#but I am emotional rn and thinking about the things I'm thinking about is not helping at all

[kaymarie-bell]

Going feral over the Ithaca Saga rn

spoilers below (it's me yapping about the things I've noticed in each song)

The Challenge:

The 🎻Penelope🎻leitmotif to tells us who's about to (FINALLY) sing

I'm gonna be honest, I had heard all the snippets of this song because I wanted to hear Penelope SO BAD but I love having the actual song out

I knew this was going to be one of my top 3 from the beginning

I love the drums, especially when the suitors begin to sing

Penelope sounds so serious while issuing the challenge, it's very different from the snippets. (great choice! it's a dire situation)

"I'd rather die than grow old without The Best of you" knowing damn well The Best is Odysseus 😭💖

Anna held that final note for so long holy shit

Hold Them Down

I liked the repetition of the challenge by the suitors. Terrifying.

Ayron Alexander is a great singer, I had to listen twice because I got distracted by his voice so I missed what he was saying until the "hold her down". 😔

The lyrics are brutal. Jay did an amazing job 👏

Oof that sound at the end was disturbing. 100/10

Odysseus

THIS is the Ody Crashes Out song

OH! The beginning has the same structure as The Horse and the Infant / Monster

"I. Have Had. Enough." Cue Ody's leitmotif

The chanting of "Odysseus" to show HE'S the threat right now

Wait this is just Polyphemus/Survive but we're rooting for the cyclops

HE'S AIMING FOR THE TORCHES (we are the same you and I~)

YOU DON'T THINK I KNOW MY OWN PALACE? I BUILT IT 🏹

"Let's have Open Arms instead-" / 🏹 "No."

"Legendary" melody to announce Telemachus 😭

Is that Athena's quick thought leitmotif? I need Jay's visuals 😫

MICO did such a great job omg

the soundscaping is really good as always. I can picture the scene very well

"Mercy? MERCY?" 🏹

Jay with the crazy voice acting again 👏

The final "Odysseus" chant is the same one as the end of No Longer You 🫵

I Can't Help but Wonder

I might be wrong, but I think the beginning goes from Just a Man to the Legendary leitmotif 😭

Acoustic guitar because this is an emotional song

Ngl I cried a lot with this one

MY SON, I'M FINALLY HOME 🗣

🗣TELEMACHUS~🗣

I can't tell if the piano in the background is playing a previous melody. I need the musician YouTubers to drop their analyses asap 😩

Quick thought. MY QUEEN IS BACK.

"Show yourself, I know you're watching me"

Athena sounds so much more...human? She really changed!

Athena basically:...should we try Open Arms now? / Ody:...too late for me I fear

"Father? She's waiting for you"

Would You Fall in Love with Me Again

The deep breath before the 🎻Penelope🎻😭

I love how the strings build up/speed up! it translates Ody's anxiousness/anticipation so well. And all goes quiet when the door opens

Anna sounds so beautiful 💖

The lyrics are wrecking me so bad. Thinking about "So much has changed, but I'm the same, yes I'm the same!" previously 😭

"What kind of things did you do?" /

"Left a trail of red on every island" *Ruthlessness melody*

"As I traded friends like objects I could use" *Thunder Bringer melody*

"Hurt more lives than I can count on my hands" *Scylla melody*

"But all of that was to bring me back to you. So tell me, would you fall in love with me again if you knew all I've done? The things I can't undo"

Penelope's last test with their bed.

Odysseus: "I am not the man you knew"

Penelope: "IF that's true...could you do me a favor?"

Odysseus being so hurt about the suggestion of cutting down their wedding bed 😭

Odysseus: "the only way to move it, is to CUT IT FROM ITS ROOTS!"

Penelope: "only my husband knew that, so I guess that MAKES HIM YOU!"

She didn't ask him because she doubted it was her husband, she asked him because HE was doubting HIMSELF OH MY GOD-

I would fall in love with you, over and over again, I don't care how where or when,

No matter how long it's been YOU'RE MINE

DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE NOT THE SAME PERSON! YOU'RE ALWAYS MY HUSBAND and I've been Waiting, Waiting!

