#idk i just feel like if the dev team had been given the time they needed it could’ve been a 10/10 game that people still play to this day

[zev-zev]

river ward deserved better ):

i loved river and it’s a little more than obvious that he was probably the last romance scripted up. and more or less likely he was written in towards the “end” of the game, when it was nearing its forced release date, so he (and kerry as well) didn’t get the love and care as panam and judy had. but i still think his quests were fun to play out! like esp with the more creepy tone they had like—showing more true colors of NC and how it truly isn’t a “city of dreams”.

i think if given the time and the love that judy and panam had, river could’ve been an AMAZING romance. and a perfect enemies to lovers trope; esp for streetkid v. i love river in all his awkward goofiness throughout the game and he has some really sweet moments but yeah—it could’ve been a little better, obviously, if given the time idk. i just think river gets TOO MUCH hate when it kinda didn’t help with gamers rushing and demanding the game and devs being stripped pretty hard of time so they were forced to scramble things up. which is why i think a lot of river’s (and again some of kerry’s and along with takemura’a) romance—and really just him in general—were cut to hell and back.

idk just some thoughts!! imo he just really deserved better from the devs and the fandom ):

[themoonshoes]

ok my review of wilds now that im done w the low rank story and almost done with hr

i feel like. this was not as bad as people were making it sound LMAO like ive been playing these games for over a decade just WAITING for them to acknowledge ancient civilization stuff and the equal dragon weapon and like. CRUMBSSS of the ethics of the hunting guild and stuff and this got pretty close to scratching that itch! was the story perfect? hell no! it got pretty weird with some of the characterization of the indigenous villages in a pretty 'oh we have no idea what weapons are! what is this hunting monsters' and like ok come on be real with me right now. i like the twist of the guardians (even though i wish they'd given at least one elder dragon for us to hunt post-story, but i get that that didn't work for the story they were telling) and the concept of the dragon torch being sort of an energy well for the wyverians to create their technologies and stuff that's cool. zoh shia was cool and freakey and ok it was a fatalis reskin but im also not convinced we'll never see it again also considering we dont get an armor set for it (which i understand the knee-jerk reaction to get mad about, and it IS annoying, but obviously the dev team isn't done with it.). i actually also like having my hunter be voiced even though i was like what do you mean im playing monster hunter and picking dialogue options!!!! it's a characterization of your hunter that really does make you feel like That Guy imo, like yeah hell yea im gonna go kill this nuke of a dragon. there are story aspects that i wish they'd spent a little more time on—who is authorizing me to hunt, specifically? in early game when you go to hunt a monster you haven't gotten a quest for, alma tells you repeatedly that you don't have authorization, but what would be the downside to me continuing the hunt? it would force another gameplay mechanic to include some kind of bounty or karma system, but there's already in universe checks and balances for the guild hunters (guild knights), so it's weird that they'd include that detail for what seems like nothing.

as far as gameplay aspects go—it's insane to me that some of the seikret mobility options were the default. like no game ever has you just auto move towards your target by default. that should have either been an option you choose at the start of the game, or you should have had to choose it once you get into the game. i mostly use glaive and light bowgun and those both feel great; i actually love what they've done with the glaive even though i still feel like it's a slower weapon than it used to be, but the new combos feel really good to do and it doesn't feel like i'm just mindlessly button mashing as much. the balancing for the hunts feels slightly skewed easy, maybe a little tailored for people who have never played a mh game before, but that also has been the MO since world (including rise, which was an easy game for babies), so i didn't expect anything else, but like. i didn't even notice that i didn't have access to powercharm or the armorcharm until i got the latter as a quest reward lol. so idk maybe the expansion and g-rank will add a little more challenge but i'm fine with it where it is i guess. i wish the roster was bigger it's kind of a lame lineup lol but that's what post-release updates are for i guess. i was saying that once the expansion comes out and all title updates have hit it has the potential to be one of the best mh games out there, just with the potential it already has. (which, and this is a conversation for a different post, but games are so Big now, and require so much dev time, that it doesn't surprise me they announced title update content before launch. it tells me that it'll be a while before g-rank though which. ok.)

so tldr—not my favorite monster hunter game (yet!), but it's definitely not the worst. the high i got from entering suja for the first time and saying out loud to myself oh We Are Doing This Aren't We paired with the "by my own authorization" line is enough to make me sink 100+ hours into this idk! bitch i love monster hunter!

[hopeymchope]

Dominic in "Rain Code" - As both representation and bizarrely unused potential red herring.

As a follow-up to this post I made weeks ago about Servan from Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, I wanted to note a couple of things in regards to Dominic Fulltank.

Until @gunthatshootsennui (great name btw) said this, I literally didn't realize that Dominic was a black man. Because he looks So heavily artificial and covered in bullshit that I legit thought he was wearing some kind of full-face leather mask instead of having any visible skin???

"Dominic Fulltank" sounds like an early-development WIP name for Dom from Fast & Furious. Dom Fulltank, a criminal street racer being investigated by undercover cop Brian Gaspedal.

Yeah, idk wtf I was smoking there. Maybe the big logo stamped on his head threw me off. But... yeah, he's clearly just a black guy. And @gunthatshootsennui is 100% right that Dominic makes for pretty shitty representation seeing as he's a near-mute big dumb hulk of a man. :( Servan is far better, frankly — yes, even considering his donut lips.

However, there's something ELSE about Dominic that really bothered me: Why the hell didn't Yuma ever look into or even ASK what the hell Dominic's deal was??

I have to get into RAIN CODE STORY SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT to explain what I mean and why it drives me so crazy.

By the time our hero meets Dominic in the game, he's mostly trying to learn more about "homunculi." But by this point, Yuma knows nothing about them EXCEPT:

Homunculi are artificially made people.

Amaterasu Corporation has supposedly/maybe secretly created some of them in Kanai Ward.

And it is in THAT fucking context when suddenly Yuma is introduced to a super-strong cybernetic Darth Vader-lookin' motherfucker who obediently follows the orders of an Amaterasu Corporation peacekeeper.

....do you see what I'm getting at here? Is it obvious enough??

I was absolutely SCREAMING at Yuma at this point. He should 100% be like "Hey wait — is that dude one of the 'homunculi'?! Because like, he's an artificial man? Who works for Amaterasu and seems to be controlled by them?!?!"

Based on the knowledge he has, that is THE MOST LOGICAL CONCLUSION ANYONE WOULD REACH upon seeing this fucking freak for the first time. And I know what you're thinking: Dominic is hardly what one would envision when one things of the mythical concept of a homunculus as WE understand it. WE'D never immediately expect a homunculus to be some kind of part-robot creature, right? But remember: When "homunculi" are first brought up, Yuma acts as though he's never heard the term (or perhaps he just has no memory of it due to his amnesia). He is given a very limited definition at that point. And by that definition, he should ABSOLUTELY mention the possibility here... right?

This is the ONE time I can remember feeling clearly disappointed by the writing in MDA.

Of course, in reality, Dominic's "artificial-ness" wasn't supposed to ever be any kind of hint towards the homunculi, because the writing team had an entirely different vision of what "homunculus" meant to them in this universe. And their definition would ultimately be much more based on our existing mythological meaning of the term. And because of that, maybe it never occurred to them how well our crabby Fulltank-Kun fit the provided clues. But it sure seems like it should've been noticed by some member of the dev team at SOME point. You feel?

[lastoneout]

hi idk if you're a huge kalos fan but how are you feeling about the direct

I haven't watched it yet, but ngl Kalos wasn't my favorite OR my least favorite pokemon game, I was pretty neutral on it overall. My main complaint was how annoying the map was to traverse before you got fly, but aside from that it was fine, introduced some cool pokemon and had a decent plot. Tbh for the next Legends game I would have preferred Jhoto, but eh. It's not a huge deal to me.

My real issue is that it's a little hard to get excited about it when I know how bad crunch is at Game Freak and that despite saying they were reevaluating their tight release cycle bcs like, ScarVi was borderline unplayable at launch and Arceus got abandoned the second they were done with it despite being the most popular game in years....I just have no faith that this game will be good, or at least it won't be anywhere near as good as it has the potential to be :/

I hope I'm proven wrong tho, and I don't think it's wrong to be excited about the game, something something no ethical consumption and I'd be a major hypocrite if I told people to drop any game company that has bad practices bcs almost all of them do, I just can't get hype. I was really, really hoping Game Freak would slow the hell down and stop making new games for a couple of years, put all of their focus on gen 10 and release that maybe in 2026 or 2027, but nope gotta make that money even if the games we release are falling apart at the seams and our devs are working on two or three projects at once.

And like, given the current trend in decreasing quality I'm genuinely unsure if the game is even going to be functional enough to be worth playing, especially since I figure to hit a 2025 release they probably started working on this right after Arceus came out, and there has simply not been enough time to make this game good. Plus there were a lot of points in ScarVi where I legit just wanted to put the game down and stop playing entirely bcs the graphics and glitches and framerate drops started to make me annoyed and dizzy, and once I was done with the main story I lost like all motivation to keep playing(I like finishing my dex, I did it in Sw/Sh and Let's Go and have almost done it in BDSP and Arceus, but I don't care about ScarVi's dex at all), and I haven't even bought the DLC yet. Tbh I'm probably not even gonna pre-order this, I'm waiting till it's out to decide if I want to buy it or not.

