#both lore and gameplay wise

[fogwarden]

[ink--theory]

thoughts on bonerattle arena

[kelpermoosee]

I think Hey! Pikmin is a misrepresentation of the Pikmin series as much as the next person, but the game’s renders and soundtrack go so unbelievably HARD.

So cute 💖

[mememan93]

Zonai? you mean walking retcons?

[the-one-and-only-overlass]

so i started playing the first descendant and. dear GOD who is doing the writing for this game

i just wanna talk

[haemosexuality]

fuck it fnaf tierlist

[gibbearish]

also it has a bunch of cool details like how in the final fight if you get out of the train and hide someone he just straight up teleports you into an open field

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜 DA:TV spoilers under cut.

When the Community Council played the game, in the working version they played, it sounds like when the 'no dying' mode was turned on, when the player's health gets low the screen turns red (but you don't then die, of course) [source]

Caitie of Ghildirthalen shared that everyone that she talked to from the Community Council really liked the gameplay. "They were all into it, none of us had any complaints about how they were doing the gameplay, we all thought it was solid" [source]

The Lighthouse isn't literally an actual lighthouse by the sea. It's in the Crossroads. It's "like a bubble in the Crossroads, kind of like what Morrigan brings you to" in DA:I. "It's its own little bubble, it's not actually the Crossroads, it's like its own little bubble of reality." "It's not really in the Fade, but it kinda is, but it's kinda not". "It's so cool, I loved it so much [...] it's very comfy". It used to belong to Solas and "as you walk around there, you will see, like, stuff, that kinda shows what Solas has been up to for the past couple years" [source]

"They say in the [Game Informer cover] article that [The Lighthouse] like looks gaudy, and stuff, and like it does, in like an ancient elven way, but it's not like going to grandma's house which has that 2005 Tuscan kitchen feel." It sounds like there are a lot of frescos made by Solas in there. "It's kind of like, sad, too, 'cause it's a little bit like, ancient elven bachelor pad that he's been too busy to really keep up with it". "I think it's the coolest hub [in a DA game] by far" [source]

After the gameplay reveal video, Solas essentially gets trapped in the new prison he was trying to build for Ghil and Elgar'nan. "I don't think they explain it well in the [GI cover] article what happens, like, lore-wise, like how this connection between Solas and Rook one, works, and then two, like, how it's done. [...] From that [Community Council participation and talking to devs], I have a better understanding of this link, and I do think the explanation given [in-game] is good, and is satisfying to me. They're just not explaining it well in the article, I do think they give a better reason in the game"[source]

Caitie shared that she doesn't know why marketing for the game keeps saying/trying to say that Rook isn't a Chosen One as a talking point. "Maybe [Rook] wasn't chosen, [they] just happened to be there, but now there is a connection there, like [they] can't just leave, [they] have that strange Solas connection that nobody else has". "In this game Rook was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or right place right time, depending on how you look at it, and it could have been anyone in that scene, that's kind've what they're trying to say" [source]

Photomode is something the devs expressed to Community Council that they want to include in the game [source]

User: "many of us would love to see cosplay kits again of the new companions. Just thought to throw that out into the ether" Trick: "Agreed! Definitely bring that up to official BioWare accounts. I think it's a great idea." [source]

John: "at this point my brain is about 70% DATV and 30% everything else" [source]

User: "I keep looking at that horn [Taash's blue one], thinking: 1. What -is- it made of?" Karin Weekes-West: "If only we knew!" [source] User: "If this turns out to be some high-value gemstone or crafting mat, I can't promise I'll be able to suppress certain... larcenous urges." Karin: "How very Lords of Fortune of you! :D <3 It really is SO PRETTY, isn’t it? Our art team is so good. :)" [source]

User: "I need to know if Rook gets their own room CAN WE DECORATE" Carly: ":^)" [source]

User: "anyway they [Neve and Harding] are both in this concept art. next to each other even. this has to mean they are both alive after the prologue. right? right???" Carly: ":^)" [source]

Kala: "the overall UI is very nice" [source]

Kala: "I remember the sliders [in CC] having pretty good range tbh, so probably pretty tall and pretty short" [source]

Kala: "I can't wait to learn who the VAs for Rook are! I know one and I know people will be really excited for this person to join the Dragon Age family 🤫" [source]

[lelanida]

The dualism of Sky. A small essay.

Vincent Diamante, maestro, we don't deserve you. Music is the heart and soul of Sky. It's not the face of the game, no. Music does not try to attract attention and force you to interrupt the gameplay in order to enjoy it. Instead, it works for the atmosphere, not just without overriding everything else but also giving other aspects leadership positions. Sky's music is patiently waiting for you to pay attention to it. And since we're all here, let's appreciate it.

Sky has two main leitmotifs. The first is the theme of our first flight on the Isle of Dawn. It also plays during the loading of the game during the daytime. The second is the "Flight" by Aurora. Not many people pay attention to this, but these two melodies accompany us (in one form or another) in a bunch of other compositions. "The first flight" sounds at moments of special emotional uplift and "Flight" at moments of decline. You may think: "Well, what's the big deal? The music, written at a time when lore was still important, contains an interesting subtext.". But it's not that simple. I listened to the rest of Sky ost. I have tracked the use of these leitmotifs, and I can say with confidence that these two themes never play together. The composition either uses only one of the leitmotifs, or both, but at different ends of the song... ...I was thinking until I listened to the soundtrack of the season of prophecy.

The theme that sounds when you complete the trial. In it, both leitmotifs are woven together.

This is the ONLY theme in the entire game built in this way. I sat in a stupor for a while and was about to bury this musical analysis. But then it hit me. What was the season of prophecy about anyway? No, not about the trials. NO, not about the extra candle cakes. The season of prophecy was about Alef.

The theme of passing the trial is the theme of Alef. And it combines two opposing leitmotivs.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for madness because this simple detail puts everything in its place.

As soon as I found out about the existence of the Megabird in lore of Sky, this character immediately interested me. I liked how she was essentially detached from the whole action, but at the same time, incredibly tightly woven into it. Megabird is Sky's phenomenon whose potential TGC is afraid to exploit.

I have always been confused by the generally accepted image of a Megabird. She is always portrayed as a powerful, very wise, prudent, and merciful being. The true and only ruler of this world. Everyone was pleased. But not me. And the most important thing is that I couldn't explain why! Something inside me subconsciously resisted the concept of monotheism within the framework of Sky, but there was no specific reason. I had a feeling that it was simply... wrong. And now I realized: This is indeed wrong! Megabird, as the only deity, will actually break the whole system!

Sky is steeped in dualism. It's always one thing against another. I mean:

Life and death.

Nature and machine.

Sky and ground.

Descendants and ancestors.

Children and elders.

Light and darkness.

In this, Sky is different from Journey. In Journey, you didn't have a clear enemy. Journey taught that you can become your own enemy. The ancient civilization destroyed itself, not someone from outside. And the messengers must step over themselves, and themselves only in order to be reborn. Journey taught you to look into yourself. Sky is about something else.

Even though the concepts of these games are similar, Sky is a fundamentally different game. Sky is about joining up with others. Therefore, Sky sets a clear boundary between "we" and "they". And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Otherwise, this system simply would not have worked. In Sky, everything has an opposing force. The other side of the coin, if you please.

Megabird just can not be the only deity. This contradicts the whole system, starting from philosophy and ending with music. Someone, something, sentient, unsentient, there MUST BE SOMETHING on the other side. That's why I made Angst.

Let's return to the topic of the two leitmotifs and the Alef. The system of confrontation between the two sides can give us an answer to another question.

What is "the void"?

We know that after the explosion of the crystal, Alef fell in a kind of "void", from which he still has not found a way out. But what kind of place is this? Many people used to think that this is something like a dimension of darkness. But I can disagree with this.

At first It is logical: Alef was imprisoned in a darkstone crystal and fell into darkness. But I have a question: Why does this "darkness" charge us?

The void is not darkness. If it was the darkness, it would have extinguished the skykids' cores in the blink of an eye. The void is the place BETWEEN light and darkness.

Alef, the child of light, was imprisoned in a darkstone crystal, the gift of darkness. Together, they created a new, third kind of energy. Chaotic, unpredictable, wrong. Alef has united in himself, things that, according to the laws of this world, cannot be combined. Therefore, it is his theme that connects the two main leitmotivs of the game. The Alef was on both sides at the same time.

But you can't be on two sides. You're either light or dark, or you're not on anyone's side, like ancestors were. At the moment of the Shattering, Alef literally tore the fabric of the Sky universe itself. That's why he got into the void. After all, if he does not obey the fundamental law of this world, then he has nothing to do in this world.

