#literally been meaning to do this for ages

[wonderjanga]

Magic Alzheimer’s

Billy confuses the details of his life with the past champions lives. It can be small things,

Flash and Marvel: *chatting*

Marvel: *gets a notification in his comm* “Ah, one sec Arit.” *looks at his comm*

Flash: “Arit…?”

Marvel: “Huh?” *looks back at Flash*

Flash: “Arit. What’s that?”

Marvel: *stares for a solid second* “Uh… A friend? From a long time ago.” *looks back at his comm and taps some buttons*

Flash: “Oooooh. What, do I remind you of him?”

Marvel: *doesn’t really know if he should be sharing these details, and clearly sounds hesitant* “A little I guess? You’re both speedsters.”

Flash: “Wait, really?? How long ago was this??”

Marvel: “Like… six thousand years ago.”

Flash: “Aw dang.” *disappointed because he wanted to be friends with another speedster*

Flash later had a slight mental breakdown wondering if Marvel was only friends with him because he reminded him of this Arit guy.

There’s also sort of the big things.

Flash: “Dude, he’s been at this for like twenty minutes.”

GL: “Really?”

Marvel: *sitting at a table having a full blown conversation with himself*

GL: “Should we go stop him?”

Flash: “Yeah, we should. Every time I see his arm move, I keep thinking he’s going to knock over the glass of water I forgot to drink.”

There is in fact, a glass of water near Marvel’s arm.

GL: “Hasn’t that been there like for a week?”

Flash: “I think so.”

GL and Flash: *stare at Marvel*

Flash: “Okay, yeah, let’s go stop him.”

GL and Flash: *just about to go approach Marvel*

Marvel: *finally accidentally knocks over the glass which literally stops him dead, mid convo as he slowly looks over to it in confusion*

As for the sudden confusion from Billy? See, in his point of view, he wasn’t even him, he was a previous Champion who was chatting with a friend. He was literally reliving the memory. He could feel the heat in the air, and how the wind would blow sand every now and then. When he knocked the glass over, that literally shattered the illusion that he was there with the friend. In the end, he just ended up shaking his head and getting up from where he was sat.

GL and Flash: *watch him leave*

Flash: “I guess he didn’t need our help after all?” *still sounds a little concerned*

Soon after, Flash, GL, and the rest of the Justice League noticed things like this happening more and more frequently. So, they all huddled together one day in a meeting room.

Flash: “Dude, I think Cap is getting Alzheimer’s or something.”

Supes: “What?”

Flash: “I mean, think about! Think about all the stuff we’ve seen recently.”

Supes: *actually thinks and starts to look horrified* “Oh my God.”

WW: *sounds rightfully upset* “He could have it. Although it’s unlikely.”

Batman: “Even if it’s unlikely, it’s still a possibility. Captain Marvel seems to predate Mesopotamia.”

GL: “Mesopotamia?!”

Batman: “Yes. So, unfortunately, this could mean be his age catching up to him.”

All of them were heartbroken.

Also, the previous Champions have also gotten the Alzheimerness too. This includes the Wizard, Adam, Aman, and literally everyone but the first, second, and third Champion because it started showing after the third Champ.

[whateveriwant]

Ok ok ok hear me out for a second. What if Simon has dimples?

I know that in reality, even if he did have dimples, the chances of you knowing is probably slim to none. I mean, it’s not like that man is exactly forthcoming when it comes to sharing his identity with others, right? For Christ’s sake, his own teammates have likely seen his bare face only a handful of times. I doubt the number of times they’ve seen him visibly express any kind of emotion is much better.

But just imagine that you do get a chance to see his dimples; that you’re one of the lucky few that can say you’ve had a glimpse of the real man beneath the mask. Imagine you’re sitting in a dingy pub one night, shooting the shit with your mates, trying to slyly admire the rare peep you have of your Lieutenant’s unmasked face. Maybe Johnny or Kyle or whomever tells some dumb joke that gets the whole group laughing, and as you instinctively look over to catch Simon’s reaction, imagine the awe that would overtake you upon spotting his lopsided grin.

In all the time you’ve worked with Simon, you must’ve imagined what his smile looks like a thousand times. In your mind’s eye, you’ve conjured up a hundred different variations – how his lips would part, his nose would crinkle, his cheeks would round with gentle amusement. But in all those fantasies, all those hours spent daydreaming, you never, not once in your life, imagined he could have dimples. And now that you’re quite literally face to face with the evidence, you wonder how you could have ever been so daft to exclude them.

And it’s amazing, really, how much those two little indentations seem to instantly transform Simon’s face. They shave about 10, even 15 years off his age, imbuing him with this sort of boyishness that offsets his otherwise grisly appearance. To most people, the sight before you would be nothing remarkable – a smile no different than any other. But to you, this cheek-splitting grin reveals so much more. It shows you that beneath the scars and the marks and the brutal reminders of his past lies a handsome, benign man just begging to be noticed.

Of course, with the way you’re admiring him like he’s a block of marble carved by Michelangelo himself, sooner or later Simon is bound to feel the weight of your gaze pressing into him. So when he turns to look at you with that quizzical notch to his brow, you’re quick to swivel your head in the opposite direction, but not before meeting his eye for a second or two.

Shame heats the back of your neck for having been caught staring at your Lieutenant, burning a hole in the side of your head from where he now peers at you. And yet, despite your sense of embarrassment, there’s another feeling boiling away in your belly. It’s a curious sensation, tingly almost, like how you imagine a child feels the first time they witness a magnificent fireworks display.

In all honesty, you feel like you could float out of your seat right now, not stopping until you reach the Earth’s upper atmosphere. It’s like one look at Simon’s infectious smile has fundamentally rewired your brain. Though by the time you risk another glance at him his dimples have totally vanished, that doesn’t stop that giddy feeling from churning inside you, nor does it stop your mind from racing.

And so for the rest of the night, as you sit in that dark pub only half listening to conversations going on around you, you make a silent vow to yourself. You swear to do everything in your power to make Simon smile again and to keep him smiling for as long as physically possible, because, in your eyes, there’s not a prettier sight in this world to behold.

[cosmetichorror]

Lu au where everyone is the age of their game

Wild is 7

Warriors is 10

Sky is 13

Twilight is 18

Four is 20

Wind is 22

Time is 26

Legend is 33

Hyrule is 37

Warriors and Wild are LITERALLY child soldiers, Sky is in middle school (and is more than happy to travel as it means he has less homework to do…)

Twilight is a fresh adult and doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life

Four is still as short as he is in the comic. Also much to Sky’s dismay Four basically becomes his teacher so he doesn’t fall behind in his studies.

Wind finally can legally drink…. He’s the wine aunt. He’s a nut case. The kids love him. He and Time were babysitting Warriors during the WAR and they’re both still mad they put a like, 9 year old into a war.

Time is freshly married…. He’s as bad (if not worse) then Sky ever could be when it comes to being lovey dovey.

Legend is mad he has to go on another adventure after he’s been comfortably retired for a decade. He becomes the new old man, despite Rulie being older…. And btw Hyrule is still his little brother.

Hyrule is aging wonderfully much to everyone’s surprise. He looks 25. He still can’t read btw but he has mastered life in the wilderness. He is like a mountain lion, he can hide behind anything and sneak anywhere now. Give him a leaf and he’ll find a way to hide behind it and you’ll never see him….

They would’ve never found Hyrule if they didn’t have Warriors and Wild with them, and even then them finding Hyrule was more so Hyrule allowing them to find him so he could check on the kids.

[syggwolf]

Not to hijack this post or anything, and I'm gonna share some seriously depressing stuff here, along with talk of injuries and blood, just as a warning, but I can easily pinpoint the (And I cannot stress this enough.) SINGLE most traumatic thing that ever happened to me in a long, long, long line of catastrophically traumatic things: It was a very specific incident of being told not to cry. And it wasn't like I wasn't already told not to cry already or anything because, you know, you have a dick, you're not allowed to cry past the age of six and all that. And I was about thirteen so, way beyond that point. But this time, I mean, it was sort of a big deal. You see, unfortunately for me, a very heavy falling object had split my forehead open, and the amount of blood pouring down my face had convinced me that I was pretty for sure probably maybe going to die. Also it really hurt. But because I went into shock, I started laughing instead. I want to stress: the laughing was a panic reaction, not conscious, nor on purpose. Then I proceeded to leave an unbroken trail of blood all the way up to the front door of my house, about a half a block away. All the other kids fled as soon as it happened, except for one; another boy who was a friend of mine, only slightly older than me, who walked with me up to my house and came inside. Well, my mom shrieked and put an icepack on it, which, if you've never had burning cold shoved against exposed skull, it kinda really hurts even more than getting your skull exposed in the first place. And so I'm sitting there on the couch next to my friend, who's still staring in horror at my head and the blood all over my face. By this point I have definitely stopped laughing or doing much of anything, and the sheer amount of "I am so fucked." is starting to sink in because they are calling a fucking ambulance. My dad is sitting there, yelling at my friend to explain what the fuck happened and my friend gets to the part where I started laughing and my dad looks at me, and no bullshit, at this exact moment, there's a spike of pain from my head, and I'm miserable and it's sinking in that I'm going to the fucking HOSPITAL in an AMBULANCE and I am definitely in trouble. (Which is another fun thing that happens in an abusive household. Imagine thinking you're in trouble for getting hurt. Spoilers, I did in fact get yelled at, excessively. My intelligence, character, moral fiber, strength, and foresight were all called into question.) So right there, with all of that hitting at once and my father staring straight at me, my chest hitches and I fuck up and I let out a voice cracking little whimper. My father looked at me with an absolutely haunting combination of anger, disappointment, and some kind of disgust, and he said in this very rough, clipped tone that was more threat than anything else, "Don't you dare. You will NOT cry." And that broke something inside of me that to this day I've never been able to fix. If the role of a "man" was not to cry even under circumstances as extreme as that, than I clearly was broken in some way and I would endeavor to never cry again. And even Now? I simply cannot cry until I fully and completely lose control of every aspect of myself and snap, and even then it never lasts longer than a few moments. I can't make noise while I'm doing it either. It's a silent affair that can only happen in the most extreme circumstances when I am alone. His reasoning for saying that to me? For looking at his wounded child, blood covered face and pain and misery and all, and saying those words? He wanted the story to get around the neighborhood that I laughed at having my head split open because he thought it would make me look cool and really badass. He literally told me that to my face a few hours later, and said it was for my own good because none of the kids would fuck with me if I looked manly. He also chewed me out for possibly ruining it for having the gall to break while my friend was still next to me. The patriarchy is fucking evil and must be destroyed.

Everyone is so weird about people who cry easily. Fellas, is it evil and manipulative to *checks notes* have an involuntary stress response?

[nieceeee]

Can you do a story with ony about every time he buys her something she pays him back either in cash or getting him a gift just as expensive every time and he eventually catch’s on and asks her why to which she explains how at the end of her last relationship her ex was tryna to force her to pay him for “wasting his time” can it end in smut plz 🤭🤭😩

“ALL THE THINGS”

P/S: Most of your life your relationships have been transactional. You learned early on that nothing you get comes for free, especially with me. It was always a give and take. So when you got with Ony, you expected the same things. For every gift he got you, you made sure to double it because that's how the game goes right? Well Ony wasn't having that. He was going to get it through to you by any means necessary...

WC: 3.2k

A/N: DO NOT HATE ME! MNDI!! This took so much longer than I expected it to. But I hope you like it. It got me in my feelings a little bit ngl. Nicknames (pa, mamas, princess, babygirl) smutty, slight angst as well but there is smut and cute fluff, p in v, body worship, I think that’s all.

Life is about balance. The ebbs and flows are what makes the world go ‘round. Every action requires a reaction. It's a give and a take.

You took that literally.

Simply put, you have never known a love that wasn’t built on balance. And for as long as you could remember, every relationship you were involved in had been more of a checks and balances act that anything. It was all so…transactional.

See love has it's strings attached, no matter how the fairytales tries to spin it. It was an unwritten rule. In order to get what you wanted you had to give exactly that same thing or greater back. You needed to surpass expectations to have someone meet your own. You learned-- no, excelled at this. Now, could it have stemmed from deeper rooted insecurities of protecting yourself from being hurt. Sure.

I mean you were told at an early age from women in your life that nothing was truly free. Love, affections, kindness-- they all came with a cost. And you simply learned to play the game. Accept it with grace but never let them think they got one up on you. You remember the warning as clear as day. You kept your guard up, always matching every gesture, every gift, every ounce of attention you got from the people who mattered most. Because it had always been a give and take, and you’d be damned if you were ever the one left holding the bag.

Nonetheless this worked. It always worked. Until you met Ony.

Onyankopon came into your life like any other relationship would. He was sweet, charismatic, gentle. He was everything you could have ever asked for in a man. Patient, a rock when you needed him, and a safe space for you to just…be. When everything around you fell to chaos, he was the one thing that could lead you back into serenity. He quiet devotion to you was unmatched, making you feel seen and appreciated in every way a woman needed to be. Only was a simple gentleman who loved his lady. And he showed it even in the smallest of gestures--a hand-picked flower, a warm sweater on a cold day, a soft kiss on your forehead when you least expected it. It just felt right.

But with each gift, you felt a twinge of unease, a little tug in your chest. Those words repeating in your brain.

What was his endgame?

Ony loved you. Plain and simple. Anyone could see that. But yet you were so blinded by past hurt, you couldn’t step outside of your own head. Surely, he isn’t doing these things and expecting nothing back? No, it's just like before. So you did what you’ve always done. You matched him, made sure each gift was of equal or greater value. Yours needed to be more meaningful, more dramatic. You had to outdo him.

Every. Single. Time

It started early, a few weeks into your relationship--like when he bought you your favorite coffee from the cafe around the corner of your apartment that you loved so much. Of course you had to treat him to lunch the next day. “What’s this?” he asked when you walked in the house. He was working from home, headphones covering one of his ears. “I figured you were hungry so I wanted to bring you a treat.” you had replied. He smiled up at you, placing a gentle kiss against your temple. “Thank you baby girl.” his voice was soft with you, hands tracing gentle circles into your hips.

Further into your relationship, it continued. For you birthday, he bought you the beautiful tiffany princess cut diamond necklace that you were raving about one night as you scrolled on tiktok. “Omg, Pa look at this! It's gorgeous.” you had exclaimed. You saved it to your cart for you to buy later but he beat you to it. So what did you do? You bought him a Berluti Men’s leather jacket for his own birthday that you knew he had been eyeing for months.

But soon, the game escalated. You found yourself overthinking every little thing he did. Your mind wondering what you could give him in return. And no matter how hard you tried, you always felt like you had to top his gestures, matching him with something bigger, something better.

Ony had an inkling about your behavior for a while but he left it alone. Until your two year anniversary. That night, you sat together in his apartment, you hand him a gift--a black bag with two boxes inside. He smiles at you as he opens it up. Inside were two new grillz, one silver set and one gold set for his collection. His shocked expression morphed into a small smile of appreciation. “These are fire mamas, thank you so much.” he said before sitting them to the side. You smile bright at him “You deserve it baby.” you say to him.

Before you could even think, Ony placed the bag aside, reaching for a box from the table in front of him. You raised an eyebrow. "Hold up," Ony interrupted, his voice steady but serious. "I’ve got something for you too." He hands you the blue tiffany box with a bright white bow attached to the corner. “Wait,” you said, a little too quickly. “You didn’t get me anything else, did you? Because I just—"

He hands you the box, much smaller that the one you had given him. You hesitate for a moment as he opened it, revealing a stacked rose gold diamond ring. Your heart lurched in your chest. You blinked at the gift, unsure what to say. The ring was beautiful—perfect—but your immediate thought was that you needed to do better. Your mind raced, running through possible gifts you could return with, how you could top this beautiful piece of jewelry. Your instinct to outdo him kicked in, but then you saw the look on his face. He wasn’t waiting for you to match him.

“Ony…” you started, your voice wavering slightly. “I can’t just... take this. You know I—"

“Yeah, I know,” he said softly, cutting you off, his voice low. “That’s the problem.”

You blinked, confused. “The problem?” He sighed “I’ve been watching for a while and I didn’t know if I was for sure until now.” He lets you sit the box to the side and waits until you turn back towards him. “I noticed it a while back. The way your face contorts when you see me get you something. And before I know it you’ve repaid the favor.” he explains. “I mean we are in a relationship baby. That's what we do.” You attempt to laugh it off.

He leaned forward, his gaze steady as he watched you, his dark eyes soft but intense. “You’re not getting it, are you?” he said quietly, shaking his head. “You think everything has to be a transaction. That if I give you something, you have to give me something back. But that’s not how it works with me. Not with us.” he says “Ony, I’m not…” you speak up but you’re cut off

“Even in our bedroom. It’s like I can’t even please you without you feeling as if you need to outperform me.” He says. Your chest tightens at that statement. You hadn’t realized how much this had affected your relationship. You could see it now the wear and tear it was causing him. “Like don't get me wrong baby I love when we fuck but…sometimes I just want to make love to you.” he says gently.

You looked down at the ring, your fingers nervously tracing the gold, feeling the weight of his words. Your heart skipped a beat as you tried to process them.

“I don’t want you to match me,” Ony continued, his voice gentle but firm. “I’m not giving you this because I expect something in return. I’m giving it to you because I want to. Because I love you. And I don’t need anything back. Not right now, not ever.”

You swallowed hard, his words sinking deep. A lump formed in your throat as you felt the sting of emotion build up inside you. Ony wasn’t playing the game. He was giving you something real. Something without strings attached. Yet you struggled to accept it.

“I...” You found it hard to speak, the words getting caught in your throat. “I don’t know how to accept that. I’ve always had to give something back. I’ve always had to prove...”

“You don’t need to prove anything to me,” he interrupted softly, reaching out to take your hands in his, his touch warm and grounding. “Look,” he said gently. “I don’t know who he is that made you feel like this. Or who they were that told you that this is the only way you can receive love. It’s not.” He says softly ”But you don’t understand. It not okay for you to do for me and I don’t do for you.” You attempt to explain tears burning your eyes. “You can do for me. But do for me because you love me and appreciate me. Not because you feel like you have something to prove.”

“You don’t have to keep playing that game, baby. You’re enough just as you are. I love you, and that’s not conditional. It’s not about what you give me. It’s about what we give each other. And if you can’t accept that, then we need to have a different conversation.”

Your heart ached, a flood of emotions threatening to spill over. You had spent so much of your life protecting yourself, hiding behind the walls of your own expectations, and here was Ony, asking you to tear them down. To let him love you without the conditions you had always set in place.

You took a shaky breath, feeling the warmth of his hands around yours. “I’m scared,” you whispered, your voice trembling.

“I know,” he replied, his voice tender, the understanding in his eyes never wavering. “But you don’t have to be anymore. You don’t have to do anything, or be anyone, to deserve my love. You’ve got me. No strings attached.”

And with those few words, you felt the walls inside you begin to crack. The tears you had been holding back finally spilled over as you let out a shaky breath, feeling the full weight of his words settle in your chest.

He caresses your head gently, kissing away your tears. You don’t move, allowing him to nurture you. Ony pulls you closer to him. Kissing down to your lips. After a few minutes, you pull back. “Your lips are salty.” you giggle. Laughter fills the air as tension leaves both your bodies. Ony picks the box up and opens it, the ring on full display. “Ony…” you start. “This is my vow to you. My vow to love you endlessly if you let me. To give you all of me and more. No questions asked. My promise that you have all of me.” he slips the ring onto your finger. “It's beautiful baby. Thank you.” you lean up and press a kiss against his lips. His kisses you gently, pulling your bottom lip into his mouth.

You whimper in his touch. “Ony.” you speak breathlessly. He hums before kissing you again. Heat rises in your body as his hands trail up your thighs. You whine, wiggling closer to him. Ony pulls back a bit from you. “Wha…” you startle. “I want you to allow me to love you and please you without conditions. Can you do that for me?” He asks. You look into his eyes burning with sincerity and a sense of newfound peace washes over you. “Yes” you answer and you feel yourself being lifted up. You smile as Ony carries you back into your bedroom and places you gently on the bed.

“Just let me worship you baby. Like you deserve.”

He speaks before gently removing your clothes. His eyes rake over your body, taking in the curves of every part of you. “Fuck, you're so fucking pretty.” he said, hands caressing every part of you. His fingertips trace your neck and down to your nipples, circling them gently. Your back lifts from the bed but he presses you back down carefully. “Relax mamas, let me take care of you.” he cooes, continuing his descent down your body. His feather light fingers move down your torso and to your thighs. He draws gentle shapes into your inner thighs, massaging your body to loosen you up. “Breathe deep for me mamas. In and out. Focus on your breathing.” he whispers before moving his head down to your pussy.

His nose grazes against your clit and your body jolts. Ony’s thick hands come back up and flatten you back against the mattress again. “Relax baby. Keep breathing for me.” You will your body to relax as he resumes his actions. Nose grazing against the meaty flesh, he begins to pepper soft kisses along your skin. Tantric breathing methods allow your body to release the tension you held in your muscles as Ony’s lips press against your already wet one. He makes out with your pussy, softly tugging your lips into his mouth and using his tongue to flick your clit ever so often.

“Fuck pa. Right there. Don’t stop.” you whine. Ony’s kisses are slow and deliberate. His pace is steady, tongue dragging from opening to clit, like a cat lapping at it's milk. “You so fucking sweet.” he growls into your pussy, warm breath blowing into your pussy. Your pussy clenches around nothing, causing more of your juice to pour out, landing right on his tongue. “Fuck.” You gasp for air. Your toes shape into ‘C’s as Ony explores your body. Mouth pleasuring you as his hands grip and knead at your flesh. Your juices drip down his chin as he slurps you down, soft moans release from his chest at the sight of your arousal. Ony’s dick hardens as he presses his hips into the mattress to relieve pressure while he honors your body. Your eyes roll back as your head presses back into the pillow, breathing doing little to keep shivers from racing through your body.

