#but at least there was yelling!!

[jellyfishline]

I've been really, really breaking my own rules when in comes to Veilguard. I don't like making opinions on media until I've experienced it in full, especially when those opinions are negative, and double especially when it's a piece of media that's part of a series that has such a.... long and proud tradition of truly insane takes, to put it lightly. And I know for a fact that there is character writing in this game that would appeal to me, characters that I would love, and maybe some of the less than stellar plots would roll right off me in the face of that.

BUT!

I was prepared to cringe at parts of this game. I was prepared for, idk, discourse about the fumbling of certain sensitive topics. I was prepared for controversial lore revelations, for a lackluster/controversial villain or two, for some janky bits of story or mechanics. If it was just (and god, this feels awful to say) things like "Taash's gender is handled respectfully but there’s no attempt to make being nonbinary feel integrated into the setting" or even "Taash's quest massively drops the ball on being multicultural and forces the player into a gross binary choice about which culture to encourage Taash to explore" that would be like, what I expected. I can accept clumsy writing, even hurtful clumsy writing, to a degree.

But the SANITATION of it all.

Taking out the teeth of the Crows. Making pirates have a code of ethics about not stealing elven artifacts and not turning that into anything INTERESTING (say, internal strife between the pirates who care about plundering from oppressed cultures and pirates who don't, or making this a recent change after an, idk, elven captain takes charge of the organization and showing the struggle of it, or making the pirates all staunch individuals who have completely disparate individual moral perspectives, or SOMETHING.)

Setting your game in MOTHERFUCKING TEVINTER and not talking about anti-elf prejudice???? What the fuck???? Being an elf doesn't radically change how the Imperium sees you?? There aren't elven slaves in every corner of this society??? You’re going to set your game in the place where Fenris came from and just.... not address anything that was part of his story???

And this is all shit I KNOW about the game, because even though I haven't played it I have seen screenshots and banters and dialogue choices. And I just.

Do the folks at bioware/ea/whoever was responsible for this understand that by taking the "problematic" elements out of the world they haven’t made it friendlier or kinder or less problematic. They've actually made it worse, imo. Because it makes the struggles of previous characters and the systemic institutional problems they raged against in previous games feel unimportant, silenced, removed. The most charitable explanation is that these characters' struggles have been retconned out of existence. The least charitable is that they have been reduced to being outliers, which in turn makes their insistence that the problems are indeed SYSTEMIC and not just the result of one "bad villain who was operating totally alone, no really" seem irrational or overblown.

I just. DAI fumbled a lot of shit but at least there was shit to fumble.

[fagcrisis]

ok so after years of yankees on this website yelling at me to vote (in a country i dont live in) i looked up how voting in the US works and this shit is crazy. ur telling me ur not even voting for a guy, ur voting for Some Cunts Who Will Hopefully Vote For That Guy and theres a set amount of said cunts so the results are incredibly fucking skewed?? ur telling me this????? for years and years you assholes pretended your country is so much more democratic than the dictatorship i live in and you cant even actually VOTE?????????

[lungthief]

sometimes u just gotta remind yourself that while ace attorney is about law and justice and stuff it is also about a bunch of young adults living in [CALIFORNIA]

[parisoonic]

last ones i swear

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[frownyalfred]

Jason to Bruce privately in the Cave: “That was the stupidest decision I’ve ever seen you make. Do you really think they’re going to want to be your friends once they find out the truth? If you could unclench for ONE minute this all could’ve been avoided—”

Jason at the Justice League meeting on the Watchtower ten minutes later: “If anyone even LOOKS at Batman I’ll rip their throat out. None of you fuckers understand how many favors he’s doing your sorry asses. If you’re too stupid to listen to Batman, that’s your prerogative. He’s the only thing keeping this damn satellite in ORBIT—”

[mwagneto]

no!!!!!! 8 episodes will kill patient!!!!!!!! he needs 12-24 episodes some of which is light-hearted filler to live!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[whitechocolateanti]

throwing out my vision for nyc wasian wizard fashion depop warrior casey

bonus

[littlefankingdom]

IT SHOULDN'T BE BRUCE DRESSING AS NIGHTWING! IT SHOULD BE TIM! IT'S A VERY TIM THING TO PUT ON SOMEONE ELSE'S COSTUME BECAUSE THEY ARE NEEDED! OR JASON! HE ALREADY DID ONCE, TO BE TOXIC, BUT HE COULD DO IT TO BE NICE! OR BOTH OF THEM! BATTLE FOR THE COWL 2: THIS TIME, IT'S JUST FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES!

[ur-favoriterecord]

*saw trap voice* Hello Persona YouTuber. It has come to my attention that you have spent way to long praising Maruki and his 'noble ambitions', however you fail to mention Sumire even once, even calling her Kasumi despite it being clear that this was a spoiler filled video.

Before you is a Google doc. You have thirty minutes to write a thesis statement about Sumire and her inclusion in Royal, including her relationship with Maruki or the Bear Trap goes off

[zluckychap]

in a game filled with monsters who would love nothing more than to eat my skin, this is still the thing that freaks me out the most

[sushiisiu]

klapollo fans have you seen the new drama cds from the trilogy it is so gay. first one has apollo, phoenix and ema going to klav's solo concert and apollo changing his mind on klav's music because of their experiences together in court and geeking out and then klav invites him on stage to duet love love guilty together. this is so huge this is enormous bro. look at this. polly sounds so cute

EDIT: ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE WHOLE THING IN THE REPLIES

[babymorte]

i swear im normal

[deconstructivesurgery]

"gale is too good aligned to get along with astarion-" if you play the dark urge and get the scene in act 2 where you literally try to murder him he fucking tells you "at least there's plenty of enemies out there for you to kill! a feast for the violent at heart :)" entirely fucking unphased. you cannot tell me he would give a shit if astarion straight up started eating people as long as there was some vague reason for it. he's literally straight up telling you as long as it's aimed at foes and not friends he doesn't care if you engage in gleeful butchery for crying out loud