#having wedding thoughts again

[licnheartedd]

someone should marry me i think. i am very good at wedding planning and would look really pretty in a wedding dress. oh and also i deserve to be loved unconditionally and forever

[cobaltfluff]

wait, who's getting married??

[lirarey]

Tim Burton loves couples where one is dead and the other is alive, doesn't he?

[eerna]

Truth be told, when I realized Ambessa was for some reason super duper invested in Vi and wanted to kill her personally with no one around because she made Caitlyn "weak", and that THAT was somehow the big distraction that would save everyone. I had to pause the episode for a moment and stare at the wall asking myself who tf kidnapped the writing team and replaced them with aliens who have only the barest idea of what the show is about

[angrykittybarbarian]

Things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard part 3 (final thoughts)

I have finally finished the playthrough. I endured because I wanted to give this game a fair chance. I wanted to see it from start to finish in the hopes it would deliver something, anything capable of redeeming it. But it just didn't. Or more precisely, not in a way sufficient to make its flaws easy to overlook. These are my closing impressions on the game. I have already done two posts about this in which I documented my observations and comments as I progressed. I will link the posts here: Part 1, Part 2.

Let's finish this ride for now.

!Spoilers below the cut!

The music

I don't know what the direction of the music was meant to take. When it was announced Hans Zimmer would compose the OST I had high hopes. Hans Zimmer is a houshold name in Hollywood and skilled at what he does. I listened to a number of movie OSTs of his making and they were all excellent. So what happened here?

The music sounds generic most of the time without a clear theme or a unique piece that got me searching for it on youtube.

The main theme has sort of a recognizable composition but isn't anything outstanding. Emmrich's theme sounds like a halloween piece written for Wednesdsy Adams and the rest of the OST seems to mimic Trevor Morris' work for DA:I, namely the Lost Temple and In Hushed Whispers themes, but without the emotional impact the original pieces created.

It's as someone has already pointed out and I agree: Bioware has bought the name Hans Zimmer but not his quality. It sounds like he didn't even seriously create something but half heartedly whipped something out of his sleeve and called it a day.

The facial animations

The main problem with these is they often don't fit the emotions the VAs are communicating.

The VAs actually did a fantastic job. The scene that touched me the most was the one Rook confronts Solas in after they escape the regret prison in the fade. That was the first time Rook felt involved, raw and real.

But what broke the atmosphere in an otherwise flawless scene was how unmoving their facial expression was. There was the VA shouting their lung out and the animation couldn't even give half a fuck about it.

I don't even see an excuse for this lack of facial animation. It was possible to do since DA:O, hell, even since the first Mass Effect back in '07. Why is it not possible in the year of our Lord 2024, when technology is presumably better?

The handholding of the player

The plot is tightly paced. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I didn't really like the Open World approach of DA:I since it stretched the main plot too thinly and the maps created weren't filled with interesting side content but boring and pointless fetch quests.

But Veilguard went into the opposide extreme as it leaves only little room for the player when and how to do things. The quests are activated and must be completed in a specific order. They have also only one outcome without room to make different decisions.

Rook can never be truly ruthless. They can never disagree and butt heads with their companions.

And I hate how on the side of the screen the game exactly tells you what you have done and how it affects your companions' behaviour. It doesn't bake it into the interaction organically. Instead it has yet again, explained to me what I did and why it has this very specific effect without any of the characters discussing it. But the beauty of consequential decisions lies in the very unpredictability of its outcome. That's what creates the emotional impact. It doesn't work if I am being warned and explained to like a small child.

It's this lack of trust the game puts into the intelligence of its players that is so experience breaking, insulting even. It doesn't trust its players to figure stuff out themselves. It assumes we are too stupid to get any of the things it tries to tell us.

The ting is though, dear Bioware writers, if you think you have to overexplain your story because you think your audience won't get it then that's a telltale sign of the story being actually badly written.

Another area where this becomes appearant are the "puzzles". I used the quotation marks because there isn't really anything to solve. The solutions are obvious and at times your companions go out of their way to tell you.

The romances

Romances have always been a nice bonus on top of the otherweise amazing game content. They added some enjoyable extra fluff purely for enjoyment and some cases even deepened the main storyline.

In Veilguard they don't do that. In almost all of them the flirting is so meaningless that your cutscene with them just proceeds as if nothing happened.

There is no shift or change to their tone towards Rook. You don't build up the relationship with them. There is no last goodbye kiss before the last mission or passionate affirmations of love and trust. It just leaves you cold.

The only romance that seems to have that old depth is Emmrich's. The rest however, they don't add anything significant. There virtually is no difference to the game without the romances.

Companion relationships

Let's begin here with the simple fact that all deeper interactions Rook has with the companions are strictly scripted which ties back into the handholding part of this criticism. Rook cannot initiate a conversation and ask them some general questions about their histories and opinions on certain matters.

Rook only gets to interact with them when they happen to want something from them. Otherwise they cannot be bothered to acknowledge Rook with more than a one sided oneliner.

And then there are the relationships between the companions themselves. They either get along swimmingly or the game feels the need to stage some immature conflict between them without any deeper purpose.

Like Harding not understanding why Emmrich brings so many books on the road despite it literally not being any of her damn business bevause it doesn't personally affect her in any way.

Or Taash not understanding his profession as a Mournwatcher as they call him names so Rook has to point out Taash in turn likes dragons which is an interest he doesn't share only to culminate the discussion with a "We need to respect our differences" sort of statement.

These are not conflicts, these are squabbles of children and like children Roik talks to them which is brought ad absurdum with Emmrich because he is literally old enough to be Rook's father.

Why bother at all with writing conflict if it is only to be something as inconsequential as this?

Varric's death

This one is a .... choice.

I won't go into why the decision to let him die or not is good or bad because I feel like this is highly subjective.

However the impact of the reveal of this fact is only partly executed well.

Why?

Because it only hits hard when the player has known and cared about Varric at least since DA:I if not DA 2. The execution of this plotpoint thus relies too heavily on nostalgia instead of building the tension up within its own setting.

When thinking about Bioware also wanting to be newcomer friendly with this game I am left to wonder then why they didn't introduce Varric properly and didn't give the players time to build up the relationship? Why would a new player care about Varric? They don't know him.

Bioware cannot in good conscience claim they designed the game to be new player friendly while simultaniously heavily relying on knowledge from previous games, dlcs, comics, novels and other spin-off media. They cannot claim this and have anything but DATV do the heavy lifting when it comes to executing their plot.

The final mission

For my final point I also want to lose some positive feedback about this game.

The ending was actually well written.

In relation to Solas it comes full circle. You can actually feel what's at stake and the decisions Rook makes actually matter.

The final questline roughly follows a Mass Effect 2 approach where it is classified as nothing short of a suicide mission.

Companion quests essentially function as loyalty missions and Rook gets to assign various posts in battle. Just like in Mass Effect 2 assigning a companion a post completely outside of their expertise may get them killed.

The dialogue is actually written well at this point in the game. There isn't really much to complain about.

But even this part is not entirely without faults.

For one I don't like the non negotiable sacrifice that has either to be made by Harding or Davrin. Rook doesn't even get a chance to save any of them. But again these non negotiable companion deaths where you only make the choice who's it's going to be isn't anything new (i.e. Hawke and whatever Warden you happen to get, Kaidan/Ashley in ME 1). So maybe a bit if a bummer but nothing experience breaking.

A stronger point however is that Rook will always keep the Veil intact in the end.

I suppose this outcome already is part of the game title itself but was it necessary to take it so literally?

With everything the elves have lost and the discrimination they faced it should absolutely have been an option to agree with Solas and tear the Veil down.

But since we don't talk about racism and slavery I guess Rook doesn't reflect on these points either. So I guess keeping the Veil intact is in line with the game's general sanitization of the world.

So in conclusion?

The game is far from great, not gonna lie. It feels like the devs actually wanted a new IP but were too afraid of the risks that come with such an endeavor and thought gutting an existing franchise that already did the heavy lifting of building a fanbase and using it as a package would save their ideas from flopping. Surely no one will notice it is actually something else if we market it as Dragon Age, right?

But we are not that stupid. This behaviour is insulting to put it plain and simple and I am heartbroken, angry and said that this was done to Dragon Age. I wanted to love this game. I was optimistic before the release. Everything looked fine, nothing in particular to worry about.

But I cannot continue to defend this without breaking my basic brain function.

The most frustrating part is that with the ending the devs showed they can write a story and meaningful dialogues. It left me wondering why it couldn't be done like this for the rest of the game and living with the reality that I will never get what this game could have been.

All in all this is not a good Dragon Age game. It is a massive disappointment and does not live up to the promises made by the devs.

I am sorry for everyone who preordered.

