#if the story falls flat for you bc there's no real choices to be evil then so be it that's your business

[basedonconjecture]

I hear what you're saying and I don't totally disagree on the point of wishing to see more consequences explored. Please know I'm not trying to fight with you or be aggressive or anything, I think your opinion is valid, so this is less directed at you and more at this general complaint as a whole. Because I just...don't think that's the kind of story they were trying to tell in Veilguard specifically.

It's telegraphed repeatedly that to successfully gather your allies against the larger threat, you have to help them sort out their personal affairs so they're free to help you. Consider, also, that from the beginning Rook is being told they're going to have to make hard choices with the implication being for the success of the mission. Rook is being tasked with being a leader by a man who refused to give up on his friend even when that friend's whole goal is, to their knowledge, to destroy the world as they know it. Varric's last real order to them is to take care of the team. The individuals working with you. The people. This is (imo) intended to be in juxtaposition with Solas who is willing to sacrifice whoever and whatever he has to for the larger goal. Rook isn't a completely blank slate of a protagonist that you, the player, get to wholesale create. They have a backstory. They have loyalties. And they serve a specific narrative purpose, the choices you do get to make determine what that purpose is. Keeping in mind that Rook's story is meant to parallel the Dread Wolf's, they can either become his mirror by trying to "fix" their mistake and focusing only on the Evanuris to the exclusion of everything else. Or they can become a mirror of Varric, someone who cares so much about people that they would not sacrifice them in pursuit of their own goals. There is no room for these horrible choices people are fond of bringing up nor is there time. Rook doesn't have armies. Rook has a group of experts in their field who help them gain assistance from their respective factions because the threat is larger than them. Even if they don't care about their companions as people, it is still impractical to encourage any decisions that would undermine their assistance. But through all of that, the question is still not "How does Rook shape these individual's lives?" because they shape their own lives, ultimately, and they trust Rook to give them advice as someone they look to to lead. Instead, the question is, more broadly, "Does Rook care about these people or are they a means to an end?"

If the answer to that question, for you, is the latter, then Rook would not care enough what Lucanis (or any of the companions) do to resolve their problems in order to give input, frankly. They're not even in the room because it's not their problem to deal with. Their problem is the Evanuris. That's why the quests are optional. And if it's the former, why would there be a choice to encourage something against not only their best interest but also their character? These big companion quests are all late game so presumably Rook knows them well enough by now to know what they'd be receptive to hearing. Even if you don't see them as friends, they are still co-workers who have to work together, any decision in opposition of that would be illogical. If you could purposefully make (or encourage your companions to make) awful decisions, they'd simply never make it to Tearstone. If they miraculously did, Rook would never get out of the Fade prison. Yes, I agree that I wish there'd been more weighty decisions to make with bigger consequences. However, I am not in the camp that those decisions have to be bad/evil to be impactful in relation to Veilguard specifically. Those kinds of decisions just don't work with the story they're trying to tell. This isn't a good vs. evil story at it's core. Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are the villains but they're secondary antagonists to Solas, a man so trapped by his regrets and mistakes that, while he meant to do good once, can now only see the forest and is ignoring the trees that will be razed if he's successful. You are not meant to want to follow that path. You are not meant to want to make horrible decisions. In fact, it is imperative that you fully consider your choices so you're making the best ones you can. All of them. Including whether or not you, the player, do specific side quests. This is a thing that is repeated to you and it's why there aren't these truly horrendous ones to make because you're actively supposed to be considering only the best ones. So that, when you face them all in the end, that's where your choices matter. That's where the impact of them is. Either you've centered your team around the people in it or around the goal and history repeats itself ad infinitum.

I kept writing a whole long rant on why there is no “Kill Illario” option but the mobile app keeps eating entire paragraphs so it’s probably a sign I should give up.

Anyway, in no universe, under any circumstances where he has a choice, would Lucanis kill his cousin and the suggestion itself ignores everything he’s said/done up to that point.

[viovio]

PLEASE i need your thoughts on the re8 shadows of rose dlc...

