#my opinions may change

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Went from being totally lost as a teenager to finding solace in aesthetics and fitting urself into a template in my late teens and now I think I struck a healthy intermediate where I know who I am as a person generally but I’m also completely subscribed to the idea of evolving and would never deny trying something just bc it doesn’t fit the image of myself I crafted in my head

[binkyfishy]

breaking bus AU as posted on my twitter

credit to OP tysm for the idea!!

[sephirthoughts]

Vincent’s lingering obsession with Lucrecia is excellent drama, but their story is not a doomed romance.

This is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Lucrecia deserves nearly as much pity and excusing of her actions as she gets. This is not character-hate post, it's an analysis of a character I think gets short shrift as a Mother-Mary in a bell jar, and deserves better.

Lucrecia is morally grey. Charcoal grey. I love complex, morally grey characters, particularly when they're women, since usually women are relegated to roles that infantilize and objectify them, particularly in video games, which have historically been a very backward, androcentric medium. I strongly dislike brainless victims, subject to the whims of the male characters, without much agency, and Lucrecia was not such a character.

Lucrecia was an adult with agency and brains. She was a grown ass adult. She was a brilliant scientist. She made decisions with her eyes open, and even sacrificed her unborn child to her work. She is a very interesting character. The fact that she didn't idolize motherhood as the end-all of female existence, and that her obsession with her work was stronger than her desire to be a 'good mother' makes her far more interesting than otherwise. The fact that she regretted it later and wanted him back doesn’t magically make her a good person, or change the choices she made. It demonstrates guilt and remorse, which are part of character development. The bottom line is that she committed atrocities in the name of science, then felt guilty about it later, once she realized how devastating the consequences were to her personally. To say she didn’t know what she was doing or Hojo manipulated or controlled her is to infantilize and disrespect her character. She’s not some sacrificial angel who was a victim of circumstances; she was a willing participant in her own downfall.

Lucrecia is a tragic character, but she's not a romantic lead. Except in Vincent's head. After all was said and done, she had one of those too-late changes of heart that make tragedy so emotionally impactful. She had a human reaction to Vincent's death and felt terribly guilty for her role in all of it, as she should. That doesn't mean she loved him, it means she wasn't a monster. She lost her son, and gradually, Hojo's callous inhumanity and her inability to escape the net she wove with her own hands closed in on her. Did she deserve to never hold her baby son and never see him even once? No. But she caused it, with her own actions. That's tragedy. She was miserable, bereft, and riddled with guilt, so she made a last-ditch effort to make something right...by doing more insane science shit that turned Vincent into a monster. Seeing that she'd only made everything worse, she tried to kill herself, but was unable to, and thus ran off to become a crystal statue in a cave (this is a trope that I dislike, but that's the story, so that's what we've got).

Vincent is a bad judge of the circumstances. Vincent persists in seeing her as a lost love, and someone from whom he was unjustly separated by circumstances. The fact that he is so blinded by his feelings for her that he places her on this pedestal and can't blame her for what she did is excellent characterization, and I love it, but it's because he’s wrong. He loved her. She didn’t love him (I think she was in love with his father, but that's just icing on the tragedy cake, at this point). His lingering attachment, not to the real Lucrecia, but to the idealized version of her he has in his mind, is a very sad reality that adds so much delicious pain to his character. In the end, he is unable to blame her, because he loved his image of her (and Hojo is a way easier target for anger, because he's literally the worst), which speaks far more to his personal bias in the situation than to her actual role in it. She’s not moustache-twirlingly evil like Hojo but she’s not Vincent's star cross'd soul mate tragically torn away by cruel fate. Lucrecia was her own person.

In summation. Their story is not a doomed romance, it's a complicated, messy, ugly tangle of thorns, and one of the best written tragedies in a game that literally bleeds tragedy from every orifice. It's got one-sided love, obsession, mad science, betrayal, jealousy, fetal experimentation, murder, corpse reanimation, and a guy who can't die, and is left to deal with the consequences of everyone else's actions by himself forever. No one is innocent and no one comes out unscathed…strike that. Vincent is innocent and Hojo comes out unscathed. But still. Lucrecia is not a holy mother, she's not a brainless victim, and she's not Vincent's lost love. She's a person he loved, and who didn't reciprocate. Most importantly, she's a person. A whole-ass, complex, morally grey, fully developed person, who made terrible choices, then made even worse choices, and in the end, couldn't escape the fate she wove for herself.

