#i mean there are parts of it that I like

[sirsagrell]

So I literally created this account just to read people yelling about Veilguard on this website, and I'm predictably getting sucked into participating.

Disclaimer: I've always been the "it's good enough to hook me hard, but now I have to mentally rewrite the story in my head to really enjoy it" BioWare fan. I'm self-aware enough to realize, that when I think something should have been done a certain way to do justice to the story told so far, that story told so far may not have been there in the games that BioWare actually made.

I will, as such, try to stick to the Dragon Age that exists and not the one in my head, when writing about Veilguard. Will I succeed? No idea.

With that out of the way:

There is a lot of valid criticism going around about the sanitized/whitewashed/shallowly inoffensive writing. I agree with a large portion of it, and don't have much to add. A lot of the writing fell flat in a lot of the ways it never did in BioWare games before. Not all of it, though. There were moments of brilliance here and there.

But I think my actual main problem with this game boils down to something that isn't talked about much in the critiques that I read.

Specifically, that Veilguard should have been the ending of this series.

But instead, they tried to make Dragon Age yet another one of those fictional universes that they wouldn't fucking let go of.

I think it is very important to let stories end. It is very important to let go of entire settings, especially the most beloved ones. Because if you don't, they fossilize under the requirements of nostalgia and the need to stay recognizable and quickly turn into this hopeless cycle of increasingly warped self-repetition where everything always comes back to the status quo and engaging with the setting in any way leaves a taste of existential dread in your mouth.

(I'm looking at you, Star Wars. I will insist that KOTOR II was the best thing ever written in that setting because it broke the fourth wall, pointed a finger at this exact phenomenon, and said "look what you're doing to us")

(Or maybe that's just how I remember it, because that's how I overwrote it in my head)

(I think there's a profound point about possessive love to be made here somewhere, but it's late and I'm too tired to look for the right words)

Anyways.

If Veilguard was the ending of the series, it would have at least set itself and all of us free from that.

It could also have attempted to say something more meaningful than world is good and always worthy of being saved. Like, people complain that Veilguard couldn't handle variable world states going in, and I get that, but I think the even bigger missed opportunity is that, having to account for more games in the setting, BioWare couldn't afford having varied world states coming out of it.

We save the world from mad tyrants, and a blind broken man, and that's it.

But there was setup for so much more here. I'm sure I didn't hallucinate it.

We're never asked what it actually means to save this world, and if it means the same thing for everyone.

We never have to wonder if it could possibly be us who are the blind and broken ones here, unable to turn from a dead-end path, because it is the only one familiar to us.

We never discuss what specifically it means for the Veil to go. It just defaults to DEMONS, BAD, and all the interesting foreshadowing for the Veil maybe coming down that we previously had goes completely out of the window.

And so we're never given the choice of what to do with this world. And we can't stop to really contemplate how fucked up it actually is for flawed individuals such as us, or Solas, or the Evanuris or whomever, to have the power to make decisions for a whole world to begin with, no matter how good we think our intentions are.

Just now realized how apt Veilguard is as a name for this game. Makes me wonder what it was, before it got that name.

It will be ironic if, despite all the work they did to make sure there is room for more sequels, and all they had to throw out to get a clean simple world state, this will actually become the last one in the series.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[incredubious]

MODERN AU ACESAN !!!! first impressions with a guy who barely passes the No Shoes No Shirt No Service rule

[kimdokjas]

though the movie might be cancelled, yuri on ice will live forever in our hearts. thank you yoi fandom, it's been real ♡

[expelliarmus]

[egophiliac]

crossing my fingers and wishing upon every star that chapter 10 finally brings us the tweel cards 🤞🤞

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[beautysnake]

quick warmup since I dont have time for a full blown art fight attack today! Little cat things :>

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[finleycannotdraw]

I don’t have the capacity to be coherent right now but. this movie is so good

[aphel1on]

There are a lot of potential ways to interpret this line but I rarely see people talk about it compared to the more specific desire/knowledge she lost (fixing her hair). Personally I think it would be both funny and angsty to explore post-canon Marcille struggling with impulse control

[quantumshade]

there's an interesting thing rtd said from the commentary about the "real mom" line:

i get not liking the line but like. it's an intentional mistake and an intentional character choice, and something we'll return to in the future, and that seems like important context to have when talking about the episode.

[lilianade-comics]

the face of a man who neither regrets his answer nor is aware of his imminent violent demise

[kayawolfhorse]

Discuss

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship