#i always have fun working on the as a companion stuff for early game & then the second half im like nvm

[ghoulsbeard]

early game da3 always beguiles me so bad..i love the npcs you meet in all these interesting mini quests… the codexes with the fascinating implications…a fool could write several mediocre rambling expansion fics off this stuff

[3gremlins]

feel like im having a DA2 experience again where I really liked it and was in my little "this is good" cocoon where i played it many times only to emerge from underground and find everyone else hated it (i mean ive found the other da2 cicadas since but at the time it got really slammed). i've been really enjoying DA:TV so far ( lol tho obvs have notes) here's an early thoughts review, may be a bit spoilery, def rambley, trying to stay vague on stuff still (i think i'm about half way maybe? im trying to not look things up and doing it blind on my first run through. it's hard to tell b/c i went hard on all the side quests and am now way over level for the msq)

the combat system is a little jarring at first and i still miss at least being able to switch to and play as party members if your character dies (instead of the god of war style of full wipe), but i've gotten used to it (it's more annoying for boss fights, regular combat it's very zippy and fun). the targeting at least on controller is kind of annoying sometimes- i'll think i'm pointing at one enemy only to have rook turn and fire at nothing or companions to hit an add instead of a boss. I wish we at least had more control over how it queued who it was hitting. some of the arenas are obnoxious design wise - there's bosses that teleport to you and they give you like a tiny little box to dodge around, not the most fun. i do like that you can punch way above of your weight class sometimes which reminds me of DAO a little bit (like how you'd just wander into a fight or hit a gong and be like oh no, those enemies have skulls over their heads, oh well YOLO). sometimes it doesn't work out but when it does it's very satisfying. It's nice to be able to conquer something mechanically even underleveled (smol fromsoft vibes) Having always been a big fan of the strange composition parties (i.e not just war/rogue/mage), i like that this is now even more viable (and not just me being cheeky "we're having a leather party!" of all squishy rogues). but like the main thing about bioware games is the companions/interpersonal shit and i'm enjoying the heck out of that .i only do main quests to get more side quests from companions (or more side quests in general so we can troll around for more banter). i like petting griffons (and cats and dogs) and playing games with manfred*. I wish the gift system was more interesting like DAO or DA2- i was so excited to see it again and then it was a little disappointing to have them barely react when you get them stuff.

my current fave party are rook and the poison boys (emmerich and lucanis) since they're a rogue too and we just stack necrosis, bleeds and other elemental effects on things till they disintegrate. i like the lighthouse, it feels much cozier than skyhold. I love that you can just wander up to companions having convos and awkwardly eavesdrop. I do miss the little interactions/quests you could get with cole esp*** i think the animations are a little lack lustery? Idk there's something with the face model morphs that sometimes feels weird but the voice acting is strong enough that I don't notice too much. i do miss some of the more bioware-y cheeky things like item descriptions or weird notes near random silly environmental tableaus (there's a little but i just want to read all the notes! there's some in the grey warden areas where i was just like WAIT I HAVE QUESTIONS but there was no plaque about them T.T). where are the stacks of cheese (i do appreciate the fereldens love cheese jokes tho and harding getting so excited when someone says something nice about ferelden) i was esp bummed that there were no random things to read in the black emporium and it's all codex entries instead (that's my favorite tiny bit in DA2 where there's junk you can click on and xenon says weird shit to you). i also wish more had been done with accents of npcs- like i wish all the antivans had similar accents or your crow rook had an antivan accent, stuff like that (having a lot of "ferelden" generic british accents everywhere is disappointing. takes you out of the immersion a lot) My biggest gripe is probably the pacing - I wish it had more horror/mystery pacing like dao and da2 had- the reason we're all scarred by the brood mother is b/c the build up to that was so so creepy (also the necromancer bit w/hawke's mum in DA2). They gave us time to be unnerved or afraid and I do feel the evanuris reveals have been a little rushed so you can't really feel that worried about them (some of the side quests get close to this but still not quite there**). I wish they'd let them breathe a bit more instead of rushing from one giant world changing event to the next. Some of the reveals have been not so great- like lore that the fandom has poured over for 15ish years explained in one line?? i wish there'd been more build up of rook as a character too, maybe even a time skip from a prologue to finding solas kind of thing. the first trailer made it seem like that's what was going to happen but then it in media res'd us in a strange way. the first 10 hours of the game are probably the weakest imho, it took it a bit to get rolling and feel more natural. I appreciate that the first major decision doesn't really let you scum save for it (bit of a jump scare for me lol).

I also don't really need this much varric anymore, i kinda wish we had a different narrator if we have to have one. He feels really awkward to just have there and not doing anything(and not just kill off or have something happen to him? he got stabbed by the dagger and harding only touched it is what i'm saying). at least let him get better pjs and slippers or something Idk it does feel like bits of previous iterations they were working on are still there and they don't completely serve the plot well. And ofc there's the decisions not meaningfully carrying over thing- which is a huge bummer. But in reality they've never been good at that- the characters from previous games we see in new games don't really carry through their plots/arcs that much (it's more like cameos or they're a new person now) and the world states are usually effectively the same just with aesthetic faction swaps. I was sort of hoping we'd get some solavellan SOMETHING but it doesn't look like we will get much at all past the stuff in minrathous. i feel like if they were going to only include the one choice it really should have had more impact on the story. (i am also still a clown and want to talk to solas constantly still even tho he has no reason to talk to my rook at all, i do not care, i love a sad woof. i wish we could just casually visit him in the fade. i wish we could switch to lavellan and visit him in the fade, idk something. need more gareth david-lloyd pls) the interpersonal character decisions have been the only ones that mattered much and then only within the constrains of their own games- the bigger world changing stuff is usually the illusion of choice. It would have been nice if they let us have one protagonist carry through but i can also see why they liked changing it up and felt stuck in that format. tl;dr: i'm really like it for what it is but it's def got flaws. Parts of it feel super polished while other bits do not- i think knowing how game dev works that they had to make decisions on what was going to get prioritized and some of it works while others not so much. I wish the pacing was better for sure but i love the characters/companions which is generally what bioware is best at. sad it won't get meaningful dlc, i don't really care about mass effect 5 tbqh. So far I like it better than inquisition for the most part- it feels like a bigger/more polished DA2 in a lot of ways if that makes any sense (with similar budget/pacing issues, but the environments are more fun). as i mentioned in my other post, i really appreciated the trans/non binary inclusion into the story/cc tho. like that can't be discounted, even if the rest of the game has issues. (all the holes in the narrative make me want to do fan art and fan fiction tho so idk, maybe that's an okay thing. maybe dragon age is best at inspiring us to sandbox around in it)

*side note, i am surprised at how much i like emmerich like holy shit what a lovely soft nerd of a man! going to have to play through a few times and romance him and also bellara for sure (romancing lucanis this time round) i find myself shipping my companions with each other more than i normally do too. I just want them to be happy! I wish they'd let us have polyamory, like i could see little polycules in this squad so easily. i need to give bellara hugs and lucanis head pats. taash deserves head pats too, but my rook will need a ladder.

**i am going to cry if they do with the griffons what i think they're doing with the griffons. like straight up, feeling like it was a cursed wish to have them now T.T *** do we think the caretaker is cole? the character design makes me wonder (like the hat/silhouette is very cole like but maybe not. maybe i just want it to be cole lol) there's def characters i want to see show up that aren't going to and then bioware is like "what about this fan favorite??" and i'm like "eh".

[curioussubjects]

I just finished Veilguard, and...I'm really not sure how I feel about it?

All in all: good game, had fun, but still didn't quite hit some of the highs it wanted to hit and it's still not as good as DA2

(Spoilers galore below for everything)

The Good:

Pretty game is pretty;

Love the codexes, especially the ones written by companions or with their commentary;

Speaking of, the Mementos had so excellent tid bits of lore flavor to them, as well;

Regrets of the Dread Wolf was a damn good quest;

Some truly funny party banter;

I actually thought it was really easy to figure out who my Rook is as I played the game, which was much harder for me to do for my Lavellan in DAI;

And speaking of Lavellan, she was in character she WOULD say that she WOULD do that. Bless;

Everything about Nevarra and the Mourn Watch, I wish there was more content there because I was so into it;

Orb and dagger mage is really fun to play, which was VERY surprising considering I don't play close range ever;

I also really enjoyed destroying blight boils for some reason lmao;

Petting cats (they PURR WHEN YOU DO);

Assan <3;

Taash being so autistic;

Teia and Viago my beloveds;

✨Friendship✨

The Solavellan of it all;

And Solas, too. Love that sadsack disaster man;

Maybe this is super basic of me but I liked Varric's narration...idk it's comforting;

Honestly, just Varric in general was a bit safety blanket in a nice way for me because the game feels overwhelming at first;

There's no party like an all Dalish party!

Exploring -- loved finding all the fun details in each location, and I know I didn't even do enough in my playthrough;

I'm weak for stories about guilt, fear and regret. And I'm even weaker when those stories are so obviously about forgiveness and moving forward. Also love. Always love.

The Bad:

The pacing. I've said this before but DAtV could've used a more explicit arc structure or have quests note which level they're meant for or SOMETHING because some times it seemed I was doing quests too early or too late for when I was in the main story. I also thought events kept oscillating from happening too fast or too slowly, and it very much did get in the way of immersion;

The romance. Literally what are you doing Dragon Age that you fumble the romance. Granted, I only romanced Davrin so far, but I'm getting the sense from looking through the tag that maybe Lucanis' romance also feels a bit off? Honestly I have so many issues with the romance progression for Davrin that it's its own section;

I hope this is only a Veil Jumpers issue, but I thought Rook was so separate from the faction. I felt very little connection to them;

I've seen some people point out NPCs talk to Rook like they're a child, and while I don't really agree with that I do think Rook doesn't have enough opportunities to be knowledgeable in their own right. Especially annoying with a mage Veil Jumper Rook! I miss the Inquisition perk dialogue options that let my Lavellan be a smarty pants;

Holy overdesigned armors! Yikes!

Not all areas are as well developed as the others: Rivain is the most egregiously empty and underdeveloped, but I actually thought Arlathan Forest was super lifeless too. So was the Lighthouse! You get the early game discovery bit and then nothing ever again and it's like oh that was really it huh (and the stuff we did get was so good please more?);

I hate to say this but BioWare missed the mark with Rook's place in the group. The companions seemed connected to each other, yeah, but Rook was like some cross between group therapist and not-so-undercover boss. There was none of the warmth Hawke got from their companions (or the Inquisitor, for that matter!). The game really needed 1. a lighthearted party hangout cutscene and 2. companions coming together to take care of Rook (the fact this isn't even a thing in the romance is bonkers to me);

Taash's personal quest being about choosing between being Rivain and Qunari as if that's how culture works is Bad Actually;

The worst minimap I've ever seen in a game wow;

Also: give me back my beacon marker;

The gods were in a regret prison but what were their regrets exactly we just don't know.

The Bad (Romance Edition):

Again, the pacing! Incredibly slow to start (and not in a slow burn way, mind!) and then super fast in the last third of the game;

In fact, the romance seemed to be running on a completely different level than the rest of the story. The last romance scene was incredibly out of place tonally, especially.

The first two romance titles for Davrin are "Thrill of the Chase" and "Hot and Bothered"...and like WHERE????

Davrin never writes about Rook as a romantic partner or as if he has any concerns with the relationship...which we later find out he has, but was news to me;

Tbh, the romance felt like an afterthought. There were cutscenes that in any other DA game there would've been flirting options, for instance, but this time there was nothing (what do you mean Rook can't make a flirty comment when Davrin is shirtless working out with Taash? It's low hanging fruit!);

Not nearly enough flirty banter between Rook and Davrin, which is nuts considering their personalities;

I'm really super disappointed with Davrin's romance, which sucks because he's actually perfect for my Rook and I really like his character. There was so much potential for a really fun romance that was both tense and sexy, but also sweet. But no. Secret good Davrin romance that exists in my head save me.

The ???:

Southern Thedas got scorched when the North didn't how?

Please tell me who was catfishing Andraste;

Making enemies super aggro on Rook unless you specifically have companions taunting was very weird.

[mllemaenad]

...I am going to regret asking this, I know, but what was the thing with Preston, and how far should I steer clear of that particular mod, as a Preston fan?

Oh. I ... would very much not recommend you playing this. This is very much the story of how I made a mistake.