Anyway sorry to be a buzzkill, I don't fault anyone for being excited, I've loved Pokemon for more than half my life, it helped me meet my fiancé, it really means so SO much to me, so I get it, but like....I think I love the series too much to get excited for this. Seeing what Pokemon is turning into is just...painful and sad. I hope y'all enjoy it tho, and who knows, I could be wrong, maybe it will be fantastic and super polished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief bcs they got their shit together! That would be nice.

Edit: I do want to say I'm glad it has been 3 years instead of the usual 2, and I'm VERY glad they didn't announce gen 10, but unless the scope of this game is narrow as fuck and they also don't release until like November-December 2025 AND this team was NOT the same team who worked on ScarVi's DLC that is still not enough time to make a game with the scope they've been establishing as their new baseline. TOTK took SIX years to finish. Elden Ring's DLC was built on top of an existing game and it still took TWO whole years just to make it. Most open-world games take a really, really long time. Adding an extra year is great, but they need to be taking a lot longer than that between games. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to inspire confidence.

[burning2know]

Since people seem to be interested in inferring the real political opinions of the devs (or whoever's vision was realized in these games), here are some shower thoughts.

disclaimer: just some personal observation, i'm pretty ignorant about history and politics.

So imo, Anders follows very much the cultural narrative of a post 9/11 world (at least in my bubble). Violence is bad (especially terrorism), and we're meant to not fall prey to its tantalizing justifications because that's a slippery slope to war, genocide, the whole nine yards and then some. (We had to allow some time to mske it okay to even talk about capital T terror and sympathizing with perps).

DAI sets Solas up to redeem the writers for Anders, potentially. And given recent events in the past, idk, few months, year, I've seen that north american society no longer thinks about violence the way I thought it did (yes social media has a big role to play in that). Considering this background, da4 seems weirdly regressive and also on trend, all things considered. Opinions on the quality of the game notwithstanding.

Now I feel like the expressed-in-public sentiment is that violence is okay depending on which side you agree with because peaceful protests don't do fuck all, whereas some 10 odd years ago, it was that we like the change but not the violence to bring them about... Because change without violence is possible. But we've proven to ourselves time and again that the chsnge that happens without violence is overwhelmingly one-sidedly benefitting the powerful. There are through-lines over time, for sure, but things were indeed not always like this. The narrative of who is allowed to be sympathetic used to be controlled by keeping us ignorant, whereas now, it's being controlled by moral imperatives. Because it's gotten a lot easier to know.

Judging by what made it into the artbook, they were never going go where I hoped. But I think the da4 libs aren't quite the same flavour as the DA2/DAI libs. And that's... Something (neutral). Whether that reflects a single perspn on the team's views or the company's, I can't say. But it tracks with what I think is the zeitgeist.

However. I think it'd be remiss to not account for the change in leadership and vision of the world of thedas between dai and da4. To argue that the writers had always been like this is to ignore a major part of the problem. I felt that something had fundamentally shifted between dai and da4. The op's critique not withstanding (and I think you're right). The characterizations in dai were a hell of a lot more progressive than in da4, if only by virtue of da4 being extremely regressive through its bare-faced simplicity. In a nut shell, I just don't believe that the people who created Mythal and Flemeth and Morrigan would write the characters in da4. And it aggrieves me to have them lumped together with the likes of miserable little epler... They are not the same. This was not always the world view of DA.

Lastly, and this point is inane af, but I offer a more mechanistic explanation of the grace offered to blackwall. blackwall killed a single noble family, you can count that on one, mayhe two hands. Servants do not count as real people (I come back to this later, bear with me). anders and solas sought to destroy institutions forming the very fabric of society. The latter is much more visibly destructive, obviously, since such visible destruction is the ultimate goal. Whereas the violence perpetrated by the accepted authorities and instutions are so mundane as to be invisible or inevitable or "do not count" just as the servants thom rainier killed did not count. It's seemingly worse on an utilitarian scale. this often is used as justification against non-sanctioned violence and progressive ideas in general.

genuinely curious how the writers and larger dragon age audience would treat thom rainier if instead of being appropriately* repentant and putting himself in prison he blew up a major orlesian government building to instigate a chevalier rebellion or tried to have someone do some necromantic blood magic ritual involving uncertain danger and possible sacrifices to bring the innocent children he ordered killed back to life

[bastillewolf]

Hello idk if the requests are still going but if not then its okay ignore this and if they are please don't over work yourself and you don't need to do my request if you don't want to just stay healthy and eat well and drink lots of water we all live your work (and are simps for corpse-)

The ask : could I ask for a corpse husband x reader where they used to get shipped together before they even meet each other and when they meet each other corpse goes soft for reader and they play two rounds In among us together where they are imposters together and corpse is an imposter alone in the other round

Reader info : reader has a very soft voice and is a softie and the pronounce is she/her or they/them ( as you wish)

Again you don't gotta do it if you don't want to

Thanks so much for the ask, An. I was feeling like shit and this was a lot of fun to write. I’m sorry though, I completely read over the part where the reader was supposed to have a soft voice. I’ll see if I can make another one with this specification sometime. Also, I wrote this rather quickly because I’m watching Twilight for the first time and now my feelings are hurt.

#CorpseBride - Oneshot

Pairings: Corpse / Reader

Twitter wasn’t really your forte, but you knew how to get around. It’s just that you never really had the time to check it, let alone to see what’s on the trending page every single day. At the very least, you were capable of replying to your friends’ stuff and letting your viewers know when you were streaming or when a new video would be up. Again, you weren’t a pro, but you got by.

Until you didn’t.

“Hey, everyone,” you greeted, and immediately went to change your Among Us figure to its usual colour and outfit before someone else took it.

Everyone welcomed you, while it seemed Toast was still busy trying to get a last person to join.

“Whaddup, baby,” Corpse’s shot out from the rest of them. It was pure teasing, something he’d grown quite comfortable with ever since people had blatantly started simping for his voice. “Nothing much, honey. How’ve you been?” You cheekily replied. “Pretty good. Streaming still makes me nervous, though.” “You greeted me with ‘Whaddup, baby’ and then proceed to tell me you’re nervous? Don’t get upset when I say that I don’t believe you.” He chuckled at that.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Impostor

“Ha!” you called out, “I doubt this will soothe your nerves, Corpse. You’re teamed up with me now.” You sneaked in a glance at chat. “We are not an old married couple! If anything, he can be my bitch for this round. I’m just not gonna murder anyone.”

And that’s basically how it went. He managed to kill three people and still wasn’t being sussed. “Alright, I think I’ve tortured him enough,” you laughed, “I’ll even spare Sykkuno for the man.”

You managed to corner Toast and killed him in a corner where the water wheels were, before heading out into admin. You vented until you found Corpse in Labs and jumped out. It was right when Sykkuno walked in.

“Oh, god no. Please, Sykkuno.”

Your kill count still wasn’t down yet and he was obviously planning to run straight out the door to hit the emergency button, but he was stopped. Corpse had murdered him in an instant.

Your mouth was hanging open. “Did… Did he just kill Sykkuno for me?” Chat was going absolutely wild. “What the fuck just happened?” You decided to report the body anyway.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Corpse growled, “Not my best friend, Sykkuno.”

You had to mute yourself to keep the laughter at bay. Corpse evidently vouched for you, saying you’d walked in on the body together. Felix was sussed and voted out.

“Corpse, you killed me!” Sykkuno cried out.

“I’m so sorry, Sykkuno! I wanted to spare you but you walked in at the wrong time!” You pleaded.

“Sacrifices had to be made,” Corpse merely responded.

“Wait, what happened?” Sean asked.

“I walked in on one of them venting and then Corpse killed me!”

“Collateral damage. You watched me get killed one time, too.”

“Blame me, Sykkuno. It was my fault,” but you were laughing as you said it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard such regret coming from an imposter,” Sean laughed along, “Also, why the fuck were you two being so slow? Three meetings in and you’d only killed three people.”

“Corpse was simping for me,” you replied.

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were. Otherwise you would’ve asked me what the hell I’d been doing that entire time.”

“Fuck off,” he laughed.

“Corpse is an UWU-boy!”

“Oh my god, you guys are already trending.”

“Wait, what?”

Your phone was being blasted off to space, getting tons of messages with the hashtag #CorpseBride. It was number 1 trending on Twitter.

“So… whaddup, baby?”

“Oh no, you better buy me a drink first.”

“Sure.”

 You hadn’t thought he’d been serious in that moment, until he’d asked you to meet up after the game had ended. You hesitantly agreed, but reminded him that he absolutely did not have to participate in this just for the meme. “I’m not doing this for the meme,” he’d said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you out for a while, I just never knew how. It seemed like the perfect timing.”

You met him at his apartment, knowing how he was about going out in public, and feeling extremely nervous. You’d brought takeout, and because you hadn’t been sure what he wanted you’d ordered way too much. Upon opening the door, he looked at you, down at the bag, and said, “Shit, you got food?” Not really knowing what else to say, you simply replied, “Uh, yeah.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have lots of leftovers, then.”

He smiled, gave you a hug that ended way too fast and left you paralyzed for a minute, and then invited you in. It turned out he’d already ordered food, too. “Plenty to choose from,” he laughed awkwardly. “Uh… You got any neighbours who might want some?” you asked.

“I-I don’t really talk to anyone outside of my friend group.”

“Oh, of course. I could go around, if you’d like.”

“You’d do that for me?”

You furrowed your brows. “Of course I would. Why not?”

“Alright, but let me at least come with you. You just do the talking.”

