never won any awards and they aren't starting to now (it did bring to mind a Bowser Junior fight in Mario Wonder, so there's that).

Huh.

Oh, right, Ganon. Eh, this is literally the exact same fight as in Link's Awakening and, if I remember correctly, A Link to the Past. Somehow, however, and I cannot for the like of me figure out how, Grezzo has completely thrown off the timing of this fight: for some reason, and I'm admitting this solely for opacity, the Dead Man's Volley sections are timed, and I literally cannot find a better word for it, wrong. Luckily, they are technically optional if you have the right Echo (which you will, as it's given to you in this very dungeon), but it brought me death and therefore annoyed me.

This game follows up with our recent (if you call Skyward Sword recent) trend of having a massive horde battle precede the final boss. Well, sort of a horde- Zelda's Echo casts Echoes of her own that should be a challenging horde, but alas! The Hylian Blender renders this fight significantly easier than any other.

I will have to look this up, bit did anyone on the dev team have any involvement with Kirby Star Allies? Everything related to Null reminds me of Void Termina, and I am struggling to believe this is simply a coincidence.

Speaking of Null, let's talk about Null!

This thing is one hundred and fifteen percent definitely my favorite thing this game presents us with. Null is an entity from the void, imprisoned within the world itself by the Goddesses of the Triforce (sorry, Prime Energy- this bothered ne immensely), imprisoned to prevent it from devouring all life that might appear within the void. A classic primordial horror, if I do say so, and if there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's primordial entities who are world-bent on the annihilation of existence itself. When you see this thing's lair, Earthbound had better jump so far forward in your mind you are given extradimensional whiplash.

If I were a timeline fanatic, I imagine Null would screw it up so damn much.

So, where do I stand here. Where where where.

The ideas behind this game are quite odd, to say the least, and their execution is a bit short. I feel like if this map were larger, and if there were more Echoes and quests, I would have more thoughts on how it plays. I just finished the damn thing and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the actual experience of playing it, which is absurd, really.

This one does feel like a love letter to the franchise's highs and lows, a bite-sized sandbox just screaming "We love Zelda!"

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 3/19/2024

boy hope i never run out of zelda games to play or my mental health is going to Tank. there are very vague endgame stuff spoilers (not where zelda is, but some of the time fuckery) but i am going to spoil a bit of the rito sage quest. nothing is rot-13'ed. i feel like that's a fair compromise since this game has been out for about a year? please let me know YOUR opinions on recent game spoilers

listening

Thanks A Lot But No Thanks from the 1955 musical It's Always Fair Weather, sung by Dolores Grey. this was Dolores Grey propaganda in the @hotvintagepoll. i love a sugar baby song and this is sort of an. anti-sugar-baby song? a satitrical sugar baby song? she thanks suitors for increasingly improbable gifts (the state of Maine, et al) before killing them??

the PIPES on this woman!!! the comedic timing!!! she pulls out a gun and shoots suitors dead while thanking them for an autographed picture of john wayne!!! she pulls a big lever and they all fall under the stage!!! ive been having kind of a Time in the depths of unemployment and this made me genuinely laugh (not one short sharp bark of laughter, full on cackling).

thanks for the darling uranium mine indeed

reading

the moonstone by wilkie collins (and philip). this has been my falling asleep reading book. this is decidedly not a cozy mystery but the stakes are not like. so high i have to keep reading through the night to find out what happens. i'm having a good time with it, currently about halfway and still very irritated with rachel, the main character right now. i have not revised my "spoiled brat" opinion and i look forward to seeing if i ever revise it.

-

watching

The Three Musketeers (2011, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson). thank you mackintosh (this is a discard from my hometown library and no one needs to know where that is thanks). it's pretty widely available on free platforms rn which is how you know it's good. it's not Good is the thing but it is extremely fun. it is straight up the three musketeers but with an airship. milla jovovich jumps off an airship into the channel. milla jovovich does some assassins creed shit. luke evans does some assassins creed shit. there is an airship fight and an airship chase. it is So cheesy and unfortunately never got another sequel. it also inexplicably has some of the finest cinematic swordfighting since the golden age of hollywood.

this was a really successful impromptu movie night pick for a more widely varied gang than usual, including some teens. my bestie also enjoyed it, which i am So pleased by bc she has extremely exacting movie taste. this cast is so stacked for no good reason: orlando bloom, luke evans, christoph waltz, mads mikkelsen, matthew macfayden...

-

playing

i have a post in my head about breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom and their dialogue with each other about loss and grief, but i think that's going to have to wait until i have a little bit more brainpower. perhaps i can talk a little bit about how they make me feel about loss and grief, and how i was upset for zelda and her hundred-year siege in the last one but i am so so so desperately sad for zelda in tears of the kingdom.

i played through breath of the wild with a constant background sense of loss and grief. this is only partially due to the real-life severe depression and joblessness. i think this is a personal brain thing and not a game thing, but i did feel guilty when fucking around in breath of the wild and not actively doing main quests to save zelda. like i would look at the castle off in the distance and feel kind of bad. the champions (and zelda!) telling link as soon as physically possible that it wasn't his fault made me cry in real life every time. i get it's like a month max of in-universe time between games, but it still feels like he has once again missed SO much. i think this is sort of a larger symptom of depression in that i look at [REDACTED] in tears of the kingdom and get a bit hopeless about [REDACTED] and it's like. well i might as well go pick golden apples and not do main quests. time is meaningless.