So ... I can occasionally be a bit rash about installing mods, particularly if they offer new quests. It's a weakness of mine. It has meant that I have found the occasional overlooked gem, but it has also meant that sometimes I'm left flailing and wishing I could unsee what I just saw.

And my theory of mods is very much inline with my theory of fanfic: there is going to be so much stuff out there that is not to my taste, and if I don't like it I should back the hell out of it and never tell the author what I thought. It's just ... slightly more complicated to back out of a mod install than it is a fanfic.

Now I've looked it, there's a suite of three mods here: Depravity, Outcasts and Remnants and Project Valkyrie. They seem to enjoy considerable popularity, and they offer alternative routes through the main quest line, with a bunch of additional side quests to go along with them. In a fit of boredom I thought ... why not?

They're also big, foundational mods. If you go into a modding forum you'll find a lot of finger wagging about how you should never uninstall any mod mid game; you should always start a new save. But ... if I find at hour 60 that an armour mod is crashing my game, I'm uninstalling that thing and rolling the dice on going forward. These ones, though ... once they're in, you'll never get an ongoing save to load properly without them. Too big. Too many changes. You need a new game to uninstall.

So I did, to my later chagrin, put up with some indicators that these mods were not for me when I should have bitten the bullet and started over. The early stuff involved collaborating with a slaver and ... well, no thank you, really, but it did say it offered some "evil" options for progressing quests in places where there were only good ones. So, okay, more role playing options are broadly a good thing even if I don't want to engage with them very much; it also suggested that it had alternate "good" routes in other places, so I assume it wasn't just trying to be edgy. And there was a bunch of nonsense with raider women running around in absurd outfits, and female characters with ... let's say improbable proportions.

It can be interwoven with normal questing, though, so it was a thing I'd run into occasionally when going into the mod's storyline. Otherwise, I could just keep collecting companions and play on.

But what stopped me dead was the Preston thing. A core part of the mod's story centres around a group of Lyons loyalists who had become "outcasts" themselves as part of the regime change and fled to the Commonwealth well before the arrival of the Prydwen (an interesting concept, even if this take on it did not work for me).

They are, from their impossibly gigantic and well equipped base, investigating who is funding the Gunners. Well, spoilers, the answer to that question turns out to be the Enclave. You attack their base and fight your way to the bottom. And you find a terminal. The terminal reveals that Preston Garvey has been lying to you. He is, in fact, an Enclave officer who infiltrated the Minutemen specifically to collaborate with the Gunners on orchestrating the fall of Quincy. His superiors are currently annoyed with him because he's having too much fun stringing you along to come back to base and take on his next job.

The mod then invites you to confront and kill Preston for his crimes.

Does this make any sense to me, or in any way conform with the way Preston behaves in a normal, unmodded game? Nope. And yet. I'm sure there's more to it, but at that point I swore, accepted the fact that I had wasted an unreasonable number of hours trying to give this a fair chance (it's so popular), and set about scouring it from my game and starting over.

Terrible mistake.

I will note that, obviously, on a technical level this thing is very impressive. Voiced dialogue, scripted scenes, new dungeons, multiple quest lines – the lot. I can ... add keywords to an item in xEdit, in a pinch.

But the storyline was very much not for me. It seems to be accepted, at least by some corners of the fandom, that Preston is incurably annoying. I do not share this sentiment, but I can't tell people who to like. But this ... thing where they have to rewrite a good man as a villain so they can justify killing him is just ... baffling.

So my general advice would be: benefit from my error and keep your distance from these ones.

[bettsfic]

bg3 build: beast priest (shadowheart respec)

i'm playing around with some new builds! after scrounging the internet for good build guides, i didn't find any that i thought were interesting. in my current playthrough, i'm trying to respec all the companions to be the classes they would have chosen without their various traumas.

the beast priest is my respec for shadowheart. if you haven't noticed, shadowheart's basic build isn't great. when you find her, she's already level 1, which means the game chooses her subclass for you: trickery domain. and that doesn't make sense at all, narratively or for the stats she's been assigned. so to make her a good trickery domain cleric, you would want to respec her anyway just to fix level 1.

but i don't want her to be a trickery domain cleric. i don't even want her to be a healer. i want her to be an emo bird girl. the Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way of bg3, emphasis on raven. by endgame, we learn that shadowheart loves animals and nature, and she's a bit of a rebel (my graffiti queen). without having been kidnapped by the mother superior, i can see her either noping off into the woods or staying in the city to be the type of person who accidentally acquires really a lot of cats. so my goal is for her to have lots of animals, do a fuckton of damage, and fight off the darkness with lots and lots of light.

you can find the full build on eip. more detail and a level by level breakdown under the cut.

the beast priest build involves taking 6-7 levels of beast master ranger and 5-6 levels of war priest cleric. you start off as a ranger, because rangers have great early game damage and are also imo the easiest class for beginners. you stand in one spot and you shoot stuff. you can also get Harold (crossbow) pretty early on and it can be your main weapon through most of the game. it does insane damage and casts Bane.

i'm not familiar enough with armor and weapons to include recommendations in this guide (beyond Harold. get Harold). that is too much for me to keep track of, and i swap things out a lot. use whatever you find most helpful and/or looks the coolest. you probably can't use this build for lone wolf tactician or anything, but i do think it's very fun for an explorer or balanced playthrough, and it fixes a lot of the problems in shadowheart's base build.

this build does a few things:

uses war priest weapon buffs to increase ranged damage

minimizes concentration spells to prioritize ensnared strike and hunter's mark

backup heals (unfortunately this means either respeccing another companion to take on main healing duties or building a main heals tav. i'm working on a bardadin build for this very purpose. there is also always halsin, but he takes a while to acquire)

it's very beneficial to astarion that the bird can blind enemies near him so he can gain advantage to sneak attack (i'll share my build for him too eventually; he is also part ranger)

toolkit against undead (guardian spirits is a must)

important team utilities like guidance

what this build can't do:

be the "face" of your team, by which i mean initiate dialogue. we have no charisma or proficiency in anything related to talking to people. we are a gloomy emo girl sequestered to the back of the group and we shoot stuff and hang out with our bird

steal shit, disarm traps, lockpick. i mean, you can, but you'll probably have another character better equipped for it. we'll be wearing medium armor or heavy armor (optional), so we'll have a disadvantage on stealth anyway

here's how i've broken down each level:

initial build

if you're respeccing shadowheart, you won't be able to change her race or background, which means she'll remain an acolyte and have proficiency in insight and religion.

if you're making your tav a beast priest, you should choose whatever background and race makes sense for your character's narrative. the caveat being, as stated above, stealth and sleight of hand are kind of useless here, as well as dialogue proficiencies like persuasion, intimidation, deception, performance, etc.

what *is* helpful is having proficiency in the things you walk up to and go "oh shit, what's that?" so survival and perception are pretty important. folk hero and outlander are therefore both good background choices, but again, what's important to me in a build is that the story makes sense.

note you will not need investigation because we'll be taking bounty hunter as a favored enemy.

level 1: ranger (1)

proficiencies: survival, nature, animal handling (see above for more explanation; really just take whatever you think will be useful)

favored enemy: bounty hunter

bounty hunter gives disadvantage to enemies hit by ensnaring strike. very helpful for astarion and your companion. however, it's sometimes difficult to choose when to use hunter's mark versus ensnaring strike.

natural explorer: beast tamer

all of these are kind of useless, tbh. but i chose this one because early game, your companion dies very easily and this way you'll be able to bring it back without using a spell slot.

from my understanding, in EA you could either have your summon pet OR your companion out, not both, but in full release you can now have both summons out at once.

level 2: ranger (2)

fighting style: archery

we are going to be very far away from our enemies and Harold is going to be very dear to us.

spells: hunter's mark, ensnaring strike (ranged)

both spells require concentration so you can only pick one. ensnaring strike gives disadvantage to an enemy but hunter's mark does more damage, and your companion does more advantage to it as well. for cc situations, i'd choose ensnaring strike; for taking down one big dude at a time, hunter's mark. hunter's mark can be recast as long as you maintain concentration.

level 3: cleric (1)

deity: any (if you're respeccing shadowheart, your deity will remain shar)

domain: war domain

cantrips: guidance, sacred flame, light

the only one that's important here is guidance. the other two can be whatever your party needs most. the reason we're taking one level of cleric early and the others later is because guidance is a must. if someone else on your team has it, or if you have a bard, you can stay as a ranger until 5.

level 4: ranger (3)

subclass: beast master

spell: cure wounds OR speak with animals

for shadowheart's respec, i would say cure wounds so that she can start subhealing. however, if you don't have anyone in your party who can speak to animals yet, that's pretty important. the strange ox you meet in the grove provides a lot of endgame help, and it's fun talking to the owlbear and scratch.

level 5: ranger (4)

feat: resilient (wisdom)

taking resilience in wisdom gives us a proficiency in wisdom saving throws, which we'll need for both cleric and ranger spells.

level 6: ranger (5)

spells: anything that would be most helpful to your team.

you probably already have somebody who can cast longstrider as a ritual spell. enhance leap is helpful although this is pretty late in the game to be getting that. i try to avoid concentration spells because of hunter's mark and aoe spells because astarion and karlach are always in the thick of it and i don't want to hurt them.

what's important this level is that your companion's AC and damage increases, and it gets an extra attack.

level 7: cleric (2)

you get turn undead and guided strike this level. both are very useful, particularly guided strike. nothing to choose though.

level 8: cleric (3)

new spells! these can be prepared based on what you think you'll need for a given scenario. lesser restoration is a must if you're letting astarion bite you every night. but if that's the case you probably already have it.

level 9: cleric (4)

cantrip: whatever's most helpful at this point

feat: ability improvement (1 in wisdom, 1 in dexterity)

if you have auntie ethel's hair, then you might want 2 in one or the other.

level 10: cleric (5)

here's where you get guardian spirits, which is the single most important mid-game spell you can have (although in this build you get it pretty late). make sure when you cast it, you have as many movement speed spells and potions you can get. you're going to cast it and run around like mad killing everything.

level 11 & 12: ranger OR cleric (6 & 7)

here's where you have a difficult choice to make. your last two levels can be ranger 6 and 7, which will give your companion a huge buff. or you can choose cleric 6 and 7, which will give you war god's blessing, which gives you a +10 attack roll to give to someone else on your team.

you an also do cleric 6 and ranger 6, which will grant you war god's blessing AND allow you to take ranger knight as a favored enemy, which gives you the ability to wear heavy armor (if you want that). you can also gain resistance to cold, fire, or poison, but since you encounter all of those things in pretty equal measure, i never know which to choose.

i think it'll depend on what sounds more fun to you. personally, i think seeing my animal companion destroy everything is very fun. but if you enjoy reactions and buffing your teammates, i can also see wanting to stick with cleric through the end.

unlock to level 20

you might be thinking it's not worth it to only take two half classes instead of one whole one and lose out on late game spells and abilities. and i agree with you completely. my favorite part of beast master is when your companion gets two special abilities at 11. if you're playing completely vanilla, this is the major sacrifice of multiclassing. you're prioritizing creativity and cool combos over fancy spells and abilities.

but if you install a mod that lets you level to 20 (no class can go beyond 12, but you can multiclass to 20), you can take 11 levels of ranger and 9 levels of cleric. level 11 of ranger maxes out your animal; level 8 of cleric gives you divine strike, and level 9 gives you flame strike.

i didn't find anything from 10-12 in cleric very helpful. there's divine intervention which you can only use once in the game, ever, and i used it at a very integral time and it didn't do enough. heroes' feast is helpful but halsin has that too. heal, which should be the best healing spell in the game, is currently bugged and i don't know when they'll fix it.

you could also do level 12 of ranger for the extra feat if you don't have both wisdom and dexterity to 20, and stay at 8 for cleric.

if you do unlock to level 20, i would download the double xp mod (although i haven't gotten mine to work yet) so you can get to 20 at about the same pace you get to 12 in vanilla. this obvs is extremely unbalanced and makes you very very OP but that makes the game more fun for me. and anyway, if it gets too easy you can always play tactician or honor mode.

i hope you found this helpful! i'll probably be tweaking and updating it as i go. i'm working on respecs for astarion, karlach, halsin, jaheira, and wyll right now. gale, lae'zel, and minsc i'll be able to look at once i play around with them more. i haven't used them much yet in my teams.

if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me an ask!