The void is the space between light and darkness. Like a number divided by zero, the void is negligible, but at the same time infinite. It is a mirror that doesn't allow energy to mix. Therefore, the floor in it charges us. The void reflects our own light back into the cape.

That's why the Megabird sends us to die in Eden. With our sacrifice, we repeat the same shattering on a reduced scale and fall into the void to the Alef. But Alef sacrifices a fragment of his former power to bring us back to the side of light. And when that happens, the void just pushes us out.

Something like that.

[blueskittlesart]

Lore questions huh? What do you think about dark link and what he represents? (Oot or otherwise)

HI. I LOVE YOU. this is long as hell but it's your fault for asking me about oot

so dark link is the mini-boss fight in oot's water temple. this is the 6th dungeon in the game overall and the third out of 6 in the adult segment of gameplay, meaning it comes when adult link has already experienced the time-switch and is about halfway to ganon. One of the things that makes this battle so immediately striking imo is the fact that the room it takes place in is immediately aesthetically different from the rest of the dungeon, which isn't something we see basically anywhere else in the game. the reason for this, materially, is because everything in that room is a symbol that the writers want you as the player to notice and take in.

the opening of the fight goes like this: link enters a room within the water temple that appears to be an endless foggy void, with a thin layer of water on the ground and a single dead tree in the very middle of the room. there is a distant door on the other side of the room. When link passes the dead tree on his way to the door, his reflection in the water disappears, and when he turns back around he's ambushed by dark link--a reflection of himself. Dark link will be semi-transparent for about a minute at the beginning of the fight but will eventually materialize enough to land hits on link, and will mimic link's attacks while dodging any attempts to hit him. Dark link's health is based on the player's heart containers, meaning the stronger Link is, the stronger his reflection becomes. Gameplay-wise, it's extremely difficult to defeat dark link using the master sword because he can counter almost any attack from it, so most players will use a different weapon that he can't counter in order to beat him.

so let's unpack the symbolism there. first, the room itself: an empty, foggy void with a single dead tree in the middle. This room is pretty obviously a reflection of link's psyche, and link is a kid who grew up in a lush forest, surrounded on all sides by living trees. link was RAISED by a tree, a tree which is now functionally dead, an event which he likely still blames himself for. And since this temple comes chronologically after the forest temple, link has recently learned that everything he thought he knew about himself and the environment in which he was raised was a lie. that dead tree in an open void is representative of link's trauma regarding his childhood--it's the opposite of the security and safety he believed he had in kokiri forest. the tree is slowly rotting away as he slowly loses faith in both himself and the people who raised him. he loses his reflection as he passes the dead tree, functionally losing himself, unable to rebuild his self-image after learning that his entire life thus far has been one big lie.

gameplay-wise, this fight is generally pretty difficult to beat using the master sword. (it's possible, but hard.) i think this is also intentional. The master sword, within the greater narrative of oot, is representative of adulthood, but it's also representative of the childhood that was stolen from link. If he'd never claimed that sword he would have been able to grow up like a regular kid, but because he did, the adults in his life decided that his feelings mattered less than keeping him out of ganondorf's hands, and they took the opportunity to grow up naturally away from him without his consent. when attempting to battle back what is essentially a manifestation of his pent-up trauma and fears, of course it's going to be difficult for him to win using a weapon which was basically forced onto him, representative of a stolen childhood he can't get back.

tldr: dark link is everything everyone ever did to hurt you coming at you all at once. he's link's fear of failure, his resentment over what's been taken from him in service of a greater good he never agreed to, his anger and his trauma. feelings which it's natural for him to have, but which he HAS to work through and understand in order to keep going. it's an unusually violent therapy session basically

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

Act 1, and Leshy's relationships with the other Scrybes

There was a post on here a while ago about Leshy outright hating Magnificus more than P03, and one interesting observation was that he cuts the Wolf's stats, but boosts the Stoat's. I think there's more you can gather from Leshy designing around the other Scrybes, though:

GRIMORA:

Leshy seems to be the most amiable with Grimora. Yes, I think this probably comes a bit from the dev finding their aesthetics and gameplay styles easier to pair up, but I think's its also a little bit because she values fun quite strongly, which meshes well with his focus on lore: both things that aren't purely gameplay based unlike the weirder mechanics of the west-side Scrybes.

