#maybe i really like this quest.
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[britney spears voice] you drive me crazy!
#hollywood u#pixelberry#thomas hunt#oc: claire swanson#bianca stone#jenni whitman#lance sergio#wow that's a lot of people#huntclaire#maybe i really like this quest.#hsslilly art
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it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.
yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.
it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.
how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.
chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?
how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.
"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.
i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.
#writeblr#warm up#i can't write rn but i have SO much words in here bc im reading the chorus of dragons books#(just started book 4)#and this woman's writing is just LIVING in my brain. let me out!!!#(i read roughly like 2-4 books a week usually bc i go on long walks with my dog but when a book is REALLY good like. it eats my life. )#anyway ...... so like here's a story that idk i've tried to explain to other people as being wild#but maybe im the only one who thinks it is wild???#so i play pokemon go (i just started in jan) bc i love pokemon and as i have mentioned i walk goblin for like an hour in the morning#and i don't like a lot of fitness trackers due to the fact it makes me .sad. but i also wanted the little digital rewards. enter pokemon go#anyway so they make you make friends to complete quests. so i used a reddit thread. i do not usually use reddit. i don't have an acct#i lurked. i just googled like ''pokemon go reddit '' and randomly added a bunch of numbers#i was on that page for all of 15 minutes. there are THOUSANDS of responses on that page.#here's what's wild: in that group of people. even though i am not on reddit and it was one random event once#it turns out one of those people lives in the town i live in. or at least very close. i only know this because#when we send each other gifts. it's from the same freaking area.#i can't ask them to meet up bc pokemon go doesn't have a messaging app lol but like . what are the fucking chances that#a random person posts in a random reddit thread and HAPPENS to get added by someone ELSE from their SAME TOWN#who by pure fucking CHANCE is ALSO playing pokemon go and looking for friends#i googled it there's only 42000 people in my broad region. the .......... smallness ! of the world!!!
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I started reading beastars so now HE's reading beastars .wait
THEY'RE reading beastars
#nobody gets a prize for correctly guessing which character yakumo relates to most#when the anime first came out and everybody hopped on the hype train#i scratched my chin thoughtfully and wondered.... would i like this? it seems like i would like this. should i watch it?#and all my friends around me said 'nah you'll probably hate it. it's really sad'#so i trusted them and ignored beastars the whole time. until now. when i saw the entire series at my LOCAL LIBRARY!!!!#so of course the curiosity wins out and i start reading it and i REALLY LIKE IT?? WTF WERE MY FRIENDS ON ABOUT?#this is sad yes but most of the time it's FUNNY? and also ANIMALS R COOL? bruh. i can't trust my friends' opinions of me anymore#anyway. due to the nature of my current nuca fixation timing. i kept thinking of it while reading#drawing parallels that may only exist in my mind LOL#i can imagine yaku being a freak over legoshi and his quest to become strong but not falling to his instincts and etc.etc.#yakugaru having a manga reading session in either o their bedrooms... lying on the floor engrossed in beastly tales...#these two would absolutely have a debate about which chara is most similar to eiden#to yaku it is obvs haru but i feel like garu would see eiden in a less.... prey sort of way#or maybe they'd agree on the haru comparison!! but yaku might hesitate to voice the 'mr eiden... has to be protected...' thoughts#and garu would proudly proclaim how eiden and haru share traits like bravery/outgoingness/super cool and go-getter/wise and worldly???#i kept staring down louis like.... you're some mix of dante and edmond... and something else....#UGH i like all the characters... they all have their charms.... they are all such creatures#honestly yahya the entire time was just relatable content and after seeing the way he lived out the rest of his life *chef's kiss* GOALS#nu carnival yakumo#nu carnival garu
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I THINK I FOUND IT!!
If you didn’t see my recent post, I discovered an audio file of Sebastian saying, “I actually grew up near here. Not sure I appreciated it when I was younger,” which confirms he and his parents lived somewhere in the Highlands in a location accessible to us. I’ve since thoroughly explored all of the hamlets with Sebastian in attempts to trigger the line, initially suspecting it was something he’d say as a companion near the location, but unfortunately had no success. I also checked every single house in those hamlets for cellars and only found one.
It’s possible his parents’ house isn’t in any of the hamlets, and is a random house in the middle of nowhere we have yet to find, or (if his line was completely cut from the game early enough in game development) the house itself was never put in the game.