WAITING!....for you (with the word "for" sung in the same melody the crew used to sing "Oh, whoah-oh-oh Odysseus." Wait is this her saying she accepts him monster and all? 😭)

*Just a Man orchestra ver.* I had a feeling Jay would do this, and yet I was NOT emotionally prepared for it at all

This song is basically: Odysseus hurt because he thinks Penelope confirmed his fear (she cannot love him anymore) by telling him to cut down the tree 🤝 Penelope upset with Odysseus because how dare he doubt her love (they love each other so much)

Penelope: "How long has it been?"

Odysseus: "Twenty years"

Both: "I Love You"

I'm so sick. Jorge can write a damn good love song for sure.

I'm sad about this being over but I'm also so very happy about finally having all these songs. This has been a great journey, and I can't wait to see what he does moving forward ❤️

[actuallyitsstar]

our past is a foreign country, our neighborhoods have changed. i was the fool who got l u c k y. you were the fool who flew s t r a i g h t. (insp).

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[charliespringverse]

i think it should be possible to scream without making any noise or disturbing anyone or inviting any questions . just sometimes . as a treat .

[marshmellowtea]

was thinking about the munchausen by proxy au at work today lads......while i feel that chris is probably one of the median/older members of the society in canon verse i'm tempted to make him the youngest of the group in this au just for Flavor. just to add to the "oh god he's just a little guy" factor of it all

[ukulelegodparent]

Just went to uni and instead of doing anything spent 3h agonising about ending my relationship. I'm sure this is good and normal

[partynthem]

boygenius are doing something so important for lesbians (umbrella term) rn and i just wanna thank them again and again and again

[heartbeetz]

:(

[byanyan]

so anyway, thanks for reading my little dissertations on byan's gender. sorry for not writing again today, i'm just. i'm fuckin goin through it rn man

[zincbot]

WWW EPISODE 19

[sapsolais]

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[welcometogrouchland]

It's either coming up to my period again OR I've just developed a disease where I get misty eyed at even the most banal sequences and scenes in ghibli movies. I was crying during the early parts of ponyo

[gayfranzkafka]

(insane post incoming) okay i've been a taylor swift re-recordings hater since the beginning but the Speak Now re-recording is making me INSANE i think it's partially just that i'm having a weird time emotionally anyway but like "Timeless" made me TEAR UP like bro WHAT like something about it being soooo essentially of that era but new like the novelty of it BONKED me over the head with a reminder of what it felt like to hear all those songs off Speak Now for the first time when i just had this IDEA of what love was & hadn't actually experienced it yet (& wouldn't for many years!!) like way before i even knew i was a lesbian just listening to taylor sing "enchanted" alone in my bedroom wondering who the guy she was singing about was & if she ever saw him again (because i was #blessed to not have internet access and therefor not know it was the dude from owl city she was singing about alsdfhaklsdhfasdh) & i remember just pouring through the little lyric booklet & its pictures & intro & mostly it was just me & the music & this picture of her in a ballgown in my head & this made up but hopeful romantic idea of what love is and like S C R E A M

[kalkydra]

really sucks that like the only alternative to refilling my med box every week is [remembers suicide jokes reinforce negative thought patterns] [remembers it's not a joke] killing myself

[snekdood]

i worry a lot about some transfems and its not me trying to be like "im better than you" or some shit its bc some of them remind me of me when i was a kid and new into being considered a girl/woman and being really naive thinking people would treat me better than they would- like i knew people were gonna be shitty but i wasnt prepared for the sheer amount of dehumanization and being reduced to just a sex object... idk... I just want some of you out there to be careful...

[skrunksthatwunk]

playing dmc1 with my earbuds in (but on low volume bc they're being weird) while my roommate and her shitty bf argue. i feel like i'm recreating the very specific experience of some child of divorce out there