HOLYYY SHIT THANK YOU FOR ASKING ME THISSSSS (real rambly and nonsensical below)

god the expansion on rose's life was nice but it felt so. idk how to say it! it's certainly weird that chris would let her attend a public school and knowing capcom it's either an oversight or more telling of their relationship. i found it really sweet but so dismissive because of her case as a bioweapon and still having snipers trained on her at all times😭 (as seen in the epilogue)

there's so much that's left to be desired because as a triple a game the graphics are on POINT but most of the story just falls flat to me!! why was mia forced out of her life?! (because capcom could not care to develop her any more) why did no one tell her about ethan?? was there no one left to teach her how to develop her powers before this?

I'll be honest i could answer that last one on my own bc the context feels to me that they've learned from the connections' harsh treatment of eveline (and i don't think mia would let them) that dehumanizing an all-powerful weapon is basically asking to be blown up, so they decide to treat her with a modicum of respect. Which still isn't a lot given how much her life sucks under them. God she's lonely

And Eveline being bought back here to still be treated like that just pisses me the fuck off. What the FUCK DO YOU MEAN Rose sees a little girl who was in her exact position but deprived of love and proper family figures and instead writes that off with "yes she's evil don't EVER compare me to her!!!" Damnit that just regresses her development through this journey even more. she's a kid too but c'mon. Ethan you're in trauma hell too and i get that but so's Evie. I'm gonna scream forever.

This is getting way too much of complaining but it's deserved. Proper character studies aren't capcoms suit but man😭 I'll be a bit more light and say i still fucking love Rose, the parts with Ethan promising to be with her all her life just fucking obliterates me. She's an amalgamation of different people to others and it broke her self image a lot methinks.

I also like how it didn't go the "oh it was so simple all along i need my powers because they make me who I am!!" like Ethan wholeheartedly supported her decision to get rid of them because her happiness and choice will always be his first priority. They chose each other they💥💥💥

UGH and her comments make her character stand on her own sm. Literally my bestfriend. In my ideal world she asks why he called Evie a bitch. Her clones and Miranda's efforts to bring someone back and unsatisfied with her attempts and work is not lost on Rose. I really love the main game's storybook tale thing already and this was just adding so much to it Rose Evie I'm getting you outta there

[aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired]

alrighty! im gonna talk about my two new dr!ocs and some updates on sheon’s whole thing. remember they don’t have names yet adkaljasdkfa

SURVIVOR: the ultimate jazz singer. 

as mentioned, she’s the ultimate jazz singer. pretty subdued personality, but she’s the type of jazz singer who would just. scream into a microphone a la screamin jay hawkins. she is pretty neutral/friendly but disconnected in the prologue/first chapter/second chapter. she gets more jittery as the interactions go on. but once you get to the post-fte section of chapter two, that night she actually tries to kill the protag. at this point its revealed her big Angsty Backstory is she got involved with drugs through the music scene and is currently suffering withdrawal symptoms and is Super desperate (something ive seen a lot with my co-musicians and its not good) big breakdown, really delirious, will eventually be talked off the ledge and calmed down. kind of like if sayaka was actually calmed down in thh chap 1

just so happens that during the night whoopsy someone else was killed. so you two have an alibi but to reveal it means you tell everyone about her issues. either there might be a lying feature like in drv3 to cover, or you tell the truth and end up isolating her. for chapter three and most of four she will keep her distance from the protag bc she’s uncomfortable but will eventually reach out to be friends again after chap 4 execution. 

is generally pretty useful during trials, tends to be a person who tries to help calm down more emotional students and look at things logically. is good at trying to calm down the blackened once the protag catches their bluff bc she understands what its like to be desperate. she does, however, cry during/after every punishment. tells others not to speak poorly of their executed classmates. 

she compulsively chews gum, and one of her favorite gifts would be gum. jokes about having an oral fixation. during school mode she might joke about singing love songs but being so awkward about it in real life. really likes dogs, has a dog plushie in her room. 

a first two fte will focus on her health/wellbeing. the third she’ll ask to not talk about that anymore and the next three are just about general stuff. the final one she’ll basically go a little further into detail but the moral of her story is like, she’s not a bad person for doing what she did, no one is. she’s just a person. and it cn happen to anymore.

dresses in clothes more inspired by late mod/early 70s fashion. hoestly im seeing like a turtleneck/pantsuit combo. short curly hair. big heavy under eyelashes. 