It’s also possible that the house I found with the cellar was their house, and the devs just chose to cut Sebastian’s line for whatever reason (or it was never a line intended to be spoken by him as a companion, keep reading). The house is Mary Portman’s house in Aranshire with the spider infested cellar. If true, it’s sad to think that’s what became of their house, but at least MC eventually clears them out.
Considering Sebastian’s quote, the location genuinely does make a lot of sense. Now that he lives in Feldcroft, so far away from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade (basically in the middle of nowhere), he realizes that he didn’t appreciate getting to live so close to all the action when he was younger. Another reason the location makes sense is because his parents were Professors and Aranshire is so close to Hogwarts. I now believe that the quote was cut from the Hogsmeade quest since it would make sense he’d say that as he’s walking us to Hogsmeade and telling us about the school and the surrounding area. He sounds very cheerful in the audio clip too, and he was in a good mood that entire walk. It really does sound like it could have been taken right from that quest. EDIT: Also the word “actually” in the quote makes it seem like it’s not something he randomly says out of the blue but it would have to be during conversation that’s already happening, like the Hogsmeade quest.
If we go inside the cellar, it seems like it could have been used as a library/study (“cellar library” as Ominis told us). Mary Portman even left a note implying she never utilized her cellar before the spider incident. It was almost like she suddenly remembered she had a cellar when she was wondering where to raise her spiders. Because of that, it’s likely those books in there belonged to the previous owner, and the cellar was completely untouched until Mary moved her spiders in. As you can see, they’ve since wreaked havoc in there.
#i’m headcanoning this#it has to be it#like what other quest could it have been that’s far enough away from feldcroft that he was in a good mood during#i really don’t think it was a random companion line either#i think it was meant to be his house and something for players to figure out on their own or maybe they planned more lore for seb’s past#but cut it like they cut so many other things so just took that quote out along with it#hogwarts legacy#sebastian sallow#anne sallow
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so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.
full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.
oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.
i'm starting off with the things i liked
the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.
combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less
the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.
your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.
the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.
speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.
bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.
varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.
the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).
rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.
and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately
the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.
tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???
there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.
i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.
that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.
for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol
in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.
the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.
this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.
when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.
morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.
dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.
on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.
really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.
for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.
rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.
speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.
the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything
#datv#datv spoilers#dragon age: the veilguard#oh wow i hit a limit typing this#anyway to tie this up a bit: the good and bad to the environmental design being that well-known architecture like minrathous and dwarven#ruins look fire and remind me a lot of the previous games#but newly added locations are very... generic... very bland#i was very excited for rivain. i thought we'd get to see ships. not a bunch of ruins and a fighting pit and that's it#and why did i say to ignore a certain guy's review? bro because he was complaining about taash being ace and that taking up their screentim#and them being too up in your face about their identity. he did all this while she/her'ing them constantly#but my man they're trans. nb. not ace.#y'all need to be careful about bad reviews. they're coming from people who are upset about gender identity being handled as a topic in this#game. meanwhile they have no clue what they're even talking about. i don't think matty knows the difference between ace and trans#and neither do the hundreds of people who are one star rating this game currently#i liked this game. it's not top tier. it's not something i'll sink hours and hours and hours of my life into#it has tonal issues and it's moving away from what made dragon age stand out for me#but i do think that it's a genuinely fun play and people who are very invested in dragon age will squeeze joy out of it wherever they can#i had a hard time warming up to the new characters (taash and lucanis being the exception because they have an older bioware air about them#but solas's and varric's story (and don't get me wrong that's what veilguard is about) is GOOD. that is how bioware used to be.#and i wish they'd given us that energy all over the game. that direness. that grit. serious and mature writing.#that consistency is lacking#and whether you're gonna enjoy this game or not is entirely dependant on what you came here for and how well the game delivers on it#i think their weakest points are ironically the thing they advertised the most: the new companions and their writing#you won't find nuanced and good enemies here (i already reblogged something about this. you can go scroll around a bit and catch up on that#really the only thing that had me super invested and emotional was the main quest.#so make of that what you will. ultimately i was more frustrated with the game than i got enjoyment out of it. i was close to just put it#aside for now... until i went to minrathous to end ghila'nain's and elgar'nan's ritual. that all blew me away. still on a high off of it.#anyway yeah that review got cut short by the character limit maybe i'll add more to it tomorrow but rn... i am heading to bed#thanks for coming to my ted talk. also i'm sorry. zevran REALLY isn't in this.#dragon age
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star wars outlaws
#star wars outlaws#kay vess#nix#did a brief detour into this game it isn't bad! but certainly lacks in polish for core loops. tutorialization pipelines are ass also#performance - also ass. had to play quality on ps5 for it to have any clarity at all. but the open world is gorgeous#and it certainly nails the very narrow target of horse girl star wars fantasy (ripping across tatooine on a speeder with a little Guy)#nix is everything I love him. modern star wars rarely captivates me but they do know how to do lil guys real well#my photos#star wars#also-also. would be remiss not to mention. never played a game with unregulated scope creep this noticeable before. it's baffling#I KNOW people crunched on this it's in the walls in the floorboards it's everywhere. unmitigated hodge podge of mechanics and pillars#and those pillars are often unbalanced between each other. storytelling payloads are an issue too. there's pre-rendered in-engine cutscenes#real-time in-engine cutscenes. and digic-produced full CG cutscenes. and their placement and prioritization feels insane and inscrutable#like three different teams were working on the game at the same time and never in congress or coordination#it also suffers from the open world 4th and 5th priority narrative payload issues - many secondary and sometimes even primary questgiving#and expository dialogues are in-game zoomed camera lipsync exchanges. or flavor text#on the other hand - surprisingly deft mission design itself? side quests reward either cosmetics or actual unlockable deployable skills#it has fleeting genes of a metroidvania spread across a wide open world in that sense. but only fleeting. the rep system is a smokescreen#and progression in general has a very open and unsatisfying end to it. this game needed less scope and maybe no space stuff at all#the resulting resource allocation adjustment would truly make for a captivating open world adventure. as it stands it feels like#a product of overworked people misusing mismanaged budgets and managing to sprinkle some love into it regardless#games should never be good on the merit of their perceivable seasoning of overwork and passion. that really only bakes a sadness cake
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i finished the game last night, here are my unpolished thoughts about the final act and what i liked & didn't like. this is very long and probably incoherent lol
what i liked:
the whole final battle was awesome, i loved the combat, and i really enjoyed the huge cutscenes of everyone fighting together. i had been really disappointed earlier about the lack of a battle scene at weisshaupt a la ostagar in origins, and this definitely made up for it
i liked the suicide mission and actually getting to assign people their roles in the battle
i LOVED Solas's betrayal, that whole section in the fade prison with the statues was one of the strongest scenes in the game, i think the entire relationship between Rook and Solas is really well developed. as the player, we know Solas is manipulating them, but i think they did a good job making it so it's still believable for Rook to fall for his tricks, especially with the Blood of Arlathan quest before this. (also it's very obvious Solas is Weekes' favorite, wish they would have just stuck to him and not all that other dogshit...lol)
i liked the idea of Varric's role here, but not the execution. i'll come back to this lmao
the giant dread wolf and archdemon fight was cool as fuck. no notes. that's just classic rule of cool, baby
also i had Davrin in my party while fighting alongside Solas and i really enjoyed his banter with him and how hard he laid into Solas's ass. it was very satisfying. yippee go Davrin!
okay. now. what i didn't like (sorry not going to bother with bullet points, it's going to be longer down here lol):
while i liked the suicide mission structure, i hated how the game all but told you who to assign where. there were no stakes at all, there was no way to get it wrong unless you did so intentionally.
this also brings me to. The Choice. between Davrin and Harding. i understand the need for a "fallen hero" here, it ties into the entire theme of regret with Solas as we see in the fade prison, it was necessary for Rook to be the person "at fault" (aka directly make the choice that ends with someone getting killed) but this choice was dogshit. it also was really fucking stupid to see Harding climb up and stand atop a giant stone pillar, and then NOT use her stone magic!!! i don't hate the idea of someone dying here, but this was just a series of failed choices over and over again. we should not have pitted returning fan fave Harding against the single Black companion (who comes in late and barely even gets his own story outside of his damn pet)-- it should have been Harding (narratively satisfying, she's been here since the beginning and dies for the fight) or Lucanis (he is literally the guy taking the shot), we also shouldn't have tied all the dwarf lore revelations to a character that can just fucking die at the end, and we shouldn't have had her stand on a giant stone pillar when she has STONE MAGIC!! i knew this choice was coming but her death still caught me off guard cus i was fully expecting her to collapse that stone pillar on her, not use her stupid puny bow 😭
i think this choice is also weakened by the fact that it's THEE only choice. it's obviously an echo of the earlier Treviso and Minrathous choice, which also didn't really seem to affect much outside of potentially losing the corresponding factions (and i think Lucanis's romance gets locked out?) i saved Treviso, so i got the Treviso questline later, and i assume that you get a Minrathous specific questline with the Shadow Dragons if you save the other instead (haven't seen myself tho so i'm not sure, just guessing). but it's very easy to recover the Shadow Dragon's reputation, and the final battle takes place in Minrathous no matter what. the only way for companions to die or the battle to fail is to just straight up ignore quests. you can't lose a faction's support at all unless you intentionally try to do so. i don't even think you can lose companions at all unless you intentionally ignore their quests and place them in the wrong spot. though the game still holds your hand through the battle and basically Tells You who to put where so they survive.