Three knocks at three different doors later, and someone accepted the offer and took over some of the food. “Hang on a minute,” the elderly man said, clad in only his pyjamas and a bathrobe, managing to make the situation even more uncomfortable, “Aren’t you my neighbour? You always scurry off before I get the chance to talk to you!”

You looked at Corpse, and he back at you, and you turned back to the elderly man. “He, uh… He’s very people shy. He has anxiety. I’m trying to help him cope. Also, his vocal chords are damaged.” Nothing you’d said so far had been a lie, technically, but the man still remained sceptical. “Then why didn’t you just leave a note or something?”

“Uh…” you jumped at the small voice appearing from behind you. It’s just that his ‘small voice’ is still nothing close to small. “I know, I’m terribly sorry, sir. I also just wanted to let you know that if you ever need anything, I’m just a few doors away.”

This seemed to please the man enough.

“I can’t believe you made me do that.”

“I made you?!” You gasped, “I didn’t make you do anything, you filthy liar! You’re just as bad in real life as in Among Us, when you’re the impostor and I’m the innocent crewmate.”

“No comment.”

“I didn’t even ask you a question.”

“No comment.”

“Deadass?”

“Deadass.”

You both laughed. Corpse hesitated for just a moment, but decided to ask anyway, “Were you nervous when I opened the door?”

You chuckled awkwardly, admitting, “Yeah, I was. I always get anxious meeting people. Well, we’d met before, of course. But just, you know, in real life.”

“I get it.”

You stood there in silence for a moment, until you noticed the rest of the takeout in your hands was getting cold. “Come on, wife,” he joked, linking his pinkie finger with yours, “Let me get you that drink.”

If he hadn’t dragged you along then and there, you could’ve sworn your knees would’ve given out.

TAG LIST CLOSED

@annshit @simonsbluee @majolittlemixgurl18 @redosmo @mythicalreader @gracehaileym @leikarinn @its-bootz @ollwinchester @thehatredofshiprrick @curlyhairedbrock @thatbandchick39 @reddeserths @mitseuul @potenzel @tanchosanke @tooturntashbash @stephn-prkr @missingpuzzlepiece @dreaalol @goldiefox1 @imrisaluk @chimchimsugakookies @helena-way07 @danny-devitowo @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @richkookie @cherry-piee @artist-bby @bluewneptune @bratttyaphrodite @eccedxntesiaast @faithneko @thebootythrasher @bethpiercwhy @theeerealpunkin @heartbroken-writer @chisaikuki @realnicoleworld @candystoregirl @derpygiraffe43110 @rintomoj @phantomamethyst @helloitsmeamie203 @falcon-arrows @nvthvlyy @ellomellows @loraleiix @ladolcedea @lunaruss @princess00wifi @pennnyroyalty @cultofandom @easygoingtheatre @crpseclt @thatonefangirlbornonfriday @myherotrashbin @hufflepuff-always-and-forever @martinimom @gummybear123 @sparklingblacktea @lovelynervouskingdom @kingsuals @weeblyheaux @flightsandfantasy @chanelle-jackson @actual-spawn-of-satan @dixielumsden  @consumegods @mirandabarry @ikearandl @narwhalsaremagicalbroski @armycandy10 @chillininahottub-withaghost @mitchiesdungeon @yeolliedokai @alyofmusic @qatiee @dzzizzi @johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt @leilanixx @thefuckthesaurus @hughugh20 @thanossexual @moneybagmara @squintyangel @motheroffae @arossebyanyothername @vacaprincess @jinxedanxrchist @peterparkerspjsuit @chrysanthykios @wildflowerwhore @punkrainbows  @justalilsimpsometimes @bunniwritesx @sunnsettee @justxanotherxshipper @alilshit @dekahg @laugh-like-the-moon @sadness-babee @corpsie-bby @corpsesgirl @dead-boys-stuff @roses-and-grasses @sakusawife @byunniebaekhyunnie @lazy-little-me @phantomamethyst @letsloveimagines @polahorvat @sokkas-paintings @possiblyanxioushuman @a-dot-dev @aniyahsucks @choicesstan1 @error-loading-sorry @bi-andready-tocry @agustdpeach @punkrainbows @xibrokensunriseix @genjicats @forest-rav3n @devilishducky97 @namjoons-crabssss

People I wasn’t able to tag (please check your settings lovelies):

@holosexualunicorn7000 @theroyalsaikou @timotheessoleil @devilish-ducky @000-22-000 @matcha-chaii @corbins-kinda-smart @milybones @theinbookss @mintchip17 @arghm8ty @alyss01 @ry-winter @sbfandom @anacrcarvalho @petitebitvh @corbins-kinda-smart @marmeladebreadwithhoney @solielfhuz6942 @xsarcasm101x @siriuslystupid @bakugonua @n0t-a-simp @emmapotato88 @notmewrongb1tch @c00ln3rdz  @rolls-and-rolex

[felassan]

Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source] 

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok.  What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important.  They're like sets in a play.  (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source]  Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source]  There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars]  except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves. [source]

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

[katherine-mcnamara]

i've been wanting to say something for a while now but i didn't want to be a killjoy bc i know everyone on this site wants to be witty and whatnot but as someone working in the industry as a colorist, everytime i see yall making jokes about how shitty the color grading is on a show/movie you're giffing it just shows me and others in my field how little we're appreciated/how much our hard work is overlooked in favor of the pretty actors on the screen, like clients aren't already giving us hell everyday for post-production work. i appreciate it's sometimes difficult to "color correct" a scene for giffing purposes but ig i'd just like to remind people that at the end of the day, gifmaking is still transformative work, as in, there's an entire team of artists who spent blood sweat and tears shooting, editing, color grading, etc the content some of ya'll profit off of (tho making money out of gifs is an entirely different convo i won't be bringing up here lol) only to be insulted "jokingly" about it. you wouldn't make edits of an illustrator's original work and say "the colors they used are shit" or "the art style sucks? doesn't suit the character at all". i'm not singling you out dev, but since you're the one i often see in the tags making these comments (esp recently), i just felt like i had to say something.

I apologise for hurting anyone's feelings. Truly I do. I would never degrade anyones work. But given half the scenes I've giffed recently have been pure sepia where there is 0 colour except yellow, dark as hell or blue. any insults, even the joking ones, of which ive made like 2 or 3, are directed right at hollywood in general since afaik you don’t get to decide the tones or themes, thats the people above you and as i’ve said if colourists were just left alone to do their job they are experienced in we would have amazing shit. but hollywood  seems to recently lean into the the darker and more yellow the better. Which has been increasing since game of thrones and the last season where you couldnt even see the last battle it was that dark.

Also colouring is just personal taste? someone might like overly blue gifs, or sepia ones idk. I don't actually know what to say to this so I'll just....... go back to not talking on dash because every time I do someone yells at me specifically even if its about other people.

I've never said anyone's work is shit tho. and i reblog and praise packs that don't even put colouring on them so idk. I've called the executives and hollywood bosses shit i think but thats more to do with how they treat their employees/people in general.

[what-yadoking-likes]

Oh the irony of me, someone who has yet to own, let alone PLAY Payday 3, doing analysis on this poll...

The winner, with 27.3% of the vote: New Heists (Syntax Error, Boys in Blue, Diamond District, Houston Breakout).

Obviously, we like it when our little game about robbing banks and shooting cops has more maps where we can rob more banks and shoot more cops. The feeling in the community at large was that the 8 heists the game came packaged with at launch were... insufficient. I think no matter how excellent the starting 8 heists could have been, there would have always been a feeling that there just aren't enough heists to launch with.

We all know that Payday 2 received content updates, both paid and free of charge, for many years after its initial launch 11 years ago. At launch, Payday 2 had 12 heists for players to choose from. So from a direct, apples to apples comparison point, Payday 3 had fewer heists at launch. I doubt any of us had honestly expected the total number of heists at launch to even come close to the now more than 70 on offer in Payday 2, given how long it took Starbreeze to get to that figure. But fair to say for the price tag of Payday 3 (base game, not even going into the bronze/silver/gold editions at this stage)... people were rightly not impressed. So, I'm not totally surprised that people are happier now that there are more heists to play.

Taking into account the relaunch-cum-revamp of Murky Station (now renamed Turbid Station) and relaunch-cum-revamp of Cook Off and other heists, we're now up to a total of 14 heists for us to play. It is to be noted that another new heist is coming soon (Fear and Greed, aka the Wall Street heist).

Joint second and third place: Clover returning as a heister, and Operation Medic Bag overall.

The road to Hell is often paved with good intentions. I'm certain no one wanted to release a game that didn't work because of catastrophic server overload and was rammed with bugs and glitches that would take weeks to fix. In a sense, Operation Medic Bag is nothing new. If you've been in this fandom for a long time (@hoxooster I'm looking at you), you'll know there's been no shortage of drama. Console players got straight up abandoned throughout Payday 2's life cycle. If nothing else, the existence of Operation Medic Bag itself is a sign that the devs are actively working on solutions with the intent of implementing these as a priority to improve quality of life in-game, as well as hopefully drawing in new players and giving people who rightly stopped playing the game due to its shoddy launch something to return to.

But. This seemingly benevolent behaviour did not come easily. I remember Almir Listo being kinda... tetchy? On streams when people were making valid complaints. It's gonna sound silly that this is the example I'm gonna use, but it always stuck with me how his reaction to complaints about Hoxton's redesign was 'Well people can get a haircut'.

