#andromeda spoilers

[beansprouts]

Sara Valkyrie "Val" Ryder btw

[mildcrow]

every day i wake up and think about farcille

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - Game Informer pages from issue 367 (the cover story from June 18th) [source, two]

Text reads: "Spotlight - Cover Story - Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It's been ten years since the last full-fledged game in the franchise, but BioWare is finally ready to pull back the curtain on what's next for the fantasy world of Thedas. We visited the studio, spoke to the game's creators, and discovered what's changed in the highly anticipated new installment."

[ace-artemis-fanartist]

Some of The Dragon Prince ladies that I wish we saw more of.

[emthimofnight]

Shadow having black hole-esque powers in the newest movie just proves I was right to make my Sonadow kids comic themed!! 🥰

[circusballoon]

Some of my contributions from big Magma pages with the gift exchange crew! It is my self-assigned job to slowly draw everybody's hoops (human Loops), so there are hoops here (and an honorary hoop) that belong to @a-weepin-willow, @poltergeist-clown-fanart, @jewelielie, and @homopopsie!

Also a bit of my hoop Field because I love them and also people have drawn such good art of them for me which then makes me wanna draw them MORE 😭 oh and my @astralbodies-au Loop is also here and definitely not having a crisis while drinking tea (<- lying)

[kainshana]

Forever together...?

[imnotallie27]

begins... With a blast...

[legionofpotatoes]

I know the discourse well is poisoned and no one hates bioware games more than bioware fans, but I am just 🫠 having so much fun with veilguard it's unreal. It is selfishly the dragon age game I always wanted. with less emphasis on cRPG, a more focused story, curated mission based design that spotlights the high fantasy stuff, slowburn structure with companions, significantly less sidequest bloat, and a fully real-time action-oriented combat system that isn't riddled with the growing pains of previous titles. when I first played origins I imagined something almost exactly like this as my ideal version of a sequel; and it was one of those dirty, selfish thoughts that I knew was disrespectful to the then-established DNA of the thing, but I can't help but feel giddy about having it here and now. like down to the shift away from the childishly dark tone and to something more inherently flexible with a baseline aspirational quality. I hate aesthetically depressing games so much. am I not alive right here and right now already

When I say "aesthetically" there though I do mean it. I'm fully on the opposite side when it comes to tone and positions expressed in the story itself. I am just not including that in my analysis because I am not done yet - so please no spoilers! I think I am where most people consider to be the second act, and I definitely have my gripes with the narrative framework and some of the optics, but I won't put the cart before the horse and will see how it wraps things up first. Above that level, in terms of how it presents itself, of how it plays, of how it balances its core pillars - it is such a bioware-ass game and I could not be any cozier in it. So grateful it exists

[bunabi]

Im glad I'm not the only one who thought Mythal mentioning humans was weird. Veilguard makes me a little sad bc I feel like its full of awesome concepts that aren't executed well and were rushed, leading to stuff like this.

Still enjoying it, it's just a shame after 10 years I guess

Does make me wish we could have seen more of the ancient dwarves though. They were apparently interesting enough the first elves wanted to mimic them but we know nothing except that they're connected to titans. Give me the extended dwarf lore, bioware, pretty please

Real. I still play Veilguard in my downtime because the combat is fun. (People keep saying it's like God of War? Should I play God of War??) But the streamlined, cliff-notes interpretation of Thedas is so rough.

I just wish I wasn't left with this powerless feeling. Veilguard sold to expectations, had mixed-to-positive critical reception, and it was still shelved. The prospects of future DA projects are unclear compared to Inquisition's post-launch where it felt like a given (and we did in fact get three really solid DLC within a year's time).

I love Dragon Age. I want a faithful conclusion or a continuation even if it comes in the form of a comic, a book, an animated short, a storyboard, anything. As a fan: what am I supposed to do? I will keep voting with my dollar if it helps. Send a sign. Let us know.