And then wound up encased in crystal so she could be a pretty statue forever cause the game devs just couldn't help themselves I guess.

[septembersung]

In real life, the traddest men I know: change diapers; do chores; are present and playful with their kids; take good care of their wives; work 50+ hours a week to provide for their families; literally never think about the 1950s.

[11-angry-bees]

when i was little i asked my dad if the american revolutionaries would have been considered terrorists bc i learned about tarring and feathering and also the boston tea party in school at the same time as the US government was hunting osama bin laden and i think that explains a lot

[cyarskj1899]

Mind you people say Kanye is acting out to this very day cause he lost his mom years and years ago. Megan hasn’t even gotten a fraction of that grace!

everyone cares about mental health when it comes to Kanye and excuses his antics. You can find articles about his guilt surrounding her death in 2023!!!

but Meg must take full personal responsibility regardless. Megan lost her mom even younger than he did. We don’t see black women as human.

[butchvamp]

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.

[peacerisendove]

I think the idea that Thad’s characterization is wrong post-Impulse comics is over exaggerated. There’s a difference between a character’s background being disregarded/a character seeming ooc, and disliking the direction a character’s arc/story went.

The crux of Thad’s character post-Impulse is his hatred toward Bart. It’s obsessive, it’s twisted in the sense that it’s misdirected, but it is still very plausible for his character. You may dislike it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a viable/plausible direction for his character.

[mielireva]

If my head was co-inhabitated by an entity from another plane helping me solve mysterious occult occurrences while putting me in dangerous situations, I'd simply fall in love with it.

Rip to Arthur, but im different

[scentofpines]

have you ever considered...that identifying out of woman/girlhood because you don't relate to the societal implications, expectations, etc... contributes to making womanhood (feel) even more restrictive? maybe you feel better when thinking of yourself as anything but a girl/woman because you do not feel like a woman (what does that even mean?) but in my opinion you just added another brick into the prisonwall that is gender.

[bugcatcherkit]

do you have shou mom hc or anything like that? I was looking at the bingo cards and wondered about your thoughts

kind of YES! I'm making another list. I don't know if you mean the entire Broad Range of what a HC is, or something specific. So these will be random thoughts I think about her.

This isn't really a HC and more explaining and/or expanding her canon personality traits. But alongside her headstrongness, I think she can be impulsive. Like, rushes into things she shouldn't but she becomes wholeheartedly committed anyway. Which isn't to say she's naive -- she knows exactly what she's getting into, she just thinks she can handle more than she actually can. Like someone else I know..

Also anybody else notice her strong need to make a huge impact on somebody else's life. She chose the Worst Guy ever with full intent that she alone could Fix Him (didn't even wait to see if she could). I think she wants the validation that her words, efforts, and convictions alone can make the world (and other people) a little better overall. It's just interesting that she could possibly seek a Big Goal through relationships themselves instead of at the expense of them.

Does anybody else think about how she was the only person outside of Claw who knew about it. Her ex literally got someone murdered and she couldn't do anything about it or go to anyone (because who's going to believe that? Especially when she doesn't have any evidence). And she had to live with it for years. Probably isolating as hell !!!! Especially because we don't know what her support system outside of her family was, if she even had an extensive one.

I imagine she tends to feel bad about things very easily, specifically her own actions/inaction, and how that effects other people. Like a responsibility thing, even though most things are out of her control. Her knowing when she needs to quit doesn't quite stop her feeling bad for doing so (and also I don't think she learned her own limits until That Argument, so she's like "what if I did More". It's part of I think she's always asking about Toichiro and planned to visit him with Shou -- she wanted to try again. This is Alongside her concern for him).