Like... yeah? We know?? We're not fucking stupid?? But there's a professional way to air that without patronising your player base who, guess what, WANT to play the game you've made! He could've said ANY number of things that would've been better:

"Of course, Hoxton's ponytail is iconic. It's something he's had for many years now and we know fans love it. But with this redesign we wanted to show that the heisters are older, their tastes have changed, they've changed since their retirement." Idk. I'm not a PR person, but sometimes neither is Almir et al.

Those who've been around since Payday 2 may remember the microtransactions/Vlad's Safes fiasco that actually led to Ulf Andersson leaving the company because he was just DONE.

Am I glad for players that Operation Medic Bag exists? Yes.

Do I think a lot of the features that have come about as a result should have been in the game at launch? Yes.

Do I think the devs/PR team could have and should have handled things better in the immediate aftermath of launch day? Absolutely. As an Orthodox Gemini, I neither forgive nor forget easily.

CLOVER'S RETURN!

I am genuinely really happy that this option got 18.2%/joint 2nd place in this poll. I posted before about how disappointed I was that some people were downright entitled and petulant when it was first revealed/leaked that Joy would be returning as a heister, with the addition of Pearl happening simultaneously. The AMOUNT of times I saw people commenting with single words of their fave. Good GOD. I do not suffer people who have been spoiled by their parents and given anything and everything they've ever wanted well at all, and the number of people going JACKET jcket WHERE'S JACKETTTTTT was genuinely so irritating to me.

... So I am pleased to see that so many of you did choose this option. Clover is cool and she offers something a bit different than Joy as a returner - she has history with Hoxton, for example, who was already on the roster as an OG heister. That relationship is interesting - we like it.

I don't know if people also had the upcoming return of Houston to the crew in their minds when they chose this option, but I'd be remiss not to mention the younger Steele brother here. We know he's coming back and he's gonna be playable - we know it's happening very soon.

Do I think they missed a trick by not having him released as an unlockable after playing and completing Houston Breakout? Yes. Yes, I do.

Do I think the reason for his inactivity is a good one? No. No, I do not.

I don't think it's a deal-breaker for anyone at this point. Essentially, Houston is a carrot for Starbreeze to wave in front of their content-parched loyal donkeys - err, fans - to ensure continued player engagement for the foreseeable.

... there is more analysis I want to do, but I'm going to cut this short here - I have been writing and thinking about this for the past 40 minutes or so, and I have other stuff I want to do.

I will come back to this with more thoughts and commentary about the other answer options and comments that people left, which were all really valid and good points that I probably should have thought of myself.

For those of you who have Payday 3 (my current machine is on its last legs and can't run it), & play/have played it tell me: we're approaching 1 year post-launch at this point, so...

Soz if I missed anything, feel free to blast me in the comments.

RBs appreciated for a wider blah blah blah

[logo-comics]

For a bit of a meta twist...

Fortune lover DLC: "WHY DO YOU PEOPLE LOVE KATARINA SO MUCH?!"

(You don't have to make this if you don't want to. Just a joke based on how many of your 'DLC's have fans requesting a Katarina route to the point that the developers give in.)

I'm delighted that you picked up on the dev team's confusion and surprise, but couldn’t come up with a DLC for it, so I'm going to take a step outside of things and present some content regarding the Katarina Route Situation in the world that Monkey Girl lived in. Content below the cut for length reasons:

Tumblr

maria-stan24601 asked: Why do you guys vote to have the DLC ship Maria with Katarina? Katarina's nothing but cruel to everyone and you want to ship her with Maria? marikata9430 answered: I just like villainess/heroine ships, idk. Why do I need a reason marisofilove2020 plus, katarina's not all bad. i mean, her maid has to be sticking around her for a reason. marydeservesbetter I mean Maria is trying to steal her fiancee so it's not like she's innocent in this and Gerald's hands aren't clean in this, either geomaria-stan1123 Geord doesn't even want to be with Katarina. The only reason they're still together by the time he's fallen in love with Maria is because Katarina won't let him leave her marisofilove2020 it's a medieval kingdom. having the engagement suddenly cancelled wouldn't exactly do great things for her marriage prospects...

fortunelover4ever So, I'm playing Fortune Lover's Golden Sands DLC for the first time with no spoilers. Yeah, I know it's been out for a while, but I've been busy with things and I've blocked the tag this whole time, but I've got to know: Is the Captain romanceable? The game seems to be implying they're the same age as the rest of the cast. Also, are we actually going to see Pirate Katarina, or is it just a fakeout? magicalministry-defender Yes and yes. fortunelover4ever I'm betting that she's romanceable too, given all the memes about getting her route added to pretty much every DLC. magicalministry-defender Yep! fortunelover4ever What does she look like as a pirate? magicalministry-defender Very familiar. fortunelover4ever How so? fortunelover4ever I know now. You are an evil person and I can't escape this ship... magicalministry-defender I told you... marikata9430 We got another one, gang!

Interviews

Excerpt from an Interview with the lead writer for Fortune Lover and the DLC.

Interviewer: So, what's the most interesting thing that you learned about writing dating sims while working on Fortune Lover?

Developer: Honestly, the biggest surprise was something I learned while working on the DLC stuff. People always ask us to add a Katarina route.

Int: That was a surprise?

Dev: Absolutely! We wrote her to be this mean girl with no redeeming qualities. We had even cut content that made her seem too sympathetic, stuff that some of the DLC put back, like the entire thing about Anne actually having good reasons to be loyal to her and some lines that we felt made her feel too sympathetic.

Int: And the fans still wanted to romance her?

Dev: Yes! We've put the cast through so many strange situations, and we think to ourselves "Surely, surely no one is going to want Katarina in this route!" And then, of course, we wind up with Katarina route requests. She's even more requested than Sophia for routes! *chuckles slightly* Want to know something that never made it past the first draft?

Int: Can you actually talk about that?

Dev: I wrote the baseline game and this is the anniversary. You'll actually find this among the other facts in the databook coming out this Friday.

Int: Then I'd love to hear it.

Dev: In the first draft I wrote, Katarina was going to be the secret route.

Int: Really?

Dev: Yes! But then the editor suggested we make Keith her brother and we couldn't use her as the secret route anymore without undermining both characters!

Int: Keith was almost not Katarina's brother? That's actually pretty surprising. I can't picture them without the sibling rivalry.

Dev: Keith wasn't even originally his name. He was going to be Noelia's brother, Noel. Since Katarina was already a solid character that we were beginning to love to hate as it was, when the editor suggested that he be made her brother Keith, we basically tossed Noelia into the background and put Katarina in her place in his backstory.

Int. That does explain the difference in how she treats him in the game versus the backstory.

Excerpt from an Interview with Katarina's Voice Actor

Interview: So, they've called you in for Katarina's speaking parts for every single DLC?

Voice Actor: Yep. And the patches. After the first couple times, I've asked them when the DLC's getting released and make sure clear my schedule for the next couple days after that. It's actually pretty fun. I usually get good girl parts. I actually auditioned for Mary, but the casting director asked if I could try the Katarina line.

Int: And you obviously nailed it. So, you mentioned the patches. I'm guessing you mean the infamous Katarina Route patches? What are your thoughts on Katarina and Maria as a couple?

VA: I ship it.

Int: Really?

VA: Absolutely. I actually incorporated it into my performance in the main game. She's kind of obsessed with Maria in a way she doesn't fully get, so instead of confronting herself, she decides to bully Maria.

Int: So what about when she tried to stab Maria in the bad endings?

VA: You know, I asked the head writer about it. Apparently there was going to be a scene where it was revealed that... spoilers for those of you who still haven't played it for some reason... Raphael had actually been making her a worse and worse person because of the Dark Mage's ghost.

Int: Really?

VA: Yeah. his voice actor and I even recorded some of the lines together, but they got cut before they even started making the concept art for the scene.

Int: Ouch. So, do you have a favorite DLC out of the set?

VA: Pirate's promise. I've always loved pirates, ever since I was little, so playing Katarina as a pirate captain was one of my favorite experiences.

Int: Any that you didn't like as much as the rest?

VA: Honestly, Kindergarten was a bit of a strain on my voice early on, but I managed to find a happy medium that worked for me. That said, I loved the premise, and I thought it was cute...

Memes

[tototavros]

Got fired today. Should have seen it coming, I had a really hard time balancing work and relationships and I wasn't really trying there, mostly because having to wait hours to get access to tooling (like documentation, or instructions on how to run the damn thing since where am i supposed to get the config file) or information (like what branch i'm supposed to be working off of, in a repo with ~50 branches, or who's handling version upgrades) was a serious fucking drain on my willingness to do things

i got transferred teams a few weeks ago, said that the guy running it didn't have enough organization to support that many contract devs, which was totally true, but also i was definitely the developer runt of the litter, i was consisently slower than everyone, i wasn't a workaholic, i was less willing to reverse engineer things than others around me, or I'd try too hard to get an end to end sample running instead of just understanding things by reading source of the libraries

this hurts particularly hard since i've only been working here 2 months (indefinite contract gig, but with 4 weeks notice req'd for cancellation), after being unemployed for about a year after getting fired from my previous job for a lot worse reasons (worse irt my psyche) since that one my manager at the end insisted that because I didn't have enough PR's, no matter what my reasons were (there are many and I can get into them but I think I have earlier)

also, I'm pretty locked into this place in Chicago and like, I don't even have furniture yet really, I was hoping for a few more paychecks, at least

the worst part about this is that as soon as I woke up and saw the meeting where I ended up getting fired, I started trying to distract myself from the possibility that I might get fired at that meeting, since it was one of those meeting invites with not much information and all the communication i got from him before the meeting was really confusing

found out that a foo bar invite that I thought I'd broken somehow now works, so going to try that, and grind python some more and really try to break myself of the habit of being clever even though it feels so good in python esp[1], plus I have a really excellent partner helping me with things tho she's in california rn so, idk, i'm...not very positive on the next two weeks, but things seem like they'll hopefully get better soon?