i am really glad they kept the shrine of resurrection on the plateau in tears of the kingdom. if that hadn't been there i the player would have felt very unmoored. i cannot begin to think how unreal and depersonalized it would have made link feel.

enough of that! the hero's path function is so funny. there are such huge swathes of the map i looked at and said No Thanks! Not Yet!

my depths map is even funnier. eight lightroots so far. no thank you! too scary still! i thought until VERY RECENTLY that all the caves and wells led to the depths and was avoiding them. mistake! cool shit in caves and wells! some horrible boys as well but they are vastly outnumbered by the cool shit.

the rito sage quest fucked SO severely. i had so much fucking fun with that boss fight even though it took me a real life two hours to get up to the arena with the puzzles to unlock the boss fight. i also surprised myself and did not have to look up how to beat any of the puzzles or the boss! just entered a state of flow and looked up and it was three hours later! i know a lot of people are very grumpy about how this was not a totally new game with a totally new map, but i have nothing but praise for the mechanics in this completely new section. knocked my socks off. made me think but wasn't too frustrating. made me use all my powers and all my weapon types. it was simply a great deal of almost frictionless fun! some over the top sick as shit stuff that is the whole point of video games as a medium imo

unlocked all the geoglyphs and i am Upset. i am UPSET.

and now for some horse talk (TM): i kept the very first horse i caught out of nostalgia even though these stats are not very good. i think the naming scheme for this game will be H (the last game was C). the breath of the wild giant ganon horse is so funny. you can't do shit with this horse. you can't change the mane. you can't change the tack. you can't increase his stats. he's just There. Large.

tangential horse talk: why is this lynel in the wetlands. his feathering and fetlocks are going to rot off. he is going to founder

some places ASCEND works where i didn't expect it to: tree. water you can stand in.

i stumbled across the last power completely accidentally while trying to deliver some eyes to a mysterious god and this was so fucking funny. i DID throw this guy down a big pit in the last game and he never came back. i forgot about that.

also people were fucking gaga for rauru but why didn't i see people talking about either of these two last summer on this, the -girl affix site and the scruffy shredded boy site

some other bits and bobs:

i was so annoyed patricia was part of the compendium in the last game i fucking got her this time ok

very hashtag relatable languages moment

unrelated to either of those things, i have done the gerudo sage quest except for the boss battle and i missed two huge swathes of hashtag tunnel gameplay (going to find riju through the tunnels. simply went overland) and getting to the central temple chamber (simply used ascend). whoops

there's a little tower concept art piece in purah's room in the ancient lab! that's a fun little touch i really love, it really helps differentiate the games and show changes in the overworld between games in a very cheap and east way for the devs

bc i play these games like dressup simulators, i also want to note that misko's tents are also really fun, they really feel like they're from a much earlier era and i'm stumbling across an untouched archaeological site

-

making

garden update: growing along okay, it has been so so so wet lately and i should have bitten the bullet and bought the big expensive bag of perlite, the drainage is not terrific. i should elevate all the planters and that would help a bit too. tomatoes are bit leggy, i moved them out of the partial shade on the end of the balcony and in front of the window. i am a bit concerned about them getting scorched, but again it's been so wet lately they need all the help they can get. i feel like they're established enough to be pruned a bit to make them bushier but i am Afraid. there are worse things in life than leggy tomatoes

the pic on the left below: these bush beans are looking a bit strange as well. the four shorter ones came up, promptly withered their cotyledons, and i thought they died until they popped out their first true leaves. the larger ones i think may have some kind of mosaic virus but it's a little early to tell. these are bins that haven't been used outside (they stored clothes in for the move) and new dirt from home depot. either the dirt or the seed stock itself may have been infected? very strange. the cucumbers in the bin in the back (hidden by the beans) are also taking forever to get going. at least the sweet peas are doing fine. the spinach i planted in that back bin withered where the stems met the soil and died. i think it was simply to early and too damp for them.

anyway on the right pic above: these normie peas and normie climbing beans seem to be doing fine. that's dill in the gray pot and basil in the bucket, they also seem to be doing fine. just sort of a perplexing corner on the other side of the balcony.

[elvhenmage]

rambling thoughts abt dav after beating it in three and a half days (this will contain spoilers):

no kissing davrin whenever i want??? criminal. i miss being able to go up and chat with my companions in general

also idk if it’s just a davrin thing but the romance line wasss… i dunno. not as like, prevalent? as i wanted, i think. but i enjoyed it very much, i do adore him. i just would’ve liked a pet name or a second kiss scene at least

base combat gameplay is fun. i started to learn combos in my last ~four hours of gameplay but i think i like it too. but i don’t like how companions won’t use abilities unless i tell them to

goddamn i love the sprinting. this bitch hauls ass. the jumping and mantling is a little stiff sometimes but not enough to really bother me

the horror of the blight and of ghilan’nain in general!!! oh man. the blight is so disgusting and i love it. she is such a damn freak. they could’ve gone farther with it but i loved what we got

being able to pinpoint exactly when solas is thinking and then lying to rook is so delicious. when he said “if you help me defeat elgar’nan, i promise the veil will not collapse by my hand” or whatever i was like hmm. weird phrasing. and then to find out killing elgar’nan will bring down the veil?? i love it. what a fucking bastard