OKAY I am going to rant about the abandonment thing again because I keep seeing it still. Grabs everyone by the shoulders. There are so many reasons that she did not take Shou with her. Since (in the context of the argument) her leaving seems like a split-second decision, she probably did not have the proper resources to support him immediately after she left. By the time she got something figured she literally couldn’t get custody. AND I hope nobody forgot that Toichiro used Shou as leverage against her and that was why he cut contact between them entirely (or he thought he did). But they stayed in contact anyway!!!!!!!! They called and visited!!!! People get so distracted with the "abandonment" part that they overlook any potential complicated feelings that probably exist on both sides. Because those are very normal to have with a situation like that!!! For example, her leaving did not have the effect she thought it would (make Toichiro see his mistakes), and she has to consider that! But, at the time, she had run out of things to do or say, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the whole point was that Toichiro refused to listen to her or consider her feelings or Accept Change at all. Can anybody hear me??? So sorry to put this rant here when all you wanted was some headcanons

FUCK THAT GOT LONG. That's not even HC that's just character analysis I think? I don’t know anything. I'm actually bad at HCs guys. IDK what characters do in their spare time I just hyper-analyze their thoughts and motivations and ideals. Here's some actual HC maybe?

post-divorce she doesn't get her own place for a while (she is Unsure of what her next steps are and has a LOT to consider) but when she does it's quite small and cozy. Though, it only develops a Homely feel when Shou starts visiting. It becomes more personalized after that, I guess? Does that make sense.

She seems like the type to have a collection of trinkets that are One specific animal. She's got like 50 little porcelain bears sitting on a shelf somewhere or something.

she has one of those ugly little dogs with the crusty eyes. And she saw him at the shelter and he was so old and sad that she almost cried, so she had to take him home.

She is big on manners. Constantly scolding Shou for his lack of them when he moves in with her finally

also she's got the same bluntness and genuineness that Tsubomi has, I think. Actually she has a lot in common with Tsubomi. They are shaking hands. Committed to the people they care about but don't sacrifice their true selves for anything. Etc.

LET HER HAVE A LITTLE GARDEN!!!!!!! She'd love it. She'd talk to her plants to help them grow.

I want to give her a name but I haven't been able to settle on one. Very sad. Hopefully soon?

this feels like me saying a whole lot of nothing. I guess I couldn't get too deep into things because at that point it would feel like I'm inventing a totally different character (because she does not exist in the narrative outside of Narrative Device). Maybe she needs it though. but I fear i cannot do Mob Psycho like ONE can....

[thatrandombystander]

I like headcanoning asshole characters as grey-asexual but they don't know asexuality is even a thing and they just thought they were "above such base instincts", and then making them suffer by inflicting their first case of sexual attraction as towards someone they find insufferable. Make the bastard want to rip their hair out in confusion and exasperation

[wanderingmind867]

I think Superman and Batman really paint a picture of almost two different philosophies. Superman is Hope personified, he embodies light and positivity. Batman is like the personification of Cynicism and Pessimism, a man who's very dark and edgy and intimidating. A man who's paranoid, doesn't trust easily and doesn't have many friends. And let me just say: batman is the one who's more relatable, but he's also the one I dislike. Maybe that says something about me. Because I'm as cynical and pessimistic as characters like batman, that makes me gravitate towards Superman. I need that happy, hopeful feeling. I need it to ground myself. So superman is definitely the more important character to me.

[placesyoucallhome]

/showleft shiny boi

Might still tweak his physique and a few details a little but overall he smol, at least by au ra standards. Most importantly though, is the blue tongue, obviously. Still a timid little fish, still a leviathan-based summoner, he's on the list of toons to get to endgame before DT for rp and availability to other fcs

[cyarskj1899]

[doginprogress]

Uhh, well… Hi dogblr.

It’s been over a year since my last post, and a couple of years since I posted with any consistency. But I’m trying to find my love for training and hiking and doing stuff again and I had a lot of that when I was posting here with Aang and Azula. My little family has changed at lot the past 2.5 years, and I’m going to be updating this page and doing individual intros, but I’ll include some sneak peek pictures!

For now, I would love if you could reblog and/or tag some of your favorite dogblrs! I would love to start following everyone I’ve missed meeting in the time I’ve been gone and fill my feed with inspo.