and to be fair. this is true for the suicide mission in mass effect 2, but the thing is, there is so much more dialogue and variations with how you can play your character and interact with the companions and the world than there is in veilguard, it makes it feel like you do have more control over your character and the narrative, even if it's just the illusion of choice.
and then with Solas, it doesn't matter, he always ends up trapped/linked to the Fade, it just changes how he feels. (they also do this with the First Warden. i was excited for a potential variation between punching/not punching, but all it changes is his attitude when you find him later in Davrin's quest) okay.... well. is he going to return again after that post credit scene? and are they really going to write 3 (or 4, with lavellan i guess) different branching personality variations?
i think the powers that be just wanted to get rid of him in a way that would still leave the dragon age setting ultimately unaltered and open for more games in the future. especially given the secret post credits scene. which i also have an issue with. we're going to go from "it was all the Evanuris fault" to Actually, it was this secret third thing and everything we did was for nothing! AGAIN! if they want to make more dragon age games, they can just... start a new story. do they know that. (the fact they're implying Loghain was influenced by some outside force to do what he did at ostagar actually has me livid lol. leave origins alone!!!!)
anyways. now the fade prison. i have two issues, my main one being Varric. i actually started to suspect early on something was up with him, because he just sits in that damn infirmary the entire game, no interactions, barely any dialogue. i think Varric was horribly underutilized in this game, and it results in all of the emotional beats around him falling flat for me. of course, it's emotional for ME, the player, because Varric is a fan fave returning character and one of my own personal favorites. as far as i've seen in game, though... Rook has no relationship with him at all. i think this game would have been vastly improved with short playable origins that showed the two meeting and developing a relationship, and also he really really needed to have more scenes and dialogue in general. he's barely in the second half of the game, literally just sitting all by himself in that damn room, and even when he is in the cutscenes he has one single line that everyone obviously just ignores. it sucked. very disappointing finale for a really beloved character... it could have been so good if it was good....
because i DO love the idea of Solas using him to manipulate Rook (and i really like Varric and Solas's relationship & the way they contrast against each other), and also the idea of how being tricked in that way would actually affect Rook-- what's real, what's not, can they even trust what they're seeing at all anymore? especially when Solas "glitches" between Varric and Lucanis (idk if it's always him or your LI? would be cool if it's your LI, that's what i assumed) after slaying Ghilan'nain-- this could have tied in with the final romance scene. but of course the game doesn't get into any of that at all.
and now issue 2. how the fuck did Solas do that LOL. how did he switch places, how did he get out, how did it take Rook in his place when it was designed for elven gods? where are the other elven gods (did i just miss this explanation? did the other two just kill them in there)? 🤷 when did this place suddenly turn into a prison of regrets? was that Solas's presence influencing it, or did he do that intentionally for Rook? dont know! who cares. moving on...
i romanced Lucanis, and i was really disappointed with his romance. the final scene was sweet, but.... i think particularly with Lucanis you can tell so much of his story and arc ended up on the cutting room floor, it feels disjointed and as if we're missing pieces, and you can feel it in his romance, too. i also really didnt understand the "keep flirting (not a lock in) or end it now" choices that didnt feel like they did anything at all. why was i given like 3 different times to break up with him when we weren't even dating yet lmao. the romance was a bummer, of course i love the setting and the story but i go into these games expecting strong romance along with it and i was really banking on that being the highlight in this mess of a game but. alas
this also segues me back into the whole "trapped in the Fade prison" section. why was there no reunion with both your LI and everyone else? apparently Rook was in there for WEEKS!!! they hardly communicate this and Rook just reappears and jumps straight back into leading the team, no tears or questions asked about how they found them, how they got out, what everyone was thinking while they were gone... we also get a deus ex machina knife, how convenient that they did all that while i was gone and no explanation is given as to how it could possibly fool Solas, just trust us bro! 💆 i feel like trying to craft our own copy of the knife should have been something actively happening in the background throughout the entire game, and it gets finished while Rook is in the Fade. but this truly came out of nowhere lol
again i think it's obvious things were cut and rewritten and maybe this was the result of a frantic scramble to come up with something that would work, and i'll be generous and blame it on that, i guess...