[felassan]

Some snippets from DA dev Luke Barrett on the unofficial BioWare forum, cut for length:

DA:I -

User: "I am still convinced that Bioware cut the healing spells and went with barriers instead because of the Multiplayer." Luke Barrett: I can't speak to any other games directly but I can give a bit of historic context for DAI. The game was initially a more dungeon/linear delving - see how far you can get - experience and there was no barrier of any kind. As a side note: healing has always been a hot topic in design because as soon as you include it there are many other conceits you now need take into consideration for the gameplay - one of which I will call 'the Anders problem'. Anyway, as DAI got the date moved and shifted more into the pseudo-openworld the concept of attrition (see how far you can get before having to return to camp) became less relevant and we needed to help the Players have more moment-to-moment agency around their survival. Unfortunately for various reasons (one of which is the sad reality of designing a game with a shifting timeline) the healing couldn't be re-added so we ended up with more of a mitigation strategy in the barrier system. It went through a lot of iterations but eventually landed on what it shipped with which I would call... acceptable (but just barely). Now, I will concede that a part of the reason it didn't return after that shift was an aversion to holy trinity gameplay specifically for MP but it wasn't the core reason. As a side story, trying to balance the game (as that was my job on DAI - and yes, it could be much better haha) we had to all but force Players to take barrier. It is intentionally the first skill in the first tree for the Mage and all the autolevel (I also handled that) is designed to get it right away." [source]

User: "Merry Christmas Luke! Sooo what was the hardest class you had to balance? [DA:I]" Luke Barrett: "I feel like anyone who was around for the post-launch content will already know the answer to this as it was the bane of my existence when I got put exclusively on MP after launch but the Knight-Enchanter barrier absorbing was a pain. Stuff like that is very challenging to feel good without being broken as they are relative to damage so scaling is fairly open-ended. Too little and the casual players won't get use out of it, too much and the character builders will be wildly OP. We actually had a 'no nerfing' guideline for the SP side so it was a hard battle to fix that silly thing 🙃." [source]

"As a fun fact, I did all the logic for autolevel on DAI and the guideline I was given was literally "make functional builds, but don't make something optimal that you'd play"." [source]

DA:TV -

User: "If you can, say thanks to the people making the no die option possible." Luke Barrett: "Done! My team handles this stuff so I let them know 😊" [source]

"Comically, I designed the majority of the items and skills and I am still finding it fun making awesome builds (been almost entirely doing playthroughs lately" [source]

"Was really important to the team that everyone could play the way that felt best to them." [source]

"Each specialization has a focus around a few specific mechanics, some of which are the weapons or damage types but you can go off script and make it work for sure (this was intentional in the designs)." [source]

"I designed all the skills and so they're each enjoyable to me to some extent. I have been playing through the game over and over the last couple months for balance purposes so I've played them all fairly extensively." [source]

User: "Necrotic sounds like it could be either Spirit or Nature." User: "For Rogue, it replace "poison". For Mage, it replace spirit (Spirit bomb). For Warrior, it's more spirit (especially Reaper), but some skills could work as poison too. So basically they merged spirit and nature." Luke Barrett: "Thats pretty close to spot on. They were actually heavily iterated on throughout development - I can't (at least currently) go into specifics as to why though." [source]

"the target for the progression vision is that you can make a viable build out of almost** any aspect of the gameplay." [source]

"As for timelines, We started DA4 in October of 2015 roughly. The entire team was moved to MEA for about 3-4 months to help it ship and I also spent all of 3 weeks helping out on Anthem. But otherwise I've been on some incarnation of DA4 for about 9 years now - pretty ready for it to release 😅." [source]

"yes, years of working on the same thing can cause some burnout but I've played through the full game probably about 8 times in the last few months and it's still fun (though some of the specific levels that haven't changed in a long time I've done 50+ times easily and I could do without ever seeing them again 😂)." [source]

User: "I do kind of feel that at this point the DA team has put so much work into creating and improving their tools and learning the ins and outs of Frostbite [...] But who knows what the devs in the trenches really feel" Luke Barrett: "I will say it does some things very well and some things poorly, relative to other engines. Personally I really enjoy Frostbite but I've been using it since 2012. In an ideal world, many engines would be viable and developers would make games suited to the strengths of a specific engine." [source]

User: "Since this game is much more stat heavy than prior titles, specifically when it comes to skills and gear, there's likely a need for some balance changes to be made post-launch. Does the game being playable completely offline hinder the data capture side for your team (in terms of analytics), or is this a non-factor?" Luke Barrett: "Generally speaking, most people leave data analytics on so we get more than enough data coming in. Additionally, I'll personally be watching several channels for things that are underperforming (relatively speaking) and not have to nerf anything. The rpg side is vast though and I'm sure people will find OP combinations/synergies that might need 'adjustments' but as long as it's fun and not an "I win" button that trivializes combat I'm pretty cool with it." [source]

