#but apparently that toggle didn't save or something?

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Being a leftist Jew who cares about Jewish self-determination in the Jewish ancestral homeland and combating antisemitism is so surreal because there are so many organizations and people who I would normally trust on virtually every other single issue who manage to get it so, so wrong when it comes to I/P issues in particular but often antisemitism in general. And it's like, do I reconsider everything else they're saying? Reconsider my entire understanding of Jewish identity, history, and self-determination? Or do I just accept the reality that apparently people and groups whose ideas and advocacy I wholeheartedly support happen to also consider my people lesser beings?

I've tried options A & B, and am left with C. What am I supposed to do with that?

[kaija-rayne-author]

13th review in series of Dragon Age Veilguard

98 steam hours logged, 84 game hours logged on final save, (the listing in the game itself) actual gameplay hours (-2 for time in CC) either 96 or 82... depending.

14 hour discrepancy between game logged hours and steam logged hours is likely how much trouble the game gave me in loading, reloading, glitching, and crashing. Do I get to charge Bioware for those lost hours of my life?

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to skip it if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though., every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard and everything else DA, I'm a Lore fiend.

My pithy pre-end sequence commentary.

Section 12 here.

END GAME SPOILERS

End game spoilers for BG3 too.

13 is my lucky number, but even that couldn't save it. I can't think of a single thing that can save this disaster of a game. I'll write a more professional wrap-up review post too, this is my reaction portion.

I've finished the final sequence of the game. Sat through the credits of probably a thousand people who worked on this piece of shit and still thought it releasable. AND saw the 'easter egg/future game possibility scene'. My kid said I got a hint of hope back in my eyes for about 10 seconds when that final scene popped up then the light faded again. Apparently the 'long slow horrified stare of death' was all over my face again.

Loading in, I dreaded everything I was about to see. Veilguard had already disappointed me in so many ways. I didn't have any hope the final sequence would be any better.

It wasn't as bad as I expected. It was worse. Yes. Honestly.

In all fairness (even if I really don't want to be fair right now) the last sequence does contain some of the best material in the game. If they'd actually written the rest of it with that kind of passion it probably would've been a better game. But that doesn't actually make it good. And how any average person makes it to the final sequence is beyond me. I'm stuck in bed. I've got an excuse.

So. I expected it to be long. That part didn't bother me that much. Most Dragon Age games have long final sequences.

The positive! Ummmm? Oh! I actually did get an intimate scene with Lucanis. His timing stinks but whatever. I did actually get one. I mean, it was one your aunt who's a nun probably wouldn't have found racey, but it exists! Dude. It's 2024, there's this cool toggle function you can click off if you don’t want nudity. It's a Mature rated game and I'm pretty sure most of us know what sex is. Give paying customers what they want!

My least favourite character died.

I called it on Solas killing Varric in the first scene. Interesting twist they did with that, though. Told y'all. I didn't want it to happen either, but the writing was on the wall in great big letters in drippy red paint from the second they fired Mary Kirby (Varric's writer.) In case you want more details than snark on that? Varric did indeed die when Solas stabbed him in the beginning. What you see throughout the game is Solas messing with Rook's mind because Solas needs Rook to work with him. Varric died before the story actually started. That last line of his 'take care of the team' told me. But I got taken in by the twist too. Bet that was a Weekes twist. 'It’s right in front of you the whole time.'

Elgar'nan made a WAY better final boss fight than Coryphyfish.

I did legitimately love watching Teia and Viago fight as crows. That was a really awesome section. (They're two of my favourite characters from Tevinter Nights.)

The bad.

There is no way for me to list it all. So here's the highlight reel.

Varric died.

They lifted almost the entire final battle sequence from BG3. The tentacle they have to climb to the fancy building in the sky. People falling and almost dying by tumbling down the tentacle, having to fight through said self-destructing fancy building in the sky... I know you can't copyright an idea. As an author, I understand and approve of that. But you should at least make the idea a wee bit unrecognizable as to where you lifted it from. Y'know?