companions are good. found myself enamored by all of them in different ways. their individual quests felt like a LOT going on that i didn’t understand at first but i got used to it

this felt very high stakes even before my companions started actually dying in my doomed run. dai didn’t feel high stakes to me, but this did. maybe seeing the devastation from the blight made it feel more personal or something? idk

really big fan of being able to witness party banter by finding companions chatting around the lighthouse. and companions cheering you on in battle :) nice touches that make them feel interconnected ykwim

i stand by what i said years ago about wanting this to be a dual protagonist game. i think it could’ve benefited from more inquisitor but i also get how that could’ve been overwhelming and detrimental to rook’s story

oh my god also can we talk about southern thedas getting absolutely fucking destroyed?? that’s insane. when they said our choices in the south wouldn’t matter bc we’re in the north i didn’t think they meant the south would get wiped off the fucking map 😭 the inquisitor never catches a fucking break

getting to encourage nailah to take solas back was super cool and you know i jumped on that shit but the highlight of that scene for me personally was nailah then turning on elowen like “so tell me about DAVRIN” <3 it fit so well into the little backstory i had planned for elowen and nailah

i HATE the menu system. i put over forty hours into this run and by the end of it i was still hitting the button to close the map instead of swapping from local to world. i also don’t know why they put ability selection on the main character page instead of on the skill tree page, but i must’ve been playing for twelve hours before i found out how to swap that fucking thing 😭

speaking of the skill tree. i was right to be intimidated by that when it dropped bc what the fuck is going on in there. there are SO many options and it makes even less sense to only allow three at a time. i was leveling up like a motherfucker to the point that i wouldn’t even look at the skill tree until i had like five points to spend

i like what they did with inventory and gear. companions having set gear/weapons reminded me of da2 and it was much easier to manage vs having 7382 weapons to sell at the end of a section from looting every kill. that said, a LOT of armors for rook are ugly as fuck lmfao. it was kinda crazy going into the endgame with all my companions in their gorgeous legendary armor while i was in my simple dalish wraps

major endgame spoiler here but that’s on you if you’re still reading past the readmore: why the fuck did they make the one canonical and unavoidable companion death between harding and davrin. the amount of people that are going to kill him because harding has history in dai or because they just don’t like him is going to be obscene.

lavellan leaving the south to do whatever it’s gonna do to go with solas into the fade to seek further atonement is WIIILDDDD. i love you nailah. you are insane. who the fuck is going to take care of southern thedas <- this will never matter bc i fear bioware doesn’t care

why did it take so long to get all the companions??? was that just me or did anyone else feel like it took a thousand years to get the full party?

ok that’s enough outta me (for now). i’m gonna browse my mutuals’ blogs and then watch courtney play dav :)

[the-other-art-blog]

Benophie wish list: Benedict and Anthony (Part 3: the mistress question/Siena)

If you haven't read my previous posts about Benophie wish list: Benedict and Anthony: PART 1 and PART 2

This is the last part of my analysis/wish list of Benedict and Anthony's relationship in the show and how it can continue in the s4.

This time, I want to theorize on Anthony's reaction to Benedict's feelings for Sophie.

Let me be clear: I do not mean any ill toward Anthony or Kate. But I never understood the hate for the previous love interest for the Bridgertons, since we know who their endgame will be. Siena was no threat to Kanthony's HEA but she still had an impact on Anthony and is part of his story. And she was a good person.

Having said that, I think it would be smart if the writers call back on her and Anthony's relationship, not her, just a reference to her. Why? Well, she was Anthony's mistress.

Obviously, the whole Bridgteron family is going to love Sophie unconditionally, but I think it will be interesting to have Anthony being a bit (or a lot) hesitant, at first, for several reasons.

As the head of the family, he feels responsible for keeping their family's good standing (the whole point of s2's quest for the diamond/Edwina). Sophie tells Benedict this after just 5 minutes of meeting Anthony. His marriage to Kate was not financially advantageous but she was part of his world. Let's be honest, Kate in no way suffered poverty, real poverty. At worst, the Sharmas were middle class. The scandal came from Anthony's pursuit of Edwina and the failed wedding. So, yes, I think he'd be a bit nervous about his brother marrying a servant and an illegitimate daughter. Añready in s1, when he and Daphne were walking around the ballroom in ep1 he dismisses a suitor for his "dubious parentage".

A while ago, I wrote a one-shot about this. How would Anthony react to Benedict's crush on Sophie:

Moreover, he won't be living with Violet and the girls (+ Gregory) anymore, so he won't know Sophie as well as them. To him, she is just another lady's maid, which is why he is so confused about why Violet invites her to tea. His head-of-the-family alert will ring as soon as he hears Ben brought her. Why? Like, be real, which son of an aristocrat cares about female servants unless they its for inappropriate or malicious purposes. AOFAG implied that men who harassed servants were judged more harshly than those who were with other women. So, I think it's reasonable to expect Anthony to be curious about Ben and Sophie's relationship. Has Ben taken his libertine activities too far? Does his brother harass servants now? Is she taking advantage of Ben?

He will also want to figure out what exactly is happening between them because of his past with Siena. Anthony almost ruined his life because he got too attached and confused lust with love. He won't want Ben to make the same mistake. Also, I think the book made the mistake of not remembering the LIS in at least one scene before Colin's. Did no one remember how long he looked for her? In the show, LIS could cause Anthony to be more weary of Benophie. Didn't Benedict already find the love of his life? What the hell is going on? What is Benedict playing at? Can't he see that having a mistress who is his sister's maid reflects horribly on the entire family?

A confrontation about this between Anthony and Benedict could be a great opportunity to push Benedict to define his feelings for the LIS and for Sophie. Does he actually want Sophie to be his mistress, like Siena was to Anthony?

And of course, Anthony will see how different this situation is from his, how different Ben is from him. After this, he will 100% support Ben and Sophie.

Kate could also help him handle the situation, not storm into Ben's house and demand answers but talk. She could also remind him that Mary suffered ostracism after marrying her father.

If you haven't read my previous posts about Benophie wish list: Benedict and Anthony: PART 1 and PART 2.

About s4 side plots

#benophie wish list

[moonglide]

echoes of wisdom hours 12 & 13

-spoilers for end of the hyrule castle quest and for the goron quest, up until the dungeon.

-i fought ganon. i died to magic tennis. again. that's 9.

-realized that to survive magic tennis, i needed to go far away from ganon to have enough reaction time.

-i beat ganon! echo ganon, i guess.

-tri, you say that our opponent must have the echo power? gosh! who'd've thunk it? t'weren't like i suggested that or something.

-as we ascend to leave the wall BREAKS. i was scared. i did not want another boss fight.

-link comes out to save us with a baseball bat????

-oh he gets crystalled. nooooo

-the shadowy figure with claws is kinda creepy. it's probably that (endgame spoilers, probably) null guy people keep mentioning.

-god i love how supportive the king is. botw zelda would've killed for that kind of praise.

-love how i go back and i'm like whelp. time to sleep.

-wait can i echo my own bed??? I can!!! and it heals two hearts!!! i forgot to mention when i got the gerudo bed, but it was so useful. and now this is more useful!

-kitty!!! hello almond. how was being abducted into the shadow realm?

-throne room.

-hold up. rift in eldin volcano, sure. rift in faron wetlands, sure. rift in holy mount lanayru??? excuse me? where is that. there is only so much room on the map for a big-ass mountain.

-oh it's the region i thought was hebra. ok.

-prime energy? excuse me? just call it the triforce like a normal person.

-hi impa! what quest do you have for me?

-the pretty white horse is MY horse??? sweet! thank u impa.

-teleported to the ranch. horse is missing. can't find it. someone please tell me where the horse is. are they hiding the horse? will the ranch hands give it back if i apologize for making fun of them for their horse-finding skills?

-whatever.

-where to go first? I don't want to go to lanayru, because, you know. it's holy. it's wisdom. it's cold. it's definately meant to be last.

-i think i want to do eldin first because the gorons seem like the least serious. fun little volcano excursion instead of tangling with wood spirits in the mystical forest.

-kakariko! man is missing his cat. i get the cat outfit! it's fun.

-honestly i like the disguise more than the gear the king gave me.

-also since im in kakariko, let me talk about the slumber dojo real quick. i checked on ao3 for echoes of wisdom fics. guess what the one with the most kudos is. guess what. it's the slumber dojo guy banging zelda while she's sleeping. come on guys. i'm a lil disappointed but i'm not at all surprised.

edit: ok so it ain't anymore. but it was yesterday.

-found a fairy flower! how fun

-speaking of fairies, time to become more s t y l i s h

-damn you expect me to expand my accessory limit? in this economy? inflation is crazy. she jacked up her price by 3x. i still did it tho.

-business shrub! i made like ten smoothies.

-i finally made an unappealing one. it's two rocks. i understand that. but why does two sticks of butter make a radiant smoothie? that's not radiant. that's just gross.

-completed a small rift before i got to goron city. was i supposed to? idk. it never came up.

-oh dalton (or whatever his name is) is sweet. bro needs a confidance boost.

-went to the rock roast first. it was quick.

-lizalfos second. can't believe dalton's a nerd. i love it

-i was gonna use the echo that pushes out in all directions, but instead i sent out a redead and a tornando. it worked.

-sorry for destroying your dead dad's portrait. my b.

-ohhh i fly by grabbing the bird. that makes sense. i thought riding echoes would be something i needed to unlock.

-dalton how did you get here. you can't fly. i don't understand.

-bro is like 'according to my calculations' but my dude. you are just punching a rock. it is not that complicated.

-for a second i thought nugget of wisdom 52 was just 'HYAHHHHH!' and i cackled because that's just so goron. but apparently the shout was just a little interuption before the actual nugget. sad.

-tri wdym the limit is two. where did that come from.

-also i totally died again at one point. i don't remember what it was, but i remember i died. so that's 10.

-fave echo: ignacio or albatrawl.

-death count: 10.

[blookmallow]

hey who wants some fuckign. fallout oc lore

nobody, probably. is that going to stop me. absolutely not. here's everything you never needed to know about my new vegas courier (my first one/my main file, also my first time playing a fallout in the first place)

ive probably posted some of this somewhere before but heres the exhaustive info dump version. also heres some random picrews/dolls of her, the first one is the best one. her hair is supposed to be vaguely purple tinted but picrews never have that exact shade

Bonnie Sterling - The Courier. Lone Ranger of the Mojave wasteland

Nicknames: "Bon" on occasion. i want her to have a really cool nickname as a ghoul later in life but i cannot figure one out.