Luke Barrett: "I can safely say there are many builds for each class that will feel very powerful if you're not on the highest difficulty 😉. What I'm really excited for is when the guides comes out that show people the fastest way to get some of the uniques that unlock 'special' gameplay 😊. Let's just say I love the feeling of rushing to Patches in DS1 and kicking him off the bridge for the Crescent Axe (iykyk)." [source] User: "Speaking of guides. Will there be a guidebook like there was for DAI? " Luke Barrett: "Not that I'm aware of but I'm happy to help feed info to somewhere like fextralife or the dragon age wiki after a week or so to help with those pursuits. Have to leave some time for exploration and discovery before the optimizers streamline the experience 😉" [source]

"Effectively, at least until the game launches (and likely a week or so after), you won't get anything interesting out of any of the devs save Mike Gamble or John Epler. Longer term I hope to be very active, at least for build mechanics and all the combat/rpg nuts and bolts conversations." [source]

"I started "da4" in October 2015 and so after 9 years of effort (minus 3 months on Andromeda) I'm quite excited for tomorrow and the launch week. I don't know if I'd say nervous, I feel pretty confident in the product, but definitely that eager kid before Christmas feeling 😊" [source]

"As the person who did all the balance, I will say that if you are comprehending how to make a cohesive build and understand the combat mechanics, you should play on Underdog. One of the downsides to having a lot of power growth vectors is the difference between people who engage vs those that don't becomes a chasm quite quickly. If you start blowing enemies up rapidly, turn up the difficulty (or play on nightmare where that will not be the case) - basically if it ever feels super easy or like enemies are health sponges you're probably on the wrong setting for your skill level. The custom difficulty settings are there to make the gameplay enjoyable (for whatever that means to you)." [source]

"As a tip from me, the balance is subtly tipped in the players favor until the last fight of the 3rd combat mission. Be warned if it's feeling too easy you may want to wait until after that to decide." [source]

[on DA MP] Luke Barrett: "It was actually pretty fun but very much not what most people wanted us to make (including internally). Also we had, let's say, limited staff who had a passion and background in MP so it was definitely the right call to go SP only. Now, it would have been nice had we just started that way but so it goes sometimes." [source] User: "You still play it yourself from time to time (DA MP), or have you left it be?" Luke Barrett: "After playing variations of DA4 for so many years (9!!!) it's hard to go back to anything with DAI controls/gameplay speed. Even the initial Joplin prototypes I was doing were much more snappy/twitchy - for everything good about DAI the combat was definitely in the middle of two different styles." [source]

[on aiming bows] "we actually used to have separate buttons for ADS and ranged attack but it was wildly overloading the controller. These RPG games need controllers with at least 2 more buttons (fingers crossed for the next gen)" [source]

User: "After the last few games, I'm really surprised by the current skill... tree?" Luke Barrett: "I call it a skill graph - aside from the beginning where you have 3 choices the entirety of it is 2 choice splits and it'll essentially make a build for you. Just go a little at a time and aim for whatever specialization seems most fun to you 😄" [source]

"Loot is not random so theoretically guides with drop locations should appear pretty soon." [source]

"Yep, Spellblade is the only spec that directly impacts fire damage but you can get benefits from most of them and still go fire. As for the specs, yes it would have been nice to support all of them but just wasn't in scope unfortunately. Mage has Mourn-Watch, Shadow Dragons, and Antivan Crows specializations - only the Rogue has a Veiljumper one. Deathcaller left side you can go beam based and use a Fire weapon. Evoker you'd likely need to do a hybrid ice/fire build." [source]

User: "Bit of a side question, but for those who intend to make more characters, is BioWare considering upping the amount of playable character slots you can have (currently at 3)? Or is there a hardware restriction here given the game is offline playable?" Luke Barrett: "Don't quote me as I don't handle the technical side of this but my understanding is we have to allocate a specific amount of HD space on the consoles so we basically have to pick a limit, relative to our save file sizes, and then divide that by number of careers. I'll inquire if this is something we can increase with an optional download or something but I suspect consoles are stuck that way, unfortunately." [source]