“Ony baby, please.” you whine, hips grinding against his face while his tongue fucks your center. Your pussy so wet, the sounds echoing through the room as she sings sweet music to him. Ony was in a trance, getting lost in your essence. The speed of his tongue increases causing sparks to sizzle underneath your skin, alerting your body of the pending release. Your moans get louder as your breathing gets heavy, Your hands reach down to grip the back of his head, hips stuttering against his face. “Ony, Fuck Pa, I’m gonna cum.” You’re borderline groveling as your body begins to convulse, saccharine secretions glaze his beard as you call out his name.

You struggle to catch your breath as Ony finally comes up for hair, lickign you from his lips. “You ready for me baby?” he asks, dick hardened beneath his boxers. “I-...” you breaths still trying to level themselves out, “Are you sure you don't need me to help you baby?” you manage to push out between breaths. “No mamas. Just let me praise you like the muse you are.” his deep praises caress the deepest parts of your heart, mending unspoken wounds with each word. He steps forward, pulling his dick from his boxers and gently slapping your swollen clit with his tip. “You’re my princess, yeah?” he asks softly looking down at the gold mine between your legs. “Y-yes.” you respond to him. “Remember that. Always.” he slips his tip through your entrance. “Onyyyy, fuck baby.” you body clenches, attempting to pull him in deeper. “Tell me you deserve it baby.” his eyes meet yours, brown irises burning with intensity. “I deserve iitttt…” your words drag as he sheaths himself all the way inside you.

“You deserve it all baby girl. You’re so fucking precious to me.” the sweet words contrast with the thickness of his voice as his hips jut forward, strokes deepening and increasing in speed. Only’s hands trail your body, one hand coming up to gentle press against your throat as the other locks your wrists above your head. His body leans closer, strokes shallowing as his hips grind into yours, words of praise whispered against your skin as he caters to every need that your body requests. Both bodies move in tandem as breaths deepen and arousals heighten. You feel your body teetering on the edge of another climax. Only can tell by the way your pussy grips him desperately, craving him.

“Ony, I’m..I’m c-close.” you cry out, body begging for him. “It's okay. Give it to me princess.” he commands. “Bless me with your essence baby. Release it all for me.”

You don't register the sounds being released are yours until your body starts to shake in his arms. Tears fall from the corners of your eyes slipping down your face and around your ears. Bed wet with your tears and your release as your aura explodes from inside of you. Ony’s breaths choppy as he requests, “Can I pour into you princess?” he whispers brokenly into your ear. Words don’t come so you feverishly nod your head in agreement. His growl follows his nut as you feel your pussy warm from his release coating your gummy walls. You both sit, holding each other as you come down from your high.

After a moment, Ony raises up. “All good or one more?” He asks using his thumb to swipe the tears from your eyes. “All good Pa. Thank you.” You let out. Ony rises up and goes into the bathroom. Your eyes flutter open and closed as you let yourself calm down. He returns with a warm towel and works on cleaning you up. He replaces your clothes with a warm t shirt of his and gets fresh blankets for the bed.

You sit and allow it. It feels good being on this side. Your heart feels light as you watch him move around the room getting everything comfortable for you. “Better?” He asks. “Better.” You repeat as a response. “Good. Now take your pretty ass down while I go get you something to eat.”

Ony didn’t ask for anything in return. He gave freely, unconditionally. And maybe, for the first time in your life, you realized you could do the same. He came back in the room with your food and slipped underneath the covers with you, pulling your body in his warmth. You pulled him into an embrace, wrapping your arms around him tightly, as if trying to hold onto the love he was offering you.

“I love you,” you whispered, your voice muffled against his chest.

“I love you too,” Ony murmured, holding you even tighter, as if he never wanted to let go.

In that moment, everything changed. You didn’t need to play the game anymore. You didn’t need to prove anything. You just needed to accept what was right in front of you: a love that was simple, pure, and free from the weight of expectations.

And for the first time in your life, it was enough.

[rederiswrites]

Alright, I've got to get the gripes out. Doesn't mean you have to read it. If you love the game you probably shouldn't. This is for people who are really disappointed or angry about...things and would like to feel like they're not alone.

This is not about the absolute value of Veilguard. I enjoyed the game and I am, if anything, enjoying it more on the second playthrough. Like all the other installations, inevitably it is its own thing. Some franchises are just logical continuations of their previous installments, but Dragon Age has never been like that and I sure wouldn't expect it after this long since the last installment.

[Edited to add that I reblog locked it but 100% encourage sharing your feelings in the replies or even my dms. It's fine to talk about it! I want to talk about it!]

That said, my biggest gripes about Veilguard:

The sanitizing of the Crows

Come on now. I even defended you, Bioware! Before the game, I said, nahhhh they won't make the Crows Good Guys just because of Lucanis! Lucanis was tortured too! Well, they didn't do that, I guess. They did it as part of a much larger pattern of ironing out the moral grey areas the franchise was formerly known for.

The Crows are Patriots! Well, they are. And also, though you wouldn't know it, slavers and torturers and murderers of children. You'd be forgiven for not realizing that, considering the creation of the feel good House for orphans who really wanna be contract killers. But it is pretty foundational lore and all. There is the like, one previous Crow character, whom they wrote as going on a righteous mission to kill Crows, because of the whole them being bad thing.

What was being raised by the head of the Crows like, Lucanis? Torture? Hahaha funny oh you mean literally. Literally your grandmother tortured and starved you and never gave you the slightest choice in your life and you've accepted that because you accept the logic that it was necessary. But again. That's based on my knowledge of material outside this game.

Any previous game would have reveled in that! Do you ally yourself with these people, this objectively bad organization full of people who don't see themselves as bad at all? Because they are very good at killing, and that's what you need! But this game just makes them good guys. No moral dilemma needed. Nope, we like black and white now.

And speaking of which,

The dehumanization of the Antaam

Ew. Ew ew ew.

Gimme a minute and I'll come up with something better to say but seriously? Ew.

They neither look nor sound like any of the other qunari characters. They sound like animals, literally. Exactly once does one make the slightest attempt to do anything but attack you--and then he attacks you anyway. Not a single one deserts. I guess the lesson here is that apparently qunari really do become mindless beasts without the structure and discipline of the Qun??? Ew. No thank you.

I know, you gotta have faceless mooks. In Inquisition we fought rebel mages for absolutely no good reason but that they attacked us. In da2 thugs literally fell from the sky. But the absolutely comprehensive way in which the Antaam never spoke for themselves, as actual people... Wow.

Imagine. Imagine if we could have actually negotiated an agreement with a group of them, for that final battle. Would that have been so impossible? To fight mages?! Imagine if we'd had a former Antaam companion. Imagine if he'd been mulling over what the Arishok, Sten, the OG proof that qunari are NOT animals outside the Qun, said before the Antaam rebelled.

Mythal: basically a nice mother goddess!

What. What. What.

In this, the culmination of her sins, the finale of Solas' millennia of taking the blame for shit she set in motion, Mythal is... Flat as hell. Millennia of her scheming. Surviving. Using and abusing her children, arguably using and abusing Solas, seducing and manipulating and whatever it takes to nudge things her way. And now she's just... Kinda imperious I guess? And Morrigan just has her memories and nothing is bad about that ever. Huh.

The thing is, I was never against Mythal, in all her complex nastiness. We didn't know what her game was! I just wanted to know! What made it all worth it? What was the plan?

Well I guess the plan was--nothing? Don't worry about it. I guess.

Side note, the design work on the Mythal fragment was some Computer Animation Is My Passion, early 2000's Barbie straight to VHS looking shit. Profoundly disappointing. Did you even try.

Tell, don't show

Is the strange new voice in the blight coming from over there really horrifying? Or did you just say it was roughly fifteen times, but then actually it was just a big blob of Blight that you had to shoot extra times? Is the Butcher cruel? Or did Teia and Viago just tell us he was cruel with absolutely no detail whatsoever? Is Minrathous really blighted if you choose to save Treviso? Or are there just more beggars and some rubble and literally one blighted character? And so on, and so forth.

Remember that popular post not long ago, about how one of the great joys of Dragon Age was the sifting through unreliable narrators? Piecing together Avvar epic poetry and fragments of ancient elvhen runes and Andrastian canticles to try to guess what actually happened. The unique and unusual (in fiction) joy of the historiography of it all? We got to actively engage with the discovery. We got to piece together that Solas was the Dread Wolf, bit by difficult to find bit.

The fridge horror of it all could be really incredible. Making us work it out for ourselves meant that we experienced it much more intimately. It was an incredible storytelling tool.

Yeah I guess we just watch movies about it now. Just plug in the DVD Wolf statuette and now we know. And the codexes are reduced to flavor text and puzzle clues.

And last but definitely most,

Flat writing

Look man I know that's subjective as shit but it was. A lot of it was. You either agree or you don't, but for me, it was never more obvious than in the moments of contrast, when it was up to standard. The conversation with the Butcher. Every minute with Solas. Spite.

Contrast the Butcher (intense! Passionate! Creepy fucken pale face Harkonnen vibes! Deranged but genuine love for Treviso!) with the Dragon King (I don't even know what to put here. You don't even have to fight him! He just...blusters, and then there's a dragon, and then Taash shoves him and he falls over.)

It's just...I could probably forgive a lot of the stuff that went before if it was just more compellingly written.

Even here I absolutely will not be getting into character complaints. Those are too personal, and frankly I think people should keep them to private conversations. They have too much potential to hurt people for too little gain.

Sigh. I'm done now. I will try to focus on the good and the creative because I think that contributes a great deal more to everything and everyone. But for now, let me contemplate what could have been.

[mythalism]

Do you find yourself in almost a state of mourning/grief with datv? I’m literally in an almost emotional distress over it. All summer I built up insane defensiveness due to all the grifter hate train bullshit brewing for it with a dose of insane excitement since I’ve been a DA girlie since Origins 2009 release date and I just… don’t know how to process my feelings?!?

Due to the pre game discourse I almost feel programmed to fight criticism for it and during a new play through I keep having “holy shit that quest was so dialed in” followed immediately by “what the hell did I just listen to” and yet my brain is still in copium mode.

DA fandom discourse has always been poisoned with garbage takes, ESPECIALLY since Solas got introduced with DAI (I’m sorry, I truly believe his die hard haters have the reading comprehension of a peanut) but the fact that there is still a huge pocket of the fandom that couldn’t even get the point of the solas/mythal dynamic when it was LITERALLY SPOONFED TO US kind of… scares me about the future of narrative design in general.

Absolutely development hell and reboot and lack of time to truly sink into the intended story beats from start to finish played a major role. The skeleton remains of bullshit multiplayer factions are here too. But holy shit. Is it just me or does everything else utterly scream “chronically online” to me.

Sorry I have no idea where I’m going with this. I just needed to yap thoughts that weren’t just in the void. I don’t know how to reconcile getting my dream romance ending I waited 10 years for alongside a narrative that doesn’t even make sense leading to that happy ending.

i wouldn't say im experiencing full on grief but i do know exactly what you mean and i sympathize with your experience a lot. i think it might be because ive been in a corner of fandom that has been very critical of bioware and so i honestly had extremely low expectations of veilguard up until the summer. i thought we would NEVER get the game, and if we did get it, i was sure it would be a fucking trainwreck after 10 years of "[insert x developer here] leaves bioware after 20+ years!". my personal bar was truly on the floor, in the deep roads, in the heart of a titan, in the void etc etc.

it does bother me the way it was marketed because honestly i would call it duplicitous. not in the "false advertising" legal sense of the world but in the way it feels like the devs are (and were) very aware of the flaws in this game and more importantly were very aware of how it would be received by long-time fans. and of course i am aware that developers have little to no say whatsoever in marketing, and its also clear that vg's marketing was an absolute mess of conflicting directions considering that reveal trailer that honestly set the game up to fail (i truly believe the grifting and general, casual reception would not have been so negative if they had used the release-date trailer instead) and the way they immediately had to drop 20 minutes of gameplay to reassure people that they werent releasing dragon age: fortnite LMFAO. but i think that mismatch actually tells us a lot about the similarly contradictory tone and writing in different parts of the game, and the direction that EA seemingly pushed for (as exemplified by their attempts to market it as... whatever that was) and the game bioware was attempting to make (which would have undoubtedly been flawed but probably more in-line with past games).

but, this duplicitous marketing was not just EA, and i do feel that the devs played up the game, and specifically our attachment to past characters and franchise entries, in a way that was a bit unfair when you have the context of their comments post-release about how aware they are of it's shortcomings. and i get it, these people have quite literally no choice. they have to participate in the marketing of this game, it's their job, they need to pay rent and eat etc etc like i get it. but just because they have good reason to play on their fan's attachment to their writing via their tweets and comments in dev q&a's doesn't mean i cant say it left a bad taste in my mouth. i think trick being completely absent from the entire marketing cycle is really interesting in this context, lol. i have no proof of there being a correlation, it was just something i found interesting this summer, and that i find even more interesting now, especially considering their role as lead writer.

it definitely felt like the things they chose to show and the things they chose not to were designed specifically to grip fans and rile us up, and though it worked for their pre-sales, i think it actually hurt them in the end because if they had not gotten expectations up so high by dangling varric and solas and morrigan and the inquisitor in front of us like carrots, we probably would not all have been so disappointed! i sure wouldnt be. remember i thought this game was going to fucking blow not even 8 months ago! for me it was precisely the summer build up that left me so bereft in the end. if i had played the game completely blind id still think it was a flop, but i wouldn't feel absolutely bamboozled and pissed off in the way i and a lot of others seem to feel.

legend @scaryanneee said once that the entire game feels apologetic, in both its writing and design and that has stuck with me ever since she said it. the whole game feels like a big "sorry it wasnt better", and even more so due to the release of the artbook filled with ideas that they knew we'd like better, and even MORE so with the game's lack of denuvo or other anti-piracy software, allowing us to data-mine and see the skeleton left behind at some point. idk a lot about game development but i am under the impression that post-release content that feels like a desperate apology to fans + tweets about how you fought and lost that then get deleted are not the norm????

its truly a mess. but i do not feel hopeless, for some reason. gaming is a mess and i think you are right to fear for the future of narrative design but although there are always people who will bootlick to cope, there are also beloved haters like us who will always complain, and not out of transphobia or a desire to grift, but out of a genuine love for these games and the stories they tell. i wish the reviews had been a bit more discerning and critical, but i hope the message will get through to bioware and EA eventually. i also think that tbh, if this game came out 3 years after bg3 rather than 1, it would look VERY different. i would not even really consider myself a bg3 fan and i have a lot of criticisms of it (lol who's surprised!!!) it is objectively a move in the right direction for the gaming industry for a variety of reasons, and i do believe its many accolades have sent a message to greedy execs everywhere.

[kazucee]

Thanks for the tag lovely! (I had to stop myself from giving her pink hair *sigh*)

How do you spend your free time ?

Wait I have free time? In this day and age ? (College) I'd usually spend it reading, doom scrolling, drawing, fretting about my major subjects all while listening to music^^

What are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

Drawing, writing, crochet ! The first two have been a thing since I was younger while crochet was introduced first to me by my mum (I wasn't into it as much) then re-introduced to me again by my best friend (I am now super into it.)

What book or movie has left a lasting impression on you?

Get ready for book reqs (hah)

The land of stories- first series I've read as a kid so it will always be dear to my heart. I love the sibling dynamics and the prospect of fairytales (just realized that this is technically a transmigration book?)

Six of crows- first duology + superb world building + found family + magic and crime stuff. I remember begging my dad to buy it for me. I absolutely love this book and the crows so much (they're THE found family ever.)

Mist- this is actually a danmei I got into during the pandemic ! Honestly one of the best pieces of literature I've read so far. The writing? The dynamics? The found family? I'll recommend it to anyone who loves scifi + adventure + cold x sunshine + co-workers that hate each other to lovers + funny banters+ intellectually stimulating plots (literally my head was spinning trying to understand what was happening)

[I wish I could add all of the books but I feel like I've been yapping too much, special mentions: AFTG, the Raven cycle, Babel, Anatomy, THE ENTIRE OUABH SERIES, PJO and ATYD!]

[If I continue to the movies that'll be another long thing so...I'm just gonna.... Ballad of song birds and snakes, Elementals, and any Ghibli film]

What kind of music do you enjoy?

I don't think I have a set genre TT? I slap on whatever my Spotify playlist decides to play and just roll with it. I'll just add a few so you guys can get the main idea: Chase Atlantic, Arctic Monkeys + Wave to Earth+ Beabadoobee + Taylor Swift + Cavetown + Hozier + Noah Kahan + Waterparks + BC camplight + Rob Deniel +Luke Chiang (your guess on my music taste is as good as mine)

Who's your favorite character and why?

Will Solace, Sirius Black, Kazuha, Kaveh, March 7th, Mizi, Evangeline Fox, Yamaguchi, Suna Rintaro, Hutao, Albedo, Teru Minamoto, Robin, Wylan, Wybie, Aaron Minyard, literally any character with pink hair. (the list of kins- *cough* I mean characters go on.) I like em cuz they're silly is all :>

This was super fun TT- and the pic crew is adorable. No pressure tags 🏷️: @telephonedear @luvether @ohmpunn + anyone else who wants to join because I lack close mutuals.

tag + q&a game ₊˚ෆ

hello! i thought it would be cute and exciting to do a tag game with all my mutuals to not only talk about themselves, but have fun! so here is my short little game:

alongside this picrew, share 5 things about yourself!

• how do you spend your free time? • what are your hobbies and how did you get into them? • what book or movie left a lasting impression on you? • what kind of music do you enjoy? • who is your favorite character (atm or all time) and why?

i will start first!

my name is rurumi and i enjoy spending my free time writing!

some of my hobbies (outside of writing) includes: drawing, building gundams and keyboards, and fashion! i got into most of them on a whim and became instantly hooked. aside from self-expression, being into fashion also helps with making friends in college because you always have something to talk about!

a book that left a lasting impression on me would have to be either kafka on the shore by haruki murakami or before the coffee gets cold by toshikazu kawaguchi. both stories have kept me up at night thinking a lot about the 'what ifs' in life.

i enjoy soul/r&b alongside anything of jrock influence, but i will basically listen to anything that sounds good. i am currently listening to 'so what' by lucy!

my favorite character at the moment is rin itoshi from blue lock because hes so ridiculously edgy, but at the same time i sympathize with him a lot. on the other hand, my favorite character of all time is suletta mecury from the witch from mercury series, she's an absolute ball of sunshine that i aspire to be.

tagging (+ no pressure) ₊˚ෆ

@kaiser1ns @naenaex0xx @shomatoriashi @choccorin @ryescapades

@rindreamery @soleillunne @kissxcore @rainswept @mitsvriii

[vigilskept]

i just want to say i saw your tags and i do agree with most of them!! i just think we also cannot overlook the role of racism in that, because of how many of those people who walked away with more attachment to assan than davrin talk about that exact sacrifice. it is a recurring problem in the dragon age fandom that many other players do not LOOK for depth in Black characters, then complain about its absence. So I am much less generous about it personally! But thank you for your thoughts, they were interesting to read. (Sending as an ask cause I don't want to reblog and make a whole post about it in case anyone gets aggressive, feel free to answer me privately if you want too at all - no worries about doing so! But I made the post partially because of my major frustration with how racist a lot of people were being about davrin and that choice, so it was something I took into consideration while writing the thing up)

i do know what you mean, fandom has been terrible with reading any depth into characters of colour in this franchise... there's a tendency to assume they have no more complexity than whatever image of themselves they're projecting outward (see: zev, bela, vivienne)

and based a lot of the discourse around wyll in bg3 over the last couple of years, i don't think we've seen much change in fandom when it comes to this. it's still a big issue, and that kind of bias (consciously or not) factors into how a lot of people have been interpreting davrin's character/arc for sure

i just think that the writing also plays into this a little

that first scene where you welcome him into the lighthouse struck me as particularly off because davrin's literally just lost two friends in the wardens before joining us and we don't even get the option to ask him how he's feeling. the whole conversation is about assan, the grey wardens and the griffons

now assan's isolation from his siblings is being deliberately paralleled with davrin's isolation from his clan (and now the wardens), but on it's face this conversation comes off as though rook is more interested in the griffons than in davrin. especially when you compare it with the other early-game lighthouse conversations! just 1 more dialogue where you actually get to check in on davrin could've mitigated that, if only a little

the heart of davrin's quest isn't buried between a dozen layers of metaphor or anything, it's not hard to find the parallels with assan when you put some time/thought into it. but the writing elsewhere in veilguard is so unsubtle, and the opportunities to talk to davrin directly about himself are so much fewer that it becomes much easier to write off his character than the other companions...

[tsbsredraft]

Queen Kat Productions,

A situation has been blowing up recently regarding Kat and her writing for the Lunar and Earth Show. I'm here to offer biased opinions, a short summary of what occurred, and sources so that people may gain their own perspectives.

I'm aware, I said I wouldn't get into drama on my blog, but this isn't drama to me. This is a serious issue with the fandom that I've had for a long time and am choosing to discuss and address it of my own volition. You do not have to read this! You are under no obligation to read this, skip it if you don't want to hear it.

Summary;

Kat, or Queen Kat Productions, is a YouTuber and Creative Content Creator. She voices Acts and Roleplays characters for several different channels and projects.