MASTERMIND: the ultimate drag racer (ultimate cruiser)

ok but I LOVE him. personality wise he’s the story’s anxious character, think closer in personality to chap 1 shuichi. quiet, skittish, easily flustered, sometimes cracks jokes that fall flat. he’s framed for the chap 1 murder (someone died in a go kart accident, its assumed he sabotaged the other car, his argument is why would he kill someone in a race in front of all his classmates?) the protag obviously works hard to prove he’s innocent. after the execution he makes a promise to the protag that he owes him one big time, and while it seems innocent at the time, the wording should have like. a slight suspicious undertone. 

he’ll investigate weirder areas of the school instead of practical (sometimes he has clues sometimes not) and if there’s ever a mechanical question for a trial, you’ll generally ask him for clarification. he’s not very trusting of others and is often the one to accuse others/bring the information learned in trials back into the real world and make a big deal out of it. for example, he’ll make a big deal about the attempted murder in chap 2, and he’s the one who’s constantly accusing sheon of being a traitor

at first he seems like he’s just anxious, but obviously, he’s the mastermind, and he’s trying to tear the group apart. 

his fte he’s awkward the first few times but he opens up slowly, showing actual comfort/joy around the protag. wants to be close friends. offers to take protag go karting. while their personality is pretty awkward most of the time, there are flashes of an adrenaline junky every now and then especially when talking about cars, where he seems so full of life and drive it’s almost scary. very competitive during these times, his determination almost taking a sadistic glee when talking about beating others. of course he explains it as his cutthroat sport, but ya know...mastermind. instead of saying we’re going to survive he says we’re going to win. friendly towards the others but doesn’t really care about them focused on protag. is consciously trying to seperate protag from sheon.

for a mastermind he’s actually quite the empath and grows attached to his classmates, which he actually takes pleasure in the amount of despair he feels after each of their executions. reason behind the game is the adrenaline rush he feels, never has felt more alive than on despair. he discovered the rush the first time he got in a car accident, and the moments before his crash where like pure bliss. he wanted to let everyone else feel his feverish joy, and talks about how everyone has enjoyed this, deep down. they’re all getting their sick kicks. breaks the fourth wall and alludes to the fact that the protag (through the player) is having the most fun of all. 

final trial where it’s revealed, he’s still v attached to the protag in like an almost yandere way and wants to follow up on the favor he owes from chap 1. he offers a deal to the protag where if they’re welcome to be their accomplice in all this and get out of the game. protag should push to bargain that everyone can give up their morals, sacrifice themselves to despair, and live as the mastermind’s accomplice in exchange for ending the killing game. 

eventually, he’ll agree, but only if the group decides one life among them to sacrifice for no other reason than to kill an innocent friend. the way to get to the correct ending is to choose yourself which will like invalidate the deal. protag ends up dying and everyone else lives. leaves the mastermind in a despair, but for the first time, he does not derive any pleasure. 

takes a LOT OF GLEE in admitting he convinced everyone else sheon was the traitor when she was not, everyone else is horrified.

anyways. his school mode/love mode events show his more likeable side, he can actually be a really cute partner if it weren’t for the part he’s evil but uh. soft sometimes. 

really likes energy drinks. talks about sponsorships. color scheme is like. a black racing suit but his jacket is tied around his waist and he’s wearing a wife beater. tons of accents of neon all over his outfit from like patches and brand deals. backwards hat. blushes easily. has a mullet. i love him. 

“TRAITOR” : SHEON FUKUDA (the ultimate film maker) 

ok so. still antagonistic. but more in the way of pushing your buttons and pointing out your flaws in a trial. like somewhere between antagonist and kirigiri. super chill personality, cracks a lot of jokes, is hardcore struggling with the games and will be open about her mental illness. her fatal flaw is still her martyr complex

is first framed after chap 2 bc of accused of having the ability to direct and oversee a production like this, and from that moment forward no one can trust her and she’s SUPER alienated. she’s still awkwardly trying to be friends/friendly but people act like she’s going to betray them all. tries to prove innocence multiple times going as far as to beginning of chap 3 announce to the group if they need to kill anyone, let it be her so no one else gets hurt and is super transparent about who she is. but this transparency makes people more suspicious. as she goes on she gets more desperate/gallows humor. last convo bfore chap 5 begins she has a vague conversation about with protag about if they fear death. chap 5 would end up being either a suicide or double murder (they killed each other one in attack the other while being defended against) so there’s no execution but monokuma still wants something. its also in this trial that the ultimate drag racer plants evidence taht makes it look like she’s the traitor and is addressed head on. 