[on Patch 1] "It's been awhile since I actually did the content for this patch so I'd have to check but I have a pretty anti-nerf policy for SP games. I know I fixed up a couple enemies that weren't as hard as they were supposed to be and definitely boosted a bunch of synergistic things though. I'll take a look tomorrow but for those that don't know, the turnaround time on these things is about a month of it's not an emergency due to certification process with consoles. Longer term my goal is to keep an eye in telemetry of any underused abilities and items (or enemies with too many kills under their belt) and audit them just to double check if they need a boost or if people just haven't figured them out yet 😉." [source]

"The equippable items are all predetermined with a minor exception*. Some items are class specific (all the weapons, a small amount of armors and accessories, 2 runes) so when you play a different class you'll see your classes 'version' of that item. Things that are random (from a table/pool) are valuables. Exception: Near the very end of the game we do a few checks on what equipment you haven't acquired. A bunch of those final drops, and inventory on the final merchant, simply find stuff you don't have and give it to you. That's basically the only major RNG we have with loot. If you notice even 99% of the skills and item mods employ an effect after a condition is met X times rather than a more traditional 'proc chance'." [source]

[on modding] "Once this starts to pick up, feel free to PM me if anyone needs help 'finding' assets or has questions about how one might mod something. We don't officially support mods buuuuut we don't have any kind of anti-modding stance either" [source]

"To give the high level gist of the resource economy: - each class starts off with minimal ability usage, this is intentional to force people to learn the other combat mechanics as they're a necessary skill and it's easy to lean on a crutch like ability spam and kiting - abilities are designed to feel powerful on use, thus they all have a decent cost and can't be spammed* - weapon attacks generate your resource - in the bottom right of the center skills area is a node to make each class's resource easier to manage - halfway down all starting segments (N, SW, SE) there is always a node that boosts generation - there are +max nodes on all sides of the skill graph for each class, this is particularly important for the Mage as they start each fight at max - each class can build into being ability focused but starts intentionally rounded - loastly, the first ability is always a resource spender and 1 or 2 of the next available ones will be cooldown gated. It is recommended to have at least one cooldown based ability slotted" [source]

"So loosely the rogue momentum works like this: - each ability costs 50 momentum - hitting enemies generates ~2 momentum per hit (base), you get extra for bow weakpoints - when you are directly hit, you lose 15% of your current momentum, this means the more you hold the more you will lose (this loss has a small cooldown so you don't lose a whole bar when you get hit rapidly) - momentum carries forward between combats (compared to warrior rage which decays when out of combat) If youre having issues, make sure you get that skill in the middle section that reduces momentum loss when hit. As a helpful tip, the Quicken buff generates small amounts of momentum each second so it's a good way to get more if you're having issues." [source]

"I highly recommend using the belt that grants Quicken early game until you can generate momentum faster yourself. And yes, the time dilation affects everything in the world except the Player so all your buffs and things still tick at normal speed" [source]

User: "If I knock an enemy off an edge, if they were supposed to drop something will it appear on the edge, or is it lost for good?" Luke Barrett: "It should appear on the ledge. I will say the 'real' loot from enemy drops are all hand placed. The actual random stuff is just valuables and materials." [source]

" The way it actually works is very complicated with a lot of necessary exceptions but loosely - each ability has a base damage and ones that hit multiple times have an offset multiplier. - That value is multiplied by the sum of all your stat bonuses, conditional bonuses, resist and layer modifiers. - We then subtract enemy defense and multiply by 1-resist (with penetration being calculated here). - this new damage then gets multiplied by 1+crit+weakpointpoint (so those bonuses always feel meaty) and then multiplied by a random number between .95 and 1.05 just to give a little range to the floaties (basically just a presentation thing) - we then multiply again for buffs and debuffs so they, again, always feel meaningful - lastly, we take all added damage and add it flat on top" [source]

"Specific enhancements make enemies immune to the matching affliction. For example, Fire Enchanted enemies are immune to burning. Juggernaut enemies are immune to being staggered but otherwise it should work in everything." [source]

[dragon-susceptible]

The Assassins

Compiling a bit of what details we know about the four assassins who died in Moonrise. Post will contain spoilers for season 7.

Their names are Callisto, Andromeda, Skor, and Ram.

We have bits and pieces about each of them. We see Skor, Andromeda, and Callisto all in training with Runaan back in Bloodmoon Huntress. While I think it's likely the writers intended for the fourth elf with them to be Ram, he's enough in the background that there isn't a lot of the usual identifying details present, and that elf is notably taller next to Skor and Andromeda than Ram is, so I'm inclined to set that aside as evidence for him.