when we finally get to the final confrontation with Solas, i was very excited, because again i feel like Rook and Solas's relationship is the best in the game, Solas's writing is consistent and strong, i knew this scene had to be good.... and i guess it was? but it felt so unsatisfying. i chose to fight him (my Rook would do anything to get him to shut up) and i was hoping for. an actual fight. you can do it with Mythal earlier in the game, and we already saw his giant wolf form, i was so excited. and then. no<3
okay! sure. we beat him with the power of friendship (not surprised and not even making fun of it here, it makes sense narratively, i knew some version of this was coming after the whole comparing Rook versus Solas bit in the Fade) but come onnnnn i wanted to fight the giant wolf.... sigh. i did check out the other endings as well, and it's clear the redemption ending is the "true" ending and also the best written one imo.
overall. this was a bad dragon age game. i had a lot of fun playing it though, so it's not a bad game game. the gameplay loop never got boring, i never got tired exploring or doubling back, i loved the maps, i loved the combat, and i did love the companions. but the writing is atrocious and racist. this is a horrible dragon age game. i don't know where i fall on recommending this. again, i've had a lot of fun playing and dissecting it, but i dont know that i could recommend this to dragon age fans. this would have been way more successful as a completely different fantasy game. the changes to the lore, disregarding the majority of the games that came before it, the horrible depictions of returning characters (the inquisitor and isabela were the worst offenders for me) the setting and characters feeling watered down and incomplete, the complete lack of the classic "grey morality" shtick (even if it's not always been implemented well)... idk man. bummer! it's obvious there was a cohesive vision at one point, i do think this game is a casualty of the current state of the gaming industry (i was honestly surprised it was functional on launch. not shade at bioware just in general that is rare to see now) we know EA thrashed bioware throughout development, and bioware made a lot of really bad choices, too (the racism is absolutely their doing, they made that choice back in inquisition). but we can see, particularly in the artbook, that there were good ideas & an intention to actually tie everything together and give this story the finale it deserved... but it all got lost along the way in a very ugly, chaotic development. and the game really suffers for it.
#datv spoilers#datv critical#i mean theres some positives too.. lmao#this isnt really as articulate as my other posts im not really digging in too hard this is just. straight off my dome after playing#i do eventually want to come back to davrin's quest and write about that but i really . don't know what to say. it's Bad lmao#HIS ENDING SLIDE JUST BEING THE GRIFFONS. NOTHING ABOUT HIM. LMAO#anyways. i might give it a day or two before jumping back in with a different playthru to see what i've missed#maybe my opinion on some things will change but. we'll see#obviously this is just my experience with the game#im sure there is lore or potential explanations for some things i may have overlooked or missed. but 🤷#idk if i'll make anymore formal posts at this point i feel like ive said what i have to say#i was possessed but now im free#da posting
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I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today
#we do not see it. we cannot read all of a sudden.#rye having war flashbacks to watcher conferences and firmly going 'we are *not* getting derailed by the metaphysics here folks'#rare stern moderator/dad hat moment from ingellvar lol. he's Seen Some Shit in his time (debates that raged over the multiple#and not always concurrent life times of the participants involved. ain't no academic rivalry like watcher academic rivalry#because watcher academic rivalry doesn't stop even when everyone involved is dead. and the rest of us have to live with it)#I. do not think the way I'm getting this quest is how it's meant to be experienced so I'm a bit at a loss as to how to pace it out#I've been an annoying little completionist so I have ALL the statues and could just marathon it out#but that does not feel like the best way for the story and upcoming reveals to work. hm. how to do this#I'm supposed to go fail to save weisshaupt right around now I can't be having study group with all of you rn as much of a delight as it is#rye is nominally an andrastian as mainstream nevarrans generally are but as I gather is the case with many of the watchers#what he *actually* believes in is the grand necropolis itself haha#(and the philosophy of history memory death and relationship (as well as responsibility) between the past and the present#and indeed the future that it represents. we have a duty. to what has been to what is and to what will come after us. good shit)#the nevarran/mortalitasi element just makes their lack of care or respect for chantry orthodoxy *mwha* that extra bit special#the nevarran lack of concern bordering on quiet condescending disdain for official chantry doctrine and policy my beloved#dragon age#dragon age: the veilguard#dragon age: the veilguard spoilers#dragon age spoilers#poor harding really is living through the most relentless 'if this is the maker testing my faith he sure be testing me' gauntlet of all tim#good news: god might be real! bad news: god might not even be a real thing but more like a magical accident or vibration or something#honestly tho. if we could get full lovecraftian incomprehensible to human conception the maker -- He is a particle and a wave style --#that's the only way I'd be cool with him or them actually answering the question of his existence. that'd be kind of sick#'yes. but no. but maybe. depends on how you define god. and exist. and he. and does.' *ingellvar sets of the METAPHYSICS!! klaxon#that's a time out folks good game but easy on the jargon and navel-gazing definition of terms next round#rye and lucanis have some slightly differing views about at what exact stage of a problem murder becomes a valid solution#('well you just kill them and then I'm the one who has to deal with the next much longer part')#but they're surprisingly kind of vibing on a lot of other stuff lol. good for them <3#oc: Ellaryen Ingellvar
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jasico server was chatting about the cupid scene and jason getting nico's memories blasted straight into his brain and how jason being shot with one of cupid's arrows while with nico and this was just never brought up in canon again and now i'm thinking like...what if that's just how cupid's arrows work? not by magically manifesting love for someone out of nothing, but by giving someone the perspective that'd make them fall in love naturally? jason gets a front row seat to nico's memories and instantly understands him intimately and can trust him completely without any doubt or suspicion
so what if jason, after slowly realizing he's totally in love with nico, just thought back to the arrow incident and it made him second-guess everything? because maybe he's only feeling this way because cupid hit him with an arrow with only nico was around and it's no different than any other god messing with his love life
#i live for anything that drags out the pining/pre-relationship period as long as possible okay#give me the drama of jason frustrated about constantly being manipulated by gods#in love with nico but convinced it's just cupid fucking with him and not wanting nico to get dragged into it#maybe telling nico eventually because he's having trouble hiding his feelings and he doesn't wanna hurt nico by confusing him#which is of course an emotional rollercoaster for nico#hearing jason say he's in love with him only to then immediately hear that it's just godly fuckery#nico agreeing to help jason find cupid to get it reversed because he knows how much it sucks having feelings for someone unwillingly#and he doesn't want jason stuck mooning over someone like him just because he was unkucky enough to be with nico for the cupid incident#whole quest in which nico develops feelings in return and angsts because he's sure jason only feels that way because of the arrow#maybe a slip-up in the middle somewhere with nico accidentally revealing he likes jason back before backpedaling wildly#so now jason has hope despite himself because he'd never really thought it was possible anyway given nico's feelings for percy#and he doesn't like being manipulated by gods but he doesn't mind the idea of being in love with nico#and what if he just gave up on the hunt for cupid entirely and let it happen#while nico feels guilty since clearly it's just cupid arrow magic fucking with jason and he's enabling it#and then of course when they finally find cupid he explains how his arrows work and that he can't just FORCE someone to be in love#no more than hera could with jason and piper by fucking with their memories to push them together#cupid's methods are just way more effective#my tag babble ended up longer than the actual post oh my god#pjo#jasico#my dumb headcanons
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firecracker
#my art#cucumber quest#cq#cucumber#bella cucumber#<- forever and eva <3#i wish i could put my ideas abt her in art :T#like maybe i’ll make a comic#because thats all i can think off really#maybe a drawing with text in the bg#I love making art the improvement from my last purple tinted cq art to THIS. Insane. I love tangable progress <3
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How could you. HOW COULD YOU! You know EXACTLY how much time he spent Crafting himself to become the person he can at least begin to tolerate, begin to identify as himself, to proudly label as ISABEAU! You broke it, your his face, that stupid face that makes you so so SO CRABBING FURIOUS! SO VIOLENT! SO! UNRELENTINGLY! JEALOUS! And now you've Changed him, with your rage, with your anger; like the Universe Changed you. For the worse. Your bleeding Pincushion. You dig your fist into his nose. Blood on your hands.
