#investment types
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i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.
two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!
#i don’t know if pay rates differ per networks#but a.ivi and s.urrashu have said that they needed to work outside of su in order to make sufficient funds#it only makes me wonder what other ways su suffered from a lower budget#that we as the audience never got to see#in the vein of the too-little characters complaint#another part of that is that low-stakes episodes should’ve been abt the main cast instead of the townies#like last one out of beach city and too short to ride vs restaurant wars and kiki’s pizza delivery service#i definitely see that especially since that isn’t budget related#nor would it seem to be network related (even if cn had an ‘episodic episodes’ quota it could still be abt the gems#(another side note: /would/ cn even have a requirement that the show make episodes that can be watched standalone?#this is a question for the people who were around when su was airing#what episodes often got rerun?#was it the townie eps or the lore eps?#for example i heard that su once did a ‘peridot event’ where they just reran peridot episodes#which had eps that skip around in the show#did they even care about airing the story so that it made sense anyways?#id get it if the low stakes townie episodes were the ones getting rerun))#but i have such a boring view on that which is i think it’s simply because the creators like townie eps#like in interviews r.ebecca s.ugar has said she’s the type to be really invested in background characters#answers in interviews have been crafted in ways to hide what’s really going on though tbf#prime example of this is rebecca and ian saying the wedding being interrupted was meant to follow the common trope#when later in the art book they said that it was bc cn rejected the ep bc it ‘wasn’t interesting enough’#both could simultaneously be true! it’s a psychology thing though where people make up nice-sounding explanations behind what they create#in retrospect because they want it to be thought out in such a nice way they believe in it#the bigger problem is that not matter how many episodes there are of them#it can be hard for ppl to be invested in the townies the same way they are invested in the main cast#i’m sure that a million writers have made surefire advice on how to get an audience to care about characters#but off the top of my head i think it’s because 1. most don’t have strong motivations to get truly invested in#(exception is ronaldo but people find him too annoying to care about him)#okay i had more points and explanations but i hit the tag limit and idk if anyone is actually reading this so bye
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So just curious: How does Skypiea go down in the speedrun?
wait wuh
Speedrun/Time travel AU Masterlist
@thychesters @thychesters @thychesters BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE BUGGY BOOGIE
WATCH HIM DANCE BOY DANCE!!!!!!
(Yes this is canon, buggy is in skypiea,,,, whas that rascal doin up there??!1?1!)
#buggys the type of guy who invests in stocks when travelling back in time#one piece#op fanart#time travel au#speedrun au#ask#buggy the clown#ohhh you wanna make boogie buggy a custom emoji in ur one piece server sooo badly you wanna do it i dare you#this is only 70 percent crack#30 percent serious business… like buggy…. serious guy 🤡#THIS IS MY AU I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH IT!!!!!!!
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"I once considered him the center of my life, the sun in my galaxy..."
#billford#the book of bill#standford pines#gravity falls#gf#this was so tragic im sobbing#bill cipher#BILL WAS THE SUN TO HIS GALAXY BEFORE EVERYTHING WENT DOWN HILL#thisisnotawebsitedotcom#ive been on that website for a few hours now#im too invested right now#mabel and ford are so adorable im so happy they got their bonding moments#it was definitely like leaving a toxic ex and processing the fact that it's over type of closure for ford
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Important tip for trans men/transmascs/whoever needs the reminder: Even if you pass as a man to cis people, you still need to have either some form of self-protection on you (e.g., mace, knives (if you can use them effectively), ect.) or know some form of self-defense. Please take it from me, you don't know what will happen out there at any given time.
You might assume that if you pass as a cis man to cis people, you will be safe from any harm. While I wish that were true, it simply isn't the world most of us live in. Please do whatever you can to protect yourself out there.