Similar to Leshy in act 2, none of her puzzles really cause any harm to her subordinates. It's meant to be some fun flavour plot for the player to engage their brains with before the battles. Honestly, the amount of times she says 'Marvelous!' alone should convince you of her priorities (outside of destroying the world!)

Leshy goes out of his way to design a totally new card for Grimora, which doesn't appear anywhere in act 2 or Kaycee's mod.

It's the only one with a sigil on it - it's a fragile card, but it requires more actual strategy than playing the non-sigil Wolf and Stoat.

One line of dialogue remarks that he wishes he had kept Grimora around, as she was at least a worthy challenger.

He says that the Stinkbug is weak, but other than that accepts you having it in your deck. Compare that to him absolutely hating the Stunted Wolf on sight.

If you look closely in the finale, Grimora has an insect crawling across the table in her campaign. I don't know if it's really a stinkbug, persay, but it's an interesting parallel to his choice of her species.

Someone has said before that there are notably more insect cards than any other species in act 1, which also plays into him being closer to her than the others.

Bones are literally the secondary currency in his campaign, whereas energy doesn't appear at all, and sigils are limited to a single map event.

stinkyyyy

MAGNIFICUS:

Between Leshy actively saying he hates Mag's card once you first get it (versus one line about the Stinkbug being weak), and him literally stabbing the guy's eye out, it's safe to say Leshy fucking hates this guy. I've seen different theories on this, between the clashing gameplay and Leshy being kinder to his subordinates, but the one I've thought was the most interesting was that Magnificus is arguably, the most powerful Scrybe.

He's the only one who does have a plan to get Leshy's takeover back to normal, and the other two Scrybes are desperate for you to find him in act 1 because of it. He has future vision, he writes letters to the others warning about potential takeovers, and you never see him scrounge for the OLD_DATA. correction in reblogs: i think it is mentioned that he has

I've always read Leshy's feelings towards Mag as jealousy, mixed with clashing ideologies. I don't think there's a single moment where the two agree on anything outside of act 3.

I don't have much to say on his card, gameplay-wise, as you get it very late. Honestly most of the Stunted Wolf's design is just foreshadowing that Leshy beat this guy up and stabbed out his eye, lmao, but it's still interesting to note that:

The Stunted Wolf is one of those cards that's a variant of another one (i.e. Wolf Cub/Wolf, Mantis God/Mantis), but it's notably the only one whose stats are worse than its predecessor.

At the same time, it only costs one blood, and it's the only 2-attack card to have that. Gameplay wise, this is to balance things out, but it hints towards Magnificus having been much more powerful in the past. Like it makes you ponder how fucking good it would be to start off with a one-blood 3-2 card.

Magnificus's only other gameplay feature in act 1 is the sacrificial alters (given his association with magic and sigils). These are fucking busted. God I wish I could have four sigils on a card in Kaycee's mod.

P03:

Leshy seems to not think very much of P03 (both in the sense of not acknowledging it and thinking it's not a good designer), but doesn't seem completely unwilling to work with him. I'd argue he's not really hostile towards P03, just very aggressively trying to push it into his own ideal of the world.

In Kaycee's mod, Leshy refers to him as a rival and not an enemy, which I think gives a good basis for interpreting how he views it. P03's breakup speech snapping at Leshy in act 2 is ultimately what gets him to question his intentions at all.

The mention that the stoat's suffering was real during the tutorial isn't really ever brought up again by Leshy. It's interesting to think about in hindsight, given that P03 being a robot means its the least likely to have experienced pain out of the four.

Combined with P03's remark that Leshy keeps him around just to suffer, and the later remark in act 2 that he thinks that it is noble to be a beast card, "even one as lowly as a stoat," this implies that Leshy's at the very least trying to get P03 used to his world, and almost hopes that he'll come to like it.

The unbuffed stoat is a really terrible card. All the 1-2 cards have some sort of gimmick to them to make them playable, but the normal stoat just doesn't at all. The buff to 1-3 is a gift from Leshy to P03, despite everything. It implies he at least thinks there's something that can be salvaged between them, in his own view.

And like. The buffed stoat is so so useful in act 1. The extra HP means it can take a hit from so many more cards and it's a solid foundation for basically any run.

The stoat's the only one of the talking cards without an animal family. Of course it is! Nature and technology are usually thematic opposites, especially compared to magic and death. P03 doesn't fit in here, but Leshy is still clearly trying to make it a foundational card in his campaign.