--

current plot status: Completed main storyline and every questline I could find. I went with independent vegas as my endgame but I don't think bonnie would've kicked the NCR out completely so I'm going with, she probably figured a way to negotiate a truce or something. mostly im just not thinking too hard about it since new vegas just sticks you in endgame limbo forever anyway since the game Ends when you do the final quest. Completed Dead Money and Old World Blues (but there might still be some bits left around that i didnt finish).

--

Faction Info:

NCR: Idolized. Works closely with them most of the time, but doesn't agree with everything they do.

The Kings: Idolized. Only faction she has explicitly joined. Has a close, unspecified relationship with the King. Regrets getting the NCR involved with them, but couldn't find a better solution without more bloodshed.

Caesar's Legion: Vilified. Kills legionnaires on sight. Hopes to one day take out every last one of them.

Brotherhood of Steel: Neutral. Stays out of their way, stays out of their business. Has helped them out a few times, though. (I'll be honest I cannot figure out what the hell the brotherhood is doing or stands for or anything in new vegas so i just left that one alone)

Great Khans: Mostly neutral. Doesn't really like them, per se, but is able to maintain civility with them, and convinced them not to side with Caesar.

mostly if you support the legion, you're her enemy. otherwise, it pretty much boils down to "can you be reasonably negotiated with? then we're okay"

--

Family: Mother, Cathy Sterling (deceased; suicide.) Father, Russell "Rusty" Sterling (deceased; combination of illnesses over time. Bonnie thinks the radiation caught up with him in the end.)

Partner/s: Ex-wife, Jolene (Unofficially divorced. Status and location unknown.) Undefined ongoing Something with the King, but immediately deflects any questions asked about it. Unlikely to ever really get serious, though the King often claims he'll get her to marry him one day. he's probably joking, but then, maybe he's not. (no basis in canon for this but ive decided it. try and stop me)

Found Family: Ed-E (best friend forever. she takes it everywhere and is extremely protective of it). Arcade (practically a brother), Raul (close friend, reminds her of her grandfather. he's the only one she has left in her future ghoul days.) Doc Marten (like an uncle to her. she visits him often and is still grateful to him for saving her life.)

--

Notable Injuries: Gunshot wound to the head (Benny in the Goodsprings cemetery. scar, some neurological damage). Machete lacerations on her arm and neck (Benny in the deathmatch at Caesar's camp. Scars.) Frequent ongoing radiation poisoning and early stages of ghoulification. Lung damage due to smoking, wasteland life, and exposure to the red mist post-Sierra Madre. Suffers from PTSD from the Sierra Madre. Acquires a cybernetic heart and spine at Big MT. (I have not yet played the other DLCs so I don't know what ELSE is going to happen, )

--

Favorite Items: pool balls (i obsessively steal these every time i see one. i have so many), dinosaur toys, cigarettes, whiskey, mentats, sunset sarsaparilla. Will use any weapon she can get her hands on, but likes a good old fashioned pistol best.

--

Future: Never has children. Becomes a ghoul eventually, too stubborn to die and increasingly reckless with radiation over time - part mojave legend, part cryptid.

-----------------------------

Has some memory loss from the gunshot injury; probably has a few screws loose in general. Her hands shake sometimes and she gets frequent headaches. Often doesn't sleep for several days at a time.

chainsmoker. drinks a lot but can handle her liquor. has a bit of a mentats habit that only got worse after the brain injury. she isn't blatantly reckless, at least most of the time, but just doesn't care very much about her health. once you've survived getting shot in the head nothing really seems like that big of a risk anymore.

general attitude of Anything Goes - whatever happens will happen. whatever situations she finds herself in, she'll find herself out of, one way or another. or not, for that matter. she figures she won't be all that concerned about it if she's dead, anyway.

from oklahoma originally - you can definitely hear it in her accent

good at tinkering and figuring things out, but never had any kind of actual education or training - learned a lot from her father, though. she's taken to reading pre-war books about anything and everything when she comes across them. learned some combat training from her dealings in the NCR, and some functional medical knowledge from doc marten.

A drifter who just sort of wanders around looking for oddities, mysteries, people she can help, things to keep busy with. vaguely wants to find the men who wanted her dead - not really for revenge. just to know why. but ultimately she's just trying to live whatever kind of life she has left, and help whoever she can

has a very uncanny ability to solve problems by just asking nicely. she isn't particularly witty or charming - just really unsettlingly calm. something about her catches people off guard. she doesn't really fear anyone or anything, but knows when she's outnumbered or outmatched, and has no problem walking away. "pride's damn easy to swallow when y'keep it in a small enough pill."

isn't really on anyone's Side, but will do what she can to resolve conflict - she doesn't much care about who started it or why or who's right or who's wrong. she just thinks the world would be a little nicer if everyone stopped shooting at each other so much. she doesn't really hold grudges well, and nobody's too crazy for her to stop and listen to.