#trans#transgender#lgbt#lgbtq#ftm#nonbinary#ask to tag (genuine)#there's this idea that once you start passing as a man as a trans guy* that all your worries about attacks... disappear...#...but i'm going to be real my fears of being followed/sexually harassed/heckled/ect have increased by double...#...and i never felt the need to have self-protection before (which was kind of foolish even if i felt certain i was physically safe)...#...but honestly i think i really ought to start investing in this shit the more i pass#anyway please learn from my mistakes ♡#i talk about this a lot but it is a life-or-death level of importance to me#yes this goes for all trans people...#...i just call out other trans guys specifically because so many of us assume or are told we're immune to this type of violence
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I miss Becky Barnes and her ra-ra, school spirit, cheerleader bullshit <3
#watching npmd gave me the canon hfhs cheer uniforms so i had to#becky barnes would have rocked the nighthawk cheer squad getup#also i think it would be hilarious to see becky flipping off clivesdale at a game#shes definitely the type to get hella invested in school spirit#becky barnes#black friday#hatchetfield#starkid#starkid fanart#art#becky barnes my beloved#nightmare time#team starkid#magnolia draws
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Q!PHIL SAYING, AND I QUOTE "It's nice having a lot of stuff" and things on the last vod, and also just being all weird about getting new stuff from *supposedly the federation* (cough ender king cough cough)
Combine this with how much he used to say he doesn't value material wealth and family always comes before anything. Heck, he even BURNS the feds money like 10 minutes ago before going right back into this weird new hoarding mode.
And the fact that his whole philosophy of not getting too attached to worldly possesions is something he kinda passed onto Tallulah and Chayanne, and THEY NOTICED HIS ODD BEHAVIOUR.
LIKE. THEY KNOW!!! q!phil was able to pick up when something was off when the codes were imitating them, and the kids know him Just As Well. They can tell somethings up and i'm SADD
Because it was q!phil who was sad that Chayanne and Tallulah were thrown into battle and not able to just enjoy themselves. So what do they do when it's their own parent who's now needing saved. Their rock. The constant support in their life. I'm SO scared that this is going to result in a fight or something between them.
Edit: LOOK AT THIS CLIP. WATCH THIS. TALLULAH KNOWS!!!
twitch_clip
Anyway yeah normal fun times on the QSMP amiright hahaha...
#qsmp#qsmp philza#qsmp chayanne#qsmp tallulah#AHHH THEYRE MAKING ME INSANE#ive never been so invested in rp type stuff on minecraft servers before#but like Phil seems to get such a good balance of “im going to be silly and have fun”#and also know when to throw in “ohh lore cause its cool”#its the perfect combo of 4th wall breaking and also seriousness that makes me EAT IT UP
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1-a somehow finding out that their stoic, hardass homeroom teacher is absolutely stupid head over heels in love with their goofy, ridiculous, eccentric english teacher and subsequently reading WAY too much into how they interact in passing when they switch periods every morning
ie: in that scene where shouta takes too long to conclude class and makes mic wait, there's a slight pause in his canter before he calls hizashi "mic"-- class 1-a would be gripping their seats to bring that up in the dorms later about how aizawa-sensei probably almost accidentally called mic-sensei "pookie bear" since that's most DEFINIETLY what he calls him at home
they talk every morning when shouta is leaving the room and hizashi is walking in, and every day, class 1-a will watch for subtleties in behavior so closely that some of them don't even breathe or blink
#mina and hagakure are the leading psychoanalysts#that is to say that they make the most stuff up out of nowhere#like how when mic-sensei's eye twitches when he nods to aizawa-sensei#it means that aizawa-sensei didn't do the dishes last night#and he's angry at him#or when aizawa-sensei stumbled that one time#and mic-sensei caught him#aizawa-sensei DEFINITELY had a shoujo romance pink background w sparkles and soft rings moment#(which that one may not be TOO far off but he wouldnt admit that under torture)#but also kirishima is oddly invested as well#he'll contribute his manly thoughts like#aizawa-sensei handed the lesson plan binder to mic-sensei extra carefully today ! mic-sensei#probably brought him coffee before class even though he knew he'd see him later ! that's so manly !#and izuku also does his nerdy#well their pro hero dynamics make sense- they work well together and seem to be very congenial#though i dont think aizawa-sensei would be the type to-#analysis. he takes it very seriously.#nothing i just love them so much#the soapbox has pawprints#bnha#mha#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#shouta aizawa#aizawa shota#hizashi yamada#yamada hizashi#present mic#eraserhead#erasermic
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i’m sure this has been said before but when adam and michael are talking in the bunker about the possibility of michael’s dad being a grade a asshole, there’s something so so so important to me about how adam points out michael’s hypocrisy.
ADAM: Point is…. Parents keep secrets. Does it hurt to ask the question?
MICHAEL: Yes! It would mean I doubt him. The good son; the favorite doubts his father.
ADAM: You still care about that? After he left you in the cage?
this matters because michael was JUST criticizing sam and dean for leaving adam and how he is in unable to trust them. he doubts them because of their actions.