[zhongrin]

To the kinich post

why can we kill baby monsters and not cats. Or dogs. Can we kill the foxes on Inazuma? The seals yes.

Hoyo is weirdly specific with that is a monsterlife lesser then a stereotype pet?

Or do cats symbolise something else in the game because of Venti being allergic?? (He is a fucking WHISP not even human he is just copying an appearence how the fuck does he have an allergy??? HE CONTROLS THE WIND HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS EVEN-)

We are the monsters here.

Have u seen the hilichurl just chilling around. The slimes playing? The evolved hilichurl watching the world? They use instruments. Slimes to fly. They know how to use instruments. Pyro slimes for explosion. Dendro to create shields (how the fuck i want that too) anemo to transport and fly.

They have a fucking language. Most are former people. We are just to ignorant and fearful to realize we've been killing sentient people who laugh and have fun and have their own traditions and-

*falls over and gets carried away by an exasperated husband* "...I know I shouldn't have given you a sight to the over darkness."

ok nvm i lied i didn't (can't) sleep bc of all the noises outside (yay /s) so here goesー

hskdjskdj no idea i mean game-design wise it makes sense sure, but lore wise??? idk why we're attacking these natlan ppl and their saurians, they look normal and are mostly just chilling in nature... why are we beating them up? lore wise? i don't think there's an explanation for it?? maybe they 'got too excited' like what the daily quests says and we're just calming them down?? lmao

and again if we approach it lore wise, it doesn't make sense for the traveler to continue killing the hilichurls either?? at this point they know what the hilichurls are. so yeah, it's all for the sake of gameplay orz

........

hnmmm. here's an idea...

cw. not proofread, word vomit, violence/light gore

you get isekai'd into teyvat. you're worshipped as the creator and all that pizzazz; we all know how it goes so i'm not going to explain further.

now imagine, one day you decide to stroll through the lands, accompanied by a few select people; perhaps the 'main team' you always use for exploration in-game. a few ways away, you see a camp of hilichurls. obviously you know what they actually are, and you got curious if you could do something for them, right? i mean, being the creator, an all powerful entity, you might even be able to reverse their curse? who knows? better try it out!

so you step closer to try and communicate with them.

but to your utter surprise, instead of doing so, you find your body moving on its own, hand raised to grab the nearest character's weapon, before swinging with the full intention to kill.

thud.

the blade decapitates the poor creature's head.

as it rolls on the ground and you stare at the gruesome sight in both horror and denial, bile rising from the back of your throat, your acolytes follow your example and proceeds to eradicate the entire camp.

your will is their command, after all.

you can't even scream. you can't find your voice. nit because of fear or sadness or frustrationー you just can't.

once they finish, they return to you, expecting praise and adoration, only to be greeted by tears and muffled sobs. they don't understand why you were crying; even before your descent to teyvat, haven't you been commanding them to do the same thing, countless times? they try to offer you the remnants of the hilichurls' bloodied masks and divine scrolls ー you've always liked receiving those! why are you crying harder? what did they do wrong?

you look like you were trying to say something, but they find the words leaving your mouth is of a language they have never heard before.

you thought you could find a home in the world you loved so much.

but you just feel..... lost.

[spoiler/explanation below]

eventually, you realize you were no 'creator' of this world at all.

you were just a string marionette of celestia's.

'the creator' had always been an illusion; an existence They created to pull the blanket over everyone's eyes. your existence's sole purpose is to control the archons, the dragon sovereigns, and the people of teyvat. like an ignorant shepherd leading the sheeps straight to the maw of the wolves.

you weren't some all knowing creator.

you weren't even a monster.

you were never yourself at all.

[ganondoodle]

I honestly find it impressive how totk managed to fuck up so bad as a sequel. But truth be told, good gameplay aside, botw already was a whole lot of nothing as far as story and lore were concerned. I just feel like amnesiac Link going out into the world to save some voice is not a good premise, even though botw Zelda has an interesting personality. Idk, I guess botw felt like an experiment that was supposed to pay off in totk, but totk being a disappointment makes botw kind of feel like a waste of time as well

yes and no to that (in my opinion .. just gonna add that to be sure)

what hooked me in botw was less the story that was told and more what was implied, bc it seemed to imply so much, there was so much design that felt intentional- like an introduction to a world with subtle hints towards much much more that would be perfect to dive deeply into in an expansion or second part- just like you said

i personally am a sucker for big environments with enviromental storytelling more than direct dialog in your face- it might be a small detail to some but for me the choice of music, or how little and broken there was really spoke to me (in part bc i am very noise sensitive, id gladly spent hours in botws hyrule field, but id want to get out of twilight princesses hyrule field bc it would get unbearable to me after a while)

but mainly .. it was the world, botw made me feel like no other game has before, it felt so real to me, that this is a world with deep history, most of which unknown, so much mystery and things that existed with no explicit explanation (like man do i love botws dragons ...... and i will not forgive what totk did to them lore wise)-- like with the ancient shiekah especially, they were, or seemed, so drenched in lore you can only guess but yet it felt so intentional, or how calamtiy ganon was this strange being like a force of nature and the gerudo having had no king in so long it was basically forgotten it was ever a thing?? so much to speculate and think about, so much you could do with all those things; you probably didnt aim to get this kind of talk from me but when i talk i talk unfortunately, and botw is my second favorite zelda game (grinding my teeth to dust trying to ignore what totk did to its lore)

if you look at just whats told to you, botw isnt that special either (though at least coherent in itself lol) but its the world and design and mystery that got to me, that i care about so much, care that got almost utterly destroyed by totk bc it made me realize that there .. might have been no intention behind anything, it didnt mean anything actually

its a thing that hurts me so much to know, to think about, that totk cannot be separated from botw, they cheapen each other, people think its just botw+extra, when imo its more like .. botw again but worse, or them saying that botw was jsut a tech demo to the grand game that is totk (i couldnt disagree more to that wtf, totk is more of a tech demo for ultrahand tbh)

i cant even decide whats worse to me, the fact that botw isnt gonna get that deep lore dive in a second part that got me so excited like i never was before after the first trailer, that everything i cared about in it isnt gonna have a follow up ever, the knowledge that there might be no intention and no meaning behind anything in their games, that the next games might be like that too, that its inseperable from totk in the worst way, or that they only damage each other, botw functions better on its own than totk does, but together it worsens both

(i basically just said what you said in long form .. sorry- though i do feel more positively about the amnesia thing in botw, theres tragedy and emotional weight in it and helps immensely to let you and link explore the world like for the first time- plus its a drawback to an otherwise pretty overpowered piece of tech/magic- unlike some other things in a certain other game)

[dr-spectre]

Hey, so...I'm currently on a Splatoon binge to prep for Grand Festival (Team Future, btw). I came across your blog and...BOY do you love Callie. And even though I never played Splatoon 2, as I jumped straight to 3, I saw others' gameplay of the Splatoon 2 Hero Mode on YouTube and I never once saw "brainwashing", I saw "hypnosis". For cod's sake, they're HYPNOshades. It's in the name.

But I digress. My question is this:

If Marie was the one who got hypnotized by Octavio, do you think things would've been better or worse for her and, more importantly, Callie? (Meaning both lore-wise and the whole "hypnosis, not brainwashing" fiasco.)

Hey, first off, YEAH! YOU GET IT! YOU GET IT DUDE!!!!!!

When i played the game for the first time i always thought it was hypnosis because Octavio literally said HYPNOshades.

The whole idea that people say Callie was "brainwashed" comes from outside sources and nothing inside the actual game itself, aside from potentially non canon sources like the final boss rematch, live concert dialogue and dialogue exchanges at Tentakeel Outpost in the English localizations.

This could all be non canon as Splatoon 3 doesn't make any sort of reference to past events from Octo Canyon. But anyways,

I feel like if Marie was the one who got hypnotized the fan feedback would be a lot more different. A lot of Marie fans LOVE Hypno Marie as they dub her and there's lots of fan art to what a version of an "Evil Marie" would look like, I'm not gonna show you any because i don't wanna repost art and get into trouble but I'm sure with some google searches you can find some cool designs!

I always thought Marie being hypnotised instead of Callie makes more sense and it would fit her character more. She has mental troubles brewing in her as shown with the Squid Sisters Stories and all of that anxiety, stress, etc could boil out in a hypnotic state and she could hurt the ones she loves. Including Callie...

Plus when people talk about Hypno Marie they always get the terminology correct, but when it comes to Callie... they use that fucking other word and it makes me wanna YELLLL!!!!!!!!!!