Andromeda was also noted to be a student at the time. Runaan specifically says she cannot be a full assassin until she masters Moonshadow form, and she hadn't yet. It's unclear if Callisto and Skor are just fellow assassins at practice or students in training, but based on how handily Runaan dispatches Callisto in their bout, them all being students is highly possible. However, they're more analogous to college students than high school, as Runaan does dispatch them on patrols around the village during the Blood Moon.

Andromeda

Andromeda may be the one we know the most about.

Andromeda is a married woman. She's the only assassin on the mission who is married other than Runaan. We do not have any further canon information about her partner. She was already married in Bloodmoon Huntress, as a student of Runaan's, so we can assume she was already functionally an adult. We know she's married because she wears cuffs around the base of her horns, like Runaan does.

The rings further up her horns, and the chains that decorate them and her hair, appear to be decorative; we have no indication they're ceremonial, unlike the cuffs at the base, and many Moonshadow elves wear rings and caps further up the length of their horns. (Lujanne being an easily referenced example) So she has a preference for heavy ornamentation, reflected in both her jewelry and her tattoos, which include lines down her thighs that match the lines of her clothing, and a window to show off said thighs.

She pledged her eyes for truth during the mission to Katolis, and accepts Rayla's case that Rayla and the boys found the truth and brought it to light when her spirit is summoned in the Ritual of the New Moon.

She likes to talk and was the first of the other assassins to befriend Rayla as a child. She was also instrumental in shaping Rayla's admiration of Runaan, which was fanned into hero worship by the events of Bloodmoon Huntress, and led Rayla to becoming an assassin in the first place. She is the only assassin whose shade has no accusatory dialogue towards Rayla in Through the Moon, too, with her only line being "At last" as she realizes Rayla's bindings are gone and her soul can find peace.

We also know that Moonshadow elves braid each other's hair as a gesture of affection, and that they will keep these braids in for extended periods of time. Andromeda's forward hanks of hair are both braided, which may have been a gift from her partner before she left. I keep saying her partner because we know nothing about the partner, except that they loved Andromeda and she loved them.

She was also likely the first to die at the assassination, as we don't see her again after the first press towards the door fails.

Callisto

Callisto appears to act as Runaan's second in command on the mission to Katolis, but it's based on pretty shaky reasoning.

They were the one we saw perched on a branch with Runaan voicing an opinion that the group should take Rayla along on the mission after all, which is interesting, after the book indicates the other assassins wanted Runaan to kill her. So either Callisto actually believed in Rayla when the others didn't, and thought she could make up for the mistake, or the less likely idea that they planned to ensure she was killed in the assault.

Callisto is an androgynous name (masculine in some languages, feminine in others, none of the origins being English), and their appearance is fairly androgynous as well. They have a male voice actor, but that's the only thing we really have to go on regarding their gender, and voices are highly subjective. As viewers we can probably safely assume they were meant to be a man, but there's nothing to disprove alternative headcanons, either.

Unusual also is that Callisto has their hair cut short, and completely shaved on the sides and back. No other Moonshadow elf in canon has their hair completely short like this; which makes sense, given braids and their importance in the culture. The only other one who comes close is Ram, whose hair is also relatively short, but far from shaved. Callisto also has black eyebrows in contrast to their white hair, indicating that they likely either stain their brows or bleach their hair. Bleaching the hair seems more likely, as that's a highly uniform thing amongst Moonshadow elves.

Callisto can also be assumed to be fairly close with Runaan. When the assassins' spirits confront Rayla in Through the Moon, theirs is one of the fiercest attackers (along with Skor), and they talk the most, but most of their dialogue is repeats of things we've already heard Runaan say to her. "You let a human live and you doomed us all". "Our mission was a failure."

They pledged their breath for freedom on the mission to Katolis, and is the one of the assassins with the most speaking lines, so they're likely a talker when given the motivation and chance.

Ram

Ram is the only one we have named family members for.

Ram comes from what qualifies as a well-off family in the Silvergrove. His father is the Keeper, which appears to be a highly respected social and somewhat religious role. Ram is also likely the youngest of the assassins other than Rayla, as he's the only one who may not have been seen in Bloodmoon Huntress. He pledged his blood for justice on the mission to kill King Harrow.

We know that Ram had a positive relationship with his father. Lyrennus was proud of the path he took, and saw him off on the mission to Katolis just as Ethari saw Runaan and Rayla off. It's not explicitly stated, but my impression from how Lyrennus handled Rayla's return - and her concern for him - is that they had no other family left. It was just the two of them.

He's also always shown using daggers and knives, but during the preparation scene in the second episode, he does handle a bow. So it's likely his primary weapon is knives, but he uses a bow as a secondary, and it just isn't possible to make knives convert to a bow his size as is the case with Runaan's bowblades.

Ram also appears to be a fairly quiet individual, but to have a forgiving heart. He's also highly observant. His spirit is the one to notice Rayla's bindings are gone in Through the Moon, and to stop the others from attacking her. While he was the shade that accused her of lying, he's also the first to forgive her and let go of their unfinished business.

Skor

Skor is potentially the one we know the least about, which is a shame. (it's a shame we know so little about them all, though)

He and Callisto both have Scottish accents like Rayla, where the other three's are (presumably) English (Andromeda's is aggressively so, Ram's is less so but his father has far more dialogue and is solidly English).

He seems to be a fairly gruff individual, but perhaps more forgiving than Andromeda, because when Rayla speaks to him after they discover her lie, he answers her. He's short about it and refuses to give her the help she asks for, but he doesn't ignore her like Ram does or give her the silent glower that Andromeda uses. This might be driven by what we can assume is a strong honor code; he swore his strength for honor on the mission.

Skor is also one of the fiercest attackers Rayla faces in Through the Moon, and is the one to shoot straight for her insecurities by saying "What good is an assassin who can't kill?" so he likely is a fairly perceptive individual who can use words with as much deadly precision as his swords.

He's also quite physically powerful, as shown when he and Runaan were able to break open King Harrow's door where Callisto couldn't. He may have survived the longest other than Runaan at the assassination, as he's the only one we see actually break into the room with Runaan. He's also possibly the oldest of the assassins other than Runaan, as he's the only one we don't see being absolutely trounced in assassin training in Bloodmoon Huntress. He and Callisto share the status of being at the training but not quantified explicitly as students or peers of Runaan's.

Skor also has a braid holding back the hair along the shave line of his undercut, which may indicate he has family waiting at home who put it there for him.

[science-lings]

Being annoying about each option under the cut

1- Ryunosuke has no other pictures of his bestie's face except for the one of his 'corpse' and that is Fucked Up, which is why I love it. this hc is based on the fact that during my playthrough I looked at the picture so many times bc I missed him immediately. Anyway 1-2 was the worst day of his life and the moment where he was given the photo for the first time really stuck with me.

2- They get to switch off being each other's judicial assistants and they both get to be different flavors of transmasc, I think it would be fun for them. Would they have to attend classes at Yumei to even be considered lawyers? who knows the point is they do it together and are like those cats that bond together and get sad when they get separated.

3- If they are in the same room together that sword is being switched back and forth several times, 'I think it matches your outfit today' or 'I'm on my period I shouldn't be in possession of a deadly weapon' or 'you said in the custody agreement that I get it on weekends' etc etc etc... Though it tends to go with Ryunosuke when they are separated for long periods of time. That sword is symbolic of so much gay shit in these games what's a little more.

4- my guy talks about 'the look' in Ryunosukes eyes so much during the last case, what are you looking into his eyes for? Heterosexual reasons? sure... (also 'fancy meeting you here' that is a pick-up line, you're in a prison, not a bar) Anyway his feelings towards Ryunosuke are complicated and he's so mad that at least one of the feelings in the emotional cocktail is something like attraction)

5- There's that disaster lesbian thing going on but also the situation was pretty stressful but one day she will wake up and it will hit her that her friend was still very interested in her even after she knew it was her in the disguise.

6- Sholmes keeps trying to refer to himself as 'the root of all evil' and how he's 'drawn to the darkness', he's trying so hard to be edgy but he's a six-foot-tall lanky blond man who is dramatic in the silly way and drapes himself over Ryunosuke at every opportunity. Either he's trying to build some kind of reputation or he wants to appeal to the local goth milf populace (Sithe and Tusspells) or even the reaper himself (there's some messy ex energy going on over there...)