Most notably (because this is the project most people know her from, sadly) The Lunar And Earth Show and The Sun And Moon Show, all of which are shows under The Security Breach Shows universe, a Five Nights At Freddy's derived series hosted on YouTube.

She has recently been aggressively "criticized," mocked, and berated by the majority of the LAES/SAMS community because of her writing decisions and how she plays her characters, namely Earth.

My own Opinions and Thoughts;

This issue is not uncommon in the TSBS community, this hasn't changed for the 2-3 years I've been within this community and it isn't ending anytime soon. I used to moderate for the Discord server for many years, so I feel I have a good point of reference for how egregious some people can be within this space.

Many believe it to be purely from a place of internalized misogyny and while I do not disagree with that point, I do want to highlight how one can still be a dick and not be a misogynist. Just because you don't hate women doesn't mean you cannot be contributing to the problem. Do not try to exempt yourself because this is one of the only arguments being made. If you are responsible, you are a part of the criticism against the accusations being made towards Kat. Misogynist or not.

A lot of hate towards feminine and feminine presenting (or just straight-up women) characters has not been a suddenly occurring issue out of the blue. This has existed for the entirety of the show's runtime.

But allow me to run you through some of my main issues with the current situation and previous unresolved issues;

Many minor (as in, under 18) characters, such as Cassie, have been called whores and harlots purely for being 'annoying' or 'clingy' or 'cringe'. None of which is appropriate to say about or towards minors. I get it, they're fictional characters, not real people but take a moment to consider what those words mean (I have linked definitions to the words for you). Why would you imply that a minor is a prostitute? You can say what you want about adults, but it is completely disgusting and inappropriate to say such about minors, I don't care if you're joking. If you are a minor yourself and saying such horrific things, please do not do this. I won't berate you but your age does not excuse it, please take this as a learning moment.

The feminine presenting and female characters are not without criticism, nothing is without criticism. We are not saying you cannot have issues with the characters, the writing, the voice acting, the body acting, the handling of this or that- that's not the problem. The issue comes in when the only people you're taking issue with are the feminine characters and excuse the masculine characters who have, undoubtedly, done far worse than the feminine characters have. As Kat and Davis (and others) have addressed, yes, this show is set up to be able to go on forever so some horrific acts have to be brushed away to continue with the videos. But these issues should not be glorified and coddled outside of the universe and swept under the rug. It'd like a cartoon after they beat the shit out of someone with a piano. The number of people I've seen literally glorify BloodMoons thrill killing but cannot excuse Earth liking Barbie is insane. (as an example, not a direct reflection of everyone's issues or beliefs within this situation). If you have issues regarding internalized misogyny, that is okay. Having internalized discrimination issues is common and can be improved, it is not the end of your rope. You can come back from it and learn to get better. It takes time and effort, but please do not trap yourself in the mentality of this discrimination because you're scared of backlash for having these thoughts and viewpoints to begin with.

Some of it comes from a place of existing distaste for TSBS and while it's okay to be angry, upset, or dislike something, it is unhealthy for you to dwell on something that is causing you distress, broiling anger, or triggers you. I genuinely worry for the health of those who cling to these shows and outlet their frustrations onto it in an unhealthy manner. It's again, okay to have criticisms, not like an arc, not like a character, etc.. but it isn't okay to harass the people behind its production because you dislike this or that. It's not okay to harass people regardless but you know what I mean. You can critique anything you want, but it becomes to much when you begin to insult it or the person behind it. That's beyond unkind. Genuine criticism comes from a place of wanting the thing to improve and watch it grow, not to cancel and sink it.

BUT that's just a few of my standpoint thus far. Subject to change. If it wasn't made obvious, I support Kat through this, I support the VAs and I support the Discord Mods, who are most likely at least irritated by this whole debacle.

The VAs have been getting shit for as long as I've volunteered there. There would be fans who would pout when they couldn't get into direct contact or speak to them in the server because they didn't show up but once in a blue moon. Even back then I recognized why that was.

One of the ways we viewed Moderating back in my day was, and I quote, "bodyguards for the VAs" (if they spoke in public chats) so that they didn't feel crowded or overwhelmed so they knew they were supported and could interact comfortably.

They were taking care of their own health, even if it seemed "detached" for it. I'm very proud of Kat and Flora and Mario and any VA who interacts with the community even remotely. And I'm just as proud of those who don't like. No one deserves the shit they go through.

It hurt my heart to hear Kat had been crying and to hear her cry on stream. I have been in tears several times over Moderating for TSBS because of how awful things can be. It hurts to see such a wonderful woman's heart get torn apart like that.

So I'm sorry, but if you don't support Kat, this blog may not be for you. You can do what you want I'm not gonna yell DNI Kat Haters, but this won't be another space for you to indulge in your anger.

——————————————————

Sources;

Kats Writing Break Announcement (Written Blog Post)

Davis Addressing Treatment of VAs and Kat (on Stream)

Kat Talks about Her Feelings (on Stream)

How to support Kat;

Bongo's Kat Appreciation Project (Written Blog Post)

Follow her on her Socials and support her YouTube projects!

And as a general note before I sign off, support and respect all VAs autonomy. Thank you.

[finnlongman]

Do you have to get a master’s degree or a PhD to publish research? Or work at a university? I don’t currently plan to go into academia but I really enjoy doing research, is it possible to do that as a hobby/side job? (Specifically asking in relation to literature, obviously research in things like the natural sciences requires the extra training and lab access by default)

An important note to start with: basically nobody is getting paid for academic publishing. Especially not for articles. They write them for free, they're peer-reviewed for free, they're edited for free. The only people making money are usually the big corporate owners of journals, if it is a big corporate journal and not one of the small independent ones. It's all a huge scam, obviously, but the idea is that people who have an academic job will be publishing the research produced in the course of that job, and thus they are already being paid for doing the research. In an age of precarious employment, it doesn't really work like that, but that's the idea.

That means you can't really do it as a side job, because there isn't any money in it. Doing it as a hobby, on the other hand, is theoretically possible, although I'd have some major caveats to offer:

On the publishing side, I can only speak for my particular field of medieval Celtic Studies, which is weird and old-fashioned and works on arcane and unknowable systems that deeply confuse anyone in a field advanced enough to have heard of "digital submissions" and "online journals". One of our major journals is literally run by one guy who requires you to do all the page proofs by hand and post them back to him and you can buy the (physical-only) journal for £5 per volume. This is not typical for academia these days, so all of my answers are going to be shaped by that.

On the publishing side, you definitely don't have to have a PhD or an academic job to publish an article, which I know because I have published several articles and am only now doing a PhD, so by definition I did that without a PhD or an academic job. This is unusual, for the record; I know very few people who've published before doing a PhD, but that's partly because a lot of my friends went straight through from undergrad to postgrad with no time out, and thus wouldn't have had time to be publishing in between, whereas I took a more leisurely approach.

However, two of these articles were significantly based on my MA work, and one of them -- the only one so far published in an actual journal rather than a conference proceedings -- would have been completely impossible without skills and knowledge gained during my MA. That isn't to say there is no way to gain those skills without doing postgraduate study. But it does mean that there are specific skills required that require training and experience, whether you get that in a university context or find a way to learn it outside of that. (For example, palaeographical or linguistic training, or a firm grounding in theoretical approaches, specific methodologies, etc.)

The purpose of doing an MA or a PhD a lot of the time is to pursue research and gain those skills. If you really enjoy doing research to the point where you would want to publish it (note above: zero financial reward for doing so), I would question why you don't want to pursue higher education. There are lots of reasons not to, for sure, so this isn't me saying the only valid research comes out of that environment or that it's the only path to academic fulfillment. Again: I published articles before I started my PhD. One of my articles is even based on undergraduate work, though substantially revised and redeveloped.

But... that is a point. It was substantially revised and redeveloped. Because for the most part, work produced without the higher-level study and skills (whether gained formally or informally) is not going to be of the same calibre as work produced with them, which seems kind of obvious when you spell it out. There is more to literary research than just close-reading a text and having a lot of thoughts about it, because if there wasn't, nobody would need to do postgrad study about it.

Literature may have different, less obvious skills required than natural sciences, but that doesn't mean it has none. It does mean they may be easier to acquire outside of formal academic courses, but that doesn't mean they don't need acquiring, however you do it.

There are also practical barriers to publishing as an independent scholar. Sometimes these are financial barriers, where not having institutional support will mean you can't publish open-access because you don't have the funding to support it. Sometimes they're things like library access -- when my article in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies came out in 2022, I was not currently in academia, nor was I living within easy reach of an academic library, which made it incredibly hard to check references or follow up on suggestions from peer reviewers. The editor of the journal was kind enough to send me scans of articles that had been recommended by reviewers, but not all editors would do that, and so without access to past scholarship, it would be very hard to write something academically solid.

Again, there are other ways to gain that access. I have spent a fair bit of my adult life working in universities in a non-academic capacity, which entitled me to use their libraries even though I wasn't a student or officially "in academia". Many fields have a larger proportion of their scholarship digitally available, which can make it easier to access without physically going to a library. Etc. But it is a barrier, and the financial hurdles are less easily overcome. (Fortunately, very little in my field is pay-to-publish, but Open Access costs can be troublesome!)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all of my currently-available articles were published before I started my PhD, and I was not "in academia" at the time that I wrote them, but all but one of them was based on work I had done as a student, and they relied heavily on skills and knowledge I developed as an MA student. I am now as a PhD student seeing elements I could have done better, having built on those skills and that knowledge further. Subsequent work was submitted while working for a university in a non-academic capacity, because this gave me access to their libraries. (Which really shows you how long I've been procrastinating on finishing the edits for this article, because I've been a PhD student for over a year now... I originally submitted it in January last year, whoops.) Again, I have ended up subsequently revising this as I improve as a scholar.

So, technically I have done research as a "hobby" alongside a non-academic day job. Technically it is possible. It is hard, but you can do it, if you really want to. But I think I would have struggled to produce anything of a sufficient standard for publication if not for my MA and the skills I learned during it, and there is zero financial reward for academic publishing, so it's definitely not a viable "side job".

Having said all that: If you want to keep researching things alongside your other work, there is absolutely no reason not to do that. Formal academic publishing isn't the only way of doing research, you know? It's probably not even the best way, even if it's the current institutional standard for sharing that research with other people. But you can just... learn things, and enjoy them, and post about them on your blog, and so on. Lots of people do this. Sometimes the most useful website collecting resources or variants of a text or commentaries or whatever is run by a complete randomer with a job in a totally unrelated field who is just super into this in their free time.

And I will also note: my MA and PhD thesis proposals both came out of research that I was doing independently alongside my day job when I realised that I needed more support and skills to do it properly, so I would benefit from doing it as part of a formal programme. I did not originally plan to do postgrad study. By the time I finished undergrad I was fairly sure I was done with academia forever, because I'd mostly been miserable at uni. But it hit a point where I kept chasing up details by myself and going "damn, I wish I knew how to read these manuscripts", or "if only my Old Irish skills were better", or "I wish I could access this obscure text that's only found in special collections of that university library", and that's the point at which I decided to do an MA. So sometimes it happens like that too.

(I have been adamant all along that I wasn't aiming to stay in academia as a career. Given that my previous claims that I was not going to do a PhD and then, before that, that I was not going to do a Masters, turned out to be categorically false, well... I'm not necessarily right about that. I would certainly love to keep doing research, but the short-term contracts and precarious employment of early career academia don't appeal to me, and there's absolutely no way I want to start moving cities/countries every year or two again when I've just managed to get semi-consistent healthcare after moving back to the UK and having to start on all the waiting lists from scratch. I am too chronically ill for that kind of lifestyle and, I suspect, for the demands of academia in general. We will see how long I can stretch out "getting people to pay me to research things" without those aspects, but it may be that I end up as an independent researcher alongside my other jobs again. At least now I live in Cambridge, and can access the University Library as an alumnus wherever I end up working... that's something!)

I published 'early' both because I felt I had something to say and if I didn't say it, nobody would say it (nobody else cares about Láeg), and also because I didn't think I was sticking around in academia, so if I didn't say it then, I would never say it. I was definitely right about the first part, but if I end up sticking around, I'll disprove the second part and I'll probably start regretting publishing at such an early stage as I continue to disprove my own points with further research. I do think that's normal no matter when you start, lol, but there's a degree of "and why do I expect any more senior academics to listen to what an MA student had to say, anyway" at times. (Because I don't believe in hierarchies and I'm convinced I had something meaningful to offer, that's why, but hey.) The only tangible benefit to having published that research for me was being able to point at it when applying for PhD funding and say "look, I'm already published and everything!". The main benefit to other people wasn't much beyond what it would have been if I just... put that research on my blog for them to read anyway.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I apologise, this is rambly as hell and I'm going in circles, I'm not very awake. Maybe I'll just stop there. I could start talking about popular history books that you'll find in bookshops and how most of them are written by people without postgraduate degrees, but I don't really know that much about those, and I feel this would be getting us off-topic.

tl;dr you technically don't need postgraduate qualifications to publish academically, but you do generally need postgraduate-level skills to produce work that's good enough, however you acquire them; there are a fair number of practical barriers to publishing without institutional support; and there's no money in any of it anyway

[marquessofendos]

purity culture was a mistake. i miss the days when you could just read a book and there were no morality olympics about it online, you just found people online drawing their ideas of the characters and shipping them with characters from a different book of the same author's the pandemic destroyed fandom spaces irreparably and as a consequence that destroyed system spaces (but they were kind of already fucked and had been fucked since the advent of the "syshop" blog and its owner, who made up rules for validity that tumblr followed like the fucking ten commandments, which you can still see a LOT of in modern sysmed culture - INCLUDING the ""age range for developing DID"" concept) as a result? people see fictives and assume they're not people. they don't treat them normally. we have personally been a victim of one such person who treated our fictives as their "blorbos" rather than the people that they are. stop policing systems when it comes to fandom spaces and related content. systems fundamentally interact differently with media than singlets, especially systems with introjects. i know damn well OUR fictives like looking up art and content of themselves and the individuals they actually had relationships with in their original world, but oops, this world's labelled it "proship" content because unlike in their memories, their partner, who was an adult when they knew them and had been an adult for a while before they even started dating, is portrayed as a minor in this world. let me say that again because i know someone illiterate is going to read this and yell at me. IN THE FICTIVE'S MEMORIES, SOMEONE'S AGE WAS DIFFERENT THAN IT IS IN THIS WORLD. like, say, persona 5 akira - ours was 19 in his memories. NINETEEN. YEARS. OLD. that's even the age he showed up at! the thieves were also all adults, except for futaba sakura. this means his relationship, with goro akechi, who canonically is 19 while akira is 17, was a relationship between consenting adults, due to akira being 19 in his memories. but in this world, after he got here, he had to contend with the fact that he is portrayed as 17 years old by his source. this is an extremely common occurrence in systems, and not really an "extreme" example. you see stuff like this all the time in plurality. much as you see people who are exactly like canon. you see a mix of both. you know akira who i mentioned earlier? yeah, literally everything was the exact same except for the fact that he was 19. he missed a whole year of school due to abuse related issues and was still in highschool. oh well! it let him become a phantom thief and make friends and find a boyfriend and have a happy life. purity culture makes it extremely hard for others to wrap their head around systems being different. "but canon!" nobody asked. nobody cares. an introject is a whole fucking person, not a piece of media on a screen. and hell, even if they're the exact same as the media on the screen, who the hell and fuck cares? they're still a real person. you can't just treat them the same as the media on the screen. this is why applying "proship" and "antiship" to system members falls fucking flat. those are not fictional characters those are real fucking people. you can't judge them at all on the contents of canon, even if they DO fully align with it! it physically CANNOT be a ship! THOSE ARE REAL LIVING HUMANS! the moment people understand that systems interact fundamentally different with media, then we won't have as much of the same problem as the queen described. the moment people start escaping moral purity culture that modern fandom is drenched in, then this will finally be a cold take. which it should already be.

hot take it’s okay to be/have an introject of a problematic character or person that ISN’T canon divergent or whatever. and it’s okay to not constantly apologize for being/having that person. you don’t owe people explanations. “ohhhh but we don’t support their actions—“ ok? nobody needs to know that. you shouldn’t have to explain one of your headmates’ existence every time they meet new people.

[marimeeko]

Yo why the fuck is Katsuki and his relationship with Izuku getting done so dirty in this epilogue? Like he led the super suit project. He likely started it bc he couldn't dream of doing herowork without Izuku. All Might credited him when giving the suit to Izuku. He held out his hand. Izuku, I'm guessing, took his hand. Fine, good, wonderful.

But suddenly, Katsuki fucking asks him to start an agency with him so they can work together, literally their fucking DREAM SINCE THEY WERE KIDS? AND IZUKU SAYS NO?? What was this entire exercise for? What was showing us how deeply they MEAN to each other, how dependent on each other they are, just for izuku to casually shoot katsuki down with a smile, even FOR?

Please what the fuck. What the fuck am I looking at.

As far as we know yet, we dont know if the two get a conversation specifically regarding katsukis devotion to the suit project, we don't get Izuku getting to realize and appreciate what Katsuki has been doing for the last 8 years, how devoted the man is?

And yeah I know katsuki ain't doing it for clout or recognition or a pat on the back, but that doesn't t mean he doesn't deserve some form of emotional payoff for the whole thing(as well as the audience who was rooting for him!)

Ooof I know I know, I'm angry over a manga(I wasn't mad before) but this part has driven me up a wall bc...

Idk, katsuki just deserves better. He feels like n afterthought in this epilogue.

I know I know, I need to wait out the full release and see everything for myself but DAMN

I feel like he's getting done a little dirty in this.

Technically no izuku doesn't owe him for the gift HOWEVER this is a story with thematic elements and THEMATICALLY, izuku and Katsuki have been so intertwined and woven together, and played as so desperate to keep each other in their lives, to compete, to fight alongside each other, and then the PAYOFF is a SHRUG and a rejection to just that?? Thematically, this is UNSATISFYING AS FUCK.

Like, what is their entire arc if it just ends in a casual rejection?? What the fuck were we building up to and getting so emotionally invested in for their relationship? Please it's so anticlimactic. This was a story about THEM. There was no Izuku without Kacchan, there was no Kacchan without Izuku.

Katsuki Bakugou deserves better.

And 0 percent of this is about the shipping. It's simply what Horikoshi wrote when he wrote them as a duo. When he framed their relationship as the CORE, the heart and SOUL of the story. When he made "win to save, save to win" a running theme, when he made Izuku someone who would kill for Katsuki, and Katsuki someone who would die(and live) for Izuku.

Maybe as more info drops and actual releases happen, this post will age badly. Part of me really hopes it does and there's some sort of misunderstanding or something, bc I did NOT want the thread of BKDK(be it platonic, romantic or other) to end this...unfortunately.

Again. I don't give a shit about the shipping in this moment, in this rant/vent. It's not about that rn. It's literally just the setup not matching the payoff.

[mammillariatasay]

I want to say so much after what happened with ticklethentopple

And I'll say everything I want

I couldn't even imagine how many people are already pissed off by him

It's not that I'm very confrontational, but when they climb into my comfort zone and unreasonably call me a pervert, I'm sorry, dude, but I'm going to fuck you in the mouth

I’ll answer to every fucking detail of your shitty rant

And so..

I've liked tickling since I was 6

Because of one little-known fairy tale that I really loved as a child (I'll show it later)

And I'm very tense about the thought that in the understanding of some, apparently, a love for tickling among children a priori means a future sexual fetish

My attitude to tickling has always been EXCLUSIVELY SFW (I checked this) for me it is a manifestation of love between parents and children/friends/lovers, etc.

Like hugs

I've even said many times that I hate tying up/torture/tears and snot, which is also equated to SFW tickling for some fucking reason

And when some idiot declares in every post that this is a KINK, does he really think we wouldn’t get fucking pissed?

I won't focus on his bullshit about blushing, it's complete nonsense

By the way, my OCs are minors

They are 14-17 years old

And I have NEVER SEXUALIZED THEM until they turn 18 according to the lore!!!

I came up with them when I was 16

They are a reflection of me

My teenage years, high school, first love, first friends

And I'm still a fucking child myself, even though I'm already 22

Why am I not against minors following me? Because I sincerely do not carry any NSFW messages in my blog

And I am not responsible for all my followers, they are not idiots, they understand what I draw and what is written in my blog

Specifically, I do not communicate with minors, but I do not mind if they like and repost my posts because it will not harm them in any way

I literally do not draw anything that contains any violence, etc.

If some minor writes me something inappropriate for his age, I will block him

If you draw tied up people chained to some kind of torture devices, whose eyes are already rolling back and whose faces are redder than a tomato, YOU should not interact with minors and leave us fucking alone

You need to understand the difference between adequate freedom on the Internet and grooming

If you know that some user is talking to children about something obscene, instead of shitting out some kind of paste that we are all sick creatures, throw complaints on THEIR account

Contact the tumblr administration

Notify the police if you know that they live in the same country/city as you

What people like ticklethentopple do is not a fight to protect children, but throwing shit at neighbors

Why do we hide our hobbies from our family/irl friends/BOSSES??

Maybe because we are oppressed even within the community? Maybe because we think that this is something personal? Maybe because we think that our #tkl_art is just... Cringe for ordinary people? Personally, I have always been afraid of being ridiculed and not being known as a pervert

Я так много хочу сказать после того что случилось с ticklethentopple

И я скажу всё что хочу

Я и представить не могла как много людей он уже заебал

Не то чтоб я сильно конфликтная но когда лезут в мою зону комфорта и безосновательно называют меня извращенкой извини чувак но я щас выебу тебя в рот

Я распишу нахуй поминутно блять где кто соснул хуйца блять

И так..