I am sorry for everyone who paid the full release price.

Nominating it for Game of the Year is not justified no mattee how you look at it.

If you are genuinely enjoying the game, I hope you continue to do so and all power to you.

For the rest: let's stop excusing Bioware's disrespect towards the fans and enabling them by paying them too much money for it.

Don't buy at release. Don't buy spin off media. Wait for sales. These people only understand the problem when you give them a good run for their money.

[greatgoddyke]

all you ever need is to be nice and friendly

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[epickiya722]

Folks, you're not going to like what I have to say. I just know it and I'm warning you of that. I said it once before, but leaks really do make some folks act out in ways that I can't understand. We ain't even got a full translation and already people are saying this ship is canon and that ship is canon... and whatever else. Jumping to conclusions when you don't even have all the facts.

Look, I'm not saying Hori is the best writer. I'm not saying Izuku and Ochako is a bad ship (it's not, there's worse... a lot worse).

But I do think some people are jumping ten steps ahead and I doubt that they are canon romantically. This isn't me being in denial because I could care less about the ship. It's not a ship that makes me sit up at night and cry and want to punch a wall and harass people. No ship for me does.

So far, from what I can gather from the very little information Izuku wants to see Ochako more because... THEY LITERALLY HAVEN'T SEEN EACH OTHER A LOT. In the last chapter, Izuku states that the class haven't been able to catch up and whatnot because over the years they got busy with their careers. The last time they probably had a proper conversation was in high school.

Izuku and Ochako wanting to meet up more doesn't automatically mean they're going to date. Let's not forget, Ochako is one of the first people to become a close friend of Izuku's in their first year. They clicked because they were so similar. They mirror each other even!

They're best friends if anything and wouldn't you want to see your best friend after not seeing them for a long time?

So far, it just feels that this epilogue is them accepting their own feelings about everything that has happened, like a self-reflection and self-acceptance type of deal.

Sometimes, you realize something about yourself when encountering someone who is like you. That's how Izuku and Ochako are to me.

It takes them identifying with the other to come to terms about themselves.

"But the blushing! The handholding!"

So blushing automatically means "I have romantic feelings for you", is what some of you are saying?

Just gonna forget all the times they and others have blushed out of embarrassment or happiness? That even some characters have the blush stickers to show their sweet innocent nature, like Ochako for most of the story?

Izuku blushed at Katsuki in the final chapter out of happiness, so it can't apply here, too? Why does blushing got to only be used in a romantic sense?

Seeing Izuku blushing looking at Ochako is funny when considering he's holding an (possibly) alcoholic beverage in that same shot. My guy is probably drunk. 😆 Jokes aside, jokes aside.

This is Ochako and Izuku, we're talking about here. They're the Queen and King of MHA characters who blush a lot, no matter what is going on.

And the handholding? In MHA? It happens a lot between characters! It's not like anything new or Izuku and Ochako are going to get cooties.

Look, I might make some people laugh or hate me for this one but when I saw this... I was reminded of this.

For those that don't know, that is from the Predator (1987). Yes, that Predator.

Two characters that have been friends for a long time and just happy to see each other.

We seen this kind of handshake like this before between characters of different and same genders. Either as a greet or as an agreement.

Izuku and Ochako are just agreeing to see each other more and that they should allow themselves to live happy lives. That doesn't mean they're going to start dating and having babies the following week.

"Bakugou is being treated like his wingman!"

Ah, stop right there. Katsuki encouraging Izuku to talk to Ochako isn't like that strange because between Izuku and Katsuki, Katsuki is the one to most likely reveal his emotions. He is more in touch with his emotions than Izuku who while emotional tends to keep everything in.

Katsuki isn't playing wingman. He's playing advisor and someone who has experience with emotions.

Seeing Izuku stumbling over his words and being all nervous trying to talk to Ochako is so in character for him. He has never been too good expressing his emotions.

I doubt Katsuki would be like "go tell her you want to marry her". He is more like "go talk to her, you're friends, remember? Been forever since you had a proper conversation."

It's the same case with Himiko pushing Ochako towards Izuku. She is encouraging her to be happy and not be stuck in the past. Not "go get married".

Happiness doesn't mean you must be in a romance.

Just me, again, but I feel like some people are really just jumping the gun here. If you really are thinking Izuku and Ochako being canon is bad for your ship, that's... I'm sorry, this will be mean of me to say, but that's ridiculous.