MICHAEL: You’re asking me to trust you. You who doomed me, you who let Lucifer walk free while your own brother sat in Hell.
in turn, adam is pointing out that clearly michael has a line for his family members and it’s been crossed by michael’s own, so why is his dad any different than sam or dean? what makes michael different than adam? why does his dad get to betray and abandon him and still get michael’s trust and loyalty? why is michael expendable?
he’s really tapping into michael’s beliefs that were just established to us as the audience at the diner. (ie: family sometimes hurts you and just because they’re blood relatives or ‘family’ doesn’t mean they have your best interests at heart. sometimes there are things more important than family, sometimes walking away from your family is freedom) and he’s holding michael to the same standard he’s set for the winchesters.
side note: another thing i enjoy about this interaction is that adam is being gentle, although it 100% appears as if they’ve had this conversation before since he literally rolls his eyes, and not to mention that michael is an archangel. he could easily be mean or not even care about his feelings or michael could not even take his opinion into account and do what he wants. but despite everything, adam asks for michael to listen to him, and he does. and in turn adam appeals to him with logic and reasoning, because he’s overall a very rational and strategic being that’s simply been groomed from the get go in his dad’s weird cult. adam appeals to his emotions in a way that’s familiar. they share this experience. adam knows michael is protective of him and that it’s easy for michael to hate sam and dean for the same things his dad has done. but michael’s own lack of self worth that was drilled into him by his dad for aeons is being challenged, and it’s uncomfortable for him, but adam doesn’t back down and he helps get through to him. it’s really a great scene. this post wasn’t meant to be so long but yeah i have lots of thoughts about this short interaction!
#also the fact that michael compares him and adam being together for years (around 50k) as comparable in importance….#he’s not saying that adam is less important he’s presenting a logical fallacy. there’s been so much time. he can’t change his belief now#it’s been eternity! what does that mean for him? it’s the logic of the sunk cost fallacy#he’s invested so much time in it that he has to continue and adam is pulling him away with appealing to his compassion for a situation#adam was also in. and the nail in the coffin was castiel showing him those memories. it’s one of the reasons why#15x19 feels so odd because he is very 0-100. he 100% had faith his father and then had no faith in him#so it feels kinda ooc for him to suddenly go back when he spent 6 months coming to terms with something he had already been questioning#then for him to go back to his dad? why? what does he gain? both he and lucifer actually have this issue where their motivations aren’t#exactly established. we can assume lucifer is told a paradise type fantasy where he gets to have jack or something of equal importance#and we can assume michael is told that he will bring adam back but both of them have been betrayed so many times (and so recently) it’s#whiplash for them to be suddenly team god again. also michael killing lucifer is ooc imo as well#it just feels too convenient considering jack needed to absorb more power in regards to both their deaths#anyway lol#supernatural#adam milligan#dean winchester#sam winchester#spn#michael spn#15x08#spn 15x08
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Officer Michele Diaz finds herself among Militech's most invaluable agents from the last decade. Specialized in handling external affairs and one of the top executives of Militech's Special Projects Department, she is a hardworking and confident woman who will not simply take no for an answer— and who will do anything to get what she believes she deserves.
taglist (opt in/out)
@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;
@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;
@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;
@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian, @estevnys;
@elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa
#cyberpunk 2077#cyberpunk 2077 photomode#fem v#sc:michele#nuclearocs#nuclearscreencaps#these are like REALLY old but i love the lighting in them so here you go. rare bones ruvviks cyberpunk screenshots#you're gonna have to imagine the wrinkles yourself she's like well in her fifties by the way#cassidy used to work for her back at militech :] she's also a friend of the family so like. they go waaayyy back#ends up investing in elysium as a way to get in on arasaka special programs but obviously this goes wrong#because of all the shit that happens in elysium. so then militech has to pull their investments out but they suffer MASSIVE losses#which then naturally leads to michele's demotion which pisses her the fuck off. so she decides to investigate#and that leads her to club bodytalk in 2082 i think?? elysium happens in early 2081 and michele gets her revenge early 2082#it's a whole thing. i'd have to type up a full timeline or two if you want to even begin to understand the intricacies
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(on my hands and knees begging tumblr to not mutilate the quality of this drawing 😭) anyway, coming out as a secret marvel fan to announce that i really enjoyed the recently she-hulk run w/ Jen and her boytoy and am sad to see them go. Jack pls dont disappear into the ether i just got attached to you (ID in alt)