Мне нравится щекотка с 6 ЛЕТ

Из-за одной малоизвестной сказки которую я очень любила в детстве (позже я вам ее покажу)

И меня очень напрягает мысль что в понимании некоторых видимо любовь к щекотке среди детей априори означает будущий сексуальный фетиш

Мое отношение к щекотке всегда было ИСКЛЮЧИТЕЛЬНО SFW (я проверяла это) для меня это проявление любви между родителями и детьми/друзьями/влюблёнными и ТД

Как объятия

Я даже неоднократно говорила что ненавижу связывания/пытки/слезы и сопли что тоже приравнивают к SFW какого то хуя

И когда какой-то хер с горы заявляет в каждом своем посте что это КИНК он думает у нас жопа не сгорит?

Я не буду заострять внимание на его высере про румянец это полный абсурд

Да кстати мои персонажи несовершеннолетние

Им 14-17 лет

И я никогда НИКОГДА НЕ СЕКСУАЛИЗИРОВАЛА ИХ пока им по лору не исполняется 18!!!

Я придумала их когда мне было 16

Они отражение меня

Мой подростковый возраст старшая школа первая любовь первые друзья 

И я блять сама все ещё ребенок хоть мне уже 22

Почему я не против того что несовершеннолетние подписаны на меня? Потому что я искренне не несу в своем блоге никаких NSFW посылов 

И я не несу ответственность за все своих фолловеров они не идиоты они понимают что я рисую и что написано в моем блоге

Конкретно я не общаюсь с несовершеннолетними но я не против если она лайкают и репостят мои посты потому что им это никак не навредит

Я буквально не рисую ничего что содержит в себе какое-то насилие и тд

Если какой-то минор напишет мне что-то неадекватное для его возраста я его заблокирую

Если вы рисуете связанных людей прикованных к каким то пыточным устройствам у которых уже глаза закатываются а лицо краснее помидора это ВАМ не стоит взаимодействовать с минорами а нас блять оставьте в покое

Надо понимать разницу между адекватной свободой в интернете и растлением малолетних

Если вы знаете что какой-то пользователь говорит с детьми о чем то непристойном вместо того чтоб высирать пасту какие мы все больные твари накидайте жалоб на ЕГО аккаунт

Напишите администрации тамблера

Напишите заяву в полицию если знаете что он живёт с вами в одной стране/городе

То что делают такие как ticklethentopple не борьба за защиту детей а кидание говна в соседей 

Почему мы скрываем наше увлечение от семьи/ирл друзей/НАЧАЛЬНИКОВ??

Может потому что нас даже внутри комьюнити притесняют? Может потому что мы считаем что это что-то личное? Может потому что мы считаем что наши #tkl_art это просто... Кринж для обычных людей? Я лично всегда боялась быть высмеянной а не прослыть извращенкой

[systemic-dreams]

Dragon Age rant

I need to scream into the void about Veilguard. I hate what the narrative did to Thedas and I need to be very bitter and petty about it. So here's everything wrong with Veilguard's story and why I'm being a pendant.

Have some warnings:

[LONG ASS POST WITH ANIMATED GIFS AND IMAGES]

[VEILGUARD CRITICAL]

[MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD BELOW]

For context, I am a Dragon Age Origins truther. I loved DA2 for completely different reasons and DA: Inquisition was still fun, even if the story/villain fell kinda flat. (Also Solas stole my Lavellan's eyebrows and I'm still mad about it).

The games were by no means perfect but even with all their flaws, they managed to capture the imagination and the essence of the interactive medium of videogames, giving you the freedom to role play but also replay and experience the world from a different perspective. And it would reward you for doing so. When you got to the end, you would already be thinking about your next playthrough and your next character and the decisions they would make, happy to sink another 100+ hours into the game.

Well, I finished Veilguard in around 80 hours, and by finished, I mean two complete playthroughs to make every possible decision in the game which amounted to playing the same game twice just to see if they were hiding another better game underneath the one I already played but no. I trotted up to Elger'nan and kicked his flying ass and was suddenly beset by the ‘good’ ending where Mythal absolves Solas of all his responsibilities and the Inquisitor showed up to hold hands with the Dread wolf so the pair of them could walk off into the sunset (hellish tear in the sky) together.

As a reward, I was shown a bunch of 2D title cards with one sentence summaries repeating my decisions (or lack thereof) back to me without epilogue, most of them regarding my companions. And then my Rook condescendingly told me "At their heart, stories are about change…"

But we literally didn't change anything. In fact, we fought tooth and nail to maintain the status quo (Veil). Hence, we were 'guard'ing the Veil, though we're never referred to as 'the Veilguard' ingame. If anyone was trying to change stuff it was the Evanuris or Solas or whoever. The Veilguard, specifically, were trying to stop change the whole time, from the very beginning with Varric. And we had very little choice in the matter.

AND THEN! To add insult to injury, the game shows you the briefest of cutscenes with every inciting incident from each of the previous games: Loghain retreating from Ostagar, Bertrand being driven mad by the red Lyrium idol, and the Breach that marked the Inquisitor. All of these things are surrounded by a shadowy group of people with gravelly voices who claim that they have been shaping all these events, and that they are responsible for all of it somehow. And now that the Elven gods are dead, you’ll be hearing from them. And you see the symbol for the Executors - a mysterious organisation of spies from ‘across the sea’ that don’t have much of a role in DA: Inquisition beyond some minor missions. You could easily miss them without trying.

So, great! Not only has the South of the continent been destroyed, none of what you did there mattered because the Illuminati were secretly behind everything the whole time. And you’ve left yet another game on a cliffhanger. This, being the culmination of at minimum twenty plus hours of game time and cutscenes during which you have to sit back and watch this trainwreck of a story unfold, unable to do anything about it because they took away player agency in a role playing game. The only decision you make is whether you participate, or not. And the game punishes you for not slogging through all of its content with character death and faction failure in the finale if you didnt get the right number of friendship points.

I think that in a kinder world where this game did not use the Dragon Age brand or setting, and simply did the whole ‘my first queer high fantasy rated T for Teen’ dance, I would probably forgive most of its trespasses and move on with my life, but that’s not what happened. 

Veilguard took on the incredibly daunting task of living up to the Dragon Age name and the expectations that come with it, especially after the pitfalls of Inquisition. It wasn’t going to be easy - incorporating all the dense lore and beloved characters and hitting that grimdark yet hopeful tone of the setting while allowing for a breadth of decisions to have been made and to be made and to have a genuine impact on the story in a satisfying way.

It was unlikely they would hit the nail on the head but it wasn't impossible. And Dragon Age fans were rooting for it to come through, grasping at every whisper of Dread Wolf that never amounted to anything but title cards. And after Anthem bombed and Bioware scrapped Dragon Age: Dread Wolf, I kind of gave up hope. I think a lot of fans did. But then… a miracle! Trailers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard! And people accusing the game of ‘woke’.

For a moment, I actually believed. That our prayers to the Maker (Bioware) had been answered.

However, instead of fulfilling our wildest dreams, Veilguard dropped a cheap sanitized mockery of the franchise into our laps, sacrificing all the complexity, nuance and moral ambiguity of the Dragon Age we’ve come to know. All for an uninspired Marvel B-movie plot full of holes and inconsistencies, and worst of all, it took meaningful player choice out of the game in order to spoon-feed its watered down gruel to the masses, alienating a lot of loyal fans in order to pivot and appeal to an entirely different demographic while keeping the name Dragon Age for marketing purposes. In short - a study in enshittification.

So let’s go back to the beginning.

And the Maker said, “Let there be Character Creation.”

This is a fun opportunity to create a little person and inject them into the game as an avatar of your id - role play, as they say. Some of your choices are purely cosmetic since the Dragon Age setting doesn't really care about your gender or the colour of your skin (yay). This has been true since the first title released in 2009 - a time when the videogame scene was brewing gamergate and having more than one gender (voice actor) was a privilege not many developers could afford. 

In contrast, Dragon Age: Origins had not only 2 genders, 3 classes and 6 playable origins, but same sex romance options and complex bi characters (of wildly varying quality). And the game was received quite well, with great reviews and much acclaim. It invited women and those in the queer community to peer into the cishet male-dominated world of AAA gaming and high fantasy with an opportunity to be represented. And no one vilified Bioware for ‘woke’. On the contrary, people flocked to see the dodgiest jankiest cringiest sex scene known to man starring their self insert.

So all the character customisation that the new game allows you to do, from top surgery scars, to bulge size and choice of pronouns, really shouldn’t matter to any of the old Dragon Age fans. This is just icing on a cake that lets you make your usual white human Gary Defaultman look however manly you wish, and all the companions will fall at his feet (which wasn't true in previous games).

But I digress. 

While Dragon Age is unconcerned with gender and skin colour save what some writers might tell you on Twitter, DA is concerned about your Race and Class. To the point where non-human species such as elf, dwarf, and later - qunari, would have drastically different experiences based on the racial prejudices of the world. As they would in real life. For this reason, Backgrounds were locked to specific Races or Classes. And DA2 completely locked you into a Human hero due to time constraints in development. In Inquisition, we returned with the added opportunity to create Qunari (Kisoth) characters and the Inquisitor's race coloured the experience to some extent but not as much as Origins did:

You couldn’t be a Dwarf and a Mage for example because Dragon Age dwarves can't do magic. In fact, they are resistant to it. This is one facet of the lore that thankfully carries over to Veilguard, mostly to boost Harding’s ego and uniqueness but that little lock on the character creation screen seems foreboding for future titles.

However, the rest of the lore goes out the window as soon as you finish playing plastic surgeon.

You choose your Race, Class, and then your Background using the same time honoured formula, except in Veilguard, you can be pretty much any Race, Class and Background combo, which should be good, right? Inclusive and awesome? 

Well, it would be if the associated Factions were the kind any person could join. Something like the Order of Grey Wardens who accept everyone regardless of race, class, etc. The Lords of Fortune Background also makes sense since they’re treasure hunting mercenary pirates, not super picky about their initiates. But the rest?

If you choose, for example, the Mourn Watch faction - an order of mages that fill a niche somewhere between Exorcist and Ghostbuster - but you don’t choose Mage as your Class, how did you join the Mourn Watch exactly? Buy a proton pack?

Nevermind the highly elite status of the Watchers in the Mortalitasi and their secret puppeteering of the Nevarran King. Did Vorgoth find you in a tomb and teach you how to juggle knives and play with swords for kicks? What do you do in the Grand Necropolis as a Warrior or a Rogue that's vulnerable to possession? Stand back and ‘watch’ while the real mages deal with the spirits of the dead? Or are you just sweeping the floors like one of the animated skeletons?

The Veilguard page on EA’s website describes the Mourn Watch as:  ‘an elite necromantic order’, and they first appear in a short story called Down Among the Dead Men in an anthology called ‘Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights’.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Every mage in the kingdom of Nevarra was part of the Mortalitasi, a group that trained the gifted in the mysteries of magic. They served as Nevarra’s arcane protectors and priests. Within the Mortalitasi was a group of select mages invited into an old fraternity called the Mourn Watch. The Watchers served as elite guardians, keepers of the Grand Necropolis and its sacred repository of the dead.“

So, according to the story, the Mourn Watch are: a) only mages  b) only Mortalitasi (death mage/necromancers from Nevarra)  

So, Rook being a Warrior or a Rogue in the Mourn Watch doesn't really make sense. A Dwarf Rook wouldn’t even be able to perceive the Fade where spirits come from. It’s like a mage walking up to the Chantry and asking to join the Templars doing a mage hunt. It could be interesting, if the game did it on purpose to make a character unique, as Bioware has been known to do. Or it could be funny! A joke character which would also not be out of Bioware’s wheelhouse. (Never forget, Sandal)

But if you just blatantly ignore your own world building for no discernable reason right out of the gate, it’s clear you don’t take your own work seriously.

It’s so minor, but the game instantly breaks its own lore in character creation because the Mourn Watch are mages that deal with death magic, especially corpse possession. And here you are, running around trying to bonk spirits with a sword?

Why not use something else? Same anthology, different story. The Dread Wolf Take You by Patrick Weekes:

“There are others among the Mortalitasi who do other work—the Guides of the Path to shepherd the corpses, the Mourn Watch to deal with magic gone awry—”

I can’t get the image of a Mortalitasi Guide of the Path schlepping through the Necropolis with a bunch of corpses attached to their belt with magic leashes like a dog walker.

My point is, there are more groups of people moving through the Grand Necropolis than just Mourn Watchers, and since you’re, I don’t know, WRITING THE STORY, then create a Mourn Guard that’s all rogues/warriors with Templar/Seeker powers that can dispel magic and fight spirits and protect the Mourn Watch while they do rituals or something. Why not make Rook part of that? Why make this weird forced association with the Mourn Watch specifically when they’re so exclusive to mages? 

And what about the Veil Jumpers? They were founded by a clan of Dalish elves trying to reclaim their lost heritage in Arlathan Forest where the capital of the elvenahn empire was obliterated by Tevinter mages and now they just admit anyone brave enough to jump into a death trap of malfunctioning magical artifacts?

Let's rewind back to Dragon Age Origins:

"You were born amidst the Dalish elves: noble wanderers who refused to join the society of humans that subjugated their homeland so long ago. The Dalish travel the lands in tightly-knit clans, struggling to maintain their half-forgotten lore in a human world that fears and despises them." - Duncan narrates the Dalish Elf Origin

Fast forward to "We've evacuated three Dalish settlements already."

Settlements??? The Dalish? Surely, I have misheard.

"Any Dalish settlements we can save, we should."

Hah? Nani?

And then Strife hits you with the greatest bit of dialogue ever written:

"If we could predict where they'd strike next, we might be able to get ahead of them. But so far, they've been unpredictable."

Genius. Chef's kiss. Where would we be without you Strife?

So, let me get this straight: The Dalish - the cagiest of elves, who distrust outsiders to a fault and barely tolerate traders, always moving about to avoid the wrath of human society - suddenly had a change of heart and thought it was okay to admit dwarves, qunari and humans into their clan? Humans - the people who destroyed the city of Arlathan which they are now picking apart? 

From the Dalish perspective, why would anyone but elves care about ancient elven artifacts? 

Reason a) to steal them and sell them off later

Reason b) to make use of their power for selfish purposes, likely the enslavement of elves (again)

The former leading to the latter in most cases, especially so close to Tevinter.

So why would they risk the security of their clan by admitting humans? And why would the Veil Jumpers have Morrigan on speed dial? To the point that we see her immediately as soon as Rook shows up at the Veil Jumper camp?

I get it, you wanted to bring back an old fan fave. But as far as we know, Strife only met Harding and Varric when they came to Arlathan forest in 'The Missing'. So, how does Strife know Morrigan? And the rest of Clan Morlyn are just chill with bringing in all these outsiders? It's super out of character and I think the developers know this because if you walk through the Veil Jumper camp, it’s all elves and aravel. This is a roving Dalish clan.

The environment tells the story and Arlathan Forest tells us this place belongs to the elves, both ancient and otherwise. Maybe half-elves at a stretch? But creating a Dwarf Veil Jumper Rook makes no sense because dwarves can't cross the Veil into the Fade and the game admits it! When you step outside the Lighthouse and talk to Harding you get this dialogue:

Harding: Rook. You're awake! And we're... Rook: In the Fade. Harding: This is where people come when they dream. But dwarves don't dream... And somehow we're here! Rook: Yeah, it's... unreal.

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER OF IT ALL

And then you have a 'meeting' and Harding hits you with a-

Harding: "Except that dwarves don't dream, remember? We can't. The Fade is the world of dreams, and we're not connected to it."

Cool. I'm glad we all agree that this is fucking broken and doesn't make sense. Are you going to explain it? No?

Moving on then.

Half of Arlathan forest is weird portals through the Veil connected to the Fade. That's why they're called Veil Jumpers, they jump through the Veil, into the Fade, and back. This is something dwarves are cannonically unable to do. Even Harding in the beginning. So why is Dwarf Veil Jumper Rook even an option? Why would dwarves even need any of the magical elven artifacts?  

Don't get me started on a Qunari walking through a Dalish camp full of mages and seeing someone like Bellara just accidentally exploding things. Those mages would be in chains with their lips sewn shut before you could say 'saarebas'. It just doesn't hold up to scrutiny and the game doesn't make any effort to explain it other than "We accept everybody!" (yay?)

Conversely, the Antivan Crows would not accept a mage into their ranks for the simple reason that they're super Andrastian (Catholic). The Crows were originally an arm of the Chantry/Church - a bunch of monks that were very good with herbs, read: poisons. They lived in the hills of Treviso and (woopsie!) poisoned the despotic duke nearby, starting a dynasty of infamous assassins, thieves and spies. The Antivan Crows are a criminal organisation with high-ranking members among the richest people in Antiva, even royals, with dubious morals akin to the Godfather version of the Italian mob. But the game white-washes the Crows into underground resistance heroes instead.

Let's do a small fantasy reality check here. The Crows base of operations - the Cantori Diamond - is a casino they own. The Crows have more in common with Trump than antifa but we're supposed to think they're Batmen? Sorry. "Shadowy protectors". Notice how the thieves and spies occupation has been removed from the job description. Evidently, someone's been playing too much Assassin's Creed (or saw the popularity of it and decided to cash in).

Similarly, the game glosses over how a lot of lower level Crows are elves because humans find them more attractive and therefore more easy to fall for and get assassinated by. Or that the Crows will buy children from whorehouses with too many unwanted pregnancies. These children are kept and raised in Amazon warehouses cramped quarters, subsist on 'Crow feed', are subjected to harsh training including torture and are killed if they make any mistake, mostly to keep the rest in line.

We know this through a former companion - Zevran Arainai - and his adventures in the Dragon Age universe. But Veilguard turns around and shows us some kid named Jacobus that mouths off to the Fifth and Seventh Talon and the Governor and is somehow elevated to the status of full Crow and given his own House??? All because his cousin died on a job (that Rook finished).

Ummm. Cool? Equality in the workplace, I guess? Ignore the child labour or the fact that you work for the mob. And let's not think too hard about how the rest of the Crows would react to this upstart child (by sending him flying from the casino and into the canal with a blade in his heart), prodigy or no.

Cool. Cool cool cool. Let's not think about what this actually means. Instead, show us the beautiful villa where Lucanis and Illario grew up. It has its own Opera House! Wow, you say, as Veilguard continuously shouts in your ear: "Assassins are cool! The Crows are a Family! It's the elected government officials and the occupying army of invaders that are bad."

Of course, older fans will be aware of the difference between a First Talon's grandson and a whoreson the Crows bought for cheap in the red light district on the Rialto Bay. But new players will be blissfully unaware of all the child trafficking our 'shadowy protectors' get up to. Since that would be very squicky to everyone who wants to romance Lucanis - Prince of the Assassins (and thieves, spies, poisoners and child soldier trainers).

However, this doesn't remove the Circle of Magi from Antiva. What is a Circle of Magi, you ask? It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the glossary or the codex? Interesting. Since a whole war got fought about it in Inquisition. You know, the Mages vs the Templars? That old chestnut. Well, The Circle of Magi is where mages typically go to train in magic when their powers manifest. This is for safety as well as prudence because you could accidentally turn into a little demon if you're not careful. So there are these big tough people called Templars that watch you all the time to make sure you're not doing anything bad with your magic. But if you do, they can do this neat thing called the Right of Annulment where they kill every mage in the Circle to minimise risk :)

And who's in charge of the Templars? Why the Chantry, of course. You know, the Dragon Age Church? Hm? That's not- Oh, there is an entry on the Chantry in the codex - The Imperial Chantry! Oh, it's just a note from Brother Gentivi griping about the schism between the Chantry in Tevinter and everywhere else. Interesting. Oh, there's an entry on the Maker and Andraste. Huh... These seem kind of irrelevant to the game. I wonder why-

*never interacts with the Chantry*

Ah. I see. I suppose that would require the game to tackle squicky topics such as religious institutions and the corruption within.

An important factor, if you choose the Mage class with the Crow Background. Not that the game would ever tell you this. Employing an apostate (mage outside the Church's oversight) would attract the attention of the Templars and the entire Orlesian Chantry. Regardless of their faith in the teachings of Andraste, if the Crows were harbouring apostate mages and training them to be assassins, the Divine would call an Exalted March (murder crusade) upon Treviso. They've already done this once to fight the Qunari and wouldn't you know it? The 'Butcher' is occupying Treviso right now. How convenient.

The fact that Lucanis gets possessed by a Demon despite not being a mage is an anomaly. And the fact that he maintains his human appearance instead of transforming into an Capital-A Abomination is incredible but not unheard of. We see Anders from DA2 retain his human form, albeit with some cracks, when possessed by a 'spirit' of Justice so... okay, sure. A Venatori blood mage slapped Spite onto Lucanis and he somehow maintains his own body, mind and has room for a very agreeable demon. Unlike this actual Abomination from DA:Origins.

But Veilguard acts like it’s all very cool and not a hindrance to Lucanis' daily life. He just walks around having coffee and whipping his wings out to tackle the first baddie you see. He’s broody and reclusive because that’s his personality (not because he would be pursued by Templars through the streets of Treviso just for existing). And the other Crow families (an already slapdash charicature of Italian mafiosos) just accept the Demon of Vyrantium as the First Talon? An abomination? All because he’s murder-grandma’s favourite?

Who are these people? Because they don’t sound like Antivan Crows to me.

And Illario casually mentions that they have a mage on staff? In the first Treviso mission where you go to the Ossuary in a little boat? There’s a mage in a cute little Crow outfit? You have an apostate on call? Out in the open??? 