she does, however, occasionally find reasons to care. after she saw what the legion did to nipton, she's firmly against them, but also isn't interested in running after them with guns blazing. if she had an opportunity to help bring them down, though, she would. [HOWEVER: After the Sierra Madre, something broke in her. after surviving that, and having seen the NCR do nothing enough times, her long-suffering patience finally ran out. she took matters into her own hands, and with a stealth boy and a damn good gun, she broke into the legion camp and assassinated caesar herself, alone. one day she intends to go back to take out the rest of them.] ((yes i did do this. i don't know how i got out of there alive. i was really surprised by how little actually changed by doing this but i do still want to go back and try to kill the rest of them. fuck you legion))

can be very detached and cold hearted if pushed far enough. if she needs to kill you, she will.

can't stand the silence of the wilderness, so she listens to the radio near constantly. developing a complicated love-hate relationship with mr. new vegas, her oftentime only companion out in the desert. often listens to the black mountain station as well, following the drama and raving like her own personal soap opera (post tabitha plotline she misses it a lot. doesn't feel good about killing her)

hates underground/enclosed spaces and becomes mildly panicked if she feels trapped. hates vaults but knows there's often useful/interesting things in them, so she ends up exploring them anyway

has a habit of picking up odds and ends she finds around the wasteland and has filled her Novac apartment and half the lucky 38 with junk she swears could be useful one day, somehow. started collecting pool balls and has now practically developed a compulsion around them. seems to end up with another dinosaur every time she stops by the novac gift shop

frequently just jumps off railings/small cliffs because stairs take too long. this absolutely drives arcade up the wall and he hates trying to keep up with her. self preservation instinct sometimes just Doesn't

played guitar years ago. doesn't think she'd remember anymore, but some part of her hopes to find one someday to see if it's still in her somewhere. [post-sierra madre: she did find one, and against all odds managed to get it home. she didn't touch it for months, recovering from the trauma, but has started toying with it a little. she's not as good as she once was, but it's starting to come back.]

fiercely protective of ed-e, and never goes anywhere without it. (in my mind ed-e comes too even if she has other companions, game limitations be damned) doesn't really trust most people to travel with her for long. spends the most time with arcade and raul otherwise. (has traveled with veronica and cass briefly, but doesn't know either of them all that well, and doesn't really trust the brotherhood enough to let veronica very close. i havent really spent enough time with lily to decide what their dynamic is. i love her though)

brought a sarsaparilla star badge for primm slim. he loves it

also gives stars to all her companions and insists they wear them. refuses any explanation as to why. may in fact just be messing with them. she taped one on to ed-e as well.

as much as she loves arcade, kicked him out of the lucky 38 for stealing her rare nuka colas (this is canon. he did this to me.) raul is the only one who lives there. she doesn't really like sharing a living space, but the lucky 38 has plenty of room, and she trusts raul more than anyone else (and over time he becomes her oldest friend, given her eventual ghoul lifespan)

often sits and talks with no-bark. doesn't understand most of what he says, but she likes to listen anyway

stops to visit rotface every time she's in town. i wish i could be his friend i love him

sometimes goes to visit victor (or what's left of him) in goodsprings, even though for all she can tell, he's dead. treats his deactivated shell like a grave. doesn't understand what happened to him and can't figure out how to fix him.

--

was badly traumatized at Caesar's camp. seeing how many of them there were, talking to the slave women and seeing the pain and emptiness in their faces, hearing the cold laughter of the legionnaires and feeling their eyes on her did something to her. she felt scared for the first time in years. she was given her revenge, and it felt awful. after everything benny did to her, she felt nothing but disgusted with herself when he lay dead at her feet.

(note: I had intended to spare him here, but then discovered there was practically no way to get him out alive, and nothing actually happens from what ive read if you somehow do get him to survive. so like...... he's Supposed to die here. i decided the next most in character decision i could make was to at least make it a fair fight. i think that turned out to be more narratively interesting anyway) (i cant explain my feelings for benny. i don't know why i didn't want revenge. i don't know why i felt so empty after he was dead)

has deep scars across her neck and her arm from the machete duel. She still uses Benny's lighter, and refuses to talk about it.

she also suffered severe trauma in the Sierra Madre incident. she was fully delirious when she came back to the mojave, and managed to stumble her way to camp forlorn hope before she collapsed and remained unconscious for several days. the NCR medics weren't super she would make it. she finally awoke in a blind incomprehensible panic. after some time, she calmed down to a numb, raw emptiness, and still refused any explanation for where she had been or what had happened to her - just insisting to the point of desperation that she had to get home. She never talks about the Sierra Madre. Not to anyone. She has lasting lung damage from the effects of the Cloud to this day.

Wanders the wastes looking for Dog from time to time, but never saw him again. She has PTSD around beeping noises, and cannot stand feeling anything against her neck. Has fully torn collars off of her shirts just to relieve this anxiety before.

--

backstory

Only child. her mother cathy was a strange, melancholy woman who never smiled and was always ill, likely radiation sickness. she was mentally ill, as well, and spent most of her time staring off into space with blank, empty eyes. bonnie's father claimed she wasn't always like that, but never said a word about what had happened to her. Cathy committed suicide via taking as many chems at once as she could when Bonnie was 12 years old.