[1]: part of the problem with python is that the clever solution is my first solution, and I don't really understand how people expect me to think in python, like, i was given a problem of "take the function you've written and add caching to it"

and so i changed

def f(x): body(x)

to

def f(x, cache={}): try: return cache[x] except KeyError: res = body(x) cache[x] = res return res

and people who know more python than I do cringed at that, but how do you train taste in a few months? Can I?

[aoiazamis]

im sick and tired of having to see discourse abt kaeluc luckae whatever the hell you want to call it bc as someone who likes both kaeya and diluc and is chinese and adopted i have to see so much of it so here are my two cents on it.

(very long bc its all the thoughts that have been stewing in my brain since i found out there was disk horse)

for context before we begin: i am chinese adopted by a chinese family living outside of china (my grandparents grew up in china). i have combed through diluc and kaeya’s dialogue, voice-over lines, and character stories multiple times and in multiple different languages, independently of the disk horse simply bc they’re both on my team and i like them a lot as a result. ive spent tons of effort trying to make sense of both character’s personalities, their conflicts, and what their motivations are.

ok lets start here. how do i view kaeya and diluc? as adopted siblings. why? less serious answer: because im adopted and there are already at least two adopted characters in the game so why not bring it to three. more serious/genuine answer: i personally think kaeya being adopted is very essential to understanding his character and how he views his relationship with mondstadt. i know everyone gets up in arms over the two-character chinese word “sworn brothers/adopted brothers” but even if they were to omit that line entirely, kaeya’s story is very reliant on him seeing the ragnvindrs as his family and a direct contrast to his birth father. here’s how i see it: kaeya was taken in and raised by crepus after appearing at dawn winery. it’s perfectly reasonable for kaeya to see crepus as his father and diluc as his brother. if i were in kaeya’s position, dropped in a whole new country with nothing but the clothes on my back and i was taken in my a dude and his son, that would surely be like my birth family to me.

now, i have read the chinese version, and from what i can see all the words they use to describe crepus and diluc in relation to kaeya are pretty vague (as far as i can tell). the phrase “sworn brothers,” while it refers to a popular bl trope, does also have the meaning of a literal adopted brother. the word used to refer to crepus could mean “adopted father” or “father in law.” (in japanese and korean, they use the exact same words in both instances, no real change.) if im gonna be honest? i think that’s intentional. the devs/writers specifically leave their relationship vague so it can be interpreted by fans however they like; because after all genshin is a gatcha games and partially relies on fan attachment to characters in order to profit. by inviting fans to choose their kind of relationship -> fans dont feel alienated or “wrong” -> more fans who are willing to whale for them or create fan content that will promote their game. im no marketing major so take this with a grain of salt but ive always felt that this was a plausible explanation for why there’s no definite answer and it all seems so vague.

so, do i give a fuck if a random given person on the internet ships them romantically? no. im not paid enough to. do i give a fuck if someone who ships them romantically follows me? no, as long as they dont come onto my kaeya and diluc content deliberately talking abt them in a romantic sense as i make it clear i dont like it. (essentially, “you’re welcome to stay here but idk how much of my content you’re gonna care for.”) “but tumblr user nowwhywouldyoudothat!” you say, “you just reblogged gen art from an artist who ships kaeluc!” i am also not paid enough to do a background check and every simple lovely general art i see of these two. i wont ever reblog anything thats inherently romantic for the two since i dont like it, and why would i reblog things i dont like? i will simply ignore that artist’s ship art and just enjoy the single gen art that i just reblogged. its simple.

this is already crazy long and i might have haphazardly explained things and ill clarify them if anyone even reads this lol. but basically, my bottom line is i dislike kaeluc as a romantic ship and think its strange and weird and i dont get it. when i create something about the two, i make sure to note that it is not intended to be romantic. i dont care if someone who does ship them interacts with it, so long as they arent going “KYAA I SHIP THEM SO MUCH” in the comments of my fic that examines their relationship as brothers. at the end of the day, its pixels on a screen, its not that deep. i am begging genshin fans to stop telling ppl to kill themselves or send death threats or doxx ppl over ships. you’re allowed to disagree with/dislike ships, problematic or not, but please at least act like normal human beings when doing so.

so yeah. thats it. a whole ass essay abt discourse. ive always wanted to say it but i never had enough word count lol or organization.

[hirazuki]

Ooo I'm curious about your hot takes on the Inuyasha reboot after reading your tags 👀

Ahaha, where to start XD Idk if they are hot takes, but here are my thoughts in bullet point form for coherency, I couldn’t figure out how else to organize them. Under a cut, as usual, because it got lengthy... as usual :D

We are 13 episodes in, and I still have no idea wtf is going on or what the series is actually about. And yes, I’m aware that we didn’t know of Naraku’s existence or of the overarching plot until at least episode 16 of that series either and Inuyasha was still very episodic in nature at that early point too, but here’s the thing: Inuyasha did not build upon a pre-existing series. For better or for worse, Yashahime has certain expectations to live up to that the original anime didn’t, by virtue of its being a sequel. Unfair? Maybe, but tough; that’s what happens when you make a sequel. Additionally, despite us not knowing The Main Plot™ of Inuyasha until later, the basic framework for it was laid out clearly by... episode 2? I think? Find and collect the Shikon Jewel shards. Boom, done. Were there distractions or fillers? Sure, but you never got the sense that the characters simply up and forgot about the shards. Even in fillers, the shards often made some kind of appearance. With Yashahime, there’s like three potential storylines going on: 1. The most obvious: most of our main cast from the OG is missing; where are they? Apparently no one in-story cares! :D Inuyasha, who’s that lol. I’m all for a sequel focusing on the new generation with cameos of the old crew; after all, they already had their own series. But this is like... no one cares about them? No one talks about them? And the more characters go about not mentioning them, the stronger their absence is felt. Like, for instance, Kaede knows Moroha is InuKag’s daughter. Moroha grew up on her own, doesn’t know her parents. Kaede doesn’t mention them to Moroha, doesn’t even spare a passing thought about them for the audience’s benefit, Moroha doesn’t ask. Kagome’s family in the present day meet Moroha, recognize her as Kagome’s daughter and... say nothing??? Souta shows Towa Kagome and Inuyasha’s old photos, but doesn’t say a word to Moroha?! Like. It makes no sense. By people not even acknowledging their existence, it makes the fact that they are nowhere to be found even weirder. Also the new gen girls don’t care about their parents or finding out who they were/are... like, okay, it would maybe be in character for one or two of them, but all three don’t give a fuck??? 2. Kirinmaru/the rainbow pearls: Idk how familiar you are with the story, but similar deal with Naraku and the shards here. Kirinmaru is being set up as the villain, still a mysterious figure; our new gen trio is supposed to collect the rainbow pearls that... some of his henchmen have? Or he is after them? Or is that Riku? Unclear. ANYWAY the new gen girls often forget all about the pearls’ existence :D 3. Setsuna’s memories: Setsuna’s dreams have been stolen by the dream butterfly and they need to get them back, because without her dreams she has no memories and is unable to sleep. Cool! Finally a solid, easy-to-follow plot line! Except wait! Towa, who supposedly made it her goal to get Setsuna’s sleep back, forgets all about it! All the time! Like, none of them make an effort to look into this other than being like “oh yeah, know anything about the dream butterfly?” to random folks every now and then. The Inugang back in the day was putting some grad school level research towards their goals, just saying. It just feels like everything’s all wishy-washy and there’s nothing really solid tying the series together. People just remember shit exists when it’s convenient.

.

Character development is MIA. I’m not expecting ground-breaking char dev in 13 episodes (though I do know 12 episode series that were phenomenal in that regard), but like... I do expect the series to focus on building the dynamics between the main three characters. So far, the series is more focused on teasing the audience with glimpses and promises of the OG cast instead. The creators are using nostalgia and bait (esp of a certain pairing) to drive interest in the series, rather than developing the new characters as fully-fledged characters for their own sakes. 

.

Moroha is was the only thing I actually liked about the series. She is a little spitfire and you can somehow instantly see both Inuyasha and Kagome in her, while she also remains very uniquely herself; I have never seen such a successfully developed main pairing child in any series. She featured quite prominently in the first few episodes -- and unlike both her parents, she’s got a great memory and knowledge of lore -- where she balanced funny moments with badass fighting moments and being the token supernatural encyclopedia. It was great! And then... they’ve like... forgotten her. She’s been left behind so many times by the twins. She’s the butt of every joke. She’s become the type of comic relief that’s, well, insulting. More like a buffoon than anything else. And it’s basically all for the sake of giving the floor to Towa :/

.

Setsuna is okay. Not offensive, but unremarkable. She’s got her dad’s personality but like way toned down due to her different growing up circumstances, which is nice, but like... I feel she isn’t given any room to grow or breathe or anything. She’s also basically there as a device to enhance Towa’s development.

.