This doesn't make sense in the context of the game either because then we hear an NPC give us this exposition in ambient dialogue:

Scholar: "The Butcher seems more reasonable than most Antaam, but he still doesn't want any mages in the city."

So either the Crows are harbouring displaced mages that are being persecuted by the Antaam, which would be a very cool and interesting development due to the occupation of Treviso, or, more likely, the Veilguard writers just don’t give a shit.

Similarly, a Crow Rook openly using magic in Treviso is totally handwaved by the game as something normal and okay when they should be getting dogpiled by Templars and Antaam. You’re an apostate! Saarebas! The Chantry is going to make you Tranquil if you don’t run, hide or repent! The Arvaraas is gonna put a magic shock collar on you and drag you around in chains if the Antaam don't kill you first.

As for the Shadow Dragons, I don’t see how a Qunari in Tevinter would not immediately stand out as a Ben-Hassrath agent saboteur and compromise the organisation. You hear as soon as you get to Treviso:

Teia: "The Antaam reached a stalemate in their war with Tevinter. Some have turned here instead. Antiva was rich, comfortable... and has no standing army to stop them."

Meanwhile, the Shadow Dragons are supposed to be a covert abolitionist group in the most racist country in Thedas - Tevinter - living on a knife’s edge between blood magic and slavery. There would be humans, sure. Maybe an elf can pretend to be a slave to get around? Maybe a dwarf could be Ambassadoria or something? But a Qunari? Even a Vashoth. In Minrathous??? The city the Qunari are still at war with?

"The outskirts of Minrathous are awash in a sea of refugees turned destitute by the never-ending war between the Imperium and the Qunari." —From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi

Storytime!

Myrion of Ventus didn’t know much about Qunari. Until last week, they had been an annoyance, something young soldiers went off to fight while everyone else grumbled about the taxes they paid to defend the Imperium from the savage ox-men. That ignorance had ended in a blast of cannon fire, and in less than a day, Ventus, jewel of the Tevinter Imperium, had fallen. The Qunari had cut down anyone wearing armor. Those who were unarmed, they had herded into different groups. The women, children, and elderly had quickly returned to their homes. The mages had screamed horribly as alchemical concoctions killed their minds and left them as empty husks who stumbled along, sweeping dirt from the streets with awful vacant stares, their beautiful gold-trimmed robes dragging in the dirt behind them. The men, however, had been put into work camps. - "Three Trees to Midnight" by Patrick Weekes, from the anthology Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights

But yeah, sure. Qunari Shadow Dragon. Won't be murdered on sight upon approaching the gates to Minrathous. No, sir...

The game doesn’t react to these wild choices. You’re just Some Guy Rook, blissfully unaware of the lore you’re breaking because the game doesn’t care about it either. It doesn’t punish you or make you confront your decisions despite letting you take these big swings. It just makes you recite all the same lines as though it's all a-okay.

I would love to see a Qunari Shadow Dragon narrative or to find out how an apostate mage became a Crow. These sound like cool characters that have a lot of complexity and story to them but unfortunately, Veilguard does world building like a tradie filling a sandbox in the playground - by dumping an entire truck of sand on it.

They let it bury the existing lore so you don’t have to think about the sticky consequences of your decisions or the less than perfect world you live in by digging too deeply into the past or seeing the structure it's built on. 

All of this could have been avoided with just a little care. Just impose limits on what Class/Race can join which faction. I know you can do it because the game won’t let you be a dwarven mage. And I know it’s racist. That’s the point. If you want to be inclusive of all races, you can’t just erase the discrimination a race experiences because it makes you feel uncomfortable. And if the lockout is too limiting, then maybe create some new factions that everyone can join instead of using the names of existing organisations within the Dragon Age universe for token fan service without enforcing any substance to the concept or history of them.

I know why they didn’t do any of this and just wrote a bunch of world-breaking hooey for the Backgrounds. It’s because it doesn’t actually matter! The little blurbs about your Faction and Backstory don’t impact any decision in the game at all. They don’t stop you or help you in any way past the starting equipment/abilities. You don't know the companion that comes from the same faction as yours, so you're basically strangers. The extra dialogue options don’t let you do anything unique or exclusive to the Background. So, of course, they’re a pile of nonsense. And players new to DA won’t know that anything is amiss at all, which makes it glaringly obvious who this game is actually intended for.

But hey, we gotta make all that dense lore accessible, right?

*eye twitch*

So, you pick a Backstory for your Main Character: "Rook". Even though both Solas and Iron Bull refer to it as 'the Tower' when they're playing chess in Inquisition. >_> (I'm not salty, you're salty.)

I chose Shadow Dragon Elf Rook for the ex-slave liberati spice (prepare for an extended rant upon elvenkind)

You would think that by choosing a backstory linked to a specific place, that you would know something about that place? Right?

Well yes, but actually no.

Cue the opening cutscene of Veilguard.

Seedy Bar with Varric -> Dumat Plaza. 

Varric: “Can you get us there, Harding?” Harding: “Rook, you’re with the Shadow Dragons. I figured you’d know Minrathous better than I do.” 👆 Piddly Shadow Dragon Rook: “Sure, but Minrathous is huge, and this is nowhere near my neighborhood. I can try…”  🥺 👉👈 

Really? That’s the best you could come up with?

Just for shits and giggles, I tried another Background and got this exchange instead:

Varric: “Can you get us there, Harding?” Harding: “Not a problem. I saw Dumat Plaza while I was scouting the area… It was crawling with Venatori. Follow me.”

So. This plaza that’s named after an Old God, that’s so obvious Harding spotted it on her first trip to Minrathous… Shadow Dragon Rook doesn’t know how to get there??? Even if they grew up in Minrathous working for a resistance group using miles of underground catacombs to smuggle people to safety? You even do missions in them later because Darkspawn start popping out.

Okay, sure. Other Rooks won’t know where to go. The writers thought up a throwaway line to acknowledge it and make Harding take point since the player won't know Dumat Plaza either. You don't want to make an exclusive mission and assets for 2 minutes of gameplay. I get it. I just kind of shrugged at this since it’s the opening scene. But it happened so immediately that it really felt like a slap to the face.

Like, why did I choose this Background if it can’t be useful in the moment? At least say 'the demons blocked all the paths I know' or 'there goes that bridge lol' as it blows up or something cool and substantial instead of this blatant cop out that backs away from your own identity.

"Whatever", I thought. This is just the beginning of the game.

Boy, was I right.

Since I chose the Shadow Dragon Background, I was sure that I would have a rich connection to this organisation that frees slaves and battles blood mages. But no. Apparently, I've been completely cut off since I left the city. And have to be led to the contact by… my new colleague, Neve Gallus. Who I've never heard of before?

This is the dialogue when you first meet:

Varric: "Rook this is Neve Gallus, our local expert."

And what am I, chopped liver?

Varric: "She's gonna help us find Solas. Neve, meet Rook. Both of you have done some work for the Shadow Dragons." Neve: "Isn't that a coincidence?"

I GUESS IT MUST BE, NEVE! For all the good that it does.

This is what you get when you talk to her in the Lighthouse as a Shadow Dragon:

Neve: Strange place we've fallen into. But I'll work with it. You know me. Rook: “Do I?” 👆 Neve: "We're both Shadow Dragons, and both from Minrathous. Maybe our paths haven't crossed, but I know our work has. It's a start."

Cool, I'm so glad I get a whole special line of dialogue to parrot our stupid motto. Seriously? Shadow Dragons? What happened to Lucerni? I know, I know, they were disbanded. But at least give me Umbra Dracones or something cool. -sigh-

So Neve takes me to Minrathous and this is the special exclusive dialogue you get for Shadow Dragon Rook:

Neve: "Minrathous. The Heart of Tevinter. Somehow the beat of it always pulls me back..." Rook: "It's just how I left it." Neve: "It always is." Rook: "Do the Shadow Dragons know we're here?" Tarquin: "Neve Gallus. You only turn up when you want news. Or you've got some." Neve: "Tarquin!" Tarquin: "And it's "Rook" now, I hear. Rook: "Tarquin." Tarquin: "I thought you'd be gone for good." Neve: "How are things?" Tarquin: "Same old Minrathous. Mages not letting us poor ungifted wretches forget where we stand."

And then the Viper appears and you get the same dialogue about the relic as everyone else except there's a shiny badge on the side of the screen reminding you that you clicked a button a few hours ago.

Then they hit you with the:

Tarquin: "And welcome home, Rook. Try not to get yourself run out of the city again."

Wow. Okay. Maybe this is just the beginning. I’m sure there are exclusive missions for Rook to do since they helped save all those slaves and pissed off all those nasty Venatori blood mages in their backstory! I’m a recognisable face that had to flee the city! I’m sure there are some NPCs or rivals in Minrathous specifically for Shadow Dragon Rook to talk to. 

Maybe some templars will try to arrest me? Maybe there are whispers in the streets that I’ve returned? Maybe you have to wear a disguise to sneak into certain places? Perhaps one of the freed slaves recognises Rook and shows their gratitude, or sells you out to a magister? 

Anything cool like that?

…

…

*crickets*

My background might as well be Some Guy.

Move aside Main Character, because every mission in Minrathous is about your cool new companion, Neve Gallus - an Icy Tevinter Mage solving crimes in Dock Town. 

Sounds rad, right? 

She’s a hardboiled magic detective, but also a stylish lady with a cool prosthetic leg that's shaped like a metal snake! And she has a fancy cigarette holder pipe (that we never see again)? And a cool ass magic rod? A geometric shape for a hat? With a veil? What a concept! 

Imagine, taking a case that goes from the gritty streets of Dock Town, all the way up to the top. To the Archon's Palace floating above the city where the magisters concoct their evil schemes and shoot their magic laser beams at demons.

Surely, the finale of Neve’s arc with the Shadow Dragons will see us ascend to the glorious decadent capital of the Tevinter Imperium, to free indentured slaves who will rise up against their masters and help us slay some corrupt Venatori Magisters?! Maybe even the Archon himself!

…

No?

Really?

We get to choose the next Archon (magic emperor/king of Tevinter) in our seedy little hideout but not install them? 

We don’t get to fight anybody or even go up there?

And why? 

Because the Big Bad needs to take over the Archon’s palace in the final battle.

But-     wouldn’t it-   make sense for us to weaken the Archon and magisters so that Elger’nan can easily swoop in and take the palace like that?

Huh? That only happens if you let the Minrathous get destroyed and the Venatori take over the Archon's Palace.

But what if Treviso got destroyed and the Venatori never took over?

You still can't go up there?

Hmmmm. Feels like a super missed opportunity but guess what? It won’t be the last!

Turns out, with the exception of the opening sequence and the final battle which are heavily railroaded by cutscenes, you never leave Dock Town when you visit Minrathous. Instead of an imposing and extravagant Imperial city held together with magic, you get to run around a boring wet fleabottom of an area that’s not very big and reminds me of DA2's Kirkwall but wet. WHICH IS IRONIC because Kirkwall was the Imperium's slave capital in the south when it was a quarry. So the environment artists are on point. BUt the writers??

The game makes you return to Dock Town over and over, taking the same route through the same dank city streets, And every time, the bad guys are the Venatori, even if the Thread Crime Syndicate is involved, it's actually the Venatori behind everything!

You see, in Veilguard, Venatori is code for white 'mage supremacist cult'. They have a red/black colour scheme because of all the evil blood magic they do, not because they’re Republicans. And they all wear hoods to cover up their identities like the KKK so they’re literally faceless fascists when we mow them down. And we don’t interrogate any of that too much so we don’t feel bad about slaying them by the dozen. And I mean, 9 to 5 reaper duty on these people. I must have culled half the city and they still show up as a massive army at the end.  

But we don't interact with any Venatori outside combat situations which means we don't get to talk to them or interrogate them. We only hear them scheming and quibbling and genuinely behaving like henchmen in an evil organisation. We don't see them as nuanced individuals or their day-to-day lives or why they might actually do blood magic and slavery in their hometown. Heck, we don’t even see the social stratification of Tevinter mages at all. Where’s the hierarchy within the hierarchy? Where is the Altus/Laetans/Praeteri divide? In a single codex entry from Brother Genitivi copypasted from Origins, I swear. 

To the point that I still don’t know what Neve is supposed to be. I suspect she's Praeteri because according to her flavour text she was: “Born and raised in a working-class neighborhood of Minrathous.”

What does that mean in a city where there’s a servant class as well as a working class? Did Neve’s family have servants or even slaves? We don’t know and we don’t interrogate it. We just see her run around Dock Town in her fancy magic outfit (gorgeous btw) which makes her stand out of the crowd but she doesn’t connect with anyone except a guy named Halos who owns a food stall, and a Templar called Rana Savas - a cop whose dead husband is also a cop.

Way to be an ally, I guess. We ticked the activism box, gang! Chalk one up for ‘woke’ on the board. We can’t say 'fuck the police' or ACAB but at least our upper class private investigator is standing up for the little guy. Who, specifically? Halos the fish-fry who keeps trying to give Neve a grilled fish on stick (with all the scales and bones on it) on the house! But she always pays for it because she's so woke.

Sure, let's support small business owners, I guess. But how are you pandering to the ‘working class’ if Neve’s a mage?? That automatically puts her in the upper class of Tevinter, albeit the lowest rung if she comes from a non-magic family. Still! All vints secretly hope for a magical child in the family so they can magically pull themselves up by their bootstraps and into the upper crust. It’s a magocracy. There’s no other way up there.

A Praeteri magus is miles above any Soporati and lightyears above any slave in the Tevinter social strata. Neve’s family would have been thrilled! If the writers had bothered to give her a family, that is. 

And wouldn’t Neve be sent to the Imperial Circle of Magi for training as soon as her magic was discovered? Like- If you know even a crumb of lore, the whole ‘raised in a working-class neighbourhood’ line comes off as bogus virtue signaling because Neve would have gone to a selective private school for the genetically gifted before even hitting puberty.

There’s like one NPC in Minrathous you hear talking about coming down to Dock Town because he doesn’t fit in at magic school with all the snooty upper class mages. I wanna hear more from him! I wanna interact with these Praeteri more! Ask them questions! Beat up their bullies at magic university! But it’s just some ambient dialogue as you get in an elevator.

Mage: "How has the Minrathous Circle been? Getting used to the schedule? The lectures?" Circle Scholar: "It... It's fine. There's just quite a few highbloods and... well. I guess it's why I come down here when I have the time. It feels like I actually belong here."

-LATER-

Circle Scholar: "So I'm supposed to accept that they're better because of an accident of birth?" Mage: "That's just how the world works."

-EVEN LATER- Mage: "My family isn't Altus either. You can find success in Minrathous, even if you're not from one of the old families. Sometimes all you need to do is just act like you're a highblood. People tend not to question it." Circle Scholar: "But I shouldn't have to act like something I'm not just to get ahead."

Why don't we get this opinion from Neve?

We know the reason, of course - that would be problematic for the audience and force people to confront their privilege. Even if they support the lower class, they’ll never be of the lower class, so instead they get to live vicariously through Neve who selflessly devotes her entire life to the less fortunate of Dock Town. The game never elaborates on why, or her inciting incident, or her raison d’etre other than ‘this is my town!’ like a true hard-boiled detective.

We see only two other Tevinter mages with 10+ lines of dialogue who are conveniently - the good ones. And that's ONLY if you choose to save Minrathous.

Dorian Pavus - former DA: Inquisition companion and necromancer who managed to travel through time in very sexy gay way. He returns to Minrathous to take his father’s place as Magister Pavus when the crotchety old homophobe dies. We don't get word on whether he frees his Altus family's slaves though.

Then there’s Maevaris Tilani, a trans woman written very carefully so that she doesn’t tip off the cishets about her transness. She tells Rook a story about how her father presented her to the Magisterium as his heir when she turned 15, but focuses on the ‘woman' part. The Magisters all disapproved! Which paints them with a believable sexist brush, instead of a transphobic one to the average gamerbro. I didn't realise this until I spoke to some friends that only played the videogames, and they completely missed it. And when I mentioned Tarquin was also trans? Blank stares and dialup noises in the brain.

But this is all the mages we see up close in Minrathous because why would you want to listen to nasty racist sexist transphobic fascist wizards explain why they are like that? That would require empathy. Ew.

So 99% of mages in Minrathous are enemy NPCs which means we hear the same sound bites from the same cardboard cutout evil wizards bent on 'reclaiming their legacy' and 'feeling empowered'. They're all mad and power-hungry and infiltrating the government all the time. We even catch one of the evil wizards’ kids buying illegal lyrium relics (read: drugs) and getting arrested. But then the cops/templars turn out to be dirty, so the kid's dad shows up and he gets released immediately. It reads like a hamfisted metaphor for US politicians/elites at best, and a pizzagate conspiracy at worst.

The culmination of Neve’s big storyline in Dock Town is a fight with a blood mage called Aelia but we don’t hear about her until halfway through the game. Apparently she’s someone Neve put away a long time ago for blood magic reasons. Turns out Aelia fell for the Big Bad’s promise of power and used the forbidden yucky blood magic again and isn’t sorry about it!  >:( 

I guess we have to - get her!

The fight concludes with a beaten Aelia getting manhandled. You don’t even get the option to kill her yourself for all the evil bloodletting that she does. Instead, Neve must choose, I’m sorry no, that’s incorrect. YOU must choose FOR Neve to become either the Protector of Dock Town or a Symbol of Hope. And since the game doesn't let you choose anything else, you just give custody of this evil bitch to someone outside the party.

Whatever you pick, the cutscene ends with Aelia getting dragged away by Evek the Thread or Rana the Templar. The mob or the cops.  

PROTECTOR OF DOCK TOWN

Rook: "This ends here. Send a message." Neve: “Dock Town needs protection.” Aelia: "When this is over, I will bring it to them." Neve: "You won't! But I will."

- Aelia gets her ass handed to her -

Aelia: "I would raise us all. You-" Neve: “Enough. Dock Town’s under my protection. Elek.” - Aelia tries to stab Neve the good old fashioned way but gets intercepted by Elek the regular dude with no power -

Aelia: “Is this where you finish it?” Neve: “Rumour has it the Threads protect their streets.” - turns and walks away as a bunch of mobsters with lead pipes approach Aelia - -VS- SYMBOL OF HOPE

Rook: "Dock Town has you. And they see it." Neve: "They just want hope. A chance..." Aelia: "When this is over, I will bring it to them." Neve: "You won't! But I'll give it a shot." - Aelia gets her ass handed to her -

Aelia: "I would raise us all. You-" Neve: "I'll do what I can. Rana. Take Aelia. Make sure Dock Town sees it happen."

- Aelia tries to stab Neve the good old fashioned way but gets intercepted by Rana the Templar without magic -

Aelia: "You tried to stop me before!" Neve: "And if you escape, I'll find you again! And every time I do, Minrathous will see someone standing against people like you."

- Neve walks off and Rana arrests Aelia -

Because letting a crime boss drag someone into the shadows to be 'dealt' with, or handing them over to a corrupt police organisation, are clearly the only two options in this 'holy cow! it's the joker, batman' scenario. You can't kill Aelia yourself for all the murder and blood magic and kidnapping and colluding with the evil Gods that she does. You can't choose to rehabilitate her by sending her to a facility outside Tevinter such as a Circle of Magi (they'd probably turn her Tranquil but whatevs). You can't squeeze her to sell out the Elven Gods plans or anything.

It's a nothingburger decision that potentially puts a dangerous cultist back on the street in a few years ala the Joker and Bats. And if you chose Treviso over Minrathous, you don't even get the choice! You automatically side with Elek the Thread and Neve becomes Protector of Dock Town.

Player choice? In this role playing game? It's less likely than you think.

Either way, Neve gets a little boost to her powers and becomes a Hero of the Veilguard (this means she probably won’t die in the endgame). And if you chose Minrathous over Treviso, you get to choose a new Archon of Tevinter - Dorian or Maevaris, even if you aren't a Shadow Dragon. Neve will tell you her opinion based on whether she became a Protector of Dock Town (Dorian proposes radical change) or a Symbol of Hope (Maevaris proposes changing the system from the inside). But if you picked one, chances are, you were already gonna pick the associated one anyway.

Neve doesn’t leave the party if you choose the opposite to her pick. And the Shadow Dragons make absolute sure to tell you that they'll be behind you either way so you don't lose their support. There are absolutely no stakes to this and all you get in the end is a one sentence title card in the credits about Minrathous and the leader you picked.

If you chose Treviso over Minrathous, then you automatically get Protector of Dock Town and Dorian. No epilogue or anything. You don't even know it's an option.

But you can only see the true result of your actions if you chose Minrathous over Treviso:

Protector of Dock Town - Elek the Thread gives Neve the title and control of the Thread Crime Syndicate in a cutscene. She becomes a mob boss and brings the organisation into the fold of the Shadow Dragons by introducing Elek to the Viper at the Cobbled Swan and tells Elek: "If I'm not here: he asks, you answer."

Symbol of Hope - Rana Savas quits being a templar (cop) and starts a detective agency with Neve. She is introduced to the Viper at the Cobbled Swan. Neve gets a couple of leads on Venatori plans but they're not missions for you to do, and they have nothing to do with the Elven Gods. (you find a letter from Aelia in the Gaspin Manor in the Hossberg wetlands) However, Neve is painted to be a Hero and this is considered the good ending. Again, we can't say ACAB because there's one good cop that quit :/

None of this affects the final battle or anything but party banter.

And what does Rook get for all this wanton murder? 

You guessed it!

*tumbleweed*

Nothing :)

Fine. You didn't have time to write a bunch of bespoke shit for Rook. I get it. Gamedev crunch is bitch. But hey, uh... where are the slaves?

Hm?