#marvel comics#sensational she hulk#sensational she hulk 2023#she hulk#jennifer walters#jack of hearts#jack hart#im typing thrse tags on an ipad rn (hell) so im going to be brief for once but yeah i reslly enjoyed this series#it was a sweet slice of life breath of fresh air and i found myself really invested in the relationship between jen and jack#Lowkey tempted to hop onto avengers just to keep up w jen#maybe- maybe not. We’ll see! Either way thse two are cute lol#this came together surprisingly quick for his detailed it is (by my standards lmao) and that makes me#nervous. Mainly#theres bits that r off but overall i like it#tried to fit lettering in but it didnt work lol#anyway#i know the authors on tumblr. Rainbow rowell if you somehow find this hire me /j#i dont think thats how it works since theyre a writer and not an editor lol#ANYWAY I REALLY NEED TO SLEEP#goodnight to all 8 ppl who will reblog this#mine
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…so can you expand on the psychological ramifications of stewy being in private equity? that has definitely been lost on me given that i barely understand what private equity is
ok this is an underrated funny aspect of the show imo, and also good insight into stewy and kendall. i'm trying to spare you a bunch of stupid business jargon but basically, maesbury capital (which stewy represents but sandy/sandi ultimately own) is a private equity fund, meaning it's a big pile of a bunch of rich people's money, and stewy's job is to take that money and invest in private companies. a PE fund can invest at a few different points: at the very beginning of a startup's life (venture or angel investing), at a point where the company is trying to grow or restructure (growth investing), or when a company is struggling financially, in which case the fund is usually planning to either dismantle it and sell it for scrap, restructure and go public, or sell it for cash to another company. PE firms like to present themselves as doing a lot of growth or venture investing, but in truth many/most are primarily engaging in this third category of investment strategies, because they're lucrative (and because many startups are stupid, and only good for generating investor payouts).
so, when kendall went and dismantled vaulter in season 2 because logan decided that selling most of it for scrap would be more profitable? that's basically a dramatisation of what stewy does routinely, except of course the exact financial instruments and strategies will differ because stewy represents a PE firm. like, if kendall's venture capitalist schemes tell us about his delusions of creating cool new products and services, stewy is sort of the opposite because his structural goal is usually to dismantle companies and liquidate them however is best for maesbury's backers. it's a total destruction of all use-value and a conversion of it into pure exchange-value in the form of capital (which goes into his pockets and maesbury's). stewy generates money by destroying utility, which is perverse if you think capitalism is supposed to create and sustain human life, but actually completely comprehensible if you understand that capitalism is an insatiable growth machine with inherently contradictory internal tendencies and no raison d'être beyond the endless accumulation of pure capital itself.
many viewers think stewy is insane because he is friends with kendall roy. this is true, but on a deeper level stewy is insane because his job is to participate in the inexorable tendency to more and more abstraction in the capitalist mode of production. it literally does not matter at all to someone like stewy whether people are fed or clothed or happy, or have any of their needs met. the point is solely to create money, to turn all social forms and values into numbers on a balance sheet. this is why, when kendall tries to threaten him on axos at the end of season 2, stewy is able to casually tell him that "it doesn't matter; it doesn't mean anything." he and sandy are convincing shareholders that their offer will be able to make them more money, "and that's all that this is." stewy speaks the language of business differently than logan, because stewy doesn't care about dick-swinging competitions or demonstrating dominance in logan's cringey old catholic military way. which makes stewy more rational in certain ways, but also more insane, in that he operates in a way totally detached from this type of social value system and solely motivated by cold hard numbers.
the irony is that, whilst being detached and disembodied in his business practices, stewy is also better than the roys at appreciating the material fruits of wealth. he eats; he dresses well; he enjoys the "several houses" he owns. kendall is always trying to come up with some grand moral bullshit masculinity reason that what he's doing is noble or whatever, and he's alienated from his body and afflicted with severe catholic martyr disease. stewy just bypasses all that shit, measures his success by his payouts, and enjoys wealth because he sees it as an end in itself and not a means to logan roy's respect.
this is also why kendall's line in 'living+' about "it's enough to make you lose your faith in capitalism" is so funny. kendall can't just accept that business is a bunch of meaningless bullshit confidence games played by coked-up assholes who like to win; he always has to try to convince himself he's making cool new tech shit, or saving the world from the spectre of death itself or some shit. it's like, insane that he made it to literally 40 years old, growing up in a media conglomerate of all things, and still thinks that what he's doing requires actual skill or creates actual social value—but of course, part of the reason he still thinks this is because he deified logan and was therefore incapable of ever seeing logan or waystar for what they really were. stewy would never say that line because he can't be disillusioned this way on account of he already knows the whole thing is bullshit. it's just that to him it doesn't matter, because being bullshit does not preclude it from paying well.