Yay! We got to see Solas in wolfie form! He looks like a Chinese hairless crested dog on a really bad day. Like... really needs to go to the salon and have a bath day. I really wish I were joking.

Called it on the Solavellan ending. And NO. Trick Weekes. That DOES NOT give a suggestion of a Happy Fucking Ending. Read some fucking Romance. GOOD romance. (They do. And I'm being very mature by not calling out one of the authors they read who was one of the ones who harassed me off of Twitter. Oh. No. Two of them I've seen Trick mention as books they've read were involved in that. I guess looking at the people someone likes and respects is kinda indicative... isn't it?)

What's that say about me? I don't like very many people. I get along with people as best as my autistic/AuDHD ass can but I don't LIKE very many people at all. Nor do people tend to like me. I have no compunction about calling someone on bullshit. It makes people cranky, but I've had enough bullshit in my life. And I respect about the same amount of people as I like. If I can't respect you? I can't like you. (For anyone who does actually know me... I don't mean you. If I talk with you privately? Or even if I'm willing to? I both like and respect you. Or I wouldn't bother talking to you privately. I'm shit at reaching out. But if we've talked more than once in any form of privacy? You've made the list of my cranky ass.)

Am I a bitch? Probably. Live my life and see if you'd be any different.

No intimate scene for Solas and Inky. After ten years of waiting for Solavellans. After all the shitting on Solas we had to put up with in DAV (and OMFG there was soooo much!!) No actual happy ending. No intimate scene. Oh, but you do get a rather grody kiss between them because he's just been fighting and has blight all over his face. But yay? They get to kiss? With absolutely no passion at all. Maybe the passion of a bavarian cream pastry? A rotten one? Ew. Before dissolving into fade gook.

The entire time I spent in CC for my Inky to make her look like my player character from DAI? It didn't show up in the final sequence. And no way was I replaying that hellscape to see if it MIGHT could be coaxed into actually showing her the way I made her. I just got the stock body.

So... y'know the veil? That edge of reality that has been getting more and more holes in it throughout the entire history of the Dragon Age Franchise? The veil that the Lore has been pretty clear about it strangling both the magic and the life out of THEDAS? Not to mention everything the elves lost because of it? That veil?

It's all better now. Regardless of the Lore. Because Solas bound his life force to it. So instead of a quick bandage being pulled off to get rid of the veil that really does need to go (y'know if Bioware writers actually gave a rat's ass about the fucking lore of the world they're writing in)... Now it's there until Solas dies... which he can't really do easily being one of the first Elves. Sooooo by the very lore of the world they've crafted... THEDAS is now doomed to die.

Congrats Bioware. Well done. /s

Oh, but THAT doesn't matter. Because everything from the very beginning of DAO has been 'influenced' by 'the ones from across the sea'.

Pardon me while I gag.

The entirety of THEDAS and everything that's ever gone wrong with it is the fault of 'the foreigners from across the sea who wear clothing that's kiiiinda a lot like a Burqa.' Y'know... the black over gowns and veils Afghani women and some other Muslim folks wear?

Cause... uh... yeah. That's a GREAT idea. I legitimately cannot believe they went there. I just... I can't. Bioware hasn't ever really been great on the racism front but I'd hoped they'd gotten at least a little bit better.

Nooooope.

There were a couple of mentions of something like 'the gathering storm' in Taash's quests and how she's a weapon against them. HUGE spoiler I'm sure, but I'm pretty sure they want to make a game that deals with 'the foreign invaders who have been subtly influencing everything wearing black burqas and veils' as the next Dragon Age. Or maybe they'll call it a spin off since it has to be getting close to the end of the actual Dragon Age in the calendar.

I really hope I'm not the only one who can see the issues there. Not that I expect Bioware to. Honestly? I used to pray that DAV would save Bioware. I've liked them as a company for a while, but this is it for me. I'm done.