a common motif for her is ‘playing the role assigned’ and knowing who she is and who she isn’t. she’s pretty comfortable knowing who she is but expresses unhappiness about being painted a villain. maybe like, three times through the story to this point it’s established as a motif/quirk of fitting a role she’s assigned bc if the protag asks her a question about herself/past/the overall story, she asks the protag a question like well, what do you want 1) 2) and you choose and she’s like. ok. then its _______. same thing here. as she’s finally excused she stares at the protag and is like do you really believe im the traitor? (yes) stares long and hard, somethng sad and defeated in her eyes. ok then. i am.

the trial doesn’t have a punishment originally planned bc the blackened are not alive. but she chooses not to vote and willingly chooses to be punished because everyone else has decided she’s the traitor and she chooses to play along so they can get closure. her last conversation should be about choosing the act of resistance, no matter how convoluted it can be. she doesn’t fear death. the pain sure, but not death. this was her choice to be punished, not the masterminds, and she hopes they lose any glee they take in her suffering because its a sacrifice for hope instead of a death in despair. last request is that she asks for the protag to make sure the manuscripts she wrote during her time are published, the last great work of sheon fukuda.

EXECUTION: CULTURE SHOCK so she wakes up on a soundstage to blinding light. she’s attached with electrodes. monokuma is sitting on a director’s chair with a director’s hat. basically the premise is as the ultimate film maker, she has to recreate different iconic movie scenes and every time she makes a mistake she gets shocked. she keeps on getting thrown into new scenes into the middle of old ones, throwing her off. after a sequence of costume changes/farces she finally collapses in the soundstage. 

beat. she looks up. above the soundstage is a sign that says “congratulations” or something. everyone gasps. she believes she beat it. a single light comes on in center stage prompting her to take a bow. she stumbles over, stands up, and looks into the shadows in the general direction of her classmates. a teleprompter prompts her classmates to clap. she takes glee, soaking in her win, and bows. as she comes up she smiles for a second before a short rings out. she’s shot through the heart. culture shock!

fte are mostly talking about directors/film references and what its like to be a film maker. real dry humor, sometimes talks about deeper stuff. her backstory is that her dad was working for an american embassy so she grew up in america going to art shool, and she feels out of place, despite being a japanese student with the same basic culture as everyone else. sometimes talks about slimeball directors, sometimes talks about missing certain food, loves takling about movies. as a filmmaker she specializes in dark comedy/farce which makes her suspicious of how someone can enjoy writing somethng so twisted

views are very intersectional, a little new agey, but still well put together. clearly a free spirit, very quirky from working in cinema, super dry sense of humor. likes philosophy

really likes blueberry jam. favorite item is somthing blueberry.

after chap 1 trial she expresses to the protag how she can never be the blackened, not just because of murdering one student, but to get away with it, everyone else would be punished instead, and she can’t deal with the blood on her hands. 

is open about her struggles with mental illness and how she was getting help and showing improvement bfore coming here but now she feels herself spiraling and hates it.

values everyone here as good friends, and while she tries to play it off she hates how they’re painting her as a villain. takes every death very personally. 

color scheme is very pastel, and she wears sweat pants and a collared shirt with a light blue robe. you can’t tell if those are pajamas or an outfit. wears rose-colored glasses. all about the aesthetic, just lean so far into film culture with her. personality/feelings towards style are very influenced by the fact she went to an american arts school instead of a japanese school like her peers so every part of her is slightly off/quirky/out-of-touch

she’ll mostly wear the glasses over her eyes, sometimes pushing them down on her nose for emphasis to make eye contact. only her anger sprite (point) shows her taking them off. 

during her execution she pushes them onto her forehead before taking her bow, almost to meet eye to eye. after she’s shot the last frame is them landing on the ground, cracking. 

i love sheon so much

[chaos-in-the-making]

Alright, I'm about to tell you guys what I told @thoresque in private.