Towa... oy. I tried to like her, I really did, but she just doesn’t work for me. They set her up having a very Kurosaki Ichigo type deal with beating up bullies and getting into trouble at school and shit -- I’m fine with that. That’s cool. Esp if it’s linked to not feeling like she fits in bc she’s a hanyou? Awesome. Except once she travels back in time to the feudal era it’s all “Oh killing is bad you shouldn’t kill people” and “even though they attacked me I can’t possibly hurt them” and “you need to empathize and talk things out” and “friendship is magic” and shit. It feels like she had a personality transplant, it literally makes no sense. Her design is totally nonsensical too -- out of everyone at her school, she’s the only one dressed in a bright white suit? Do protags not wear the school uniform? Someone should tell Kagome lmao. She’s a pro at hand to hand, and she can absorb demons’ powers and fling them back at them like a personified Tessaiga, and she has a lightsaber sword, and she’s immune to miasma, and -- like... you get it. It’s too much. It’s way too OP for the type of universe that Inuyasha/Yashahime is set in. She’s hanyou for fuck’s sake; remember all the training Inuyasha had to go through? When he couldn’t lift his sword? When his sword attacked him? Sango, Miroku, Kagome, even Sesshomaru all had trouble with their weapons and had to work to become stronger. But Towa? Nope. Towa is straight out of the Yas Queen/Girl Boss manual, so she gets a free pass on everything.

.

UGH they are doing the VLD/bad writing thing where things happen (like, BIG THINGS) and none of the characters actually react to them. Or stuff happens and there are no consequences. No one ever talks about anything. It’s wild.

.

Everyone has amnesia!! :D People either don’t know or don’t remember anything or anyone. People who absolutely should know things all of a sudden magically don’t know them. Like, Kohaku -- traveled with an undead priestess, spent years in the company of demons, traveled with Sesshomaru... and yet had NO CLUE that Setsuna is Sesshomaru’s daughter or that she is hanyou, despite her living and working with his team of demon slayers all this time. Like... how, man. How. And Kaede! Don’t get me started. Since when does she perpetuate random demon-boogeyman type stories as facts? Demon children will kill each other in the nest so that only the strongest one will survive, therefore Setsuna must have killed Towa when they were infants. O_O What are they, sharks? Has she been hanging out with Kisame? Wtf?? And she’s speaking about Sess’s kids as though she doesn’t know him or anything about him, when she has had Rin under her roof all these years. It just makes. no. sense.

.

Things that happened in the original series are happening again now! Because that’s the best we’ve got, recycled plot elements wooo! No, but really, characters that died or things that were resolved in Inuyasha keep coming back. Why? What was the purpose of bringing back Kinka and Ginka? To have a foil for Towa and Setsuna as twins? Someone please tell Sunrise they can just create new characters. Like, it’s one thing to have call backs to the original or cameos, references, whatever. But like... this is entire (dead) characters and interactions.

.

No one knows how long it’s been since the original series ended. Fans initially heard 20 years from promo material, then “over 15″ and “10 years since” in-series regarding two different events, and now in a future episode summary we’ve gotten 18 years since Hosenki II gave Inuyasha the black pearl. But like, which black pearl? Because the one in Inuyasha’s eye doesn’t exist anymore, but Hosenki II had told Inuyasha that it would take 100 years for him to produce one. So, are we retconning that or where the fuck did it come from? Also, this doesn’t help one bit, it just confuses things even more. Back to the point, though, we have no coherent timeline or real frame of reference whatsoever, and I’m betting it’s in large part to keep the mystery of who is Sesshomaru’s wife going, as it keeps Rin’s age very vague. Everything is vague and mysterious in Yashahime, to the point where no one knows what’s going on, in fandom or in-story even. It’s kinda like how too much plot twist/shock reveal ruins a story, too much mystery does the same. It’s insane that both shippers and antis of that ship can lay equal claim that the “18 years since” announcement works in their favor.

tl;dr: Idk man, Yashahime is a clusterfuck of a series. Even if the mother of Sess’s twins is either of the characters I ship him with, I will still not like the series. There’s no saving this writing. Every episode feels like this:

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #332

i’m even more tired than before to try and think up song lyrics, i’m pasting from Word and then fucking off to bed lmao.