Her father Rusty was a rough, stubborn man, and was often hard on her, but loved her, and taught her how to survive. he smoked and drank a lot, and didn't care to watch his radiation levels, believing he was strong enough to withstand it (and didn't take much stock in threats he couldn't see). He was injured when bonnie was around 19, and his health declined rapidly, but he refused to see a doctor. He died, maybe from radiation, maybe from infection, maybe from a lot of things. Bonnie misses him, but felt it was inevitable that something would take him eventually

Bonnie once had a wife - Jolene. things ended very poorly. Jolene betrayed her and sold her out to a group of gangsters (for what reason/exact context i dont really know) - bonnie almost killed her in anger and grief, but shot the wall above her head instead and left her there. She never saw her again. doesn't know if jolene is alive or dead, and isn't sure which news would be worse.

✨ bonnie

[centuryberry]

Tossing my hat in the ring for Xiaotian/Xiaojiao/Red Son/Yue endgame because:

1) It’d be funny for people who probably explained away Yue not wanting THEM as something being wrong with her only for it to come out she has not just one but three partners

2) More partners means more support and affection it’s what she deserves!!!

3) Reference/reflection of her parents’ (Macaque, Monkey King, RinRin, Shanza) relationship and how it’s imprinted on her

3a) It’d be funny if just like her parents, her relationship also started out with similar four way jealously/pining/misunderstanding shenanigans

3b) It’d be ESPECIALLY funny if Red Son, who blatantly started out being jealous of MK (whether you read it as romantic or not) ended up feeling some degree of attraction towards him ESPECIALLY if he ends up with one of the girls first (thinking he successfully wooed Yue/got over her and therefore his jealously of MK) before realizing he also wants MK

4) It’d be funny if she was just like, dating half her party. Yue finally gets possessed by LBD and she’s like “why is the Venn diagram of the people trying to defeat me and your paramours a normal circle”

5) Yue returns to Heaven to them trying to arrange a marriage for her and she’s just like “oh meet my husband and his husband and his girlfriend”

6) Anyone who planned on giving Yue’s first partner the shovel talk is probably going to need some serious time management skills and at least one bathroom break

7) MK running gag where whenever he’s afraid someone is mad at him/one of them or going through something you can tell he’s checking his invisible stats screen to see if he lost relationship points or a relationship quest update

8) It’s a bunch of people stuffed into one relationship constantly getting into goofs so you can name it Clown Car or something

See, on one hand, I have plans for Yue and her love life (among other things). On the other, I can see this happening after the events of Queen of the Mountain. This could happen. And it would be SO funny.

(Also lol Xiaotian desperately checking his status screen to peek at those relationship stats.)

[ac-liveblogs]

i have not played natlan act 3-4 so uhhhh i wonder how natlan's middle act stacks up to other middle act archon quests (i.e. sumeru and fontaine) in your opinion? my twitter timeline hypes the fuck out of act 3-4 but i really can't trust fandom atp ...

Heya!

Tbh, every time I see someone hyping the fuck out of Genshin, especially Fontaine, I really do just… LMAO, bc the Fortress of Meropide was a chore and Sumeru's middle act was absolutely blatant filler. I think Natlan is better than both, but like, that's because those were bad, not because Natlan is good.

I think the best way to describe the Acts3-4 of Natlan is "straightforward, but boring". Act 3 mostly consists of trying to find Ororon and figure out why he's with the Fatui - that translates into Genshin's traditional "walk a short distance to the glowing light" type gameplay and I think one generic mob fight? Act 4 is... lots and lots of mob fights.

I think Act 3 is the best showing in Natlan - it does an okay job establishing Citlali and Ororon's characters and dynamic and why Ororon is working with the Fatui, but it resolves so quickly and uneventfully I really struggle to care about it. But at the end of it, the emotional payoff for this act is Ororon getting a sudden cutscene that gives emotional closure to the character arc Citlali described to us maybe 20 minutes before. "This is Ororon's tragic backstory" > "instant, easy resolution via relatively chill monologue". I mean, it wasted less time than Furina's, but it's clearly Mavuika they really want us to care about here. She's already had 2 extended playable segments about her past, Act 5 is gonna suuuuck

There's no actual combat or more than a couple of seconds of peril or anything, it's all totally cutscene based. Injecting combat into this sort of thing usually helps raise the stakes, but it's totally absent here… we don't even get to fight Capitano. His plan gets interrupted by Ororon having his Moment and then he just gives up, which is really cool payoff for the guy that's been hyped as the strongest member of the Fatui Harbingers.

An anon described Ororon as a more competent Scaramouche-Irminsul, and while I think Ororon's character works better and it fits the story here more than in Sumeru, at least with Scaramouche he…. god I can't believe I'm saying this, but at least Scaramouche actually… did something… stuff happened that we had to deal with as opposed to stuff ALMOST happening… thhat sucked too, but like… it's… stuff?

I think HYV sometimes forgets how videogames work…? Using combat to convey tone really helps... whatever...

Act 4 was pretty tedious. I know a lot of people got emotional about the war arc, but I've seen it done better elsewhere and I really wasn't impressed. That mostly manifests as bouncing between a bunch of generic mob fights for about 30 minutes, again with no boss. Throwing generic mobs at you in very standard numbers does nothing to enforce any kind of threat, and it exhausted me.

However, it is still better than bumming around the Fortress of Meropide, which I absolutely hated - especially Fontaine Act 3, which was a completely irrelevant timewaster. Natlan's Act 3 and 4 seem to be leading into Natlan's endgame a lot better than Sumeru and Fontaine's did (I think you could excise almost everything from Sumeru and Fontaine Acts 3-4 and end up at Act 5 just fine tbh), and it did feel like there's a bit less yapping than usual...?