You would think, since Shadow Dragon Rook helped rescue all those slaves in their backstory and keeps broken chains in their bedroom as a macabre reminder, we would see some slaves or ex-slaves in Minrathous, right? Liberati, maybe? I mean, this is such a big problem for the city that an organization like the Shadow Dragons has to exist in secret for fear of reprisals. You would think that you would interact with people that are currently enslaved, right?

Unfortunately, that would be problematic so what happens is... we don’t interact with any actual slaves in Tevinter. 

At least I didn’t in my eighty something hours of gameplay.

The closest you get is a mission where some Dock Hands get captured and put in cages and then you find some pieces of paper that say the Venatori are going to sacrifice them for a big ritual. So, they're trafficking people to kill them. But they're not technically slaves.

The only actual Venatori Slave I found was in the Grand Necropolis in Nevarra! And we have to immediately backpedal to say there are no slaves in Nevarra so you're not technically a slave!

Venatori Slave: They said... they said I'd spilled the wine too many time. That I'd be a better sacrifice than a slave.

Emmirch: You are in Nevarra, sir. There are no slave on our soil.

Didn't realise you felt so strongly about slaves, Emmrich. Considering what you do to the dead :x

But Minrathous is supposedly the capital of the Tevinter Imperium, the slaver capital of the world of Thedas. The only country where this practice is not only legal but government approved. The government buys slaves for public infrastructure - Servus Publicus. In Dragon Age 2, your companion Fenris says that the Minrathous Slave Bazaar is a street ten miles long. So they should have slaves there, right? In the shops? On the streets? Waiting on nobles? Carrying stuff? They would supposedly come in via ships through the docks in DOCK Town? RIGHT? 

So... where are they? Because I sure as Hell didn't see any on my fiftieth mandatory loop of Dock Town. Just a bunch of beggars and peasants and criminals ala every medieval fantasy RPG town. So either, the Shadow Dragons are doing their job a little too well or the gamedevs have decided to sanitize the whole thing so you don't have to deal with anything as problematic and upsetting as the visual representation of slavery. 

*checks ESRB rating for Veilguard*

MATURE 17+ Blood, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence

Okay, so… “What’s shapin'?” as Rook would say.

Slavery’s been one of the biggest socio-political issues in Thedas since the beginning. It's incredibly important to the plot of the game since the Big Bad - Solas - is an ‘elf’ that caused the downfall of his people, allowing them be enslaved by the Tevinter mages for over a millenia. I mean, your companion in DA2 was experimented on by a Tevinter mage and slaver and you met him in person! Danarius went to Kirkwall to collect his ‘property’ referring to a person! The Gallows in Kirkwall were built to intimidate slaves fresh off the boat. And you’re telling me, that in the capital of Tevinter, you can’t see any slaves? You can't interact with any of them? And the closest you get to slavers is Venatori brandishing glowing red hooks? 

And WHERE is all the blood for these hooks coming from, pray tell?

The game constantly forces you to destroy these 5 foot floating red crystals that power magic walls and protect evil wizards but it doesn’t elaborate on how they’re made. We're told the Venatori do blood magic i.e. casting spells using blood instead of a Chantry approved rock called Lyrium. There's mention OF Red Lyrium - Lyrium's evil blighted cousin that makes you go crazy, paranoid and homicidal. However, the Venatori just look like regular clansmen. I mean, they’re homicidal, but only because I broke into their secret hideout during a clan meeting. We arrested that one guy trying to smuggle Lyrium relics into the city.

So, did the Venatori blood mages donate the blood for all the crystals in Minrathous themselves? Was it locally sourced? Organic? Free range blood? Fully consented to donating? Hmmm?

The closest we get to an explanation is one mission where a woman's husband, Atticus, goes missing. You follow the trail to a mage called Linus whose son is sick (boohoo), so he decides to do this:

WooooOOooo. Blood magic bad and scary. Everyone died. It was a Demon of Desperation's fault. Not the mage that did this, no. We have to be sympathetic to this piece of shit apparently. The game doesn't explain how this was supposed to help his son or what happened to Linus. And Atticus wasn't a slave, just some guy that walked into the wrong bar that may or may not be trafficking people.

I guess it’s technically not slavery if you kidnap a person and kill them afterwards. That’s just plain old murder. Much easier to think about killing people like Aelia in retaliation for murder instead of thinking about the hows and whys of blood magic for two seconds. Because blood magic problematic and nasty, YUCK!

Just to rub it in, Neve and Emmrich - two of the Veilguard party's mages, will talk to each other about Never Ever Never doing a blood magic because it's bad and evil. Even though one of these characters is a straight up Necromancer Death Mage and Fade Expert while the other comes from a city of blood mages.

Neve: "So. Necromancy's your calling." Emmrich: "Like most Nevarran mages. I hope it's not a concern." Neve: "We'll find out." Emmrich: "Your own practice - your work must find you in dangerous corners. Your experience with blood magic... Neve: "You want to know if I've tried it myself." Emmrich: "Well, in so many words..." Neve: "Never have. Never would."

Okay. Cool. Glad that no one in the party has blood magic cooties.

The game doesn't elaborate as to why blood magic bad. We're shown a bunch of dead bodies and left to make our own assumptions. But it doesn't tell you that can use blood magic to do a bunch of stuff, including regular magic, just using your own blood as a spell component.

So let's get into it since Veilguard flip flops around it like a fish.

Reasons why blood magic is bad:

a) you can use it to control blood, literally. mess with people’s thoughts and free will, walk their dreams and send them to the Fade. (you can do this with Lyrium too because it's also blood)

b) it attracts demons from the Fade. They hone in on mages, possess their bodies and transform them into abominations. 

With Reason B, a mage is tempted by the demon to submit in exchange for power, sometimes verbally, sometimes they see tempting illusions over the warped world of the Fade which will keep you happy and dreaming forever if it can. The demons talk in your head and even take control of your body while this happens. 

BUT mages don't even have to do blood magic for this to happen. A side effect of being a mage in this world is that you are a target for demons and spirits in the Fade whether you use blood magic or not. You could enter the Fade in a dream and encounter a demon and if you're not prepared/strong enough, it will trap you there and possess your body. That’s why mages get locked in towers and supervised by Templars for the rest of their days. Why the Qunari chain their mages and sew up their mouths and cut off their tongues! Because demons could invade your body at any time if you show even a slither of weakness (or so they say)

There’s also the Chantry - the Dragon Age Catholic Church with its own Vatican in Orlais (France). They think blood magic is heresy and sin and bad. They think if you leave a mage alone they will inevitably be tempted into blood magic, so all mages need to be locked up in towers and supervised by armed guards that take super Lyrium (cocaine) to disable your spells JUST IN CASE. This Circle of Magi is where you put all the mages. They also make a Phylactery with the mages' blood in case they run away so the Templars can track you. (Blood magic is okay if you’re with the Chantry ;) 

As well, the Chantry/Circle controls the Lyrium that mages get, and consequently, they control all the big spells they can cast. But you can’t control mages if they’re just using their own blood for magic, can you? Then we wouldn’t need Circles of Magi! And what about the Lyrium trade with the dwarves? How would they live without all the gold they currently make? Won’t somebody please think of the economy?!

The topic of magic is a complex one in Thedas. But do your companions discuss it in Veilguard? 

No. 

Does Veilguard bring it up in even a vague way?

No.

Even though the whole Mage vs Templar war was a big part of Inquisition. In Veilguard, you don't hear about the Chantry. You don't hear about the Circle of Magi. You don't hear about the Templars (except the toothless Tevinter templars who allow ethically sourced blood magic as long as its from a donor).

So all the decisions you made in Inquisition? That's right. They mean nothing!

The only choice you make in Veilguard is whether the Inquisitor disbanded the Inquisition or gave full control of it to Divine Victoria. The game doesn't reference who became Divine Victoria so that decision doesn't matter either!

Instead of a multifaceted discussion on the ethics of magic, it's white washed into 'all magic is good, Actually. Except blood magic. Peeeyeeew.' We're told even Necromancy can be Good. Just look at Emmrich Volkarin! He's such a gentlman. He has a little skeleton butler. And the Rivaini Seers let themselves be possessed by spirits because they're sooo progressive.

Meanwhile, all blood magic is taboo. In the city of blood mages and slavers built on blood magic and slavery. All we see is aesthetically pleasing red crystals dotted about Dock Town. We hear people disappear sometimes and sacrifices happen. But what are the rituals for? What do they actually do? Because Aelia set up an evil IV drip with all those people she kidnapped for some reason and the closest we get to an explanation is when Neve looks up some magic CCTV footage.

Aelia: "The risen God will unlock my true power. He's given me Vena Vitalis. We start there." Rook: "What's Vena Vitalis?" Neve: "A rumour. An Old Tevinter ritual used to increase blood magic."

Cool. A blood magic ritual to increase blood magic. Nice!

Instead of differentiating and creating nuance, the game uses the term 'blood magic' to mean 'mind control' or 'bad magic' but it doesn't actually mean that or say that. If you look at the Veilguard glossary the definition for Blood Magic is:

The use of blood to fuel powerful spells. Most nations have banned blood magic because it can be used to cloud or even control people's minds.

Similarly, the Big Bad, Elgar'nan, we're told did blood magic to control elves and enslave them (boo!). We see him and Ghilan’nain manipulate the Blight with blood magic to mind control the people of D’Meta’s crossing. But then he goes to do a ritual in Arlathan and his Archdemon rises. He has a bunch of Dalish sacrifices (supposedly he needed the purest elven blood available). But we rescue them and... then he does a ritual where he sacrifices a whole bunch of Venatori? For what? That wasn't the ritual to make the Red Lyrium Dagger. So… what's it for?

It's not clear what his entire goal is because he appears unblighted at the beginning of the game. Completely uncorrupted, just tyrannical and shitty despite being trapped on the Blight side of the veil for xxxx amount of years. Ghilan'nain, we can see, is 100% munted. But she doesn't need rituals. She'll just see two dead bodies and not ask before slapping them together to make a cool new monster.

Even Solas, the Big Bad we’re supposed to be sympathetic to, will shout in your head at the beginning of the game “I ABHOR BLOOD MAGIC!” right after he did a blood magic to get in your head.

Meanwhile in Inquisition, when you ask about learning blood magic, Solas says,  

“I would teach you, if I knew it. Unfortunately, using blood magic seems to make it more difficult to enter the Fade. You understand why I never bothered to learn it. A shame, as it is extremely powerful. Provided it remains a tool, not a crutch… nor a passion.” 

He doesn’t use blood magic in Inquisition but has no problem doing it in Veilguard? When you catch up to him at the finale, he says,

“Yes. I was wrong to do so. I was desperate. Unless I escaped, the world would fall to tyranny and blight. The only tool I had was my tenuous connection to you.” “Blood magic.” 

Okay. Cool. So you never learned how to do blood magic but you did a blood magic somehow and now you regret it. God of lies, indeed. And how did you bind the Evanuris to the Veil, Solas? If not with blood magic and a certain dagger, hmmm? Since we have to stab you to bind you to the Veil. Wouldn't that mean you had to get the blood of all the other Evanuris to do your big ritual to create the Veil begin with? Hmmmm?

It's just non-commital nonsense.

And how about the elves, huh?

You would think that Elf Rook would encounter some hostility while existing as an elf in Minrathous, aka Racism City. Perhaps they might even get mistaken for a slave by a templar and asked who they belong to? What would be Rook’s reaction to that? 

Tell the truth? 

Lie and play along? 

Fight and get arrested? (followed by a hilarious prison break)

A classic Dragon Age scenario. Maybe you have to skip town for a while if it goes poorly? We’ll never know because Veilguard never lets you be discriminated against. Even though the subjugation of the elves has been a polarizing topic throughout the series. It's mentioned in Veilguard but never demonstrated in practice so it sounds more like a myth than a reality.

From the get-go of Dragon Age, from even character creation in Origins, you are told that elves are second class citizens that live in walled off Alienages (ghettos) on the edge of cities. The discrimination is constant. Even the ‘free’ Dalish Elves are racist to City Elves for cowing to humans.

But did anyone call me a 'knife-ear' (a slur) in Veilguard? 

No. Of course, not. And I hate to say 'because of woke' like a right-wing incel edgelord but damn, y'all aren't making it easy.

Veilguard completely side-lines slavery and elves as second class citizens despite the whole story revolving around Solas vs the Evanuris - Elven Gods who enslaved elves. And even though I picked the elf race for my story, I encountered zero discrimination whatsoever. It was a perfect liberal idealist utopia that has never existed in the real world, let alone Thedas.

I know I'm complaining that no one was racist to me or shouted slurs at me in a video game but if a drag queen walked into a Trump rally, I don’t think she would have a very good time. So when Rook walks around Minrathous with their helmet off and everyone’s just cool with it, some alarm bells start ringing. Like, is the game glitching? Am I accidentally registering as human or something? Did I load the wrong character? 

No?

Hm :(

Just another bullet point in a long list of things Veilguard gives lip service to but in practice, ignores or makes fun of.

You can’t just say slavery is a big deal through every character’s mouth and then not show it happening in the place where it happens frequently and so much they did wars about it. You can't just say elves face discrimination and then evenly distribute them throughout every NPC and map while removing the Elven Alienage that ought to be in every city. You can't just say 'blood magic bad because bad guy did it' and then turn around and say 'actually all magic is blood magic because lyium is Titan blood but it's okay for you because you're a hero'.

It's juvenile and condescending. Instead of being thought provoking and asking questions about fantasy ethics, Veilguard presents you with a simplified trolley problem with one track and a timetabled departure. You don't get to think about anything yourself because the lore is completely overshadowed by the irreverent narrative of Veilguard. It just bulldozes the world building and doesn't stop to answer questions.

The Tevinter mages buried the elven city of Arlathan and enslaved the whole race for a thousand years. The entire Andrastian faith is based on a woman inspiring elven slaves to rise up and join her armies as she marched on Tevinter and specifically Minrathous. The allegory for Jesus/Joan of Arc in this world was killed by a Tevinter mage for daring to empower slaves. Yet, this is only explained in some optional codex entries in game.

And when characterising Solas, the game keeps yapping on about how he freed slaves or fought against slavers and tyranny, and we see… what? Some broken chains on the ground in the opening sequence with no sign of a living being having existed there at any time. We get one weird flashback where we have to save the slaves! Then we open a gate and there’s three elves in there happy to escape Elger’nan and the game suddenly code switches to call them 'captives'. Which is it?

Were they slaves or were they captives?

It's the same story in Minrathous. You see a couple of NPCs that were kidnapped and were going to be sold to Venatori for ????? evil reasons. But they're not slaves. They're 'captives' or 'prisoners'.

The only time you really see the concept of slavery in play is in a mission to rescue some Dalish elves from being sacrificed in Elger'nan's big scary ritual. We see slaves being used for laughs to make the bad guys seem comically bad, heads bowed and being forced onto all fours to act like living chairs for the Venatori. You can't talk to these people. You can only listen to what their evil masters are saying so you hate them more.

Haha. So funny. I'm glad we can make light of this instead of treating it like a serious issue.

What's worse, your companion, Neve, pretends to be a Venatori cultist during this mission, while you and some other companion, in my case Bellara, are her entourage. There’s a brief exchange where Neve pretends to be a snobby caricature of a Tevinter mage and the guard is so stupid he lets you through without any cross examination despite also being Venatori? Again, they didn’t explain the social order of mages in Tevinter so I’m assuming Neve pretended to be an Altus mage and this guy is Laetans at best. But you get to pat Neve on the back for the horrible weight she had to endure - pretending to be a bad person (yuck!)

And then you rescue the Dalish and everyone is like, yaaay Solas.

Seriously?

We did all that work for 10 NPCs without names thanking Rook for being their saviour?

There was an Archdemon to fight right there! *points across the bay*

There was an Elven God right there! 

By the way, did you know that the Old Gods of Tevinter were actually just dragons enslaved by the Elven gods? Yeah, those cool evil Archdemons that started this whole Blight business in Thedas were somehow bound by the Evanuris with (blood) magic. We see some graffiti about it in the opening scene while chasing after Solas in as they say - foreshadowing~~ 

So each Elven God/Evanuris had a dragon/archdemon who was bound to them apparently. And the God was immortal until you slew their dragon which I would argue makes you iMortal+ * 

*T&Cs apply.

But how convenient, right? The elven gods are bad. They’re also controlling Tevinter’s Old Gods that are also bad. They also started a war with the Titans and killed them and made their dreams so angry they turned into an evil plague. And once the Titans were destroyed, they split into thousands of… *checks notes*... dwarves. The Titans were thousands of dwarves in a trenchcoat, and their blood is… Lyrium.

Wait a second… We’ve been doing blood magic this whole flippin’ time?! Just mining the corpses of Titans for calcified magic blood?

Cool. 

Cool, cool, cool. 

I’m glad everyone has been twisting my arm about this since Dragon Age Origins. Merill was fucking right. Justice for Merill from DA2! Where is she btw? You know, the Dalish elf that figured out that blood magic was just magic? That spirits and demons were all just spirits and equally dangerous? That Eluvians were incredibly rare magical artifacts that let you basically teleport everywhere? Shame the one she found was blighted but she cured it somehow! Merill the real MVP of this franchise. And do we see this amazing companion return and give us a humble ‘I told you so’?

Absolutely not.

Solas just tells you the bad guys are the bad guys and they did all this bad stuff and they don’t regret it and he imprisoned them because they suck. In fact, it’s Solas’s fault none of us have magic anymore and you have to ‘live through’ a bunch of flashbacks of Solas leading a rebellion against the Evanuris. Which would have been cool if more than five character models could be on the screen at any one time. The rallying cries to the armies of spirits and elves felt so awkward. It was just me and Jerith from Accounting exchanging side-eye.

The awful thing is that there’s brilliance in the way the first three games set up the world to work on biased information that wasn’t really correct yet everyone believed it thanks to the prevalence of the Chantry/Church. And if the writers on Veilguard had done a better job, all of these revelations would be devastating. I’m talking KOTOR reveal level of mind blowing. Maybe they got close on Dread Wolf before they pulled the plug? We’ll never know.

Because all we got was - the bad Elves are actually bad for everyone (except the Qunari). They did everyone dirty (except the Qunari) so you can all come together to defeat them and feel good about it and there’s no reason to feel conflicted or look into it any deeper. And all the elves are totally on board with killing their Gods for some reason. This isn’t a divisive issue for anyone. No one joins Solas even though he’s also an elven God. And the only people who join the Evanuris are tyrants and bullies as Solas tells Rook. What a coincidence - that’s all of our enemies! Thank goodness no people we actually like end up siding with the Bad Guys. Phew.

Because the pantheon of Elven Gods aka the Evanuris aka the Illuminati, not the Illuminati from the beginning of this rant mind you, but the sub-Illuminati controlled by the Executors, so I guess the Evanuris are like the Anti-Vaxxers of this world. Anyway, the Evanuris are apparently responsible for the Blight, the Old Gods, the Titans dying and subsequently the dwarves’ existence AND… Andraste! The Jesus/Joan of Arc allegory was apparently possessed by an elven god - Mythal - and secretly led the elven people to rebel against their masters. 

Couldn't have been the brutal conditions of slavery in Thedas. Nope. Gotta be the Evanuris. 

And there’s only two of them in the game - Ghilan’nain and Elger’nan. And Mythal who they murdurlated and is kinda dead now but still possessing Morrigan (don’t worry! It’s good possession because there was consent!) 

Plus, Solas who isn’t really Evanuris but is implied to have been ‘close’ with Mythal and the game crassly tells you they were ‘doing it’ through Taash’s mouth. Anyway, Solas woke up from Uthenera and chose violence which is why we’re now in hot water. But that still only amounts to 3.5 Evanuris? I guess the devs ran out of time because there’s all these statues of Elven gods around. Should be 9 in total. 7 according to the statues.

Hm.

It seems Bioware tried to do Endgame but only 3.5 Avengers showed up and not even the good ones.

Wait, I’m forgetting the Forgotten Ones!

Ironic. Yeah, the Evanuris did a war on these other elves that are even more evil than them and they all got banished to the Abyss? We only see one of the Forgotten ones - Anaris - and kill him immediately because he’s trying to make elves into Demons for 'reasons'. And we tell Mythal we killed him and she says, ‘oh shit. I hate that dude. Respect. Here, have a piece of my soul, homie.’ 

A measured response.

Also, Ghilly and Elger’bum love the Blight. You know, the nasty magic zombie virus that makes you puke black blood and your eyes turn red and weird necrotic flesh grows out of your body. They think it’s beautiful! Can’t get enough. And like all toxic white people with too much power and plastic surgery, the Evanuris decided to share this gift with everyone, whether they like it or not.

I’m not gonna lie, I think Ghilan’nain has one of the coolest character designs I’ve ever seen. I love how she moves like a squid and slaps dragons together to create better monsters. Conceptually? 10/10. Artists, you did so so good on this. I love you long time, mwah. But the writing? Hnnnnnn….

If you were going to do this whole ‘Elven Gods = Evil’ thing, you really needed to make it feel epic and grandiose. It’s a big reveal to DA fans who’ve been sucking on the teet of ‘Elven Gods = Good’ lore of the previous games. We already got a bit of a slap in the face (literally) when Solas removed the Vallaslin because it was a ‘slave brand’ so it’s not a stretch to go: Elven Gods? Were a bit fucked up actually. That’s believable. But Evanuris did 9/11 is so… I can’t even with this.