[goodgirlgonebard]

hi, if you’re here for the first time it’s probably because of AO3 so first off I just want to say — THANK YOU!

below is my masterlist of my fics & other social links. thank you for visiting!

asks & DMs are always welcome, but please do not DM me unless you are 18+ (I am 24!)

my fics (AO3 links)

Series — The Stars Aligned

artwork (middle) by @/mekanikerik 🧡

Goodnight, My Love

First person, female Tav (wizard, high elf) x Astarion

Fic that takes place during the game; essentially a character study on how things might look if Tav had an actual backstory and actual feelings. This fic deals with a lot of trauma and does not gloss over Astarion’s feelings about sex after the confession in act 2, so I would read with caution if that’s a hard topic for you but for me as a survivor it’s been very healing to write.

This fic is my first re-entry into writing since college and you can definitely tell I was finding the voice/swing of things in the first bunch of chapters, but I’m quite fond of how it is now and I have a lot more planned for my BloodMoon babes 🤍

Luna lore can be found under #my ocs: luna

Star-Crossed

A companion piece I wrote for GML that covers several different chapters from Astarion’s POV leading up to the act 2 confession. Both fics include chapter guides on when I would recommend reading this one, but this fic can be read as a stand-alone or doesn’t have to be read at all to understand GML.

Could also start with this fic and then jump straight to the confession chapter if you want to skip my world-building stuff, I won’t judge 😝

Series - Willow & Astarion

Dealbreaker

Third person alternating POV, female Tav (bard, human) x Ascended! Astarion

This fic takes place a few months post-game, after Willow (Tav mc) originally broke up with Astarion post-ritual, not wanting to become a vampire spawn. Obviously they reunite, and they both want each other but have to sort out what that means for their own individual goals/desires post-tadpole.

My characterization of A!A is less storybook villain, more deeply traumatized and suddenly incredibly powerful man unwilling to work through his problems to end cycles of abuse. If you’re not into it, that’s okay, don’t read it!

Willow lore can be found under #my ocs: willow

moodboard for the first date chapters | moodboard for the party chapters

Shiver

A short story I wrote for Fall in Faerûn featuring Willow & Astarion pre-ascension. It takes place in early act 3 and is about eight thousand words of pure fluff & smut ❤️ Can be read completely independently of Dealbreaker, but will likely be enjoyed more by (and will likely hurt more for) readers of the longfic.

ko-fi

(in case anyone ever wants to support me by buying a coffee but no pressure I just write stuff for fun and love u either way)

twitter is ambs_thebard

I made it just to follow bg3 artists but I kinda don’t use it rn but I maybe will! who knows!

[cloudninetonine]

*walks on in, pats your head, hands you a cake and a pot of tea, doesn't elaborate* Hey hey, so first of all, happy birthday! Be it early or belated depending on when you see this, second of all, glad you're answering asks again, as always take your time yes?

Third of all, going to be screaming over Player's Aid 13 and 14 here before Irl stuff drags me away by the throat lol.

To start off, I absolutely adore Player's reactions, because they're very realistic depiction of panic from someone clearly not used to this sort of situation, they aren't native to Hyrule, they aren’t like the heroes or the princesses who are used to monsters and the very real threat of that, so when you throw them straight into the deep end they can’t keep their head above water and it’s a fantastic example of trauma reactions, and Wild is so soft with them! They were there for him when his world is the second most lonely of eras, they were his one true companion besides Wolfie and whatever horses he tamed and he cares for them so so much and wants them safe and I love that, and it’s so fun to take a peek of his thoughts on what happened to Twilight and how protective he is of people, he’s such a delight and I love these two so much. Also, interesting... So Wild ‘came close’ to death before getting Mipha’s Grace, Player was emotionally destroyed due it, I’m guessing that was actually a Game Over, because he woke up somewhere else (maybe where they last saved?) Hm... I wonder if that still works, and if Player still has access to the game mechanics, food for thought. It’s super interesting to see the dissonance between how things look like from Hyrule and where the disconnect from Player as The Guide vs Player The Unfortunate Rando Zelda Fan Dink Snatched Off the Streets (affectionate) and how that might connect to the nature of the Guide as a possible Deity (I remember that snippet Cloud, I have MANY theories and thoughts but this ask is going to be long enough as it is and I am going to save those theories for when irl gives me time for another ask lol). Also absolutely delighted about the way Hyrule just SPRINTED to get to Player and his bestie, it’s perfectly in character and I love that so much and how he cares for Player so much but man just zoomed, I’m surprised there wasn’t a dust cloud I’ll admit I laughed a bit lol.

Next, Dark Link. That’s it that’s the paragraph lol, but seriously Dark Link always steals every scene he is in and the part of me that is a horror fan is constantly delighted whenever he appears, he always brings a wonderful sense of threat, he is such a unnatural entity, he is an eldtrich being that is darkness, who is fear and who FEASTS on fear and he also very clearly loses his cool the second his dramatics are interrupted and gets super creative with threats as a result, love that for him and Eldtrich Dark Link is great and I genuinely think your interpretation of him might just be my favorite out of all I’ve seen, also that nightmare was super interesting and how it may relate to him but that might just be me, I’ll come back to that.

Also PLAYER SNIPING DINK’S EYE WITH A BRICK AND DIVERTING HIS ATTENTION TO PROTECT THE BOYS WE LOVE TO SEE IT! The true MVP of this chapter truly was The Conveniently Placed Brick™ and I couldn’t stop my cackle once I read that, it’s always so good to see the Links getting defended, because they’re brothers and technically all have the same spirit so of course they protect one another but they also are heroes, they protect and look after one another and others but who protects them? And I am always delighted to see people looking out for them and it gives some really good character for Player and possible points for Twi and Wars, sure they’re terrified and awfully out of their depth but they’ll be darned if they let anything terrify or hurt their boys on their watch because THAT’S THEIR HEROES DARN IT. Although I can see that possibly being foreshadowing... The payback for Twi is so worth it tho, to see the thing that almost did him in bleed must be so satisfying lol, Cloud you Monarch these were great and you’ve been blessed by Nayru, thank you for all of your hard work so far!

On another note, possibly the next one’s to remember might be Warriors and Twilight after this? I feel like after the panic is gone either Warriors or Twi might note that Player was defending them, like, actively making themselves a target so Dink would focus on them. Warriors would be interesting because he’s a soldier and I feel like he’s a very capable guy and good judge of character as a result, he canonically hates traitors and is basically Artemis’ left hand (Impa being the right) the most so he probably has to be good at reading people, while Legend is the one who’s more outwardly distrusting and vocal about it (Bite First Before They Bite You kind of deal, he basically uses jabs and sarcasm as a defense mechanism, love the guy and I think I have a idea of why he’s reacting the way he does but I want to SHAKE HIM), Warriors is probably more inwardly distrusting, the type to watch before making any sort of judgement and who has arguably Seen the most on the battlefield, like say soldiers of civilians breaking down and likely having some form of PTSD himself (although to be fair all Links probably have a form of it), you can’t exactly fake trauma reactions accurately because everyone reacts differently with only a few forms of overlap so it would be interesting if Wars was the third to remember due to his experience and seeing Player actively making themselves a target (something they wouldn’t do if they were working with the Shadow or only focusing on their own survival, LEGEND.)

On the other end, there’s Twilight whom is likely the most interesting and likely candidate, again Wild takes a lot after him as noted by Time and besides Wind (who basically adopted Player as a new older sibling, so he doesn’t count) possibly one of the Links closest to Player besides Wild and Hyrule, they both technically have the same trauma now (Twi 🤝 Player Almost Getting Murdered by Dark Link. They have a two person support club and need for therapy) so I feel like he might be the one who can empathize the most with Player at the moment, specially after their breakdown with Wolfie, wether or not he knows they know he can shift doesn’t really matter because again, you don’t just fake reactions like that specially when you think you are fully alone, so I can see them inwardly gravitating towards one another because they can understand each other the best now and Player did divert the attention of the source of his fear towards them, even if they were terrified themselves. Plus he has experience and knowledge of other worlds and is technically the resident dark magic expert, I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but the fact he can shift at will at all in LU makes me remember this tidbit from the TP Manga (spoilers, I suppose?), that Twilight has been studying dark magic ever since he got to Ordon to try and understand it (granted it’s due to a misunderstanding but he’s been studying it enough it’s actually common for him to order books on magic and dark magic on Sera’s shop), he’s been studying it for a while and probably learned a lot from Midna and experimented before she left (because he had to learn how to shift into Wolfie at will after all, he had her help in the game and also maybe Player’s but he probably had to learn from scratch after they left). I feel like he’s the most likely besides maybe Hyrule to be able to tell Reader isn’t a magic user much less a dark magic user (mostly because I feel like the Shadow’s magic and other types of dark magic and Malice probably feel very different from one another), not to mention the whole thing with the Twilight Realm being another world entirely I feel like he wouldn’t just brush off the possibility of Player having been Midna’d too soon.

Although it could just be me wishfully thinking, in the end it’s you who decides how the story goes and I am fully prepared to be wrong but really excited to see where it’ll go, I’m just here to analyse what I can and theorize and freak out over your writing lol, as always thank you for sharing Player’s Aid with us and for all of your hard work in the fandom! I want to give Player a hug and lots of headpats, then shove them off for a cuddle pile with Wild, Hyrule, Wind and Wolfie, they’re going through it and I hope they’ll have a nice break ^^. And that you’ll slowly feel better soon.

Another thing that really stands out to me is the relationship the Chain has with each other and how you write everyone, although I’ll have to keep it brief-ish, everyone is perfectly in character and they really sound like a team, what with the worry the boys show towards one another (even Legend, though it comes out as an accuswtion because of course it does he doesn’t trust them) and how even though they disagree with some actions taken they can still understand it, even if it causes friction, how they plan and theorize and talk together, and it’s really good and it’s a brilliant choice to have it be mostly from Four’s perspective because of course he is the one watching all of this go down as a neutral party and the most analytical of the Links, and Sky being the one to defuse tension and Wind being the first to worry about Player and Time feeling extremely conflicted because as much as confirmation was necessary to try figuring out how Dark Link works he HATES that it’s at the cost of someone who seems harmless, even with suspicious circumstances behind themselves, I love and adore this so so much it’s so good.

And finally the dream sequence, I wonder if it’s fully from Player’s point of view or just a memory, because thinking about it originally Dark Link was in Time’s game as a test for Time, it’s his most iconic appearance as a test and obstacle to kill the Hero by digging into all of his insecurities and fears, and the temple he appears is the Water Temple and the one place we don’t really see him again is the Adult Timeline (because he otherwise shows up on both the Downfall and Child lines, although with Downfall it’s arguably Shadow Link more so than Dark and in Child we only really see him in the TP Manga and The Cutscene, plus Hyrule Warriors because Cia dragged him back), with the kingdom drowning due to Ganondorf returning and then becoming the Great Sea (remember, King Daphne’s chose certain people to save and we don’t know what happened to Lullaby or any other possible Zeldas or Links, since that time no Hero was recorded to come because ya know, Time went back and presumably not the Hero's Shade yet and Tetra is explicitly a reincarnation, I’m guessing some people wouldn’t have been high on his priorities list and all of old Hyrule would have gone under, including the Water Temple), there’s a lot of drowning imagery with both Player’s vision and the Shadow, which makes me personally wonder wether the flashback is of Player’s memory as the Guide (maybe with Hylia? Farore? It would make sense for The Guide to be an off shot of one of the Golden Three like in IRL mythology, say Eros being an offshot of Aphrodite or Aphrodite being an offshot of Ishtar. Or maybe their past existence as the Guide themselves trying to reunite, who knows). OR, the much more bonkers route that is firmly in the whiteboard and red string territory, if it’s somehow from Dark Link’s perspective and how it (he?) returned. Although given Dark Link’s entire outlook and goal being to consume the Guide’s powers so he can end everything I think it’s far more unlikely and definitely a reach. Or the dream might just have been from Player’s memory or from another’s perspective entirely and Player just so happened to see it because they are the Guide, either way it’s really interesting and I shall patiently look forward to what’ll happen next.

Keeping this brief because I don’t know Tumblr’s mobile ask limit, plus I have to work on the second part to Craein’s one shot, Lora’s little one shot(s), Linktober + Linktober Shadow and irl stuff has been kicking me while I’m still down with sleep deprivation, so this is it for now, again, thank you for everything. And a happy birthday soon.

-Wishing you all the best. An Awkward Summertime Musician.