There's an effort to show you that "war... war is hell..." with a bunch of dead NPCs, but I don't care about nameless NPCs. Chasca and her sister had very little time put towards getting the audience to care about them (Chasca has some of the least focus out of all the Natlan characters), and she realises she's a hero when her sister dies and goes berserk off-screen, so that didn't work for me.

Also, I cannot get over reaching the end of things, being told BIG ENEMIES COMING, thinking "oh good maybe they'll reuse one of the mat bosses at the very least" and getting confronted with a couple ruin guards.

(Tbh, I think Citlali dying and Ororon reacting to that would've worked better given they spent the ENTIRE PREVIOUS ACT ON THOSE TWO. Or like, Kinich and Ajaw's thing? god. Why put in the thing about Ajaw getting Kinich's body if Kinich dies if you weren't gonna- never mind. It's fine. never mind)

The 6 heroes were underutilised as expected, and it seems like their role concluded this patch. So. Eh.

Overall - I did not get so bored I can barely remember what happened (Sumeru) OR want to bash my head against a wall at any point (Fontaine), but I did get pretty annoyed during Act 4 but overall feel pretty "well that was whatever" about it, so. Natlan 4/10.

[spandexinspace]

It is done. Overall I'd say the game is a 6-7/10 something. It's fun, but it lacks substance at times and nuance all the time. Thoughts and stuff and probably spoilers under the cut.

I still think the lack of carry over from previous games not called Trespasser was a mistake. There are things in the game that should have been affected by what happened in the others and the game dances around them with absolutely no elegance. And they choices you do make aren't all that important in my opinion.

Another change that didn't really work for me was the reduced party size. It didn't break the entire experience, but I could have handled three of them and it would have spiced up interactions.

I ended up like the combat once I got used to it. It's quite easy to cheese once you get some ways into it though. I'll reply it at some point in the future to see if I think it works as a mage too, since that feels like the class that should be the most affected by the reduced number of abilities/spells.

Other pros include the soundtrack, soundscape and visuals. I like the art style and the environments are very impressive and may have burnt a hole through my GPU. The general plot worked well, especially the endgame, but I thought it got a little fractured towards the middle and wasn't a fan of all the companion quests. I like how they tied in to the plot, but some of them just weren't good.

I'm having a hard time really pinpointing what the issue with the companions is. They're not particularly flawed, which I think is part of it, but other than that there's just something missing. They're funny and sometimes emotionally interesting in other ways, but they're not the DAO or DA2 crew. Davrin and Emmrich are the standouts of the cast, Neve is fun, Harding and Bellara are fine and Taash and Lucanis are not.

I'm still absolutely obsessed with Evka and Antoine though. NPCs and couple of the year. I really hope we get to see what the Grey Wardens look like under their less strict and traditional leadership. And maybe now we'll actually see an end to the calling now?

Neve and Lucanis was also a pretty fun ship, despite my not really enjoyment of him. People should be normal about it.

I absolutely loathed how much this game pulls the "Rook you have to pick" choices. The previous games would at least occasionally have a "do whatever the fuck you want" option that seemed slightly connected to your companions' development. There should have been more of that because why am I making life-altering decisions for all these people.

But the elephant in the room throughout the entire game is its treatment of previous lore and nuance. There are so many exclusions and retcons that don't make any sense and/or seem to exist only to simplify the narrative or make it more appealing to a general audience. In some ways it reminds me of how DC currently treats its lore, which isn't a good sign when you're a game series of four games and a pile of mildly canon extra material, and not a comic book company with several dozen monthly books.

It's weird that the oppression of elves is suddenly not an issue anymore. That no one isn't even casually bigoted towards them now. People are claiming that it's because we're not in the south anymore, but everything we saw before this game seemed to indicate that at least parts of the north were even worse than the south. Slavery has at most been illegal for 8 years, it shouldn't be like it never even existed.

I'm disappointed by how the Crows were handled too. Even if what Zevran said wasn't true for everyone there ought to still have been at least some kind of reference to how people like him were treated. Lucanis mentions hardships, but nothing close to the 11% survival rate and random mental abuse. I still think a plot line that explored the difference between Lucanis' more privileged position and that of less fortunate Crows could have been interesting. But really, anything that doesn't just portray them as goody two-shoes local heroes would have been nice.

But overall the game just seems to suffer from a lack of nuance. Things are bad or good and shades of grey need not apply.

Another weird thing is how much and quickly Bellara blames herself (and sometime tries to blame Davrin and elf Rook too) for the things the ancient elves did. It also felt like the game didn't really allow you to push back against that idea too much. I'm not sure if it's intentional commentary, but if it is it's poorly done. Especially if it relies on elves suddenly not being oppressed.

The endgame was really good and tight. Solas' plot was well-done, more so than any other subplot in the game, and sometimes quite emotional.

The future teaser was... interesting. Magisters? Those from beyond the sea? Did it show up if you didn't collect those circles?

I'm not sure if the game will even get a sequel, but I hope it does and that it's a bit more nuanced than this. I expect a more major time and/or space jump for that one though, so how closely married to the lore it'll even have to be remains to be seen.

Also Zevran, Fenris and Josephine were still ROBBED.