#some1 also asked about that kendall line and it seemed like it wanted to be bundled into this post lol i hope that answers yr q#blood sacrifice#typing this gave me flashbacks to when i did freelance transcription and i used to do this guy's podcast on angel investing#literal nightmare fodder. the hours-long homophobic baptist sermons were better
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The fact that there’s no good long fanfictions about Eliot Spencer is a crime and if I were a more dedicated writer I’d fix it. Unfortunately, my motivation comes in rice grain sized portions and my creativity is that of a rat.
#eliot spencer#leverage#christian kane#he’s literally loml#writers need to invest in the grumpy heart of gold long haired soldier type more often
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I love your rose cuz of her big eyebrows 💔
trust that life is all about change and transformation, nothing will ever stay the same, even that which appears stagnant is slowly being corroded and degraded into new, fresh form, and the only constant in life is that what you have now is not yours forever
except for how I draw rose's eyebrows. that will never change
#if DANNY'S ROSE'S EYEBROWS was a stock you could trade it would be certifiably safe#safer than US bonds type shit#a reliable investment with minimal return value but u know its worth what it is worth#rose lalonde#txt
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the way zoro is depicted in that one shirt reminds me of a nice dress and also i wanted to try out a different coloring style so here it is 👍
#i realised too far in that this was actually not what it reminded me of it reminded me of a different type shirt.#unfortunately i was already way too invested in the picture LMAO so maybe u will see more fashion zoros from me#no i dont know the circumstances of getting him into these clothes.#roronoa zoro#one piece#art#they couldnt get the fucking haramaki off of him though. they tried.
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so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.
full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.
oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.
i'm starting off with the things i liked
the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.
combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less
the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.
your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.
the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.
speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.
bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.
varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.
the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).
rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.
and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately
the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.
tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???
there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.
i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.
that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.
for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol
in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.
the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.
this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.
when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.
morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.
dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.
on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.
really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.
for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.
rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.
speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.
the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything
#datv#datv spoilers#dragon age: the veilguard#oh wow i hit a limit typing this#anyway to tie this up a bit: the good and bad to the environmental design being that well-known architecture like minrathous and dwarven#ruins look fire and remind me a lot of the previous games#but newly added locations are very... generic... very bland#i was very excited for rivain. i thought we'd get to see ships. not a bunch of ruins and a fighting pit and that's it#and why did i say to ignore a certain guy's review? bro because he was complaining about taash being ace and that taking up their screentim#and them being too up in your face about their identity. he did all this while she/her'ing them constantly#but my man they're trans. nb. not ace.#y'all need to be careful about bad reviews. they're coming from people who are upset about gender identity being handled as a topic in this#game. meanwhile they have no clue what they're even talking about. i don't think matty knows the difference between ace and trans#and neither do the hundreds of people who are one star rating this game currently#i liked this game. it's not top tier. it's not something i'll sink hours and hours and hours of my life into#it has tonal issues and it's moving away from what made dragon age stand out for me#but i do think that it's a genuinely fun play and people who are very invested in dragon age will squeeze joy out of it wherever they can#i had a hard time warming up to the new characters (taash and lucanis being the exception because they have an older bioware air about them#but solas's and varric's story (and don't get me wrong that's what veilguard is about) is GOOD. that is how bioware used to be.#and i wish they'd given us that energy all over the game. that direness. that grit. serious and mature writing.#that consistency is lacking#and whether you're gonna enjoy this game or not is entirely dependant on what you came here for and how well the game delivers on it#i think their weakest points are ironically the thing they advertised the most: the new companions and their writing#you won't find nuanced and good enemies here (i already reblogged something about this. you can go scroll around a bit and catch up on that#really the only thing that had me super invested and emotional was the main quest.#so make of that what you will. ultimately i was more frustrated with the game than i got enjoyment out of it. i was close to just put it#aside for now... until i went to minrathous to end ghila'nain's and elgar'nan's ritual. that all blew me away. still on a high off of it.#anyway yeah that review got cut short by the character limit maybe i'll add more to it tomorrow but rn... i am heading to bed#thanks for coming to my ted talk. also i'm sorry. zevran REALLY isn't in this.#dragon age
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