What was the last video message you received on your phone? I think it was a clip of Doris (Sara's beardie) eating and just being her perfect self? Was your last birthday cake homemade or store bought? Store-bought. One thing you miss about middle school? Shit, nothing. Middle school was the worst. Do you have any shirts signed by famous people? No. Have you ever entered an art competition? Yes. Would you ever pierce yourself? No. I am very much about having a professional do your body mods/art. Plus, I have tremors in my hands. Do you live in a safe neighbourhood? Supposedly. We haven't lived here nearly long enough to know. What is the last thing you did that shocked someone? /shrug Do you often find yourself questioning your future? Only always. Have you ever been for a ride in the back of a truck? Yeah. Do you like your license photo? I hate my permit picture. Are you into superheroes? Who’s your favorite? Not very, but I like 'em enough. I always say my favorite is Deadpool, but I know he's technically an anti-hero, but whatever. If you don't include him, uhhhh... maybe Spiderman. Have you started watching any new TV shows recently? No. Have you ever been able pet a normally wild animal, like a tiger or dolphin? No. :( At least, not to my recollection. Have you ever eaten snow? Yeah. There's actually a winter treat 'round here that you make with snow and sugar called snow cream. Good stuff. What is the messiest area in your home? Right now, the spare room/my wanna-be "office." What’s your favorite computer game genre? Still horror, like video games. Do you have any exes your parents never liked? No. Have you received financial help from your parents in the past 5 years? I'm completely financially dependent on them still. Are you a fast or a slow eater? I eat like, stupid fast, but without being messy. People *cough*Mom*cough* will absolutely point it out, but I seriously can't help it. Making a conscious effort to eat slow feels way too weird. What was the last thing you purchased from a small local business? I don't know. Is there anyone in your family/household whom you frequently argue with? No. Have you ever used chewing tobacco? Ew, no. Tell me what's on your mind? I've been considering yet again reaching out to some tattoo parlors and asking if they're open to hiring someone to handle the front desk and take care of business besides actually performing piercing and tattooing, given my tremors. My group therapy has kinda been encouraging me to use the possibility for social exposure, and besides, I'm very comfortable in the environment and just general aura of tat parlors. I'm sure I'd have to answer the phone, handle money, and obviously talk to costumers, but I know and accept that. I've been at such a stagnant point with my social anxiety in particular that I have to start pushing back harder, and doing this I feel would be one of the most relaxed, social job positions I can hopefully handle. I don't dare to even try this though until I get vaccinated to protect my immunocompromised mom. Writing this all out has actually been pretty encouraging about this idea... Do you wish you never dated someone you dated? Yeah, Tyler. It was such a "I'm lonely and he was nice in high school, so we'll try it" situation. I got nothing from it. Are you scared of growing old alone? Pretty badly. What are you listening to right now? I'm listening to/semi-watching John Wolfe play the remaster of Resident Evil 2. What breed was the last dog you saw? He was a German shepherd. Would you ever go swimming during a thunderstorm? No. Any time a thunderstorm was brewing and I was in the pool, I'd always get out. What is the next concert you will attend? Mom and I plan to see Ozzy when/if he reschedules his tour after he had to cancel with his Parkinson's diagnosis. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy. :/ What's the highest science class you have taken? I don't know, actually. What makes you squeal like a school girl? No shame, seeing Mark and Amy do something cute together actually does this, lmao. What’s your favorite symbol? (i.e. the pentagram, the cross, etc.) Do fictional ones count? Because in that case, the Halo of the Sun from the Silent Hill franchise. I'm getting it tattooed somewhere at some point, I'm thinking the left side of my neck. I'm either gonna fashion it in a way where it looks branded on or carved into me. Have you ever been on anti depressants? For all of my pre-teen, teen, and some of my adult life. Apparently, I've only had one truly educated psychiatrist out of no less than a dozen I'd seen, because he fixed me right up. He taught me that those who suffer from bipolarity should avoid anti-depressants; they ramp up your bipolar symptoms. Instead, mood stabilizers are favorable. And what do you know, after I was prescribed a stabilizer and a catalyst for that medication, my depression decreased dramatically and became handleable. Have you ever starved yourself? Kinda. What’s the stupidest name you’ve ever given a pet? I had a guinea pig named Harry Potter. For no particular reason lmao. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan. Do you have nice legs? God no. Do you like fedoras? Okay so I know I am in the strong minority, but I actually do, haha. What is your favorite food group? Carbs. @_@ Have you ever got told that you should be a model? No, but one of the most flattering indirect compliments I've ever gotten was being mistaken for one. Jason's phone wallpaper was one of my favorite pictures of myself with my first snake, and someone asked him if I was a model. ;v;' What song is in a language you don’t speak, but you love it anyway? "Donaukinder" by Rammstein is one of my faves. Who’s a villain you sympathize with and why? SOBS Darkiplier bc his origins are so damn tragic and unfair. What book do you think should be directed as a film? Was The Giver ever made into one? I don't remember that book well, but I do recall it being absolutely beautiful. Have you ever found a stranger’s note somewhere? If so, what did it say? No. Have you ever edited Wikipedia? No. Have you ever edited any other wiki? Yeah. I have thousands on the Silent Hill wiki, where I'm one of the admins. I'm also a content moderator at the Team Ico (Shadow of the Colossus devs) one. Every now and again I used to go on the meerkats wiki as well, where I mainly fixed the fucking nightmarish grammar. Very briefly, I edited at the Dragons of Atlantis wiki as well. Do you get scared when you know some virus or sickness is being passed? Not very, but of course I still acknowledge the risk and am more conscious of hand washing and stuff. What popular social media platforms AREN’T you on? Snapchat, I don't actually use my Twitter, I don't have a personal Instagram... There may be more, idk. Is TikTok a "social media platform?" Because I don't have that, either. What was the name of the first porcelien doll you got? Never had one, given I was afraid of dolls as a kid. What’s your favorite Paramore song? "Decode." Would you be happy with a life without romance? To be entirely honest, I'd feel like I was missing something. Was your childhood happy? Mostly. What fundamentally matters do you? Love, kindness, peace, all that gooey stuff. Is true world peace ever possible? As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think so. The human population is far too big to come to a unanimous agreement on anything. Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? Yeah. Would you ever own a pet black widow spider? No. I'm getting more into the idea of owning invertebrates (I jabber enough about wanting tarantulas, and there are others, like mantises, I'm interested in as pets), but black widows, I'm not into the idea of having. Too venomous for me to be comfortable risking. If you have a job, what is the longest shift that you've worked? N/A Do you know all of the words to "Bohemian Rhapsody?" FUCK YES I DO. ^ Do you sing it with all of the different voices? sho nuff Do you own more than one copy of a certain book? No. Do you like interpreting poetry or just reading it for fun? Both. I love symbolism, so I get joy out of digging for subtle meanings in poems. Do you have a favorite Dr. Suess book? Yeah, it was always Green Eggs and Ham. Do you watch The Walking Dead? If so, favorite character? Not the show, but I've watched let's plays of the games, haha. In which case Clementine is inarguably one of the best female characters in a video game universe. Who has/had the most mature romantic relationship you’ve seen with your own eyes? Uhhh. I mean I never saw them much, but probably my late grandmother and her last husband. He was fucking incredible to her, and Grammy adored him as well. They helped each other so much and just obviously had the purest love between them. When was the last time you got something for free (legally)? What was it & have you enjoyed it so far? Lmao do balls in Pokemon GO count? Their occasional free boxes are the reason I can play the game because PokeStops are essentially non-existent here, so yes. What is the one fruit you can’t stand to eat? How about vegetable? The first one that came to me were oranges. I enjoy orange juice, but I just caaaaannot with the white veiny shit that you can't totally get off when peeling it. Without that, I might actually enjoy them, but idk. As for vegetable, asparagus is absolutely abhorrent. When’s the last time you actually recited the pledge? If you aren’t American, do/did you have anything similar in your country that you do during a time at school? Probably not since high school. Last person you shared food with? Ummm I have no idea. It's really just Mom and me here and we eat our own stuff. What was the last song you heard for the first time and enjoyed? I believe it waaas... "Down In The Park" by Marilyn Manson, maybe. If your life was a TV show, what would be the theme song? My inner high school emo just screamed "All Signs Point to Lauderdale" by AD2R. Who are some of your favorite female fictional characters, and why? Gahdamn, there's a lot. I don't feel like going through a mental list in my head and then describing why. A character (in anything) you wish hadn’t been killed off? Vol'jin; I think the entire WoW fanbase will forever be pissed about it. It was THE most "lul we dunno what 2 do w/ him anymore, let's let a totally random, unnamed, unimportant demon kill him" like what the fuck, Blizz. Most of his "oomph" was in the book, and I just really wish they'd done so much more with him in the game. Has anything “cute” happened in the past week? Off the top of me noggin, no. When did you last say “I love you”? Did you mean it? Yesterday to Sara. OF course I did. Is there someone who pops into your mind at random times? Hi, PTSD, how are ya. Have you ever slept all day? Essentially. When I was on a larger dose of my anxiety med, I physically couldn't stay up for barely even five minutes, and when I'd lie back down, boom, I was OUT. I stayed on that dosage for I think just that one day, it was so bad. Can you have kids? Well, I have a functioning menstrual cycle, so I would assume so. Doesn't mean I will, though. What colors of mascara have you worn on your lashes? Only black. Do you like eating sour things? Hell yeah, I love sour stuff, candy in particular. Do you like pickles? fuuuuck yeah Did you ever have a really close friend move away? Yeah, in elementary school. I feel bad I can't remember her name at the moment... What's the most creative thing you've ever done? I mean, I guess the things I've written in RP. What's the most creative thing someone has done for you? For me? I don't really know. Do you like to watch ghost-hunting shows? Sure, they're some of my favorites. What’s something you’d like to be better at? Social interaction. Have you ever stayed up to talk to someone who was sad? Yeah. Do you think you would make a good parent? No. I know I wouldn't. The only time I ever wanted kids was with Jason, and honestly, I really hope I don't end up with a man because I never want to deal with that urge again and make a mistake. I'm just in no way emotionally fit to be a mother. How many best friends do you have? Just one. What do you cry over the most? My PTSD, honestly. I never sob about it anymore, just shed some tears. What language did/do you take in high school? Latin for one semester, then all four available for German. Which sports do you follow? None. Who was the last person you talked about marriage or having kids with? About marriage, Sara. Kids, the subject was lightly touched upon with Girt, though "with" was never a part of it, but obviously implied seeing as we were dating with long-term in mind. Have you ever been in a house fire? No, thankfully. Have you ever made out for one straight hour? them is rookie numbers Are you any good at remembering phone numbers? No. I literally don't even know my own, nor my mother's. I need to fix that. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex? Girt. Do you have a bookshelf? If so, just one or how many? No. If I gave you twenty bucks what would you do with it? Save it to go towards Venus' terrarium. Is there a movie from your childhood that you still watch today? Well of course! I'm unashamed to watch any "kids" movie I enjoy, like Disney ones. Most "kids" movies tend to be better than those intended for adults, it seems... Are you afraid of mice? Oh no, I adore mice and I think had a pair as pets before I got rats. What type of souvenir do you usually purchase when on vacation? I can't really answer this; I haven't gone on nearly enough vacations to develop a theme. I can say confidently though it'd probably be something small. If you could see any musical on Broadway right now, what would it be? I don't enjoy musicals. Have you ever watched Doctor Who? One or two with Sara, yes. I know we at least watched the weeping angels episode. If you read, which book or series did you enjoy most as a child? Warriors by S.E. Hinton. Sometimes I wanna get back into them, but I am YEARS behind and more into Wings of Fire anyway, so. I don't read nearly enough for both. How do you get rid of your hiccups? Literally no trick seems to work for me. I just suffer lmao.

[chongoblog]

🔥 + the recent pokemon swsh "discourse" (for lack of a better term, idk what else to call it, people be displeased)

Alright, let’s get into this.

Unpopular Opinion/Hot Take (although really it’s just my rambling about all of This): I’m going to preface this by saying that Sw/Sh, Game Freak, and ESPECIALLY the Pokemon Company are absolutely not above criticism. For all my love of this series and the support I’ve given it over my many years, I will be the first to admit that there is absolutely no shortage of problems with this game. In fact, judging by what I’ve seen I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the worst set of mainline games in the series due to said problems. You don’t need to look far to see the issues, and plenty of people have given more than legitimate criticisms about the game.

But if the problem came from people criticizing something I liked, then I’d be a mess at all times. A bunch of people hate things that I like and like things that I don’t like. So what makes this Pokemon deal different?

I honestly think that the schism all traces back to the first revealed flaw. The National Dex. It is very much a flaw. However when that news first dropped, people rallied behind it like it was a war cry. There were so many people who acted like it was the end of the world, when to be completely honest, a majority of players wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. It painted the side of those critiquing as kinda illegitimate, making mountains out of molehills. Some people providing complaints and criticisms are still doing that. I’d be unfair to say that’s what all complaints are made up of, but people losing their marbles over the National Dex kinda poisoned the well for future criticisms along with giving those opposed the idea that “oh well if they had to make this sacrifice, then there must be SOMETHING coming to make up for it.”

I also think that the fandom is oddly militant about this one, with so many people trying to actively stop people from playing the game. On paper, I completely understand why. People feel that this is a terrible direction for the franchise and want to make sure the Pokemon Company KNOWS we don’t support it so that they can make improvements. But in execution, it becomes an argument where someone who is legitimately excited for something is getting heckled by someone who wants them to no longer be excited for it. Instead of debate based around improving a product, it’s debate with the sole purpose of making people less excited. And I get the idea of boycotting to make a change, but why is this where you take your stand? If Game Freak was doing incredibly morally dubious shit (and the model thing doesn’t count, I’m talking about real problems) then I’d get it, but this is just being upset about the quality of a game. It’s not even morally garbage game changes like microtransactions or anything. People are belittling and mocking people who are just trying to enjoy the franchise they love. And that sucks.

My reasoning behind still supporting Game Freak is mainly because I’ve seen the game industry. I’ve tried to make a game myself. It’s all a nightmare. If this was some huge company like Bethesda or Nintendo or Activision, then I’d be much more scathing and I’d make sure no punch was pulled. But wanna hear a fun fact? Game Freak has 143 employees in total. For a game studio expected to make games annually from The Pokemon Company (who seems to be getting completely off the hook for some reason), that’s absolutely paltry. For comparison, Nintendo EPD (the team behind most main Nintendo titles) has 5500. I don’t know what kind of conditions GF is working under or what kind of roadblocks get in the way, but I’m gonna take a guess and say it isn’t easy.