*grinding my teeth* God god god I have become obsessed with Quin (to quote it, "I'm a mannequin without the man[ne]") and how on a scale of love to hate in the loopified party, Quin and Isabeau are worse together than Siffrin and Loop :P
Here's a post-quin fight where Isa is guaranteed to lose and guaranteed to get his nose broken, good thing if there's ever any sprite edits I wouldn't have to have two different Act 6 portrait sets :)
#isabeau#isabeau isat#quin#quin isat#in stars and time#isat#isat spoilers#isat act 6 spoilers#fanart#blood#for all the times i'm not posting i'm thinking about quin and isabeau :P#me: hmm i'm not the biggest fan of sif and loop together no hate no hate also me about isaquin: god what the fuck oh my god#i have no fucknig clue why maybe because isabeau and quin are both in agreement that despite *gestures vaguely*#they consider each other as completely separate individuals and were not and will not be one or the other#whereas loop wants to be siffrin again and thus a little more attached to their previous identity?#i don't really know why my brain makes the distinction and it's not 'canon' to the vague isaloops idea#ANYWAY! isabeau gets punched which... should that be a tag? i got blood as one#i was gonna make the first panel of quin be rendered like the loop 'death' screen but i wanted to make it's star glow#which yes quin's face opens like a star but probably only during its fight at the height of its emotions and not as a casual thing#and maybe in the possessed sprite but dunno if that'll show up given it came up both in mira's quest and dagger dialogue#as isa doesn't exactly have a dagger to make things faster nor would he have the same quest with mira don't know where that would go#once again with the painted backgrounds :P digital painting at least for these is really just fancy scribbling :P#it gets the vague idea of foliage and grass well enough tho so :P :P :P
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Data from Vault 95 confirms that The Chair is not a magical-fix-all-your-problems machine — at the very least, it can’t cure the psychological side of chem dependency. It’s not stated in Cait’s quest because of fo4’s aversion to loose ends, but her story definitely isn’t over. (She references this if you do drugs in front of her afterwards.)
I think the next step for Cait is going to have to be expanding her circle of trust past The Player Character (All Hail). The Sole Survivor is wonderful and their relationship is lovely, but they have a lot on their plate, what with being responsible for every political and personal issue in all of Boston.
But… the team has a former addict on it! It’s Deacon! (Unless he was lying. Honestly it’s 50-50. We’ll assume for now that he wasn’t.) We also know that Hancock is really supportive about addiction! I really like the thought that he stops doing/talking about drugs around Cait (or Mama Murphy)(or the kids for that matter). Preston and Piper aren’t bad about it either. Other companions… well, we don’t see how they handle it past the intervention stage. I’m sure they try.
If I knew more about addiction, I’d write about how Cait handles it all. But I definitely do want to write more about the companions supporting each other, because the game’s limitations leave a lot of room to explore that.
#i will never forgive fallout 4 for making the word ‘drugs’ canon#it was funny when that word just didn’t exist#idk the ideal method for supporting a recovering addict but i assume maccready’s whining strategy is not it#i really like cait’s quest to the extent that it’s about breaking down and asking someone you trust for help#idk how else they could have gamified that storyline#the game would have benefitted from maybe one additional convo per companion#to give the impression that they’re working out their issues and you’re supporting them#instead of your presence magically fixing everything#fallout#fallout 4#fo4#fallout 4 cait#cait fallout 4#cait fallout#fo4 cait#fallout cait#cait fo4#hancock fo4#hancock fallout 4#deacon fallout 4#deacon fo4#piper wright#preston garvey
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Absolutely loving this. K, my beloved <3 Absolutely nobody asked you to take on personal responsibility for this fully grown man. Absolutely nobody asked you to take on personal responsibility for the whole world.
King (gn), this is not healthy. That is not how people work. Maybe practice talking with a real person again for five minutes before engaging in Level 15 social interaction. This is not good for anyone, least of all the people you care about, and especially you.
K, beloved <3 <33 You are being a hypocrite. If you understand it sucks to watch people destroy themselves, why are you inflicting it on Sam? Is it different when you happen to have some great purpose, like it doesn’t count if you’re hurting yourself to work harder? Or is it just that Rules for Other People and Rules for K are different? Sit down for a solid half an hour, eat some food, drink some water, and maybe Actually dream small. Focusing in is great and all but this is not actually about your focus, its about the fact you are a blazing fire when you need to be a steady hearth, and honey you are burning QUICK. Dream small. Focus in. Small, achievable goals that you keep working hard on. Like everything else in life.