Since DA1, we've heard stories of Ghilan’nain - Andruil’s chosen - the woman who was so devoted to animals she stood up to a hunter and was mutilated for her troubles. She was turned into a white Halla by Andruil and elevated to the status of goddess for her devotion. The Dalish pray to Ghilan’nain when they travel to find their way faster. In Veilguard, we see only the ugly squid abomination she’s become when corrupted by the Blight. It makes it easy to hate her. To accept a black and white narrative of 'Bad Guy bad' when they’re right in front of you. Especially if this is your first Dragon Age game.

The only companion that comments on the cognitive dissonance is Bellara and she becomes an allegory for white guilt. 'Oh no, our gods were evil and now they're doing all this evil stuff! However can I - a manic pixie dream girl - ever come to grips with this concept? Good thing the Elven Gods are carrying the plague so I don't have to think about joining them!' And this attitude ultimately culminates in her decision to erase the Archive that records her people's entire history??? Tell me you're a neocon without telling me you're a neocon. Yikes.

There are ways to give these narrative decisions meaning without immediately dumping the weight of the world on one companion's shoulders! And it's not having the Veil Jumpers say 'Oh shit!' every time you say Elger'nan. Davrin doesn't even seen to care since it's the Blight and he's a Grey Warden before he's a Dalish elf apparently.

Like, we hear Davrin tell the tale of Andruil the Huntress and by the end of the conversation with the team, he just calmly accepts the fact that she may have discovered and spread the Blight to Thedas. Stone-faced. As he carves an action figure out of wood. Where is the emotion, Dav? Where is the devastation? Or denial? Disbelief? Betrayal? Why are we all like, 'yeah, Solas is Fen'Harel, what about it?'

I want you to be as devastated about this as I am. And I’m Some Asshole from the real world. If you have a tattoo on your face because you thought Joan of Arc was cool, and it turns out Joan enslaved her own people and created a super plague she used to make monsters out of your friends’ meat, you would feel a way about it!!!

The dialogue and emotions of the characters feel so wooden and unbelievable. Like they're not inhabiting Thedas but your own little world in the middle of nowhere where none of this is real.

And they feel so out of time. Mostly because Veilguard is almost exclusively written in modern Simple English but sometimes the characters will say something that sounds like it belongs in an after school special. Like something a government employee responsible for writing mental health mandates imagines a person that’s been to therapy might sound like. Like if you googled how to talk to someone having trouble with their mental health and went to wikihow, especially in companion interactions, you would get Veilguard dialogue. This makes most of the conversations feel jarring and inauthentic and combined with a thick US accent that feels straight out of Hollywood, you get cutscenes that feel like you’re watching the CW.

Just as an exercise, count how many times this dialogue shows up:

“Are you alright?” / “Are you okay?” / “Everything okay?”

**Character turns away dramatically**

“I’m fine.” / “It's fine.” / “I'll be alright.”

Funnily enough, this is not how people are supposed to sound in the high fantasy world of Dragon Age. At least not according to three AAA titles, not to mention all the books, TTRPGs, anime and even comics in the Dragon Age universe, since the different regions of Thedas are roughly based on real life places. Like Orlais is DA France/the Vatican, Ferelden is Anglo-Saxon England, the Tevinter Imperium - Roman Empire, Antiva - Italy/Spain, the Anderfels - Germany/Eastern Europe, Par Vollen - Ottoman Empire, Rivain - Moorish Spain, Nevarra - Prussia/Hungary/the spooky part of Romania.

Not to be the person that says you need fake accents and racism in your RPG game but you're telling me you got MATTHEW MERCER - the king of role playing games - Dungeon Master extraordinaire - and you couldn't get half a Europe's worth of accents out of him? You paid him to hiss into a microphone and make monosyllabic skeleton sounds for Manfred? ( I love him btw) Way to make use of those seasoned VA chops! I'm glad the Viper had such riveting dialogue as “Did we win?“ that I didn't even recognise him as Mercer until the final battle.

Like... the whole appeal of Dragon Age was exploring a world like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings but different and new. Part of that was the buy in - the immersion - role playing. Much like in Dungeons and Dragons which can take place exclusively in the mind’s eye through oral storytelling, sometimes a voice or an archaic choice of words, a turn of phrase, or an accent, can bring a character to life and give them the complexity of time and place and personal beliefs, fleshing them out in three dimensions and adding some texture to the world. 

Veilguard is capable of this! 

Think of Antoine and Evka from the Grey Wardens. You can tell Antoine is from Orlais and Evka is from Orzammar just by their voices, speech patterns and accents. You know Evka is casteless by the brand on her face which means she had it rough in the dwarven city. She had very few options and becoming a Grey Warden, though difficult, may have been an improvement on her life quality.

Same with Antoine. An elf in Orlais is a second class citizen, a servant or a slave. No Vallaslin means he’s not Dalish. The Grey Wardens were probably a better path for him. This is good character design and execution. We only need to hear a few sentences from Antoine and Evka to buy in. They belong in Thedas. But why are they the exception?

Why are most of the characters in Veilguard two dimensional at best? If you look at the VAs on the cast, it's absolutely not a question of talent. It's the writing and direction that makes Veilguard's dialogue such a let down. Not only is it oversimplified and modern, it sounds like they used the first take on most of these lines! And the first draft on all of these stories.

I mean, this is Dragon Age! Think Lords of the Rings! Think of a world with different languages for elves and dwarves and even words for things in English. In previous games, you learned them organically as they came up in conversation or codex entries. You learned who came from where based on how people spoke. No one was breaking character and saying things like 'what's up?' or 'okay' or 'wow' or 'I would kill for coffee' or 'non-binary'. 

These are incredibly modern terms and phrases, and you are supposedly living in the Middle Ages inside an ancient bastion of magic. It’s not Hi, it’s Greetings. It’s not God, it’s the Maker. It’s not sir, it’s ser (gender neutral). We completely lose Ser in Veilguard because they bring in Ma'am halfway through!

To be clear, there are in-world examples of non-binary characters and identities and Veilguard even uses 'aqun-athlok' - the Qunari term for someone that doesn't identify with the gender assigned at their birth. But they do this in the most condescending USAmerican way of like, 'oh, the Native Americans call it ‘two-spirit’ - 'The Qunari call these people aqun-athlok'.

It feels disingenuous, inauthentic and just plain uncomfortable to be there. Again, we are being told instead of shown, which is Veilguard's cardinal sin. What would have been cool is if Taash went on a journey to discover other aqun-athlok or the Rivaini equivalent, and Rook could accompany them to learn more about it. 

Instead, Neve suggests that Taash go to Minrathous??? The city Dorian Pavus famously fled because his homophobic father tried to use blood magic to make him straight? Really, Neve? That's the bastion of queer acceptance you want to recommend to someone as raw and inexperienced as Taash? An underground organisation based in a racist city of people still at war with the Qunari Antaam???

And we don't even get to go with them!

It all happens off screen, even if you’re a Shadow Dragon. I would kill to do something in Minrathous other than chasing Venatori around stinky old Dock Town. Why do I have to go to the same bloody tavern with Neve three times but there's no non-binary NPC I could talk to in there?!

You get the nasty Governor Ivenci in Treviso that negs you every time you pass them in the Grande Market. The only decent NB NPC I found outside of Taash is a healer named Flynn in the village of Lavendel in the Anderfels. Evka sends you on a quest to find their mentor in the alps and later, you find out that Flynn was sick with Blight and got healed by secretly becoming a Grey Warden. This was done by Evka who allowed Flynn to return to their work - healing the villagers - instead of immediately getting conscripted to fight Darkspawn as a Grey Warden normally would.

What a cool idea! Using the Grey Warden ritual (blood magic) to save someone from the Blight, albeit for a short time, but doing it in secret because you know the Grey Wardens have strict rules about this. What an act of compassion on Evka's part that speaks to her personality. And what a reflection on Flynn that they stayed in Lavendel instead of running away once they were cured.

But you never find out what the Ander term for 'non-binary' is. We don't find out what the reaction to this kind of person is in that society is, positive or negative. Instead, Flynn hand-waves it all with a throwaway line - 'my mentor helped me with my non-binary stuff'. 

STUFF? 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 

Your entire gender identity and the consequences of it is just... STUFF??

The amount of times this game uses the word 'stuff', particularly in the second half, absolutely kills immersion dead.

Which brings us to the next cardinal sin of Veilguard - it doesn't take itself seriously.

Everything is just 'stuff'. The main quest? To kill the Elven Gods you unleashed? The super Blight that's ravaging the South? That's all funny and we can make jokes about it like we’re sarcastic purple Hawke. Haha. And you know what, let's just put it all on hold and go take care of our own personal business first. I'm sure coffee is more important than Treviso being overrun by Antaam and darkspawn and plague.

At one point, the main story quest is to 'check in' with the broody assassin and the grumpy grey warden because they had a disagreement during a meeting. Not for any Elven God apocalypse business, but simply to see how they're doing and talk about their personal problems like you’re the HR rep at Godkillers Incorporated. You’re not here to help raise an army using the connections of their respective factions, but to further their personal vendettas and chase after targets that won't matter if the whole world is Blighted.

At one point, you get back from Weisshaupt, having defeated two dragons and a cool darkspawn hydra monster. You kill an archdemon and make an Elven God bleed, for Maker’s sake! And Neve has the fucking nuts to say 'There's trouble in Dock Town.' 

BINCH! 

There's not gonna be a Dock Town if we don't take care of this APOCALYPSE! 

This rubbed me so bad I had to stop playing and begin this rant.

I thought it couldn't get any worse but then I went on Harding's quest to find Valta, and wouldn't you know it…

You enter Kal-Sharok, fabled dwarven city beneath the ground that was sealed centuries ago to protect against the Blight, the people inside entombed alive. Or so we thought. A recent expedition into the Deep Roads led to a shocking discovery - some of them survived!

And we meet at the tall imposing gates of the city carved into a mountain. As you follow a dwarf called Stalgard through the vast chambers inside, he tells you that the inhabitants took in some of the Blight to survive the Darkspawn incursion, becoming like the Grey Wardens.

(Let’s just ignore that the ritual kills most people and makes 99.99% of the rest sterile and gives you 20-30 years until you turn into a darkspawn yourself, so it's impossible for any of them to have survived since dwarves already have a very low fertility rate. AHEM.)

You enter the deepest chamber of Kal-Sharok. A sacred place in the stone. Lyrium - the font of magic - grows from the walls and wraps around them like veins.

(Even though physical contact with raw lyrium ore will cause serious injury and psychological damage for humans, elves, and Qunari, and any contact with the unrefined substance will kill a mage outright. But we just walk on in.)

You approach the statue of a great dwarven warrior and miracle of miracles, it glows and speaks to you in the voice of the Oracle. She tells your companion, Harding, of the Titans and their song and warns of danger - something awakening. And what does Harding do upon receiving these words of wisdom?

She throws a tantrum like a five year old. And the stoic dwarf named Stalgard actually breaks character and says, “She does that. Riddles, riddles, riddles. Oh, I'm a rock.”

It was so cringe I had to walk away from my PC and go for a run.

I know the writers were trying to be funny. But there's a way to be funny in character and in-universe. Remember Shale? Remember the unbreakable pigeon? If you can't do that, then maybe don't do Stalgard? Because it stinks of Marvel Cinematic Universe screenwriting where they stop to point out how lame superheroes are despite being a franchise that revolves entirely around superheroes.

If you don't like Dragon Age and high fantasy, then don't write Dragon Age and high fantasy. Don't take jobs where you're expected to write Tolkien when the best you can do is Madame Web. Or, if the lead writer/director is the one spearheading this change, then I think we have bigger problems.

It's clear that the demographic the writers are appealing to is vastly different to the original and even Dragon Age: Inquisition. Veilguard is trying to tell this highly sanitized PC story that’s inclusive of newer younger players who don't know the lore, and probably don't care. They're here to play dress up, get their pronouns sorted and make their Rook kiss an NPC. All fine goals! The problem is - the world doesn’t react to your being there. You get a surface level aesthetic facade of choice and the exact same playthrough as everyone else. Because you can't write a perfect 'uwu all my friends live in a lighthouse' AU in the nuanced morally grey world of Thedas without drawing a curtain over the established setting, lore and characters. 

It's incredibly obvious to a long-time fan that you’re covering up the controversial and problematic parts of Thedas to make sure no one gets offended while playing. Veilguard appeals to the delicate sensibilities of a purity police poisoned populace and needs deliver a highly polished centrist narrative with no bite and nothing to say other than SLAVERY BAD. It won’t even give you the choice to disagree! None of the dialogue options let you flat out object to what's being said, disrupt the conversation, or start a fight.

It’s incredibly jarring when compared with past games which offered a broad range of moral choices, regardless of the player’s personal ethics, sometimes with disastrous consequences but the freedom to role play as you saw fit. And it challenged you to think about your decisions whether they were good or bad, whether the ends justified the means.

Dragon Age has always been about grey morality. It’s not even subtle about it. They’re called the Grey Wardens for a reason. It’s about making the hard choices where there are no easy answers. It's about making sure the Blight and every other disaster is stopped. It's about making sacrifices for the greater good. About being the only person there at the time. It’s about the love that was there but it didn’t magically save everyone. It’s about hindsight and finding out information after you've made a difficult decision, then going back and replaying the game because of regret or because you want to see what would happen if you’d known. It’s about having the option to do something terrible and clicking it just to see what happens. It’s about the game getting harder or easier based on how much of a jerk/edgelord you are and whether you can live with your sins despite this being a videogame. Because that’s what this is - a safe space to explore morality without real world consequence.

We see brief attempts to replicate that in Veilguard. Like with Minrathous vs Treviso. It's a big decision the game forces you to make waaay too early in the story to make it meaningful. You choose which city gets your direct intervention against a blighted dragon attack. 

Your choices are: the racist mage city or, the city home to a bunch of assassins with no standing army that’s already under occupation and is heavily implied to be in far more dire straits.

Unless you’re from Minrathous, you’re highly incentivised to help Treviso. And the game almost assumes you will. Because if you pick Treviso, the Shadow Dragon hideout in Minrathous is completely destroyed, the environment changed and individual members are publicly killed and hung on the streets. The Viper is infected with the blight and the Venatori storm the Archon's Palace and take over the city.

Meanwhile, if you pick Minrathous, the Cantori Diamond in Treviso remains standing. You lose a few people in it to the blight but this is so early in the game that you may not even know these people yet. Some turn into darkspawn and the game expects you to care about them but if you were assuming that the urgent story quest was urgent, you were mistaken. The game waggles its finger and points at all the side quests you didnt do by making you make this decision and locking off anything you were planning to do. This big big choice happens at the end of a recruitment mission for Davrin so you either have to lose all your progress and go back or live with the game's stupid pacing decisions.

Meanwhile, you don’t control ANYTHING that’s happening in the South. 

Morrigan invites you to meet the Inquisitor at a tavern in Minrathous and tells you that most of the South is under siege by Darkspawn.

ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have restricted their activities to the North but deployed their forces to the South????? And the Inquisitor wearing my Shadow Dragon pyjamas is the only thing holding back the Blight??? 

What the actual fuck? or as Rook says more politely, “If the South is in such turmoil then why did you come up here just to talk?”

Darkspawn have cut through the center of Orlais???? Val Royeaux and Halamshiral are barely holding out??? Denerim is lost????? They’re holding the line at Redcliffe with help from Orzammar??? 

I am losing my mind.

The Free Marches have the worst of it??? Acting Viscount Aveline Vallen??? has led an evacuation of Kirkwall???? She’s taking her people and what’s left of her army to help Prince Vael keep Starkhaven???

Why would she ever help Sebastian keep Starkhaven??

Doesn’t matter. Because according to the Inquisitor, The South is the Inquisitor’s problem! Rook has to stop the Gods and the Inquisitor deals with the Blight. Oh, and here's a cool statuette that reminds me of Solas :)

Okay, putting aside the way they rattled off a bunch of names for the fans and immediately said all your faves are screwed. Why is the Blight down in the South if the Elven Gods awakened in the North? They make the Red Lyrium dagger in the North. Elgar’nan’s Archdemon and Ghilan'nain's rises in the North. Elgar'nan takes Minrathous - in the North.

Maybe if the other seven Evanuris were awakened simultaneously and attacked the South, I would believe it. Is that what the Dread Wolf was gonna be about? Did they scrap the game where the Evanuris were all attacking Thedas at once? 

Or is this an intentional move by the writers to wipe the slate clean for future games? Can’t have any problematic old lore and beloved characters getting in the way of our nothingburger of a story, now can we? Let’s just destroy it all so we don’t have to think about it… and neither do our players.

>:(

I’m so mad. 

And while the South burns, Rook gets to make inconsequential decisions until the end of time.

Such as:

Fight the Venatori vs Smooth-talk the Barkeep

Both end with a cutscene that you don’t control and you get the information you need. 

Your methods are never addressed again.

Disagree with Varric vs Support Varric talking down Solas

Varric goes to talk down Solas anyway.

This is ‘remembered’ by the illusion of Varric in your head in one line of dialogue several minutes later.

It is never addressed again.

Neve vs Harding follow you into greater danger

One of them gets hurt during the debacle with Solas. They have a cosmetic scar for the rest of the game and never talk about it again. 

Save vs Kill the Mayor of D’Meta’s Crossing

This has no bearing on the story whatsoever. A one time approval bump and then never again do we see or hear from the piece of shit that sold out his whole village which are now Blighted puppets of the Evanuris. No one explains how he 'sold out' either, probably blood magic. That's always the excuse.

Punch the First Warden vs Reason with him at Weisshaupt

This is such a deus ex machina. Because if you choose to reason with him, you conveniently notice the blood dribbling out of his ear and make a Sherlock Holmes level assumption about the Calling. This is something Grey Wardens experience once enough time has passed since their Joining. It's basically the end of your life as you know it as you slowly transform into a Darkspawn. Grey Wardens walk into the Deep Roads when they hear the Calling but the First Warden has held on for longer than he should have and gotten a bit mixed up in the brain. You should not have knowledge of this unless you are a Grey Warden yourself so fuck whatever Background you pick, it doesn't matter. You say some rousing words about becoming the leader who defied a God and suddenly, the First Warden admits you were right and he wasn’t. Just a complete 180 and he's on your side.

THE RESULT IS THE SAME. He sends you to the dragon trap. 

If you punch the First Warden and knock him out, Evka stands up for you as next in command and sends you to… you guessed it - the dragon trap. No matter what, the First Warden goes to stab the Archdemon and gets pwned.

You see him later during Davrin’s personal quest, fully Blighted. He’s either sane and suffering or insane and profane. Either way, you can’t save him. All you can do is end his misery. And it’s so frustrating because he has dialogue! He tells you to look for a feather that belonged to Isseya's griffon, it's the only thing she stops to look at with emotion. But the game completely ignores this and doesn't give you an optional marker for it. It just says 'Confront Isseya'. And that's it!

Like… the illusion of choice is infuriating! 

None of your decisions have any meaning. There's no lasting consequences. You never lose a companion due to your pre-finale choices. You never lose a faction. Even if you pick the worst nastiest dialogue option on the wheel the whole way through, it doesn't matter. Rook will still says something affirmative and the game continues on its merry way, railroading you into the predetermined story. 

There's no way you're not reaching the end. And that’s the only place where you’ll be penalized for not taking Daisy for a walk. I mean, going to dinner with Taash’s mother. Did I mention that?

The game forces you to be there when Taash comes out to their mother as non-binary in your own kitchen and I cannot express how much I did not want to be present for that conversation. In my wildest nightmares, I would not dream of inviting my boss to a coming out dinner with my conservative mother in the office kitchen. 

Why in the Fade would I want to experience this awkwardness in game when I just met Taash and I'm not romancing them. And I’m technically their boss? This feels like the most basic and degrading representation of the queer experience. I’d expect something like this from Glee. And I’m forced to sit there and watch this trainwreck of a dialogue. The game will not give me the option to say NO, not as a friend and not as an employer. Forget evil playthrough, this is just plain setting boundaries. Why can’t Rook say NO?

When I picked up the cool fire breathing dragon-hunting non-binary qunari companion, I thought we would be getting someone along the lines of Krem and Iron Bull from Dragon Age Inquisition. I thought we would be hunting dragons or participating in fighting tournaments, and the non-binary stuff would maybe come up over drinks and maybe there'd be one non-combat mission where you go meet their crew and see how telling them goes. 

Instead, it's a 30/70 split between the cool stuff and the whiny cutscenes about not liking dresses and wrapping yourself up in weird bondage rope. Like, yeah, Taash. It is weird. Maybe don’t do it if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Especially when you’re in the Lighthouse and not living with your mom.

I get it, it's a ham-handed metaphor for being of both worlds but neither. Qunari and Rivaini, man and woman, yet neither, or both. But instead of starting at a place of questioning, we're introduced to Taash as a badass dragon hunter, who then very suddenly loses all sense of self and identity.

Rook: "So you've got no problem fighting other Qunari?" Taash: "I'm from Rivain. Not like I follow the Qun." Rook: "You've got the arm ropes." Taash: "Sure. I wear a lot of stuff. You don't get to tell me who I am."

Cool, right? And then again, immediately, Taash stands up to the Antaam poachers.

Taash: "Hey! I brought her down! She's mine by right!" Poacher, in Qunlat: "You are no warrior." Taash, in rough Qunlat: "You don't get to tell me who I am." - breathes fire and roasts him alive -

Badass. Again, asserting themself as whatever they wanna be. But then they turn around and ask you, a stranger, whether they should be more Qunari or Rivaini. You don't get a choice about the non-binary stuff. But the cultural stuff seems to be something you get to choose? Why? And why can't they be both? Tell me you've never met a multicultural person in your life. Newsflash: People have multiple parents. They can be raised in polar opposite ways simultaneously. Yet it's been distilled into a binary choice - Qunari or Rivaini. Which just smacks of hypocrisy after making the character non-binary.