Apparently some people have expressed the opinion that the Endgame movie was hastily written and produced, which resulted in plot holes and mistreatment of overarching character arcs and stories. That certain things happened because those involved did not use the proper respect and care with the material, and didnt have a solid outline of what would be good for the STORY and the CHARACTERS, instead of what was good for their pocketbooks. Because of this opinion, there has been pushback from others who enjoyed the movie without the same gripping disappointments, saying that we should be GRATEFUL for what was given, because a movie this big and this complicated is practically impossible, was never meant to be perfect, and you cant please everyone.

The problem that I have with this is, that the directors did exactly the opposite. They didnt try to please ANYONE. They wrote their own story that has little to no connection to the previous stories. It's like they hadnt watched the previous 10 films and picked up the characters halfway. I feel the same way about Ragnarok, and how it mutilated my favorite characters. And I LIKED Endgame. Despite liking it, I have some serious problems.

To make my point more clearly, let me shift focus. I am a die hard Lord of the Rings fan. I read The Hobbit in 5th grade, and never looked back. I've read all the books, I could give you all the meta. I know as much about Tolkien as I can, because I adore and respect him as a person and his works are a gift to my life. Fast forward to 2001 when the movies came out. Peter Jackson was told making the movies was an impossible task. Yes, impossible. That it couldn't be done in three movies, there was too much content in the book, and it would fall flat. Yet what happened, you ask? They made three incredible, timeless movies that snatched up no less than 11 awards, sweeping everything else into the dust. It was written and produced with respect and care to the original material, even though they cut a lot of it out. Is the Lord of the Rings trilogy perfect? No. Do some of us fans have some problems with the choices made? Yes. Leaving out Tom Bombadil hurt, but it made directing sense. So we came to terms with it. Giving lines from one character to another irritated me, but overall I can accept it. The characters were real, the story was gripping, and they didnt sacrifice quality for special affects. Every character, and there was a lot, was treated with respect and given closure by the end. High fantasy, impossible to produce, plenty of problems, but God i love those movies so much. Tolkien would be proud.

What Marvel did in this movie sucked ass. The ending they gave Steve would be the equivalent to Aragorn saying at the end of Return of the King, "Nevermind, I dont want to marry Arwen, whom I have loved all my life and is my elf princess and stood by me and helped me through the most difficult journey to overthrow an evil overlord. I'm going to wank off back to Numenor (which is gone and he cant go back to bc it was destroyed) and spend my days with that one chick I kissed that one time. Boromir? Who is Boromir?" This is no disrespect to Peggy Carter, i love her, but it made no gd sense. It also broke the few rules of time travel that the movie set in place. So you make your own rules, and then you break them.

And Thor just... leaving with the Guardians?? Wtf?? After all the talk in Ragnarok about Asgard being a PEOPLE, and how much his people have LOST, and are kind of hopeless? They need stability and leadership, and Thor just... doesnt care??? Not my Thor. If he had told Valkyrie, "hey, I have to go on a quest to find my brother who is very likely no longer dead because of choices made in the past" then I would have accepted it. Even a "I'm going to find a better place for our people now that Earth has all its citizens back" would make sense. Not this "I care more about myself than about the people I was raised to guard, protect, and lead." Wow. Who is this guy? Call it his depression, call it being low, call it self discovery, whatever. To me it rang very false and shallow. When Valkyrie asked when he would be back, he could have said "I will return when I am ready to be the king they deserve". THAT would have been acceptable.

Thors ending would be like Sam completely abandoning Frodo after the ring had been destroyed, deciding not to go back to the Shire to help rebuild (in the book the Shire was destroyed by Saruman), and not caring that his friends and family needed his help. Because he needed to work on himself and eat a salad. Yes, I went there.

So while I enjoyed Endgame, and the shock, and the plot, and the ending, I take serious issue with the way some of the characters were sidelined and completely reduced to something that they werent. I got into Marvel for the relationships. For the heartache and joy that the actors and actresses brought onscreen. Dont tell people to get over it. We were emotionally invested in these movies and this blatant disrespect feels like a betrayal.