A ship being canon shouldn't stop you from enjoying the ships you do like. What ever happen to "ignore canon"? Oh, I guess that becomes irrelevant when you want to cause panic and bash and panic and bash and panic and bash.

Like a handhold like that shouldn't make you feel threatened by that ship.

Just continue shipping your ships! Take it from someone whose favorite ship is of two characters who haven't been seen interacting before.

Even still, with just leaks alone, it doesn't mean they are canon. I have my ships and there's moments in whatever the story makes me ship them but I also don't think every little behavior is meant to be romantic.

The thing I know I'm going to hate about this epilogue isn't even the chapter itself. It's the reactions.

I know some people are going to say this chapter is queerbait and use to it to even go as far as to bash Ochako given she is the woman and it's routine to hate on the woman. It ain't queerbait if Katsuki and Izuku wasn't going to be explicitly a couple themselves. Let's not forget it's Shonen Jump and even though the queer coding can be there, we can't have everything.

Also, I also know that some fans of IzuOcha are going to use this chapter to justify their "authority" of "best ships" and harass people like "my ship is better than yours" and be only concerned about Ochako being a housewife.

I don't think Horikoshi is the greatest human and MHA is a flawless story but some of you are no better to these characters and the story.

[spotaus]

Eyy, King Reaper and his beloved Mage Geno designs <3

[toads-treasures]

"You touch me like I am everything you asked god for. Underneath your hands I become poetry. This is the alchemy that you do."

—T. James

These two would either have the fanciest, the biggest the sappiest wedding Waterdeep has ever seen, or they would have the DND equivalent of a Vegas wedding. Maybe I’ll draw that version later.

[harmonic-intervention]

But what if Buck has been hiding a ring box in his locker at work? What if he transfers it to his jacket because he and Tommy are going on a big trip and Buck wants to propose? What if something goes wrong and they end up injured and need to be rescued? What if they're really not doing well and trying to keep each other awake by telling stories? What if Tommy tells Buck he was planning on asking him to marry him? What if they propose to each other and talk about their plans for their wedding, voices fading in exhaustion? What if they both lose consciousness at around the same time, hoping the plans they just made can still become reality? What if their friends find them just in time, seeing them unconscious and curled up together, new rings on their fingers?

What then!?

[thereallycoolmonsterithoughtup]

whaaaaat

[karamell-sweetz]

you know what guys. after this whole thing goes down, i hope we get the ACTUAL kamiyama school festival and it is a very good comparison to the first one. where we can see clearly how much mizuki has grown since that first event in january 2021, since that first school festival in middle school.

and i hope mizuki gets to have fun with her friends and can hang out with ena. and i hope ena has fun too. i hope she gets to tease akito, forge bonds with her classmates at the fried squid stall, and hopefully get roped into a dumb show with the oddballs 1 2. i hope this is ena’s pandemonium. i hope we all can have a little bit of joy and whimsy while getting to see how much the gang’s lives have changed at this point.

and i hope rui is a little worried for mizuki — i sincerely hope he is somewhere in mizu5, quietly waiting by the rooftop like he always has for her. but by the end of the schoolfes event he can look at mizuki, her whole face bright as all eight students in our little kamikou main cast gang come down from the rooftop (for one last time maybe, but we don’t talk about graduation in front of rui… unless ofc we bring it up this event) and he can say “you’ve come such a long way, haven’t you, mizuki? i’m happy for you.”

[crookedghosts]

method acting (put a little love on me)

Ch 4/ 5 || 23k words total || Jason Grace/Leo Valdez || Modern AU - Wedding + Fake Dating || AO3

“You’re the best gift a guy could ask for, have I mentioned that?” Leo murmured into Jason’s shoulder as they settled into the darkness.

“I’d call it a tie,” Jason hummed in return, shifting to drape an arm around his best friend.

“Deal,” Leo sighed happily, thinking something along the lines of doing exactly this forever. It was a dangerous game, getting used to this domestic bliss. But they still had a week of it. A week to soak it all in, this taste of falsified heaven. 

...

"For those that know about the infamous Yancy Prep Field Day, or its later manifestations at Goode High as brought to you by Student Council President, Madame Chase…” Annabeth winked at the crowd, then. “This should come as no surprise. Annabeth, would you like to introduce the first activity in the Percabeth Games?”

She wore a wicked grin, and Percy had stars in his eyes looking at her with an excited anticipation for what he knew was to come. “Capture the Flag!” ... Jason and Leo make a pretty good team, until they don't.