Sum I literally love reading these analysis bits you send me they literally make me so happy you have no idea <3 Also I want those theories for that snippet please <3 PIUFHBIPU

Once again grateful for the love of Player's realistic reactions <3 I do writing Player terrified and in mental turmoil for things outta their control /lh It just builds character (and it's totally not projection /lie) Also I'm glad you caught on to the save file scene! It was brought forth from me getting fucked over while playing Tears <3 OIUYGFDIUY

AND YOU KNOW IF IT'S DINK I GOTTA BRING THE REAL HORROR OUT IN HIM- IN ALL THE VILLAINS HONESTLY, because listen, if an evil version of me made completely of darkness and shadows was my villain I'd be scared shitless for the things he could do. Also he may be a little messed up from outer influences

Protective Player. I love it, you love it- we all love it. But you know what I also love? Exploring the fears of the heroes, because while they may be allergic to cowardice there is always room for fear. Twilight may not have feared death in that moment but who said he wouldn't later? Same for Warriors? I feel like we've got to give these guys more human qualities- and to fear what's beyond life is something a lot of people tend to suffer from. C'est la vie! Or beyond vie I guess IGFIP

Also loving the theories on whose next to find out! I won't lie I'm still determining the next person! But I am going to take your analysis for future purposes so yoink

The Chain's relationship is lovely and a little bit complicated sometimes but I really do try to make sure everything makes sense! I want these guys to be as close to the source material as possible with only slight changes! So I hope to continue to stay to script!

Also the dream sequence....>:D

Nah I'm just kidding- I'm gonna be limited because of far future spoilers but it is from Player's perspective.

[msviolacea]

So! I finished the game!

Spoiler-free tl;dr - I give it a solid 8/10. I have a few quibbles with choices here and there, but overall it's a super fun game that does a nice job of wrapping up a lot of lore that's been tossed at us for 15 years into a satisfying conclusion. The characters are engaging, the gameplay is fun, and the pacing works well. They were never going to be able to give everyone everything they wanted, but they succeeded in giving me a satisfying game, anyway, so I'm very happy.

Some spoilers under the cut! Not a full in-depth review, just some initial thoughts after finishing.

Some of the good, in no particular order:

Solas was the arrogant, maddening trickster god he needed to be. My Rook wanted to punch him square in the face for most of the game, which is exactly how it should be.

The companions! I want to hold everyone against my chest and never let them go! They're all wonderful! I want to kiss every one of them!

... if I can manage to not romance Lucanis every time. Because I love my disaster abomination fantasy Italian mob assassin husband. A lot.

The story themes resonate this week, of all weeks - the idea of powerful people wrecking the world, and the fantasy that a sufficiently motivated group of queer weirdos can be the ones to stop them.

Teia and Viago. I love them still. I seriously just stood there and listened to them poke at each other for long stretches of time.

I did figure out that they were Sixth-Sense-ing Varric pretty early on. But it was very well done, how they structured his involvement and the reveal.

I am honestly pretty impressed with how they tied the Evanuris with the "old gods" with the Titans. There's some stuff they left by the wayside from earlier games, but that was always going to happen. When it comes to the things I personally care about in the lore, they didn't drop anything I am particularly sad to see go.

Isabela! I didn't expect her to have as big a role in the game as she did, and it was wonderful! She's living her best life, running a gang of fortune hunters and also a fighting ring. She deserves it.

The Necropolis and Treviso were easily the highlights of the zone design. With honorable mention to the Rivain coast, where I would like to vacation please.

I am not the expert on this particular item, for obvious reasons, but I think Taash's gender identity story was well done. It was the character story that made me the most genuinely emotional overall, in a good way. (Mostly. See below.)

I have had Evka and Antoine for ... a little over a week (plus their story in Tevinter Nights, which didn't really resonate with me until I met them in game), and if anything happened to them, et cetera et cetera. They are a DELIGHT and I love them so much.

I loved that Davrin's whole personal quest was an in-game retelling of The Last Flight. Very nicely done.

There's more in my head, but that'll be for later after I've sorted my more in depth feelings. But for now, a few of the not-as good things:

The biggest gripe I have with the story: there was literally zero reason to fridge Taash's mom. It did nothing for the overall theme of their character story, and honestly it would have been a more interesting ending to have them coming to a complex but satisfying understanding with their mom about their identity as both non-binary and Rivaini. It was the one and only moment that made me sit there and make a face at the screen. An opportunity seriously missed.

I'm still mulling over my feelings about Solas's ultimate motivation. I think they left a lot between the lines, and I haven't yet decided if that worked for me or not. There are a lot of things to say about the reveal of the Evanuris as spirits originally, and how much they may or may not still have the single-minded focus as the simpler spirits, and I think that plays into it, but ... I'm just not quite sure yet.

As a dwarf enjoyer, I really wish we'd gotten more about Kal Sharok. Come on, don't just give us the "oh yeah, we became like the darkspawn" casually and then leave it there!

That's what I've got tonight. It's late and my brain is still buzzing a mile a minute. Don't be surprised if you see this reblogged with more thoughts tomorrow!

[crossleft]

**VEILGUARD SPOILERS**

Finished the game last night and had some thoughts. Overall I really enjoyed it! Would definitely recommend playing it but it's also fun to nitpick lol.

Did my standard first run where I go in as blind as possible playing a dwarven warrior. Went with the Warden background because duh and it was really solid, seems like they referenced it a lot throughout so interested to see how other origins will go. Don't think I missed too too much but I know for sure I accidentally missed at least one mission when I saved Treviso too early...anyways:

As usual dwarves got the short end of the stick (hah punny). 18 codex entries to the 43 elven ones and roughly half were just letters and stuff from Lace to her mom, hell one of them was just about the basics of the fucking chantry! Seriously?? I romanced Lace so I don't mind the letters much but damn yall couldn't do more with the deep roads or with Kal-Sharok? Entire chunks of lore breezed over like nothing, and having the thaig and the titan only being one off missions where you can't even go back to the area was the cherry on top. Disappointed but unsurprised.

Liked the companions, overall no big complaints. Up until the end where you find out he's dead the whole Varric always being in bed and not super upset about Bianca being destroyed thing definitely threw me off so that was a big surprise.

Taash was fun think I'll romance them next play through but acting like Qunari are weird about gender after very specifically having Bull say it's no big deal was a bizarre writing choice.

I liked it but Laces romance felt a little underwhelming, curious to how it'll stack up to the others.

Davrin/Assan and Lucanis/Spite were perfect no notes on them, keep up the good work lol.

Bellara felt kinda like they were trying to redo Merrill, which like...ok...then why not just bring back Merrill at that point? And the stuff with her brother felt very paint by numbers. She felt underwritten I guess idk.

Emmerich was a fun surprise since I went in blind I was expecting a standard evil/gloomy necromancer but he ended up being one of my favorite characters. Went the Lich route out of curiosity but haaaate that Fred got killed, for sure keeping him around next time.

Neve grew on me a little by the end but she was overall my least favorite. Felt like someone's OC getting shoehorned in with a bunch of cannon characters. Like the entire first half of the game she and other companions will allude to cases and interesting sounding stories but never expound on them. Every time Rook talks to her she's like "oh it's a long story, maybe I'll tell you some day 😏" then proceeds to never tell it lmao. Maybe it's alluding to comics or something I haven't seen but again, coming in blind it just made her a very boring 2D character outside of the eventual romance with Lucanis which I liked a lot.

Gameplay reminded me a lot of ME3 but with swords. Pretty low bar but as far as a dragon age game goes I'd argue it was easily the best combat in the series.

Leveling system was fine, nothing inspiring. Not the biggest fan of the companion leveling but being able to respec easily with no cost balanced it out.

Inventory was great, massive improvement over all the prior games. I really liked how stuff levels itself up and being able to change appearances easily and early was awesome. Wish you could do a little more with companion armor but that's not really a big deal and they all had decently broad options.

Was worried about only having 2 party members but it worked pretty well I thought. Between that and the bond system it does a good job encouraging swapping them out more. Felt like a lot more ambient dialog too which was a good touch.

Crows retconning into basically a mob family was...a choice. I kind of get it though and imo you can headcannon them being so different as chalked up to Zev having come in and made big changes over the years. Is what it is.

Was initially kinda pissed about the loss of prior choices but having played it now I think they did ok. Bringing the inquisitor in and getting their letters still made it feel like those choices mattered. And like in game it's been years and it all happened in other countries, it makes sense for a lot of that to be old news that most people don't discuss especially given the drama of their own current events. Would have still been nice to get a few codex entries at least.

Bringing Morrigan back felt like a bad choice to me. She's my cannon origins romance and they changed her up a bit too much post inquisition. Like where is Kieren? Where is the HoF? She doesn't mention them and nobody asks?? Just weird. Hot take but her taking Mythal's knowledge made perfect sense for her character, she always sought knowledge like that and her main objection with Flemmeth was that she would be taken over. So now she gets the knowledge and also keeps her mind, classic Morrigan work around imo.

Didn't like the direction they went with the Antaam. Had potential but making them all faceless with super deep voices felt overly dehumanizing. And them going in with elven gods made zero sense at all, like their leadership doing it secretly sure but there at the end why the hell would those footsoldiers follow them like that when they are so distrustful of magic?

Loooooved the Wardens but what's with the changes to the blight? My headcannon is the gods have made it more directed so that's why it's not infecting people so indiscriminately. But based on prior knowledge literally every non Warden character and most npc should be dead or darkspawn waaay before the end of the game. Doesn't feel like they explained it very well. Digging the new darkspawn look though, best appearance change since Origins.

Dorian, Isabella, and Solas felt very in character, no big notes on them.

Hawke not being mentioned unfortunately makes sense to me. They were pretty important 20 years ago in one city on the other side of the continent. Think of it like this, without looking it up who was the mayor of the next city over from you in 2004? They were important but why would you bring them up now decades later to people who have no way of knowing them, even if you were buds with them back then. Varric is the only one who might but he's kinda dead the entire game so again makes sense you don't hear about Hawke

Gifts are back! :) wish there was more than 1 per companion I'm trying to redecorate yalls rooms lol.

Why are there random Wardens telling everyone about the joining????? Just casually too like what the hell yall this is supposed to be secret and you're saying "wow this shitty ale reminds me of the joining where I drank darkspawn blood magically enhanced with archdemon blood" BRO??? SHUT UP this shit is top secret what the fuck???

Liked the redesign on spirits with the sole caviat that I liked rage demons as sentient lava...them having legs feels weird

Super minor gripe but why is the special dwarf armor just like form fitting stone abs now??? The bad ass blocky tank look was so cool! The elven armor having form fitting feet and stuff fits the culture why would dwarves do that? Wouldn't know since there's barely any lore on Kal-Sharok 🙃

Kal-Sharok being set up as this mysterious, secluded, hyper competent thaig where they likely formed their own society of impromptu Wardens cut off from Thedas for hundreds of years was fascinating. They expounded on this precisely not at all....bro why. EVERY thaig gone but them and traditional Orzammar and they only survived because they changed! Seemingly still in touch with Titans, was this only since Valta connected or sooner?? Such a cool story and they didn't do shit with it? After 10 years!? Losing my mind dude they just refuse to do anything with this lore and it's so fucking frustrating.

Aaaaanywho starting a second playthrough. Going with a rouge elf shadow dragon, gonna romance Taash. Probably do a qunari mage next playthrough but we'll see. Curious to see anyone else's thoughts but mostly this is to vent mine.