And the whole coming out scene with the mother. I did it twice just to see what happens if you make Taash be more Qunari and Shathann accuses you of meddling so the Qunari can soften up Taash to the Qun and take her away. This woman is insufferable. Because if you romance Taash, she'll say you're a bad influence too. But hey, she comes around RIGHT BEFORE SHE DIES. That's all that's important, right?

The fact that none of this is optional once you talk to a companion really grinds my gears. I didn't know what they were gonna say when I walked up to them the first time. I saw a big exclamation mark over their icon and I thought it was important. Even when it's a little grey clock icon, they'll end up giving you a mission. I didn't know I was automatically going to get a quest whether I wanted to do it or not. 

And you can't leave or untrack a quest, so you just walk into the kitchen and boom! Now you’re having awkward dinner with Taash and her conservative mother. And after she gets up and leaves the table you have to reassure Taash about the whole situation? Like, why is that my job?

It feels like Rook is everyone's lap dop, mother and personal therapist. Not only do the companions dump their emotional baggage and problems on you but Rook just readily accepts it like you're not literally fighting God at the same time there's an evil magic plague with dragons and shit devouring the world.

The only person who cares about Rook’s health is Emmrich, and Varric, but he’s dead. (Emmrich can also be undead)

Honestly, Varric’s death didn't bother me as much as everyone else. I never particularly liked him and getting stabbed in the heart with a Lyrium dagger seems pretty fatal to me. I was actually mad when he showed up alive in the infirmary minutes later. Like, way to cheapen the moment he got stabbed with an immediate cop out. And then at the end of the game you find out he actually DID die and Solas is just being a prick. And the game still asked you to sympathize with him despite all the shit he did.

I feel like multiple people wrote Solas and he comes off majorly polarized as a result. He flip flops between right and wrong, regret and conviction, all the way to the very end. And it’s clear they tried to make him the morally grey sigma male but he just ends up feeling stupid.

I never empathized with Solas. I tried romancing him in Inquisition to get more lore but it just doesn’t matter. He keeps doing more bad things to justify the bad things he’s already done, and Veilguard tries to make him sympathetic in the worst way. Your whole team gathers around the table to explain his Memories to you like you didn't just watch them. It feels so condescending, voyeuristic and unnecessary. Like a fanfic that couldn’t figure out how to make the big bad sympathetic so it threw in some flashbacks. And why? For the secret third ending, SssHhhh.

Mythal’s alive! Kinda. Her spirit was broken into lots of pieces and one of them can be yours for a limited time. But only if you watch all of Solas’s Funniest Home Videos. Morrigan shows up to explain that she also has a piece of Mythal and most of her memories but doesn’t help you do the thing. Thanks, babe. Glad you and your mom figured things out- wait. Didn’t we kill Flemeth before she could transfer- hold on, what’s the timeline for these memories? You talked to Flemeth-Mythal? 👉And agreed to accept the memories before you ran away and met the HoF? I thought- 👆you left- 👉and then we killed- 👈But she was back in DA2- 👉Solas took her powers in Inquisition???🤷‍♀️

What are you saying Morrigan? Are we retconning Dragon Age Origins? Also, where is your son?

I’m so confused. Glad this doesn’t matter. Like all of your decisions.

Morrigan comes and unlocks the third ending for you. It was hidden behind these brambles in the Crossroads you find at the start of the game. Imagine if Rook had a weedwacker and some Round Up. The game would be a fraction of its length. The Blight could be readily cured with pesticides. But as it is, you go through the secret hole and find a spot where a bit of Mythal’s spirit hangs out. She says she still helps by possessing humans like Andraste to guide her people.

Why humans though?

Not important. Nothing is important in this game. And none of your decisions matter. Don't look too closely. Don't analyse anythng or you'll miserable like me.

If you get the little Mythal statuette (because that’s how I would give you a piece of my soul) then Morrigan shows up at the end of the game, right before the final battle.

I almost had a heart attack.

Because I remember the end of Dragon Age Origins.

Morrigan comes to the Hero of Ferelden on the eve of battle and explains that she knows a ritual that can transfer the soul of an Archdemon to the foetus in her womb if she has sex with the Grey Warden that slays it. And you have to choose between:

slay the Archdemon and let its essence kill you

make someone else slay the Archdemon and get killed 

have sex with Morrigan before you kill the Archdemon to make an eldritch dragon God baby with her 

force Alistair or another Grey Warden to have sex with Morrigan and then kill the Archdemon to have the eldritch dragon God baby

Additionally, if Alistair is the future king of Ferelden, this baby may be the only way he gets an heir because fertility is so low among Grey Wardens. So you have to consider the power vacuum Alistair will leave behind when he dies childless, destabilizing Ferelden and leaving it weak and open to attacks from Orlais like his half-brother Cailin Theirin did. Discounting whether or not you romanced Alistair. 

You could also just get Anora to be Queen.

You see what I mean about complexity and nuance?

The fact that you could lose Alistair or Morrigan as a companion so close to the end of DA1 and your arch enemy could join the party instead?? Insane, both narratively and mechanically. And in DA2, you could just straight up sell your companion, Fenris, back into slavery if you wanted. It was genuinely fucked up. Your team lost its tank and you got a bunch of gold. But that freedom was incredible. We lost it a bit in Inquisition. Mages vs Templars was a no brainer. Who gets the throne of Orlais? I was rooting for toxic lesbians but I guess we got to pick the new pope? It all amounted to nothing, of course, because Veilguard chose to ignore everything you ever did. 

The only comparable decision it allows you to make is the choice of the new Archon: Dorian Pavus or Maevaris Tilani. 

Does it make a difference? 

Only to the single title card they play for you at the end of the game. And you don't get any epilogue. Did they succeed in changing Racism City? We'll never know.

I would argue the most morally grey decision you can make in Veilguard is whether your companion Emmrich becomes a Lich.

Now, if you've played any amount of Dungeons and Dragons, you'll know that a Lich is an evil wizard that killed someone, did a ritual and now they're an immortal skeleton person with glowy green/red light for eyes and cool powers. But don't worry! Veilguard has made becoming a Lich morally fine and good, actually 👍

See, you don't have to kill anyone. You just get your coworker to stab you dead and your boss does a quick ritual which strips your flesh, makes a phylactery and you're sorted. Immortal wizard skeleton lich powers are yours to command. It's more of a promotion, really. You just have to pass this arbitrary morality test that we administer. (Don't worry about it.) But you can't raise your already dead skeleton son back from the extra dead, even though you’re a necromancer. Otherwise, where will it end? *clutches my Lich Lord pearls*

Anyway, Professor Emmrich Volkarin, Necromancer, Death Mage and noted Fade expert, 55 years old, turns to you and says, 'Rook, you should decide whether I resurrect my beautiful skeleton son that's just begun to talk and is voiced by Matt Mercer, OR, if I should go through with my entire life's work, get that uber promotion at the funeral director's home and become a Lich Lord that potentially puppets the King of Nevarra. I will have no say in this and you can't let me make my own decision. I simply won't give you a dialogue option for it.'

And the game is like, what should he dooOOooo??? As though everyone in the new demographic isn't gonna pick 'stay human and resurrect Manfred'. I mean, he’s a heroic little skeleton boy and I love him dearly but this is clearly not up to me or you. Emmrich should be mature enough to make a decision on his own. 

There’s a lot more nuance to this whole thing that I wish was discussed but if you choose to save Manfred, that’s all Rook talks about - the value of Manfred’s undead life - his potential. Not the imminent death of Emmrich even though he believes he will become immortal as a lich. Not the loss of his senses or his humanity which he seems convinced will remain. And especially not the fact that once he’s a lich, he will have his phylactery stored in the Grand Necropolis. Myrna carries it out after the ceremony. Sure, this might be preferable to giving your phylactery to some templars or the chantry. But if Emmrich disagrees with the Lich Lords, he can be suppressed or even lose his free will and die anyway.

We don’t discuss the specifics of Emmrich’s condition past a few brief comments on how he has extra senses for spirits and the Fade. But he says it will be much harder to get killed as a Lich before the final battle so it means it’s still possible. He could become a Lich and still die. And for a guy terrified of death, it feels like a great moment of conflict. If you romance Emmrich, he tells you to stay behind so you won’t die and he won’t have to mourn you forever. There’s no way to reassure him because the dialogue wheel is an illusion of choice. You’re going to have a disagreement and spit back something insensitive like ‘I’m not going to be afraid of dying just because you are.’ Them’s just the breaks in Veilguard. All options lead to railroad.

Anyway, I think Emmrich's decision has the most nuance you get in Veilguard. Mostly by accident. There should have been a tonne more, of course, but at this point, beggars can't be choosers. If you pick Lich promotion, Emmrich turns into a skeleton man in a cool robe and a crown and then you have to have an awkward scene where he has to ‘come out’ to the party as a Lich. And Taash has to ruin it with their blunt insensitive dialogue. We can’t take anything seriously in this game. -sigh-

But Manfred is gone. Forever. It's not like he did anything in combat so I don't lose any firepower but I do miss him. Manfred isn't important to the story after his heroic final act so there's no political fallout but it does feel like you lost a member of the team.

The other companion decisions don’t hold as much weight because they lead to similar if not identical outcomes to their counterparts

Bellara keeps the archive spirit VS frees it (loses the knowledge)

This seems to me like a no-brainer. Freeing the archive spirit and losing all that knowledge to enforce blissful ignorance is a terrible choice. I guess it’s nice to have the option after going through so much of the game with barely any. But it seems out of character for Bellara to discard the thing she and Cyrian were searching for their entire lives, especially when he makes the ultimate sacrifice. You do a funeral walk and light the same braziers either way. The words Bellara says are different. She butchers the old elven stuff so it just makes you feel awkward. Again, I don't know why they're trying to make learning about your sketchy past the bad option but we know USAmericans are bit weird about the slavery.

Harding uses rage VS compassion to control the Titan’s Shade

This one has a secret third option. A romanced Rook that tries to kiss Harding gets yucky lyrium veins on their face and Harding harnesses the Titan power to remove them and save the horny Rook.

Otherwise, the three party members get together for a huddle and Harding gets control of the Titan’s Shade with rage or compassion. Either way, she keeps her earth bending powers. If it's compassion, you meet some dwarves in her next personal mission and she can share the Song of the Stone with them. If you choose rage, there's no one there. You just look out at the bones of a Titan from a snowcapped mountain.

The Griffons become Mounts for the Grey Wardens VS Guardians of Arlathan Forest

The game acts like you can restore the griffon population from a single clutch of eggs. This feels a bit weird since they’re all related but I guess beggars can’t be choosers. It’s six griffons. And I feel like you just saved them from the Blight, so sending them back to the Grey Wardens seems like a cruel and ironic fate. Couldn't you split them up, so that half go to the Wardens? In any case, they’re gonna get bred together. Assan will stay with Davrin either way, even if he sacrifices himself, Assan perishes with him.

Taash embraces her Qunari heritage or her Rivaini upbringing

This feels like a personal decision you shouldn’t be making for Taash. Sure, it’s an important step in them discovering who they are but like? I dunno what’s right for you, bud. And I feel like you can be multicultural? You can be both? Or neither? Or just take what feels good. Like, you had the right idea at the beginning when you and Rook went bird feeding.

I feel like Taash had their mom telling them what to do before, and after her death they expect Rook to tell them what to do. Either way, Taash will read the old tablet about (Adaari) firebreathers - they’re a rare genetic variant of Qunari that comes from having dragon’s blood. The tablet says they’ll be needed to fight the Devouring Storm (whatever that is).

Taash decides to help the Adaari and the Antaam because they don’t know how to live outside the Qun. They’ll seek to unify them for whatever comes next, either under the Qun and Qunari or with the Lords of Fortune. Same goal, different people. Again, why are you the one to choose?

Lucanis forgives VS condemns Illario’s betrayal

Illario doesn’t die or get killed either way. He just gets locked up if you condemn him. Lucanis is moody for a bit and becomes the First Talon anyway. If you forgive Illario, he just gets dragged away by Viago with a promise to ‘keep him out of trouble’. This mirrors Neve’s mission where Aelia just gets ‘taken away’. However, you still get the option, even if Treviso fell and Lucanis is hardened, and it’s weird that you make it for him. He talks about getting rid of Spite but we never see it happen in game. You only get the Fade/fake Ossuary run if you chose Treviso over Minrathous.

So, after 20+ hours at the minimum, we arrive at the finale. And if you did all the stupid side quests, from ‘have tea with a griffon’ to ‘murder a blood mage’, you should be ready to face the Big Bad. Again, you are railroaded into a suicide mission reminiscent of Mass Effect 2. I’m not saying it’s a rip off but it does feel oddly similar. Even the Darkspawn look like Husks from Mass Effect. However, doing your companion’s side mission would ensure they survived the finale in ME2. In Veilguard, no matter how many nug truffles you find, you will always lose at least one companion. 

After an entire game of meaningless choices, this seems kind of arbitrary and unwarranted but okay, sure. 

Harding or Davrin will die no matter what. 

Harding will naturally be romanced by Taash if Rook doesn’t get in there, so Taash will be devastated if Harding dies. Harding is also the only dwarf that can do magic? And hears the song of the Stone? And is connected to the Titans? Plus she is a rogue so I don’t see how she’s supposed to hold off a bunch of Antaam by herself.

Davrin is a Grey Warden and built like a brick shithouse. He has a pet griffin but there is a ticking clock looming over his life that ends with him leaving for the Deep Roads to die fighting Darkspawn or becoming one himself. A family and children is biologically unlikely to happen for him for Grey Warden reasons. If Rook doesn’t romance him, he remains a good boy griffin dad, alone.

It feels cheap and nasty but Grey Wardens are about sacrifice and Davrin keeps talking about how he should have died at Weisshaupt so it kind of makes sense for Davrin to give his life to slay Ghilan’nain but it feels bad after all he’s been through. And after all the bad guys you’ve spared in Veilguard, it sucks that you have to lose someone at this stage no matter what.

The next decision is

Neve or Bellara unlock the magic wards and open the door for the party to move forward

The consequence of this is that one of them is kidnapped by Elger’nan and used to pilot the Blight in Minrathous like an organic computer. This means whoever you choose will be infected and get nasty black veins and eyes with red irises. However, if you finish the game and seal the Blight in the Fade again, then whoever you pick gets a title card and is cured? As long as they have the Hero of the Veilguard badge like a pokemon, they will survive.

The final FINAL final battle(1).psd has some more choices that are so simple it's kind of insulting.

Three guesses who should go with the assassins to assassinate the enemy of the assassins? If you guessed Lucanis, you were right! Get a mage to help the Veil Jumpers do the magic things. And a warrior to fight the big evil statue/construct.

It’s like a shape puzzle for toddlers that rewards you with a cutscene. And if each of the assigned companions have a Hero of the Veilguard badge, they are guaranteed to succeed and live. Which just makes me feel bad for Dav/Harding.

The final decision you get to make in the game is what to do about Solas.

He’s tricked you into killing Elger’nan whose soul was the only thing left binding the Veil in place so in a roundabout way, Solas succeeds in tearing down the Veil like he planned from the beginning. 

You have 3 (maybe 4) choices.

Fight Solas, stab him with his dagger and bind his soul to the Veil to keep it in place. If you suck and all your friends died, then you get sucked into the Fade with him.

Trick Solas with a fake dagger Emmrich made (super unclear how/when/why you have this). Solas tries to use the fake and it backfires. You then stab him and bind his soul to the Veil, he gets yanked in like a yoyo.

IF you watched all of Solas' Funniest Home Videos and got the shard of Mythal, you can appeal to Solas’s better nature. Morrigan appears and channels Mythal who’s like- ‘Solas, you did everything I ever told you to do and it fucked you up. I’m sorry. You’re fired.’ And the Inquisitor appears to plead with him. If it’s a romanced Lavellan, they kiss and walk into the Fade.

Secret Ending. If you did the Mysterious Circle puzzles and got the Mythal Ending you too can experience blinding rage by getting the forbidden Executors cutscene

Whatever you choose, the sky closes up. The Blight is magically cured. In the end, what’s left of your party climbs down the beanstalk and gets a cheer and applause from about five NPCs and now we’re back to where this rant began.

The Illuminati.

I’m so glad we waited 15 years to be told it was all part of the Executors’ plan. And the REAL bad guys were across the sea and manipulating us all along.

What a satisfying ending /s

I hate it. 

I hate this game so fucking much because it could have been so good. And instead, it was bad and rushed.

Even the romances that were soooo hyped up by the writers turned out to be less than twenty minutes long and folded into regular dialogue. You have to have most of these conversations anyway, even if you’re not romancing the character. Go on. Look up how long each romance is on Youtube. 

Lucanis - 18 minutes of flat, bored, uninterested broody angsty responses and coffee talk while he makes googoo eyes at Neve

Emmrich - 18 minutes of true romance but hounded by ambient dialogue of cradle snatching from the party and an argument right before the final battle. It’s clear this romance got a lot more thought and care written in than the others. There's definitely more going on that just a confession of feelings, commitment to an exclusive relationship, and fade to black. Coffin sex? A pleasant surprise.

Davrin - 17 minutes of hunky grey warden booty with a heart of gold and a baby bird lion child. Perfect LI <3

Bellara - 18 minutes of shy awkward girl fumbling with words and eventually getting them out. Feels like Merill from DA2 but less complicated and deep. She’s definitely cute and someone’s type but very Disney princess romance 

Taash - 18 minutes of wooing a moody teenager with anger issues that realises they’re non-binary, loses their mom and finds out they have some crazy destiny but handles everything like a child. Everything has to be a dragon hunting metaphor. yikes

Neve - 16 minutes of Neve who’s great but you get most of the same scenes without the romance. You trade quips and banter like in a hard boiled detective novel and then it’s over. The fact that she can get hurt and kidnapped and her city can get destroyed adds a lot to this but it’s so little.

Harding - 14 MINUTES!!! Most of it is stuff that you have to talk about as part of her quest. You could have done so much more with the lyrium sting it gave Rook but they didn’t. 

To compare, Solas’s romance in Inquisition was around 17 minutes long if you don’t count all the dialogue you can have by just talking to him. You can’t do that in Veilguard because you can’t just walk up to a companion and talk to them. It has to be a cutscene with extremely limited lines, or it’s ambient dialogue that's dripfed to you every time you return to the lighthouse. If you count every single conversation you can have with your companions in Inquisition, then each romance is at least an hour long!

In Veilguard, you can’t even walk up to your LI and ask for a kiss! >:( 

I am so angry. I'm only going to play it five more times.

I need to know more about Elger'nan and Ghilan'nain. Why didn't we learn more about their origin story? About their plans? Why did they need the Blight when Elger'nan just showed up in Arlathan and all the Venatori were ready to bend the knee? They could have just walked up to Minrathous with Lusacan and Razikale and been met with uproarious cheers. And how did he move the moon? How did he just do an eclipse? How did that not drown the entire fucking world? Is Thedas flat earth?

Why the Titans? What happened? Why did they have magic? Was it different? Why did the spirits/elves want it? If the Evanuris were the first elves then are modern elves technically related? Can they all trace their lineage back to them? Where are the other Elven Gods? Are they sealed away forever now? We killed their archedemons so they must be mortal. And what is the Devouring Storm?

AAAAAAAA

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the angry dome.

[stormsbourne]

I do absolutely feel people are giving datv a bit of short shrift. I have my issues with it, as I do with every dragon age game, but I feel like the game is good about asking questions about your character believes about the world over what is the "best option" unlike, say, dao, where there was almost always a Correct Middle Ground choice

I wrote this draft before I'd finished the game but now I have finished it and I stand by my analysis of what questions are being asked lmao

spoilers under the cut

QUESTIONS DATV WANTS YOU TO ANSWER, WITH NO JUDGMENT ABOUT HOW YOU DO:

neve: is it more valuable to be an inspiration or to be the one who gets things done? both have their merits. are you going to do everything you can as a protector or are you going to make yourself a shining symbol? you can't be both

harding: what do you do with the knowledge that a great and terrible sin was committed against your forebears and it made you the person you are today? how do you balance the grief and anger at what was done with your will to move forward? the person you know yourself to be?

bellara: is knowledge worth the possible weight of suffering it may bring with it? but on the other hand, is it right to erase the sins of your forefathers from public memory? is it better to risk their dangerous knowledge getting out, or better to hide the dangerous knowledge and hope it's forgotten about forever?

lucanis: what does vengeance do to you? sure it keeps you alive, but what else? does it make you a worse person, or just more of yourself than you were willing to show before? and what about envy? what does that do to a person? is it really any worse than, say, spite?

emmrich: what does immortality do to a person? is something lost by removing death from the equation of life? do our lives have more meaning because they are fleeting, or is that just a coping strategy by the woefully mortal to cope with the oncoming grave?

davrin: if you live only to die, what comes next when you find you instead have to keep living? how much do promises of doing better and repentance actually mean to you? would it be better if you had never been placed on the path that led you here? do you deserve a different fate than the one you've been handed and expected to fulfill?

taash: who are you, really? where do the pieces that make you you come from? how do you reconcile the different pieces of yourself, some of which seem to be in direct opposition? what do you choose to take with you moving forward, and why?

literally all of them, including rook: how do you cope with loss? what do you value most when things are at their worst? what does betrayal feel like? hope? despair? love? where do you find these things in your darkest moments? are you caged by regret or do you know how to contain it while still moving forward?

and of course, solas: what, exactly, is keeping you from becoming the very thing that you fight against?

and yes actually I think the varric twist works though I think it could have been done a little cleaner. I called that shit moment one so I paid a lot of attention to how it was handled and, with some caveats, I think it works.