7- I need Phoenix to inherit Karuma, he knows a bit about it but he doesn't make a big deal about it. He does have a few prosecutor friends who know the blade and are so annoyed that he's not super proud to own it. Also it's funny to me if the only family that Phoenix knows are a couple of victorian lawyers that haunt him. I think they should watch over him and be a little horrified. Ryunosuke was excited when he was intending to be a performing arts student as a fellow drama kid but it doesn't surprise him that he chose to become a lawyer. It's in his blood.

8- You cannot tell me Ryunosuke didn't want to fling himself off of that boat every night he was stuck in the room he thought Kazuma was killed in. He just didn't want to ruin Susatos trip to England by leaving her alone and he goes into a depression when she leaves for Japan, going so far as to avoid looking at the photo the 221b fam took before she left because it made him sad, which gets put up every time by Sholmes who Gets It. Meaning that he went up to the Naruhodo consulting agency regularly to check up on him. I like to think Sholmes was genuinely worried during the months he spent banned from the courtroom and without his weirdgirl who he bonded with through his best friends 'death'.

9- Wagahai is a good kitty, she can tell who the most depressed person in the building is and follows them around, sometimes Ryunosuke has a nightmare and wakes up with a cat right up by his face.

10- Ryunosuke starts the Naruhodo family tradition of not talking about their personal lives to people they care about and making their own little patchwork family for themselves. Practically all we know about his past is that he's afraid of doctors and studied English from a young age. And then like three months after going to a new country and meeting new people he's just like 'neat this is my family now :)' there is something going on there I swear. I have many conflicting ideas about what it could be specifically though.

[eye-of-the-queen]

If you’re one of my friends (or someone else who found me through the tumblr algorithm) who is upset about the latest veilguard news turn away now because you’re most likely not going to like what I’m about to say

Rant under the cut

People are being so dramatic for no reason I’m sorry

“This was all a waste of time” when they literally say in the article that the events of the games STILL happen, it’s not like they’re retconning them. And most likely world state decisions from the previous games will still be asked in the games going forward AS they become important, they literally said they chose the world state choices based on what would be relevant to the story of the new game

It’s a new area of thedas and literal DECADES after the events of the previous games, I’m sorry it just seems silly to expect the events of the past games to still have the same relevance that they did in inquisition, which is only 2 years after da2 and 10 years after origins and also took place in the same area of the continent as them

I do agree that not including the well of sorrows decision is certainly a choice, but we also don’t know the complete story of veilguard literally at all. What we do know is solas has the aspect of mythal that was in flemeth, we also know that for at least some portion of the game he’s trapped in the fade and rook is kind of his mouth piece. Maybe the reason it won’t come up is because with him being trapped he can’t actually do anything with his powers, that’s been my theory for a while at least

I genuinely do not know how y’all got “The inquisitor either hated solas or romanced him” from what they said. The leap in logic is crazy to me because they literally said that your relationship regardless of whether you romanced him or not is going to be important

“How are they going to write around these world state decisions with them not being choosable?” Well considering the game is fully written and is coming out next month it seems they found a way

The way y’all were all hyping up this game as the next best thing and then ONE thing that you don’t like is revealed and y’all all turned on it is crazy

Also to tie this up, we literally know that veilguard has gone through at least 2 rewrites because in the same article where they revealed the world state stuff they literally said there was an iteration of da4 that just did not have that much solas involvement. Have yall considered that maybe the rewrites were due to them getting stuck on all of the choices that could be made in past games and so they decided to just pick the ones that were going to be the most relevant to the story to start with and then go from there in subsequent games

I’m sorry, coming from someone who’s literal favorite game franchise is dragon age and has replayed origins multiple times, this all just seems like such a non issue to me

[thebladeblaster]

I was rewatching moments from Hades chapter and just thinking “Imagine being Shun in this moment”

This must have been the biggest mind fuck of his life

Warning: Spoilers obviously

Hades smirking because his vessel just came straight to him

Shun being shook that their enemy has the same face as him (Yuya: First time?). I will seriously never escape thinking about Arc V fr. And this isn’t just any enemy. It’s a literal god who has your face. Imagine learning the entire reason you exist to be the vessel for a god that wants to kill everyone. Poor kid.

[renaissanceousia]

"salacia" being the name of neptune's wife and rick naming percy's mom "sally" oooh i see you