[transpathfinder]

boeing-787 said: i think you can really tell in places where the game was originally intended to be live service. the flow from quest to quest feels very MMO-y with the intro/end summary screen, especially if you’re doing like, companion related quests on the overworld. i can’t believe i miss inquisition just having a marker you headed to, now you head to a marker and there’s a whole quest intro screen that sometimes also teleports you around and it feels so… disjointed? so much of the questing so far feels so separate from the overworlds even if the level design is quite fun compared to DAI’s massive empty space maps

i didn't make that connection, but now that you've mentioned it, you're right! the screens that pop up are soo typical of that service lol but i don't mind that as much. and yeah i do prefer the level design in veilguard cos i think it's a welcome departure from inquisition's open world, which i didn't like. i much prefer this semi-linear world to large empty spaces. it's nice to encounter companions waiting in the quest area actually, makes it more real when they move around

13skeletons said: I expect i’m quite a bit further in than you, because you definitely do start learning more about companions as you progress. A lot of it comes from meeting with them in other locations. I honestly think it’s revealed a lot more naturally. You don’t just ask them questions and get a big infodump the first time you meet, ya know? (also the music in the grand necropolis/mourn watch quests has been pretty good. and the rest of the music i don’t even notice)

ryssabrin said: i would say you’re still very early on to be judging the companion writing so harshly. the characters really open up as you move along their storylines and hear their banter, etc.

both of you are def further than me in game! i have seen your non-spoilery posts, ha :D but my point is not really the super personal revelations or confessions of companions, but more the random lore dumps you get when you talk to them in previous games, ykwim. the personal stuff i have no issue with taking time since it makes sense it's a reward for players who get to know the chars, but previous dragon age games always had that dialogue wheel of completely unnecessary information that serves nothing other than just build up background and lore for gamers who are interested. i do read all the codex but it's not the same as interacting with a companion about it. something like emmrich telling us more on the mortalitasi, lucanis saying something random about teia and viago for those who didn't read the book/comics, etc. bioware usually always included lore dumping like this upfront in conversation with companions based on their home/faction that isn't a deep, personal thing, so that's the stuff i meant shallow and lacklustre cos i feel they didn't want to bother writing these in or giving the VAs the work on that.

[yangxiaolongstan]

ok MacCready! I've always thought he was kinda boring so I'm excited to see if he's better than I thought. initial impressions aren't terrible, he's better than he was in Fallout 3 at least. I like the idea of an ex gunner, though he feels weirdly ineffective for a gunner. and after 2 companions who hate when you're mean to people, one who's ok with stealing is nice.

side note, MacCready had a glitch where he refused to gain affinity at all I tried several fixes including downloading a mod that opens the console in survival and using cheats fix it. nothing worked. really unsure if I should count this against the game since, yeah it's not a writing problem. but on the other hand, if I can't access the story, how much credit can I give it? in any case, this analysis comes from watching his quest and conversations on youtube so I don't have firsthand experience with any of them. hopefully this glitch won't happen with any other companions.

first conversation starts off kinda weird, I know Goodneighbor is supposed to be dangerous but honestly, it's more policed than Bunker Hill. even when someone tries to fuck with us, the mayor himself stabs the guy. anyway, MacCready is glad to be out of there. I like that he's itching for caps, and I like his reason. Winlock and Barnes seem genuinely dangerous and the idea of them muscling MacCready out of the market seems like a real problem. maybe even a big enough problem for him to bring it up this early, though it's weird for someone as cagey as him to open up that much that quick. his voice acting is a little off but so is he so I guess it's fine. I do like that he doesn't cuss.

as for the quest, the location is good, intimidating. I like that there are multiple entrypoints. it's one of the more difficult small gunner encampments and usually takes me multiple tries to clear. I wish MacCready had a conversation with Winlock or Barnes though.

conversation 2 is a little rambling and feels like exposition. I get that players who never played 3 might need to understand Little Lamplight for his backstory but it's still weird. not like exposition is abnormal for the second conversation though.

the conversation at 75% is back on track with Winlock and Barnes. I like that MacCready is genuinely thankful to us for our help. and we find out why he doesn't curse. he used to have a wife and a kid, and promised to change for his son. he apparently has a second quest? interesting.

MedTek looks like fun. might go through it on my own later. one of the few places I've never actually explored. and I like that the quest is ambiguous, we don't get to know if we actually saved his son

finally, the romance conversation at 100% affinity. I like the gift. it's adorable. gives you a sense that he really cares about you. we learn his wife is dead. and how her death traumatized him. it feels really weird to make a move 10 seconds after that. and then the conversation just kinda ends. kinda anticlimactic. but I guess it's fine. I would have swapped the reveal she was dead to the 75% conversation and made the 100% conversation about him getting word his son got better.

ngl, I still don't like MacCready. mostly because his glitch made things a pain in the ass. but his story is alright. he's no Cait but he's compelling. I wish he hadn't gotten 2 quests where everyone else got 1 at most. it kinda feels like the writers couldn't choose between the ex gunner stuff and the dead wife sick kid stuff. I probably would have just had the latter part but that requires a bit more rewriting than I think is feasible. next time Nick Valentine, and then I'm probably gonna bite the bullet and do Strong

original companions post

Piper

Codsworth

Nick

Strong

Preston

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

I finally saw INSIDE OUT 2 yesterday.

That's probably the longest it has taken me to see a new Pixar movie.

I don't have any memory of whether I saw TOY STORY in the cinema in late 1995/early 1996, but we had the original VHS release from late 1996 and I went as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween that year. If I didn't see TOY STORY in theaters on its initial release, then it took me almost a year to see the movie. Movie came out Thanksgiving 1995, VHS was released right before Halloween 1996. The days when you had to wait a WHILE for a movie to come out on tape.

I eventually saw TOY STORY in theaters, when they re-released it in 3D in fall 2009, ahead of the release of TOY STORY 3.

But I *did* see A BUG'S LIFE in theaters, and so on. Never missed a Pixar since, that was until SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED skipped theaters... And then played at theaters not near me earlier this year. I'll get 'em eventually.

So yeah, INSIDE OUT 2 released on June 14th, I saw it yesterday, July 22nd.

And I thought it was a perfectly fine sequel, like most of Pixar's sequels are. I just love revisiting characters and worlds again, and the new story doing something neat and fun with them for a good 90-100min. That's all I needed, really.

I feel TOY STORY 2 is the *one* Pixar sequel that equaled the original, and surpassed it in some ways. Very rarely do sequels do that, really. And I think, in addition to things some folks expect out of Pixar, this is why Pixar sequels tend to be looked at a certain way. But to me, a lot of them have just been comfortably fine movies. Good enough on their own, and solid enough companions to the originals. And I think a lot of that is because the first movies were usually that special, that it's almost unfair the original exists. The new movie has such huge shoes to fill in the eyes of many. I feel like when the original is being made, there's a sort of "all or nothing" attitude behind it. With the sequels, things get more comfortable. "Okay, we made the first one..."

Especially now, since Pixar is no longer a little studio in the Bay Area, and hasn't been since 2006...

So, TOY STORY 2 is still tops for me. And a small clicks under, TOY STORY 3. Then INCREDIBLES 2, not too far behind. I actually legit love INCREDIBLES 2, even if I think its third act setpiece is a little rushed and the resolution a bit lacking. The rest of it, to me, is totally spot-on and just so well-made. Even the big twist that there's no shadowy mind control guy as the main antagonist. It's still a Brad Bird movie through and through, and he's largely in his groove here. That puts it very high in my book.

Next click down would be this movie, and MONSTERS UNIVERSITY. INSIDE OUT 2, plot-wise, is solid and clever. I like that it's small scale like the first movie is: About three or so days of following Riley through an exciting, if not anxiety-stoking time in her life. First movie, she moves out of state. Second movie, leveling up in her sport and meeting new people once more. It does feel like it's retreading a lot of the first movie's major beats without some of the punch (which I think plagues a few of these Pixar sequels), but I do think its 3rd act panic attack does land. Really, the first INSIDE OUT had Bing Bong. This doesn't have anything like that subplot. There was enough really fun and creative stuff here (Bloofy, Pouchey and Lance were the MVPs), I really liked the four new emotions, and its best moments sit right alongside the original... I almost consider MU truly great, the final third in the camp cabin almost puts it over for me. The rest of the movie, I think, quite works as well. Gets progressively better as the Scare Games commence. The early stuff up until Mike and Sulley get dropped from the scare program is just fine to me. Like INSIDE OUT 2, we're in the perfectly fine territory with this one. It's always a very satisfactory watch for me. Both films sometimes rise a little above that and have their moments that I find truly fantastic.

Underneath are CARS 3 and LIGHTYEAR.

I guess my only major issues with CARS 3 are that the pacing is weird to me in the first third, particularly how they handle McQueen's post-crash depression. Once they start really traveling in that movie, like to the Thunder Hollow and Thomasville racetracks, that's when it really gets into gear for me. When it really leans into the Cruz stuff. I still think it sidelines most of the Radiator Springs gang, though, much like CARS 2 did. If they make a fourth movie, I'd like to see them appear more. That ensembles helps make the first one so good to me.

LIGHTYEAR I've already defended multiple times on here. I really like it as an old-school space adventure movie, and I particularly appreciated the themes of ego, legacy, and doing better by your past mistakes. Of all the 2020s Pixar movies, it feels like it's from the Lasseter era. Kinda old school. I just don't think it's spectacular or anything, doesn't really go as hard as it should, but it's a very solid sci-fi treat nonetheless. I think it would've fared better had it been an original movie, and not a Buzz Lightyear story.

Then a click below those two, for me, are FINDING DORY and TOY STORY 4. These are both firmly of the 2010s Pixar in my opinion, very much of the Lasseter in complete control era. The "legacy"/"nostalgia"-heavy era. And it makes sense, TOY STORY and FINDING NEMO hail from the classic period when it was largely "Team TOY STORY" calling the shots. John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. There's fantastic stuff in both of these movies that I really love and admire, and I think they're overall satisfying and good. FINDING DORY in particular hit close to home as an autistic person... but I also feel like they are very, very overplotted and busy. I know the low-hanging fruit is stuff like, say, how TOY STORY 4 ended. I didn't have a problem with that, I actually found the ending with Woody going off with Bo to be a good - albeit risky - choice. No, my main issue is that this is where it starts to feel like the needle had gotten stuck for the studio. Like, "This IS a Pixar movie". It's gotta have the big cries, the big goodbyes, the big emotional moment, the plot has to have a lot going on. They gotta be here while this is here, and vice versa. They have few moments where they can just breathe a bit, or when they do, then it's WHOOSH onto the next thing. TOY STORY 4 does, however, have that long quiet stretch with Forky and Woody on the road. Good stuff. The reprising of certain moments, particularly in DORY's case, feel like "Greatest Hits" (to paraphrase someone else), and I don't think DORY's 3rd act grand theft truck sequence really works well. So, it's all just a matter of me thinking there's too much complication in these 100min stories. Too much plot crammed into them. Floyd Norman himself put it best when describing animated movies in the early 2010s, that the films with "hopelessly overworked plots and convoluted structure" were trying too hard to "convince" the audience rather than "entertain" them.

Then last but not least. Bottom ring. CARS 2.

With everything that movie has going against it... The jam-packed plot, Mater being confused as a spy being largely unbelievable (Finn McMissile and Holly Shiftwell aren't very bright, it seems), McQueen and Radiator Springs largely pushed aside, and the weird stuff with the lemons - cars that break down, that universe's disabled people almost - turning their collective plight into corporate villainy... I don't dislike it! I think there's a really good international race/spy action movie buried in here, and I'm aware that the movie was originally meant to be a summer 2012 release and then it got bumped up to summer 2011... Maybe it needed that one extra year to coalesce into something solid? But, yeah, I still think it's beautifully-realized, full of visual candy, and great action even. That opening setpiece on the oil rig slaps, I say. Pixar could've had a really solid James Bond-style movie here.

CARS 3 seems to imply that everything that happened in CARS 2 was all a dream. Even Larry the Cable Guy himself, Mater's voice, seemed to imply that not too long ago...

I had a weird thought recently... What if they took the existing movie, and re-framed it as a Mater's Tall Tale? The movie is very much informed by those CARS TOONS shorts that Pixar started making in 2008, where Mater made up some big fib about having various careers. Those worked because they were presented as silly fantasies, conjured up by a goofy old dingus. CARS 2 comes close to being that, there's a bit in the end where Van (the lost minivan traveler husband from the first movie) doubts everything Mater told them, but then jet Holly shows up. I think CARS 2 could've landed if they did some PRINCESS BRIDE thing where Mater's telling the tale back to someone, maybe Lightning, and being doubted every step of the way. Like he's making it all up on the spot, like the movie itself seemed to be doing. He did that in the shorts, "Yeah, Lightnin', you was there too!"

It's a massive mess, a car wreck you could say... but I still enjoy most of it. I bought the Blu-ray back in the day, even. It was one of those 2-discers that had LOTS of bonus features on it.

So on the whole, I like the Pixar sequels, even if they may not always match the originals. But I think that's just true of a lot of sequels to movies considered among the greats, or very high on folks' lists. Not all of them can be GODFATHER PART IIs or EMPIRE STRIKES BACKs. TOY STORY 2, for me, is the Pixar sequel that's the equivalent of that. I'm totally okay with the other ones not being that... So long as I still really like them and took something home with me from them... Yeah, that's what matters to me most.