Sw/Sh isn’t gonna be great due to poor management, and people are treating that like it’s the end of the world, taking it out on the devs who wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for their poor management. I’m open to criticism towards the games, but due to the sheer vitriol behind everything (such as sending death threats to the guy running fucking Serebii), I honestly don’t even want to talk to anyone about it anymore. People are turning their passion that they have for the series into a weapon to belittle others for having that same passion. It’s toxic and I despise it.

So if you’re looking for a condensed version of my take: I’m down to criticize this game so we can find ways to improve it, but so many members of the fandom are criticizing this game for the sole purpose of making people less happy and excited for it. It’s gonna have its flaws, but it’s going to make people happy and people are actively trying to stop that because they think that doing that and harassing the small team of developers is going to change the minds of the huge company above them.

Hopefully this the last I say of the matter.

[supergenial]

Cindered Shadows was pretty decent

I recently finished the Cindered Shadows DLC and decided to once again write about my impressions, don't worry though, this one isn't as long as the previous ones. Spoilers: I think this is as good as fire emblem is gonna get for a while.

1) No Agarthans, thank GOD

A story as old as fire emblem: There's an interesting human villain with down to earth motivations or obsessions, but in the large scale of the story they're overshadowed by a supernatural being who wants to destroy the world for no reason other than "they're just evil". This is Edelgard and the Agarthans, Arvis and Manfroy/Loptous, Rudolph and Duma, Ashnard and Ashera, Walhart and Grima... you get it. This shit sucks to put it bluntly. Having these stereotypically evil bad guys who are clearly evil is one of the main things that brings down the plot of any fire emblem game. I'm of the belief that they should kick out these supernatural villains and just leave us against the human villains, the one's with actual ideals and beliefs other than "hurr durr, destroy the world".

And then there’s our villain for this DLC. Now yes, it feels like they recycled a certain professor from the Harry Potter series, but I like that he is "The" bad guy for the DLC, he's not being controlled by anyone. He's obsessed with Byleth's mom and in-game this makes a lot of sense. If Byleth, who is incapable of communication, can drive people crazy for them just by existing then just imagine a Byleth who can actually talk. Her "waifu" charms must be off the charts, so I can't blame this guy for being obsessed. More importantly he's not being controlled by the Agarthans, he's not being played by anyone. He's a man who's lived a righteous life, he took care of a lot of people who all love him but ultimately decided to use them for his own gain and his own obsessions. As far as FE villains go... He's good, honestly, great job Intelligent Systems, I expected a lot less.

2) Reduced avatar wanking

Shots fucking fired

Sure, Byleth's mom is a main focus of the plot, and Byleth is the one who sets the plot in motion, but rarely does it feel like the game is going "gee Player, you're so great, you're our god, we all love you and want to marry you". Byleth still plays a large role sure (unfortunately) but it still feels like this is the story of Yuri and his gang with Byleth being their strategist which is, idk, way better than the idea behind the main game? The one where Byleth turns into a literal god, gets every achievement of the army attributed to them only, has every other conversation remind us how glorious Byleth is, etc.

In fact the dlc goes as far as having Hapi constantly belittle Byleth and even make fun of their communication skills by calling him Chatterbox (good job to the localizers, she doesn’t say this in the japanese audio). Get that teacher’s ass girl, destroy them. (Obviously I would hate this behavior if it was directed to someone else, but in this case I'm willing to make a concession).

3) Yuri's backstory

Ashe: I admire and love this man who is my only parental figure but Rhea said he's kind of bad so I killed him Yuri: Church ordered me to kill a bunch of thieves and delinquents and I refused

You have no idea who much I love the fact that Yuri is someone who protested his orders and got kicked out of the church for refusing to kill civillians. This instantly sends him very high in my rankings. Playing through the first half of the game all I wanted was to stop and say "No, Lady Rhea, fuck you. I don't think it's very cash money for the most powerful military force in the continent to eradicate a lightly armed militia of farmers (with popular support in their locality!)" this is what true imperialism is all about! But there is sadly no option for that.

Just by telling us that Yuri is someone who was punished for saying "No, these orders are inhumane, I refuse to carry them out" that is enough for me, the game is saying "yes, we know, have your compensation price". In the end Yuri is extremely loyal to Rhea which is unfortunate but hey, at least they lampshaded one of the most glaring issues I have with the main game, so that's at least something.

4) "You've obtained all information. Proceed with the story, NOW"

Rather than wasting time forever thinking up which activity I should carry out, abyss is simply a place where you talk to the abyssal denizens to get some plot information or speculation, and boom, you're done. No running around forever, no quests, no doors that take ages to load. You can perfectly skip the abyss parts and at most you'll miss out on Edelgard's conversation with Dimiri (which is fucking hilarious) and a few rusted weapons that can be forged but that's it. Upon talking to every resident of the abyss the game will actually say you’ve acquired all information and will prompt you to go into combat rather than assume you want to dilly dally for a while.

I actually rather like this and would not be opposed to it being the philosophy behind future in-between segments between chapters. I can understand IntSys wanting to load in a ton of features like a sauna and fishing to rack up excitement for the game, I know I was excited for fishing, but when these activities have rewards tied to them, replaying becomes kind of a chore, "aw geez, I have to fish 69 fish to reach professor rank A+ AGAIN" (I actually had to when trying to get the piss screen from clearing maddening). Getting only some conversations and a bit of context for the story, that's... pretty good honestly, I liked this better than the monastery and better than My Castle. Throw in some skits with multiple characters at once and I’m gold

(seriously how come there’s no scenes with the three of the bros, Dimitri, Sylvain and Felix all hanging out together, the fact that a third character never shows up in support conversations is fucking bad)

5) Sometimes less is more

I've extensively complained about three houses already but bear with me. Yet another thing that infuriates me about the game is the extensive amount of work it required. I truly do think that if they had released only the blue lions route and left everything else in the plot as mysterious and unexplained loose ends left entirely up to speculation, that'd be a great game on it's own. Instead I have to see all the hard work that went into making the other routes only so that, in the end, they just had me going "well it was ok I guess". Every scene in the game requires work, many hours of coding, writing, voice acting, sound editing, making sure the models don't look too messed up, bug testing, etc. The amount of work that went into three houses was brutal regardless of what you think of the final product, yet a lot of people didn't even bother playing through all of that. So yes, I honestly wanted less, give me a more concise game rather than spreading too wide and ending up thin.

Cindered Shadows on the other hand is concise to a fault to make up for that. The story is pretty straightforward and leaves no loose ends to itself, there's no anime cutscenes, no supports (within abyss, you can support them all in the main game). There's even that very awkward sacrifice scene where some characters are having their life and blood drained from them yet the visual representation we see is just them standing around like normal, with Yuri even doing that hand pose he does all the time instead of squirming in pain or something. It's very awkward looking, objectively not good, but it gets the point across and doesn't make me go "wow you put in all this effort for nothing" because the whole thing is also fairly short (5 to 10 hours in hard mode).

I know, it sounds like I'm shitting on the dlc, but the point is I'd much rather get something short that leaves me satisfied than something like the main game that makes me go "this could've been so hecking gooood if they changed X" for the rest of my life.

6) The gameplay

Chapter 4 is my favorite mission in the whole game

They made Hard Mode good. I previously said maddening was the one difficulty where this game made sense, but this one achieves perfection with just hard mode. This is because the team actually knows what you have. In the main game there's all sorts of variables to account for due to the large amount of player expression that is possible, you can reclass anyone into anything and throughout many lucky or unlucky level ups, maps can be entirely different based on that rng and choices. Here though, your characters already have solid bases starting at lvl 20, and you can't reclass too much so the devs know exactly what you're working with and can plan accordingly. Beating the maps feels incredibly satisfying not just because the objectives have more variety now, but also because you feel like you found the right way to use the tools you were given. This is why the first few chapters of any fire emblem game often feel so good, because the devs know exactly what you have.

Not that I think player expression is bad! It's very satisfying to warp skip chapters and to use broken units like battalion vantage+wrath Dimitri as these things make you feel like you've truly subjugated the game, but it takes some time for those things to really take off. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, and the sowing time can get pretty dull sometimes but that's what makes the payoff feel worth it. Still, for a short experience like cindered shadows is, this style just fits perfectly, plus chapter 4 has quickly become one of my favorite chapters in the whole game, along with chapter 6.

7) In The End

Idk folks, I just like it. If you just want more adventures with the three lords, this is it.

If you’re looking for any excuses to avoid this I'd say the better ones are: maps are reused from the main game (they work much better here though), it's 10 hours at most so it's price-to-cash ratio isn't very good with the expansion pass being $30, and also the Abysskeeper feels a bit TOO winkwink nudgenudge to me, especially since Gatekeeper was popular enough to make it into Super Smash Brothers. Like yeah bro, we get it, we all love Gatekeeper, you didn't have to do this.

I also like that they finally gave Dimitri a semi-problematic quote where he says he kinda likes the idea of poor people living underground out of sight, I think it’s a very rich-white-boy flaw to have and not entirely awful given his life experience up to that point. And yes I do think he has no flaws and is entirely unproblematic in the main game, “feral” as he may look it doesn’t seem like he goes around killing civilians or doing anything other than busting up imperial troops which is kind of justified since they started the invasion, on top that he’s the strongest unit in the game and the most chill and honest ruler once he calms down, so little dent in his record that’s irrelevant in the large picture is indeed welcome.

Overall though, after being so massively disappointed by the Fates DLC, so much I didn't even bother with the ones for Echoes, I certainly like what I'm seeing here and that's a good sign, bravo Intsys.