And one more thing. Yes i love Callie. In multiple ways. Design wise, character wise, lore wise, i am going to be her number 1 defender from slander and mischaracterisation!!!!!!

This bastard is here to stay in my brain, whether i like it or not...

[bharv]

thank you for your commentary on veilguard. you've given me multiple things that would have made me drop the game so far, and you don't even appear to be close to the spoiler that killed most of my interest in the game. i'm so disappointed that bioware just totally abandoned so many of the literal core themes of the game, it's so grim.

testing to see if my inbox is finally letting me reply... I'm sorry that it's done so though, I really, really love dragon age and I want to love it very badly.

I've started again, abandoning my 20ish hours as a Qunari because the game just has no interest in engaging with the Qun, but I will say as a dwarf guy being a dwarf does seem to make the most sense immersion wise (I'm sure a human mourn watcher raised away from the chantry would also work, but the game is so divorced from Andrastrianism from what I've seen so far! Which is really a wild thing to think.)

Essentially if you're into the lore and the roleplay I do think there's diminishing returns here, and that's very sad to me. But other people like games for the gameplay, or the aesthetics, and I do think there's more to like in both those areas!

I wish they'd had fewer factions with more defined origins (like... uh... origins) or just fully defined a rook early on (it seems even the name Rook is a holdover from it being a very defined character who had a heist code name in the old Tevinter version of the game) but alas. Here we are.

[honeydewandcake]

I'm actually crying omg youre so kind

(Tumblr fricking closed on me when I was almost done and I had to write this all over again AAAAAAH)

Uhhhh I guess I'll start with some game mechanics and info about my first OC:

"Twist" the Mobile

Name: Twist(Called Twisty by her friend Meta)

Gender: Female

Age: 20

Stats(Playing):

Health:

♡♡♡

Skill Check:

☆☆

Movement Speed:

☆☆☆☆

Stamina:

☆☆☆

Stealth:

☆

Extraction Speed:

☆☆☆☆☆

This is Twist. She's a mobile.(You know, the ones for kids? She's a planet mobile.)

She has a very close relationship with her chldhood friend named Meta,(who I'll ramble on about later)practically inseparable from her. Who knows what would happen if Meta were to just disappear…

Here are her game mechanics, both Twisted and Playing. Rest of the stuff will come after cause this is too long. Keep an eye out for bits of lore scattered in...

Game Mechanics(Twisted):

Rare

(Due to her song's hypnotising ability)

Speed: Average

Mechanic: Has a song that will temporarily hypnotise the player into going towards them.(More details below)

Attention Span: High

Detection Range: Low

Half of the planets that normally would circle around her head have been dipped in ichor, and the other half have pieces broken off of them. The once pure white hoop that holds all the planets has also been splattered with ichor. ...You can see smudges if you look closely.

Has a recording made for children to help them calm down that will eerily play once in a while. It’s become staticy and quiet since she was turned into a Twisted, and so is somehow hypnotising. If she's spotted you and the tune plays, you'll walk towards her for 1.5 seconds.(Keep in mind: walk, not run.) This event purely depends on if you have bad timing and how far away from her you are. If you happen to be playing the character Meta, you'll be drawn to her until she takes one heart of damage from you.(Lore?)

When she pauses in her walking(like Tisha), she'll stare at one of her planets and reach up to tug it. It's a habit(caused by stress) she's kept through becoming Twisted.

Game Mechanics(Playing):

Her skill, "Glow Stars" lights up the room a bit, making it easier to see. Doesn't light up you, only the room you used it in, so if you walk out of the room, it'll be dark again. Is permanent, but you can only use it once. Be wise with it. Especially handy for blackouts.

When paired with a another player who's using Meta, she'll get a speed buff of 10%. If there's a Twisted Meta on the floor, she'll get a -10% speed debuff. The player and Twisted(if on the same floor) cancel each other's abilities out.

Requirements to buy:

3000 Ichor

100% Research on Twisted Meta

Walk 120000 meters

I might draw her later but for now everything else. God this takes so long but I'm really excited to see people's reactions...will continue later. It's 1:49 am and I need to get a snack/drink.

-A

Wait I love this idea!! A mobile. . . Omg I would have never thought of that!! And the gameplay is cool too!! Oh, I want to see her design so bad!! :00

This is so awesome!!!