[spidercatenthusiast]

For the KC Ask Game: 3, 12, 26?

thanks so much for asking!!

3. Who is/are their best friend(s) among companions and why?

answered here:

12. What is their alignment, and why? How do they feel about it? Do they change alignment at one point?

Mordren starts off at CN, mostly on account of being a Gyronna worshiper, and not at CE from the start because she's not knowledgeable enough about Gyronna to know what that actually entails. She shifts to CE right around mid-Act 3, but in her eyes, she hasn't reached proper awful until early Act 5. She's wrong.

Tamarie's kind of the opposite, CG all the way through, she wouldn't put herself there until Act 4 and the Fleshmarkets fight, but it's always been in the core of her being that she won't stop trying for people.

Cernan starts off at LE, which is pretty deserved, they're more Torture-ee Kuthite than Torturer Kuthite, but they've also killed people who definitely did not have it coming for the sake of their cult. In Act 5 they shift to NE as they start getting detached from Aeon stuff and Zon-Kuthon stuff, getting generally more live and let live, but still willing to do a lot without any huge regrets.

26. Did they separate from any companions? Why? (Consider killing a companion too for this question)

ohhh Mordren loses so many people

- Ulbrig gets killed during his crisis conversation after the party leaves the Abyss, he spent almost all of his time in the party getting on Mordren's bad side

- Arueshalae leaves when Mordren doesn't go with Legend path

- Regill and the entire Hellknight outpost are killed when the court martial goes sour almost immediately

- Mordren takes Camellia tricking her very personally, but they work it out the way that friends do (polar ray)

- Ember occupies one of the rapidly diminishing soft spots in Mordren's heart, so after kinda-sorta traumatizing her a little bit by eating the Hand of the Inheritor's heart in front of her, she gets sent back to Mendev with a small fortune

- She lets Nenio become nothing at the end of her quest

- Sosiel and Seelah are dismissed after the standoff with Galfrey

so at the end of the game she's got Daeran, Greybor, Woljif, Wenduag, and Lann, whose life she just up and ruins by doing this:

so he's in the party but he's definitely not having fun.

Tamarie never really "has" Lann past the prologue, but he dies during Wendu's act 3 quest when she can't convince him to join and Wendu kills him, whiiiiich kinda fucks her up a little bit. A lot. She also ends up getting betrayed by Greybor who, unlike Wenduag, does not have "I am sensing victimhood here and would undergo any amount of personal suffering to see it alleviated" benefits, so he ends up dying there.

Cernan doesn't lose anybody, and they're not a very restrictive sort about who they can fight with, so they hold onto people like Camellia, fallen!Arue, killedliotrlol!Daeran, etc pretty easily, without really pissing off anyone (for every 7 Charisma moment there is an equal and opposite 20+ Wisdom moment). All of their companions come out alive but definitely not intact, so their ending slides were kind of a horror show, especially for Seelah and Ember.

[angelofrainfrogs]

Into the Pit: Ch. 5

~Coauthored by @zeitghest~

Fandom(s): Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach

Description: He should be in the Daycare. 

Gregory emerges from the ball pit to find not the bright, rainbow room he’s accustomed to, but a house with a huge backyard and a kiddie pool of plastic “water.” Calling for Gregory is a familiar voice—Michael. Only this time it’s not Charlie or Freddy by his side, but someone completely new. And why do they insist on calling him their son?

Gregory soon comes to realize this existence is vastly different from anything he remembers. Perhaps these last few weeks at the Pizzaplex have all been a dream…?

Rating: T

Read on Ao3

Upstairs, Gregory was having a hard time coming to terms with some things.

In the journal kept beneath his bed, something he’d apparently started when he was 8, now going on 13, was a record of his days both good and bad. Gregory was seeing a therapist for his anxiety issues, but nothing ever mentioned the delusions he was having. In fact, as the pages went on, bad days were outnumbered by the good. He’d been here for years—taken from the foster system around 7 years of age, but knowing he was going to be adopted since 6. Some things just made sense, but there was a severe lacking mention of ghosts and virtual serial killers…

When the knocked came to his door, Gregory quickly shut the thick, ink-stained book and looked to Ditty, who scuttled around his desk and inquisitively picked things up to move them about.

“I gotta eat dinner, can you find more stuff while I’m gone?” he asked, unsure if the little guy was even listening before receiving the world’s smallest thumbs up from his new robot companion. “Yeah anything with my name on it—drawings, journals, whatever…”

He’d have to read these more intently later to jog his memory. Going to the door, Gregory turned the knob and threw it open. He was getting pretty peckish at this point. worrying does a number on one’s stomach.

“Doing alright—” he finally answered. “—just going through my journals.”

“Oh, great idea!” Michael praised, his smile more genuine now. “That’s always a good way to jog your memory.” He gestured for Gregory to take the lead towards the stairs. “I made dinner—sorry it’s not going to be as good as when Dad cooks, but I promise it’s edible.”

He chuckled at the self-depreciation, hoping Gregory would get a kick out of the joke, too. The kid looked a bit better than before—not nearly as outwardly stressed. Maybe he was already improving?

Michael could hope.

Following Gregory back down, they found Jeremy had set the table again and was waiting in his chair ready to dole out the sandwiches.

“The guest of honor has arrived!” Michael announced, smirking as he pulled out Gregory’s chair with a little bow. “Your seat, monsieur.”

The double-accent sounded ridiculous, which was exactly Michael’s intent. Anything to make Gregory remember how wonderfully fun this version of his family was.

And it worked; the kid was all smiles now. He just had to pretend like this morning didn’t nearly shock the life out of him. Now it was like a game, one where he had to piece together his life to this point. There was no danger here, Gregory reminded himself. Since being adopted, nothing bad had really even happened to him. Scooting in towards the table, Gregory plopped down into the seat that Michael pulled out for him.

“Oui, oui thank you monsieur.” Gregory played along, making Jeremy laugh as he tossed a few napkins towards his son.

Jeremy placed his plate down, carrying on the joke. “Your sandwich le fromage, monsieur! It’s tres manifique.”

Despite Michael’s normally burned cooking, the sandwiches didn’t look half bad in Jeremy’s opinion—though he’d rather jump off a bridge than refuse to eat his darling husband’s food because of some char. Gregory would giggle at this, watching as Jeremy pulled Michael’s seat out for him.

“Sorry that we had to leave the Pizzaplex early, guys. My nightmare was like… really intense and was inside the mall,” he half-explained.

“No need to apologize,” Michael replied as he took his seat. “We all get a little overwhelmed sometimes. Plus, that place is always insane on Saturdays...” He shared a look with Jeremy, letting Gregory eat a few bites of sandwich before speaking again.

“Hey, Greg—” Michael gave him a smile more curious than anything, though his eyes held deep-seated empathy. “—it’s totally okay if you don’t want to talk about it right now—the last thing we want to do is stress you out more—but… we’re here if you want to share any of your dreams. No matter how bad they are, we’ll listen.”

Gregory’s smile looked strained, though he figured by this point, if none of it was real… It couldn’t hurt to tell them.

“I… had a dream I was kind of like—living at the Pizzaplex? And then things went crazy! So much happened—Charlie was in the Puppet! Like, her ghost. Yours was in Freddy’s,” Gregory began to ramble. He set down his sandwich, choosing to look at the grilled cheese rather than his dads. It helped him get his thoughts in order.

“Pappy was Bonnie. Like—his mind was stuck inside Bonnie. Not quite a ghost, but not… Man, I don’t even know what he really was. But he was using dead kids to try and bring himself back to life? Apparently he’d been doing it for years. Then he injected me with this fizzy purple stuff—it’s supposed to make you immortal or something. He thought I was Evan. Oh—Liz and Evan were dead, and he was trying to bring them back, too. Then we trapped Pappy inside a video game and I smashed it with a hammer…”

Wow, Jeremy thought. Vivid AND concerning. He realized when Gregory picked his dinner up against to take more bites that he was done with the short retelling of his dreams.

“That’s… intense, little man. I’m sorry,” was all he could say, before his brow furrowed in thought. “Wait… Puppet? Like The Puppet? From the original diner way back when?”

Had Gregory ever even seen the Marionette? That old thing had been retired to Charlie and John’s house years ago, a powered down and prized toy that June inherited but rarely played with. When Gregory gave Jeremy a confused nod, his father sat back in his seat to fold his hands together in thought. He silently looked to Michael, wondering if he ever told their kid about the old, out of date security bot.

By this point Mike was leaning forward, hand covering his mouth where it rested on his palm. This dream was far more disturbing than he’d thought it’d be…

To think everyone was dead? And possessing animatronics, to boot? Plus William was apparently a murderer—

“How did you… did Charlie tell you about that?” Michael questioned, a hint of disbelief in his tone, eyes widening at the mention of Puppet. Surely within their whole extended family someone must’ve shown off the run-down bot… but it hadn’t been Michael. He blinked, sitting up and shaking his head.

“Er—you probably don’t remember, sorry. It’s just… I don’t remember ever showing you Puppet.” He gave a nervous laugh, sharing another side-eyed glance with Jeremy. “We thought it might freak you out too much. A lot of kids thought it was unnerving, so…” He gave a weak shrug.

What the hell was going on?

“A-Anyway—” Michael’s lips curved into a light smile. “—I was stuck in Freddy? Hmm… I guess there’s worse robots to be with. I hope we were all nice, at least…?” The faint smile slipped back into a grimace. “Besides Pappy, I suppose…”

“Of course you were nice; you and Charlie protected me! But, Henry—” Gregory placed the last two bites of crust down on the plate to explain. “—he made you guys robots that looked exactly like people! He called them androids. Because… Charlie died on her sixteenth birthday. He made some for her, and then when you died, Mike—er, Dad, he made one for you. Lizzie and Evan have them, too. Charlie helped you guys attach your souls to them; apparently she’s the only one who could move them around. Cas was dead, too…”

Gregory took a break, chewing and swallowing another bite of food.

“…Puppet loved Charlie a lot. She gave really good hugs,” he remembered, missing Mari now; this little girl he made up in her mind that was so excited to talk and tell you about her day… “I don’t know… Maybe June told me about her.” He wasn’t sure how hard he wanted to think about it. Gregory let his crust drop again to his plate as he thought about his apparent grandfather, trying to downplay how his mind painted him. “William wasn’t trying to hurt me—not really. He just wanted me to be alive. I mean, he wanted Evan, but he got really confused. He didn’t care who got hurt to make himself alive either… I mean, he obviously wouldn’t ever do that here.”

“No, of course not—he loves you and wouldn’t hurt anyone like that,” Jeremy reinforced. He didn’t look tense, but he grasped Michael’s hand beneath the table for support. Running his free hand through wavy blonde hair, Jeremy let out a small laugh. “What was I doing? I hope I wasn’t being a jerk to you.”

Gregory’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. “No… Uh… You weren’t there. Mi—er, Dad didn't mention you either.”

Well… That was better than actively trying to hurt the kid, Jeremy supposed. Still he couldn't help but purse his lips in thought as to why he was just never even mentioned. Nothing at all to indicate he was a part of Gregory’s life?

“Weird…,” Jeremy murmured, lost in thought.

“God… I’m so sorry, Gregory,” Michael murmured, so quiet it was as though he was talking to himself. He returned the hand squeeze under the table, for some reason getting that pit-of-the-stomach feeling that all this was somehow his fault…

But that was just his mind overreacting. No one was responsible for Gregory’s horrible dreams—not even the boy himself.

“Maybe you’ve just been overstimulated lately,” he tried to reason. Applying logic to an illogical situation—it was all he could do until he had a medical opinion tomorrow. “I mean, we’ve been visiting the Pizzaplex a lot… I know it’s fun, but there’s so much stuff going on there. We might wanna cut back a little.”

“Yeah... Yeah that's probably it.” Jeremy agreed for now. Running his thumb along the outside of Michael's hand, he told Gregory: “I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Freeman just in case. Maybe she can help us figure out where to go from there. Until then—” Jeremy cleared his throat before stacking their plates on the table. “—how do you feel about some ice cream?”

Gregory's smile turned up again, now looking back to Jeremy with glee. “I feel pretty strongly about ice cream."

With a more relaxed posture, Jeremy took the plates and lifted Michael's hand to his mouth, placing two kisses on his knuckles. “Ice cream, hon?”