It is deeply admirable to want to help but it is not deeply admirable to use that as a reason why you get to neglect yourself. Unstable, hungry, tired people make risky decisions that Kill Their Ex Boyfriend, K. Being hurt does not make you noble, it makes it harder to be around you in the exact way you yourself argued with Evan about.
When did K last shower? When did K last sleep or eat? K’s reaction to going outside and realizing 4 days had passed was to immediately go “Good >:)” and hey, hey, K what the actual fuck. I don’t think K knows when K last had 3 meals a day and that concerns me greatly. K, you’re not an action hero, you are like Twenty and Very Not Okay.
#misfits and magic#misfits and magic s2#misfits and magic spoilers#spoilers#k tanaka#Poor poor sam#‘hey please care about you. it hurts me when you dont. it really sucks watching you hurt yourself’#<<has to say this twice to two different people and one of them doesnt understand while the other one doesnt take it seriously#…man evans been boiling with this huh. good on him for saying it. K needs to hear this shit. K also needs to process it. This is all a#really bad thing to have happen on a magic quest on a magic island with two unrelated friends watching you as you do it and also all sleepy#maybe this is like a liveblog#i dun think so tho#dimension 20
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i am begging people who keep pushing the wriothesley is a father figure to the melusines/sigewinne agenda to read his lore. begging. he's not a father figure, in fact, he's like their borrowed grandkid. the melusines adopted him, not the other way around!!!
#after neuvillette's story quest and neuvillette himself being vocal about not introducing the melusines in human society out of pity but#because they're capable and letting them prove their value why would you choose to babify them??#they're old and they're very independent#they're like tiny grandmas#maybe i'm being petty but am i really??? 😭#i just think it's stupid that there's so much focus in not infantilising them for sigewinne to be made wriolette's kid in every piece of#fan content for commodity#she's not a baby she's the head nurse she's incredibly capable and she took care of wriothesley since he was a teen in the fortress#he just deeply respects them and retributes the kindness that probably saved his life now that he has means to do so#if anything they're friends really#their relationship is also so much nicer and more meaningful this way without any sort of power imbalance#i wish people could appreciate that too#anyways sorry for being petty on main#also sorry for posting about wriothesley again shsjshs
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I could be your angle... or yuor devil..,
#ffxiv#dawntrail spoilers#tbh they need to rework SCH to be maybe only 2 of it's 4 aesthetics#and the angel stuff makes the least sense#(I have played basically a negligible amount of ff that is not xiv)#but it LOOKS cool#I wish I had just like maybe 2 more lore hints to tie together where this is all coming from#job quests might be beyond their scope now but they could at least include random lore updates in incidental text#we learn more about reapers in Garlemald and Vipers in Tural!#why not have occasional updates on Why Solar Bahamut or Stephanivien Sent You Some Cool Blueprints To Consider#in really really side content to discover and make me happy :P#actually MCH is a bad example it's easy to guess where it all comes from (you and Steph being sickos about this)#but like WHM getting light-based attacks or BLM & RDM getting upgraded lightning effects when we encounter those shards??#and after the EW patches any reaper upgrades in ability make perfect sense#so there's some stuff that just doesn't need to be said#but other jobs you're like WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
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Mspaint is really fun actually—
#castlevania#castlevania games#simon belmont#castlevania ii#castlevania simon’s quest#simon’s quest#castlevania ii: simon's quest#akumajo dracula#akumajou dracula#art post#my art#art wip#the colors are definitely a bit off in photos augh#eventually once it’s done I’ll be able to put the actual image tho#listened to a lot of malice mizer songs I hadn’t heard yet drawing this :3#I’ve been trying to actually get into visual kei properly cause I love how the genre sounds and have been listening to Gackt since forever#but I kept putting off doing it for some reason 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀#does anyone else get the thing where you go ‘oh yeah this band is so good’#and then listen to like maybe the same three songs over and over and over again (X X ;)#yeahg anyway Simon again yay :3#augh I really wanna actually work on comic ideas for him but aaaaaaa#another thing does anyone else like suddenly stop being able to do things like ok#I’ll want to do something and then get ready to do it and suddenly lose all energy and drive for it for no reason#and I still! want! to do it! augh!#but I’ll put my hand to paper and it’ll go limp like I’ve never held a pencil like bro come on don’t do this to me now 💀💀💀#I’ll be able to start some new mspaint painting totally fine tho (XwX)#I’m pretty positive I have something mentally wrong with me tbh high suspicion of autism maybe adhd could be depression who knows idk#ack anyway drawing the tragically beautiful 1600s vampire hunter about it
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