I might enjoy the first three DA games occasionally if I feel like it. But DAV does not exist for me. Anything they make going forward does not exist for me. That fucking bullshit about no one having had any free choices in the entire history of the games/books/comics etc.? AND the next game's bad guys looking like they wear burqas?

Bioware has made my boycott list. And I honestly hope they sink like the fucking Titanic for the shit they've pulled in DAV and that last fucking scene.

With that scene, they not only shit on many cultures who veil, they shit specifically on Afghani people who are required to wear that. Whether they want to or not.

They also, from a writing perspective, removed every single bit of agency from any of their previous characters. Making every single game pointless in the history of the world.

I'm just done. My boycott list is pretty long. I have these pesky standards. I'd already compromised them by continuing on with playing Bioware games regardless of their well known issues. But nope. Done. Finite. Time to cut the rope and watch it sink.

I would never, in a million years, recommend this game. On those two reasons alone. But also because it doesn't do anything a good CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game) is supposed to do very well.

It doesn't hold up the Dragon Age expectations for anyone who has played the games or enjoyed the lore. They basically shoved all the lore under the proverbial carpet. (Must have made a hell of a lump. That's a LOT of Lore. Trust me. I know. I've marinated myself in it.) On the surface it LOOKS like a CRPG. It has the elements of one... but so few of the elements are carried through that it's kinda shocking to me that they dared to advertise it as one. I mean... didn't someone tell them pissing off people by advertising something they aren't delivering is a bad idea?

It's full of easily fixable plot holes. Seriously, they'd be so easy to fix! They just didn't bother.

Where DAI was an intricately woven adult CRPG masterpiece? DAV is a poorly woven bedsheet with arm sized holes in it and lots and lots of stains. Made for kids.

CRPGs have a long history. Bioware and Dragon Age do too. DAO came out in 2009, Dragon Age 2 released in 2011, both were solid CRPGs. You felt like you were playing a role playing game. Bioware then released DAI in 2014. And in the Dragon Age series, DAI is the crown jewel.

It had everything a CRPG is supposed to have. It wasn’t perfect, no, but it's definitely the best of all 4 games for being what it's supposed to be.

CRPGs generally do not challenge the player as far as manual dexterity or physical response time. That's for action/fighting games. I'm not a professional level gamer. But gaming is my number one hobby and source of entertainment. I play on hard level for most games I play, if not ultra hard. I struggled with the shitty DAV fighting system. Dear gods, who had the brilliant idea of tying accumulation of skill points to how high your bond is with your companions? That's just... the kindest thing I can say is poorly thought out. Especially when you can only take two of them with you on missions. My not-a-fucking-rogue should never have had aggro. And they always did. I'm intimately acquainted with the inside the mouth animations on the dragons.

RPGs are supposed to have intricate, layered world building, a levelling system that makes your characters grow and develop as they progress through a well developed world, often they have fighting, puzzles, and other mechanics to spice things up. But there's some very specific things an RPG needs. And DAV has so few of them. They focussed so much on that shitty gods damned fighting system that had my not-a-fucking-rogue always plastered with the 'come eat me' aggro flag that they failed to deliver on so much else that an RPG needs to have. Especially a CRPG.

I think I heard someone on the dev team say they were quite happy with how the characters and romances came out and um. Well. Might I politely suggest learning how to write better? Cause they weren't. From both a professional and consumer level? They just weren't good.

The characters were dishwater boring with no character development possible. The romances were... not. I'll just leave it there.

Those are a few things I KNOW I'm good at. Just because my fans have told me often enough that I've almost internalized it by now. What? Characterization, writing intimate scenes, and writing romance. My writing voice is very love/hate like many authors. If you love my voice and read kinky romance, you'd probably like it. If you don't like my voice? No story I tell will satisfy you. But from an editorial and writing standpoint? The characters and romances in DAV needed so much work. As much as the plot.