He didn't want to seem like he was ignoring or trying to bury the issues. But there was no sense dwelling on imagined, horrific scenarios if they made Gregory feel bad.

“Sounds great,” Michael readily agreed, eyes crinkling at the sweet gesture. There really wasn’t much use in focusing on something they couldn’t do anything about right now. Sitting back in his chair, Michael set his hands in his lap and tried to relax. Sweet confections always improved any situation, no matter how dire it might seem.

“Let’s see, I think we’ve got… chocolate, right?” Michael asked, tracking Jeremy as he put the plates in the sink and went to the freezer. “I can’t remember what else… cookie dough, maybe?”

"Which one—"

“Chocolate!” Gregory shouted answering Jeremy's question before he could even ask it. Then, Gregory corrected himself. “Wait! Chocolate and cookie dough?”

The smile on Jeremy's face brightened with a laugh. “Sure, kid; Mike?”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Michael confirmed, jerking his thumb towards Gregory with a grin.

While Gregory stretched his legs, Michael idly watched Jeremy get the ice cream ready. His eyes were on his husband, but his mind wandered to possessed animatronics and purple liquid that made one immortal. Two questions kept popping up in his mind:

How did Gregory know about the Puppet? And why were his eyes now shining silver?

Luckily, before he could get too lost in his thoughts three hearty bowls of ice cream were set on the table. All were piled high with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. Michael raised his brows at this.

“I didn’t even know we had sprinkles. Did you check the date on them, Jer?” His head tilted in consideration. “Wait… can sprinkles even go bad?”

The question of Gregory’s physical appearance scratched at Jeremy’s mind as well. Somehow, Gregory’s eyes reminded Jer of those old pictures of shell-shocked war veterans. He'd seen the before and after photos of a doe-eyed private that came back from battle with a wide and hollow stare. Gregory’s didn’t meet the same intensity as that, but their paleness was comparable.

A couple of scoops later, and he could pretend to forget about it for now. Michael raised an excellent question about the sprinkles, making Jeremy scratch at the short stubble on his chin.

“Sprinkles are only made of good stuff—they can’t go bad,” he fibbed, inching back towards the kitchen. Gregory raised his spoon impatiently for his mouth, only hesitating when Jeremy called: “But wait just a sec in case I’m wrong!”

There was a short beat. Then his relieved voice finally answered: “They’re good! Enjoy, guys!”

Gregory smiled towards the kitchen spouting a quick, “Thanks!” before stuffing his cheek full of the cold treat. When Gregory glanced up to Michael, they locked gazes. It was clear his Dad was staring at him. The question was exactly what he was looking at—though Gregory had his suspicions.  

Blinking to break the connection, Gregory swallowed a spoonful of ice cream and tilted his head. “…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing; sorry,” Michael responded, quickly dropping his gaze to the steadily-melting bowl of ice cream.

He took a slow, thoughtful bite, wondering if he should even bother to ask. It seemed like every time they had a semblance of peace a new concern popped up in his mind. Had he always been such a worrywart? Deep down perhaps, especially as he got older… but Michael couldn’t ever remember being this much on edge.

“…Actually, I do have another question for you, Greg,” he said after a moment of silence save for the clinking of spoons against bowls. He was watching his son again, looking for any signs of physical discomfort. “You’re not having any, um… vision problems, are you? You seem alright, I just have to ask because—well.”

With a vague gesture of his spoon, Michael indicated the boy’s startling eyes. Surely he’d caught sight of them in the mirror today… and if not, Mike would feel really bad for pointing them out and adding yet another worry to Gregory’s list. 

He knew it was coming; it was only a matter of time before one of them mentioned it. The thought crossed his mind that Gregory, along with these false memories, looked different when he woke up this morning. It was starting to make him feel as if he was still missing the bigger picture. Gregory played with the lumps of cookie dough, mashing them further into heaps of ice cream before answering.

“I can see great,” he replied with a shrug. Not a lie by any means; he could see better than ever. But he knew that wasn’t what Mike was getting at. However, if there was one thing Gregory got very good at over the course of his dream life (so he thought, at least), it was fibbing. “Why?”

Jeremy bit the inside of his lip, unsure how he would breach this topic. To him, they almost looked like cataracts if he squinted. Tinted mirrors with no reflection, swallowing all the light instead of projecting it back—save for a strange, subtle glow from within. 

“Your eyes look a little different than they normally do, that’s all.” The way he mentioned it didn’t make Gregory feel odd about the way they looked, putting him at ease. Their son didn’t want to think about why he looked the way he did and just shrugged.

“Maybe it's just the light?” Gregory remarked, experimentally batting his eyes—feeling out whether they still worked properly with the added workload.

“Yeah… I'm sure that's it. Ignore me, kiddo—I’m just turning into a worrywart like Uncle Evan. How’s your ice cream?” Michael flashed him a grin. With this and the slushie, Greg was going to be wired… and then crash equally as hard. 

“Famtabstic—” Gregory praised with a mouthful. His tongue darted out to capture a sprinkle from his lip, feeling a little bad for not opening up about what happened in his dream sooner. So he would deflect this with a valid question of his own. Swallowing what was in his mouth, Gregory looked to his Dads and asked: “I have a question, though…”

Jeremy had already made a good dent in his bowl, but saved time to ask his son: “Hm? What’s up?”

Wiping away sticky sugar from the corner of his mouth, Gregory raised a brow. “Why is this cookie dough alright to eat, but regular cookie dough isn’t?”

Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, floundering when nothing actually came to mind. He was going to have to Google this later, but he postulated regardless, turning a suspicious eye to the sugary mounds in his dish. “Maybe it’s counterfeit cookie dough.” 

“Oh my god—don’t make it sound like we’re buying black market ice cream!” Michael exclaimed with a laugh, nudging Jeremy’s leg under the table. “It’s safe because the flour and eggs in the dough have been treated to get rid of bacteria and stuff that makes us sick; the homemade kind isn’t put through that process.”

As Michael lifted the final, oversized bite of chocolate sweet to his mouth, he could feel his family’s eyes on him. With the spoon hanging in the air, he lifted an eyebrow. “What? I was raised in a pizzeria chain whose specialty dessert was ice cream. I know waaaay more details about that stuff than I ever wanted to.”

With a shrug, he set the final bite in his mouth and let his spoon clatter onto his plate with a satisfied hum.

Jeremy should’ve expected Michael to know something like that. Both he and Gregory frequently learned a lot of random, usually pizza-related facts from him.

“I wish I knew that! Here I am, thinking we got fake cookie dough,” Jeremy chuckled, locking his ankle around Michael’s. “A lot smarter than my answer anyway…”

"Nah, they pour bleach on them instead,” Gregory said after inhaling his final bite, happy to spew obvious misinformation.

“No! What? They can’t do that. That should be illegal!” Jer snorted, unable to keep a straight face as Gregory nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Nope. It’s all bleach!” Feeling like he was in a much better mood, Gregory decided to take the bowls and spoons from Jeremy’s grasp, much to the man's surprise. “It’s cool;, I’ll go rinse them out.”

“Aww—thank you, sweetheart.” Jeremy was pleasantly touched by the gesture. As Gregory passed the threshold of the kitchen, Jer leaned his head against Michael’s shoulder and contentedly closing his eyes. “What a cool kid, right?” 

“The absolute coolest,” Michael confirmed. “I think that really cheered him up. He’s already acting more like himself. Could just be the sugar high, but hey—if that’s what it takes, I’ll add ice cream to his daily routine in a heartbeat.”

Jeremy laughed quietly at this. If that was the case, it might do Gregory some good if they got him a gym membership for Mazercise. Gregory was at that age where he was going to eat his weight in junk food; lord knows Jeremy and Mike were the same way. 

“Did you say daily ice cream?” Gregory caught, peeking around the corner with a sly smirk. 

“Ice cream maybe daily. Maybe…” Jeremy sat up now, leaning over to gently pinch Gregory’s cheek, then decided to mess with his hair when the kid playfully batted at his teasing hand.

Michael chuckled at the display, tagging in for Jeremy to continue mussing up Gregory’s hair when the other was successfully fought off. The boy was soon released from his fathers’ attack, trying his best to resituate his locks as Michael grinned at him.

“Well, now that we’re all energized and sugar-ified… what do you want to do, Gregory?” he asked, standing up and stretching his arms high to the sky. “Watch some TV, play some video games, go outside for some fresh air… the possibilities are endless.”

There was that normal cheerful demeanor finally breaking through again. The more Gregory felt like himself, the more Michael did, too.

On the defensive, Gregory had lightly swatted the hands away from his hair—no wonder his once poofy mane was flat, with everyone always messing with it. It was a losing battle, as Gregory did find having his hair being played with soothing. He had his family to thank for that discovery.

While he did have all the video games he could possibly play judging by the entertainment cabinet, clear glass stocked to the brim with cartridges, discs, and cases, he had something else in mind. Fresh air would do him good; being all cooped up might be one of the things hurting him rather than helping. Gregory felt like he'd been in hiding for two weeks because of his nightmare. He missed the sunlight...

“Can we go hang outside? It's such a nice day out,” he remarked. It might be a little hot, but it beat the slowly developing hermit qualities he'd notice growing in his mind.

“Outside it is, then!” Jeremy would agree. He loved the outdoors; one of these days he was going to take them all camping again. “What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Uh...” Gregory drew a blank. What do people do together outside?

Then, he thought on it. If they went back to the little make shift ball-pit, was there a chance of jogging his memory?

“We could play in the ball pit!” Gregory suggested.

“Oh yeah!” Michael mused, now leading the way to the back door. He’d almost forgotten about that thing. “Good idea—we spent all that time getting it set up, might as well get some use out of it!”

It’d be therapeutic for all of them, he thought—childish fun without worrying about beating high scores or completing missions. Just a kid and his dads swimming in a plastic pool and having the time of their lives spending time together as a family.

Soon enough Michael was throwing open the back door, releasing his family into the warm afternoon sunlight that lit up the rainbow plastic in a beacon of fun. Gregory ran to the edge of the porch, looking into the wide pit. It was a fun idea; probably less expensive to maintain than a pool, though Gregory didn't think that was why they did it. He probably wanted the convenience of a ball pit without having to go all the way to the Daycare.

It was then that he was picked up, Jeremy having snuck up behind to toss him gently in the pool. Gregory let out a yelp of surprise at this, and as he made his short flight through the air he waited for memories to come to him...

Touchdown! A small splash of plastic orbs rained back over in his parents’ direction. The above ground inflatable pool wobbled with the motions and Gregory moved to “swim” towards the edge.

In a sudden movement, Jeremy whipped around and hugged Michael. It seemed out of nowhere. When Michael finally hugged him back, Jeremy tightened his grip and used his weight to pull them both down together, all in one singular, unspoken motion of betrayal. The sight had Gregory covering his mouth, laughter rolling out of him now.

The memories might not come so easy, Gregory thought. This could take a lot longer than he previously expected. New ones didn't hurt though...

“Unbelievable!” Michael cried as he popped above the surface. “I trusted you, Jeremy Fitzgerald! Don’t run away from me—”

As Jeremy desperately tried to escape his husband’s wrath, Michael picked up a bright red ball and threw it with perfect accuracy. It bounced harmlessly off Jeremy’s back right between the shoulder blades, but the blonde made a show of going down like it’d completely taken him out. Michael laughed at his triumph, then suddenly whirled around and scooped another ball into his hand. With a wicked grin, he tossed it in the air and caught it while eying his son.

“Don’t think you’re getting away, either!” Michael proclaimed, tossing the ball towards Gregory. And with that, the game was on.

They had fallen in with a might splash, only for Jeremy to scramble away at the last second. He fell with a dramatic yell when the plastic ball collided with his spine, face first into the pit once more. He was simply too slow to flee from Michael's wrath. Gregory shrieked, attempting to dunk under the pit, but unfortunately being clocked in the side of the head with the lightweight sphere.

These transgressions wouldn’t stand. And so the family had an all-out war, throwing balls and wrestling in the backyard.

It was what life could be. To some, what it should be…

***

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Looking for more? Check out the Chapter Masterlist on Tumblr!

Or check out the entire Wires that Bind Us Series on ao3!

[angels-heap]

*raises hand* I want to know about the barney/Lauren fic!

OKAY SO. In late 2019/early 2020 while I was writing The Ghost in You, I was also writing a companion fic in my brain that followed Lauren, Barney, and Gordon pre-rescas, from the time they all met until the day after the Incident. Working title was “Every Breath You Take” because (1) I suck at titles, (2) I’d already titled two fics in that series after 80s songs and wanted to stick to the pattern, and (3) the whole concept was that Lauren thought she was successfully spying on Black Mesa and uncovering conspiracies – which she was, to be clear – but the G-man was also watching her.

I kept telling myself not to start earnestly drafting the fic until The Ghost in You was closer to done, both because I didn’t want to manage two longfics at once and because I felt the prequel would hit harder after readers learned more about Lauren through post-HL2 Barney and Gordon’s recollections. Then, of course, the 2020 fandom bullshit happened and I basically scrapped the idea, though it lives on in my head and in a handful of drafts and phone notes scattered across my devices.

It’s highly unlikely that I’ll write the fic at this point, despite my renewed interest in the fandom, mostly because my 9-5 job (which is really more of an 8-10 job) won’t allow me the time or flexibility to take on another project that big. So, for anyone who’s curious about what could have been…

Context: Lauren is a food service/cafeteria worker at Black Mesa, assigned to the cafeteria near Sector C at the time of the story. This is how and where she met Barney (as explained in The Ghost in You). A running theme of the prequel was to be how service workers (especially female service workers) were essentially invisible at Black Mesa due to the various -isms and prejudices of the time, which meant Lauren could get away with a lot with a little stealth and social engineering.

I’ve forgotten and/or never got around to drafting a lot of the connective tissue between the major plot points, but here’s a rundown of all the important beats I can find/remember:

Story opens with Barney telling Lauren about “ponytail guy” (Gordon), the new AnMat scientist who always eats alone and never seems to talk to anyone. Lauren challenges Barney to approach ponytail guy and to her surprise, they hit it off. Barney won’t shut up about how nice and interesting his new friend is all night, and the next day, when Barney shows up to help her move her stuff into his apartment, he brings ponytail guy with him! Lauren’s wary of him at first, due to a general distrust of scientists, but eventually warms up to him through dunking on Barney and a mutual interest in sci-fi.

Lauren’s team caters a working lunch for Dr. Breen and other higher-ups. She inadvertently overhears something she shouldn’t have about the Lambda Complex’s unacceptably high casualty rate. She recalls hearing rumors and noticing that some of those scientists have gone missing recently, but had assumed they quit/moved/retired. Now she’s not so sure. She vows to keep closer tabs on Lambda Complex scientists in the future and decides not to mention any of this to fellow conspiracy nut Barney—at least, not yet. Not until she has proof.

Interlude: Lauren and Barney have a conversation about who they’d want a “hall pass” to sleep with, no questions asked, without it affecting their relationship. After some back-and-forth, they decide to write their choices down on scrap paper and swap them. Lauren picks Leonardo DiCaprio. Barney picks Gordon. He instantly protests that he didn’t understand the game, but Lauren knows better. She’s also not surprised, and she likes Gordon well enough, and she feels secure enough in their relationship that she doesn’t exactly feel threatened that Barney’s also attracted to Gordon. In fact, she finds the whole thing kind of hot, but she’s not inclined to tell Barney that yet. It’s more fun to let him squirm and see where things go.

Over a span of several weeks, Lauren hears rumors that several more Lambda Complex scientists have suddenly disappeared. She starts casually asking around and gets stonewalled at every turn, which only raises further suspicions. She asks Gordon what he thinks and he shrugs the whole thing off as a rumor. On her way home from Gordon’s apartment, she sees a pale man in a blue suit watching her from a distance. He makes eye contact with her, straightens his tie, and walks away.

Lauren picks up extra shifts as a custodian to gain access to Sector E facilities, based on a hunch. She pretends to get lost and strategically “stumbles across” one of the specimen labs, where she discovers Xen fauna in various stages of dissection and skims some unsecured lab notes. When she's caught by a condescending scientist who's clearly in a hurry, she simply plays dumb and gets escorted back to her work area with a warning. After that shift, she returns to her and Barney’s shared apartment to find that he and Gordon are celebrating the news that Gordon’s up for a promotion to the Lambda Complex team, pending a letter of recommendation from Dr. Kleiner. Lauren instantly knows that this cannot be allowed to happen and starts scheming.

Next time the three of them get together, Lauren casually asks Gordon if he knows about Xen, to which he replies, “Zen? I’ve never relaxed a day in my life.” (This conversation is also referenced in TGIY). This confirms that he has no idea what he’s about to be sent off to do, so she resolves to set her plan into action. After Barney and Gordon conk out on the couch, she steals Gordon’s swipe card and manages to convince the guard in Sector C (a friend of Barney’s) that Gordon asked her to drop something off in Kleiner’s office. He escorts her in and looks away long enough for her to steal Gordon’s letter of rec out of Kleiner’s outgoing mail tray. She smuggles it out, rips it to shreds, and flushes it down the toilet. G-man watches her leave.

(Somewhere in here, Barney and Gordon attend the infamous Christmas Party referenced in The Ghost in You, where they get super drunk and end up making out with each other while Lauren is out of town. Barney calls Lauren the next day and she just knows something happened between them, but she’s not mad. Barney hands Gordon the phone, and she gives him a minor heart attack by saying something along the lines of “Next time you decide to make out with my boyfriend, can you at least invite me?” This whole debacle could’ve been—and almost was—its own fic.)

Gordon’s transfer never goes through. Everything goes back to normal. Lauren continues to snoop around and becomes increasingly paranoid that the blue-suited bureaucrat is following her around (because he is). She mentions this to Barney, who shrugs it off (“Black Mesa’s crawling with suits”) and suggests that maybe she’s seeing things because she hasn’t been sleeping well. Lauren realizes he’s right, and maybe there’s more to her nightmares and restless sleep and constant body aches than the stress of uncovering an interdimensional conspiracy that she can’t talk about with anyone. She takes a pregnancy test. It's positive.

(Insert a scene referenced in The Ghost in You: Either the one where Lauren tells Barney about the pregnancy and he freaks the fuck out, or the post-Galaxy Quest conversation where Lauren asks Gordon if he thinks Barney would be a good father, from Lauren’s POV.)

Flash forward to the day of the incident. Lauren’s in New York when she hears news that something’s happened at Black Mesa. She starts calling Barney’s apartment phone (no answer, no answering machine) and Gordon’s (no answer, and she discovers that Barney recorded a goofy message on Gordon’s answering machine without his knowledge). Hours drag on with no news, and the rest of her family eventually goes out to dinner, leaving her alone, dialing Gordon’s number over and over, even after she knows in her heart that he’s never going to answer, just to hear Barney’s voice. Eventually, the line is disconnected mid-call.

(If you’ve read The Ghost in You, you probably have your suspicions as to how everything ends. I’m intentionally leaving this vague for now, just to preserve the ambiguity, but suffice to say that Lauren’s experience of her last phone call with Barney was a bit different than his. If anyone’s actually read this far, I welcome your theories.)

So, that's the fic! I'm sure its final form would've been much more interesting and cohesive than this outline, but I was proud of it as a starting point and it gave rise to so many of my cherished headcanons. Make of it what you will.

[chemicalbrew]

@elendsessor listen, I love your blog and the way you curate stuff!!! that comment was honestly self-defeatist on my part, and I'm sorry if it made you doubt yourself, you're one of my absolute favorite mutuals at the moment (even though we don't talk, your blog is so awesome!), and I was genuinely worried you'd not follow me back when you remade, wahhh (mostly because I barely post fandom lately, and all I do is lazily scroll my dash and scout the katana zero tag, and I am so self-conscious about how much i love kz these days... i gotta stop with that)

ANYWAY!! back to your original inquiry, at full force

9. worst part of canon

stealth levels in games that are not otherwise about stealth tend to be quite ruinous. off the top of my head, two examples I am forever a little salty about are Ghost Trick and Katana ZERO (though it's partially optional in the latter - I always opt to kill my way through the prison on replays)

For Ghost Trick, that's legitimately the only issue I have with it. For Katana ZERO, however... the ending stretch of the plot is somewhat poorly paced\unsatisfying compared to everything else + hard mode is genuinely unbalanced to the point where I actually gave up on it last month (but god, the itch to play more has not left)

SMT4: rapid-fire complaints from someone who hasn't played other SMTs yet: most of the plot after the Tokyo reveal felt weak, the game needed to be a little more obvious early on about how your choices matter, I wish Flynn had a bit more personality, just to match his companions, the Isabeau twist in particular sucks ass, Burroughs turning out to be a goddess sucks even more, App Point costs were unbalanced, they could have afforded to use multiple asset sets for Domains, I didn't like the prospect of endgame grinding.

I said Chrono Trigger is perfect, but that's only if you ignore what follows after (especially the tie-ins attempted in CTDS). I still do not have it in myself to wholeheartedly love Chrono Cross

Pyre is a wonderful game, but the second half of it was a huge drag and could stand to be less repetitive

Hades has an ending that basically ruins the rest of the plot and it's BAD. also, endgame grind is way too tedious and the progression system can break in places

Brandish 1: the remake doesn't have speed options like the original game did, Tower is a bland-looking stage with awkward music, boss music in this game is uninspired outside of HEADLESS Brandish 2: literally nothing important to the larger narrative happens in this game when you think about it, endgame is not fun and absolutely ridiculous (I get why, but this is truly old school game design at its worst), boss music still sucks (most of the OST outside of the opening hour is honestly weak), there's a different Tower and it sucks for different reasons (backtracking yay) Brandish 3: the fact that the translation isn't out yet (serious answer: this game, iirc, has more backtracking than the others. Sanctuary was a really gimmicky stage in particular) Brandish 4: for fuck's sake, who decided the Temple stage was acceptable? it's literally an assault on the senses

Trails series: awful with ships. awful. the main ship of the first arc of the series is a case of adopted incest lol there's some other really gross tropes like this all throughout and I really don't feel like reciting them right now, so... I'll list other stuff: the games weren't intended to have multiple difficulties, so playing on anything that's not Normal will suck in some way you have to be extraordinarily meticulous to 100% or use a guide as the series went on, it became easier to break the difficulty into pieces with how ridiculous skills get despite that, superbosses and scripted losses that you have to win to 100% are a tradition of the series and can be really annoying to deal with as the series went on, it also started using more modern anime tropes to appeal to more people and it UNFORTUNATELY has been working

Ys series: modern games suffer from trying to be more like Trails, which they shouldn't <3 end of story

Xenoblade 1: battle system as a whole was unrefined and unsatisfying, worst sidequests in the series, female party members are all suffering in some way (Sharla's arc was cliche and unsatisfying, she sucks to use, her design is awkward; Fiora's situation was not explored deeply enough and she got fridged; Melia suffers in the story so much it almost turns into comedy and suspends disbelief) the only antagonist that resonated with me was Zanza.

Xenoblade 2: (DLC fixes most of this) The obvious: there needed to be less titties; The obvious again: Tora's introduction sucks ass (and he doesn't get truly better ever :() AND Tiger! Tiger! can go fuck itself; The introduction in general is slow and is why I won't replay this even though it's a GOAT; I actually like the gacha being around (I got lucky and the only real trouble I had was getting KOS-MOS imo), but it should at least become infinitely more generous in NG+. AT LEAST THAT. The infamous roadblocks to 100% like Ursula's affinity chart; The UI issues that everyone harped enough on; The maps got so much worse in this game compared to 1 like? I had so much trouble navigating here compared to other XB games.

Xenoblade 3: (DLC fixes most of this) literally the worst antagonists in the series; not a great party either (RIP Sena); Noahmio was kinda boring for half the runtime; in general the messages made by the game are not interesting to me and did not resonate like 2 did; the class system ruins every good change made to battle system; chain attacks suck, and not just their music - they're worse than 1's; weakest soundtrack (same issue as Brandish 2, where it starts strong but as a whole is eh); probably the only XB game that I do not ever intend to actually finish, because it's such a slog somehow.

The only sin Kid Icarus Uprising committed was its control scheme. Might have been justified, but it sucks.

Ace Attorney has too many issues to count <3 I'll just mention that: The series as a whole sucks at guiding you when you get stuck Big Top sucks, we all know this AA6 ruined Athena and Apollo and has questionable setting\design choices AAI2's last case dragged on for too long even if it was hype

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim's battle system as a whole really sucks if we're being honest, and nowhere is this shown off better than the final battle.

VA-11 Hall-A often goes overboard with humor, but its worst offense is the optional bullet hell minigame they put in