[ef-1]

draw on me like one of your French girls

[nanami-is-nanamean]

I dunno but i suddenly had the like-- idea to put nanami, gojo and a bunch of other sorcerers up against some kind of... curse that amplifies mental distress

Like, it amplifies whats already there to both feed off the curse energy and incapacitate the person for consumption

Making a feeling of mild annoyance into full on rage against whatever was annoying them, trepidation into full on terror, nervousness into straight up anxiety attacks, doubt into removing ones surety and conviction entirely, so on and so forth

I imagine gojo would have like-- i imagine he'd go into hysterics. Similar to what happened after riko and his first hollow purple but--More. A combination of that and him going apeshit in shibuya and/or culling games. I can see him losing himself in his pride and arrogance as the strongest, his loneliness with being the strongest, his dehumanization because of what power he holds, and on and on. I can see his emotions going all over the place because he's always portraying himself as a happy go lucky guy which like, yeah he is to a certain point, but he portrays himself like thats all he is when we clearly see that hes not. He has a lotttt of unresolved trauma and rage and euphoria and-- yeah i can see him just going erratic and freezing/staying mostly in place

Shoko i feel would go into. Such a deep well of depression and despair and numbness. Shes been holding so much back and the only way she's been coping is thru substance abuse and acting aloof about it all, similar to gojo. Like jesus christ, these characters go thru so much trauma that doesnt ever get resolved. And like, i want to say more about her but unfortunately, being a woman in shounen, she does not get much screentime. I will say though that she'd probably go still or stay mostly in place like gojo

Nanami though, i feel like would be a little more interesting. With gojo and shoko, we know and we see that they have coping mechanisms (sweets and substance abuse), and bright spots in the drudgery that is sorcery (teaching and spending time with the students). For Nanami though, we never get any indication of any way he coped during his stint in the normal world. Like, LITERALLY the only thing he looked forward to was eating a sandwich. EATING. A SANDWICH. And the pipe dream of retiring to Kuantan. He doesn't have a proper way, or any ways really, to cope with that and lessen the weight and despair on his heart. Hes been living with that weight with no reprieve for literal YEARS. Bros been in such a deep and nigh never-ending depression for at least 3 years, not counting university and the rest of his highschool years. To be honest with you, if nanami was either a weaker man or had less integrity, i can see him committing suicide like. Straight up. And yet, he still went on. Albeit mindlessly like a drone, but he still did.

Up against this hypothetical curse that causes intense bouts of despair and depression, i feel like nanami would pull a Steven Universe Lapis Lazuli and just keep going and fighting. Because like, what use is amplifying ones despair to the point that it paralyzes even gojo satoru when Nanami’s been living with and functioning with that depression and despair for most of his life, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING that hes probably felt worse and still kept going? It doesnt matter to him and it doesnt affect him the way other people or sorcerers would because he's felt and gone through worse and was still mostly functional through it all. He wont freeze, at the very least

I can see him like, recognizing the familiar despair seeping in from the back of his mind, laced with foreign cursed energy. His old friend of severe numbing depression wrapping its claws around his heart. I can see him almost wanting to scoff, the curses technique being a pale imitation of the sheer feeling of helplessness and emptiness he experienced as a normal person, of being lost and adrift and not knowing who you are and where to go and what to do during his time working as a cog of capitalism.

I can see him at least stumble a bit, catch his breath. Maybe brush some dirt of his shoulders. I can see him look around and call his allies to help deliver the finishing blow but--he sees them all just, frozen, paralyzed almost. Shoko having no choice but to face the despair she's shelved and hidden for years with smoke and liquor, gojo losing control of his mind and his emotion and becoming overcome with all the complicated thoughts and emotions of being who he is. Maybe megumi is his partner, and hes on the floor, filled with both rage and despair at tsumikis situation and the non-death of the friend that he hadn't properly grieved. Maybe it was yuji, weeping on his knees about his grandfather, and junpei, and all the other future despairs and implications of jujutsu that he hasnt fully realized yet. Whoever it is, they are faced with the sheer strength and amount of fear, despair, rage, whatever negative emotion they have, and buckling under the weight of it

I can see nanami simply just. Looking around at his paralyzed friends, colleagues, and loved ones, looking at the curse that is only able to bring back just an echo of the empty hole in his chest way back then, and crushing its neck, leaving a perfectly measured ratio 7-3 ratio of its body and head.