I'm no stranger to trauma. And yes. I did it to myself. I needed to play the ending for myself and I wanted to see what the game was like. I feel traumatized. Abso-fucking-lutely traumatized.

If you're Solavellan and looking for reviews to tell you whether it's worth buying and playing? It. Is. Not. On any level.

Oh and you know those Steam Achievements you get? At the beginning they were like in the high 90s and 80s percentages. The last two I got were from the end game. 2.2% and 6.8%. Respectively. According to my kid (who usually knows more than I do about things like that) that means people stopped playing before they got there. (Or possibly just haven't gotten there yet. I did play it reasonably fast because of my current circumstances.)

I really wish I could say better things about this game. I wanted to love it as much as I loved the other three. As much as I've loved most Dragon Age material. Something about it just captured me. Until DAV.

More professional review to follow at some point.

If my review series has been helpful... and I really really hate to ask, but if it has been? My work of words is my family's only income. My partner is still recovering from a broken back, and I'm recovering from a pulmonary embolism. Money is so tight it squeaks. If you're not gonna buy the game anyway after reading my blather, a tip would surely be appreciated.

All my links are at the bottom of my website. And the tips button up top is set up too.

My response to breaking media blackout.

[dark-side-blog3]

I play degrees of lewdity! day 2 warning for canon typical violence, noncon, and spoilers

++++

I went into the woods to see if something could interest me. Wenta little far in and heard a wolf howl. FUCK 0x0

++++

I managed to avoid the wolves so now I'm thinking that's only gonna be a problem if you've got beastiality toggled on. Also picked up some arrow heads that I can apparently sell at the museum! And I've got school the next ingame day so now I'm worried how I'm gonna be able to grind and get the cash i need for Bailey while also going to school... There's got to be consequences if you don't go to school, right? Even though this game is focused on fantasy rape? I feel like there are consequences if you don't go to school... Surely...

On the plus side I got hired at the docks for weekends so maybe that'll be good and help me earn some cash!

++++

ROBIN SOLD HER CONSOLE! Is there a way to spot her a bit of cash? :( I took her for a picnic so we had a little bit of fun and didn't end up staying out at night (can you get raped while walking with someone else in this game? Like irl yes but in game? The logic ain't really logic-ing because its a videogame so maybe it cancels out?)

also i found mickey and im trying to get him to purge my records of constant rape from the files and he's kinda weird?

++++

I forgot to save my game file before working at the brothel and I just didn't like it :/

Sooooo I'm going back to my last save which was before school started. I've got to redo all my efforts for classes but whatever :p

++++

Got raped while leaving school. its the cigerette event. Meh :/

++++

ey i am not a catholic but Sydney is amazing. Actually the best character in this game. I hope nothing bad ever happens to him and I will fight for this :) <3 What a wholesome guy.

AH sydney just asked what it means when people flirt with him. I know he's a grown man and can technically engage if he wants but he's so innocent I can't tell him the truth... I comforted him :')

++++

Loft discovered and exams passed eyyyyyy very good

++++

I got raped and they stole my skirt and panties! I tried to walk to the store to buy more clothes but I got accosted on the beach! My character ended up passing out from the pain. When i woke up a different group has stolen the rest of my clothes and collared me, and hypnotised my character to strip instead of concealing any exposed skin, which has six different body-writing phrases!

Fuck!

++++

Robin has confessed that she feels like Bailey is unreasonable :( poor girl.

++++

ROBINS AT THE DOCKS?!?!?!?! SHE COULDN'T AFFORD TO PAY!

Im gonna save here incase i change my mind.

attempted to fight: Lost. Badly. Afterwards, got tossed into the sea without my clothes, got exposure, passed out, woke up with the feat "Alluring" achieved. Robin is still on the boat. proceed to get raped as soon as i wake up again. This is going to be struck from my record.

attempt to take robins place: She's successfully back on shore, I got tossed overboard while stripped and passed out again. Dolphin merfolk played with me though so I stopped being stressed. Swam to shore, and somehow it made my character less stressed. Got swept out to sea. ended up getting picked up by a boat and getting raped, but not by the same people as before. Fuckers tossed me overboard afterwards. Got beat up immidietly afterwards too by another gang of rapists. Robin better be as loyal as a dog to my character after this.

Had just enough energy to go get shackles removed at museum. and woke up in the hospital with doctor harper again. I am now supposed to go to therapy every Friday at the hospital. And I've now been arrested by the police, and am preforming five days of community service.

I took Robin to the hospital. I swear, Robin better be worth all the torment I went through. And there better be a DAMN good reason I have to drag Robin to the hospital after I literally passed out from pain and had to be carried in on a stretcher.

+++++++

Robin has not infact helped at all and has been somewhat useless.

++++

had consensual sex with a guy and it was actually so sweet <3 Askd him to wear a condom for oral sex and he did and he gave praise the whole time, what a sweet guy <3

++++

SOMEONE BROKE INTO MY ROOM WHILE I WAS GONE AND NOW MY PANTIES ARE MISSING???? WHAT THE HELL-- its got to be someone bailey approved of because he's canonically thrown a pervert out when they don't have a reason to be perving in the orphanage, but also??? I've been paying bailey, I've never missed a payment, and I've never fought him. Why??? Is it Kylar?

++++

I am in therapy w/harper, and he wants to hypnotize me. This feels like its about to go horribly wrong. It doesn't tell me what it is exactly when i overwhelmed, so I'm going to have to try really hard to keep my stress down!

++++

Aight I am making another save file with robin cuz i actually really like this timeline even though robin is useless

Also the cream buns are so good that whats his name (sam?) is buying the store next to it, which is great... Except for the fact that this is how i grind out the most cash. And I decided to take on robins debt like a moron.

++++

Kylar is stalking me. Confirmed because something was watching me since i left the house, and I saw him do that horror movie trope with the bus at nightinggale street.

But also i might restart the save because despite taking robins debit robin isn't at school. I'm not paying extra if shes not even here :/

Ah but a quick look at the reddit says this is normal, robin is just getting the fuck beat out of them. Well... Aint nothing I can do about that now.

+++

Got raped while trying to break into houses, and got raped on my way to the hospital for after pills :/

+++

My character is getting raped by rando's so much I'm bored reading the chats and I'm bored documeting them. I'll add anything of note. Like whatever the fuck is up with the mommy kink ginger sewer woman. Did not enjoy that. I am into mommy/daddy stuff within reason, and this was far outside of it.

+++

GOT RAPED AND WE KNOW WHAT HARPER HYPNOITSED ME FOR!! My character now gets aroused with painal, and smacking other peoples asses.

+++

" You chat with Sydney. "No one else has made such an effort to get to know me like this. Not in a long time, at least. I appreciate it." He holds up his holy pendant, kisses it, and places it against your forehead. "Blessings." | - Trauma" UWAAAHHHHH uwahhahanannannmmamammhpmmmhmmmmmmmwuaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh I WOULD DIE FOR SYDNEY ;A; Like the cross thing is... a tiny bit uncomfy, but its known he is such a sweetheart and no one wants to talk to him??? uwahhhhh poor boooyyy..... (I've had some bad run ins with various religious students who were super religious so when I say this crucifix use is a nice one TRUST me its so sweet because I know what threating crucifix use is). SYDNEY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH SWEET DARLING (platonic)

+++

HARPER PUT ME IN THE ASYULM?!?!?!?!?! HE KIDNAPPED ME! AM I IN A SOFTLOCK?! WHAT ABOUT BAILEY?! I HAVEN'T PAID HIM! HARPER KIDNAPPED ME?!?!?!?!?

I'M GOING TO LOOSE MY FUCKING MIND OAOAOBQGOAFACEQWRAGW