#really good game i am enjoying it !!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

[rangersoup]

WIP Wednesday

It's 2:00AM and that means its Wednesday! Which means it's WIP WEDNESDAY!! and i am unreasonably excited. So im kicking us off bright (or dark technically cause the suns not even up yet) and early! im screaming cause i can't decide what part of this fic i want to post today but anyway! here's a bit of my current wip that's occupying ALL of my brain!

TK nearly jumps out of his skin as a hand touches his shoulders. He was so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even heard anyone come into the hospital room. He whips his head around and finds himself looking up at his dad. He’s here. He finally made it. He's finally here. “Dad?” he chokes. He almost doesn’t believe it. The last thing he knew was that his dad was making a hail mary drive south of New York to find an air port that could actually get a flight out. He didn’t expect him to be here so soon. “I’m here, son,” Owen says quietly, and TK doesn’t give him time to say anything else before standing up so quickly he almost knocks his chair over and flings himself into his dad’s arms. He’s crying before his mind can even catch up with what’s happening. “I’m here,” his dad repeats, wrapping his arms around him and cradles his head. “I’m here.” “They don’t think he’s going to wake up,” TK sobs into his shoulder. “Ssshhh,” Owen whispers into the top of his head and rocks him as they stand there at Carlos’s bedside. “Everything’s going to be okay.” TK wants to believe him, he wishes with all of his might that he could force himself to believe him, but its bad. It’s so, so, so bad. “I was back there with him.” His dad squeezes him a little tighter, and he feels like a child again, tucked somewhere safe and secure, somewhere where the world seems less scary, somewhere where everything might just be okay… but not quite. Not quite. The only place on the entire planet that really truely feels like that is in Carlos’s arms, the one place he can’t be right now. “I got here as fast I could.” “I know,” TK says, swallowing and finally pulling away from his dad’s warm embrace. We wipes the tears away and steps back, ducking his head. “What happened?” TK shakes his head. “They were serving a warrant and ended up in a shoot out. He got hit. That’s really all I know, other than…” he trails off, glancing over at Carlos. “Other than what happened after.” “What happened in the ambulance, you mean?” Owen prompts, his lips pursed as he looks TK over with pitying eyes. TK nods. “I– Dad I can’t get it out of my head.” He’s crying again. “Come here,” his dad says gently, and pulls him into another hug. He knows he understands, he understands the horrors, the helplessness, the inability to purge every horrifying image from his mind. He’s been the back of an ambulance with TK more times than any father should ever have to. “What do you need?” TK shakes his head, driving it against his chest as his shoulder shake, he can’t get them to stop shaking. He can’t stop crying. He needs a million things. He wants to let the words come pouring out, he wants to spill everything pent up inside of him, but only one thing makes out. It’s broken and hoarse as it leaves his lips. “Carlos.” he needs Carlos.

Tags under the cut!

@lonestardust @futures-tense @annoyingcloudearthquake @nisbanisba @lemonlyman-dotcom @heartstringsduet @carlos-in-glasses @welcometololaland @emsprovisions @paperstorm @captain-gillian @tellmegoodbye @henrygrass @ccgrizzy @thisbuildinghasfeelings @lightningboltreader @strandnreyes @reyesstrand @eclectic-sassycoweyes @giuhina @happilylovingchaos

and @my-beloved-lakes, I know you're writing now, so i am calling you out specifically. This tag list is a no pressure tag list for everyone except you. Lots of pressure for you! Your bitch ass better post something! im allowed to call her out like this. she's my sister.

And open tagging anyone else that wants to participate!

I may have gotten a little over excited about this one. I really really really can't wait to start posting it, but i want to be way farther along with it before i do. As is 10k words isn't "far enough along"

[moeblob]

Yeah! I haven't read any fics focusing on them but I have seen that they exist! And also there's like a five sentence interaction in a fic I read ages ago that lives rent free in my brain. I think about it all the time when I draw Sixty.

[verflares]

i wont lie the fact that zelda doesn't even know who link is kinda really funny in retrospect of all the pre-release speculation and fanart of her desperately wanting to save him and/or missing him. like girlllll she said his cape smelled MUSTY 😭

[monochromeblend]

fluorescent shrimp

[genericdragon]

Noah fence but if you can't handle thinking about the actual story of Mouthwashing and you just want to imagine silly found family scenarios with the crew on the Tulpar then maybe you shouldn't be engaging with HORROR media...... just a thought.

[malevolententity]

no because m still confused at everyone saying this is a bad/boring event. Every Single Server Wide Event these past 6 months have been very lore and riddle focused, with a minor focus on pve during those lore events. it felt unbalanced. the admins have stated before that they want to do events for all playstyles. this is our First Time getting a proper server wide event for a different play style.

the pvp guys need their enrichment too. there is still lore and riddles in this event but thats the minor focus! and thats okay! sometimes other playstyles need to be accommodated and have a place where everyone knows its gonna happen! main island has a gentlemans agreement to not go stupid go crazy between the islanders and that makes it boring for the pvpers. sure they Can set up their own little scuffles with rules but theres something fun about The Hunt that you cant do on main island.

the pvp guys dont get to show off a lot in events. a lot of them dont participate in the lore events point blank OR they get assigned to pve clean up duty while the loreheads get to learn secrets. if you arent able to find entertainment in this event its okay to stop watching for two weeks! ur fellow fans will keep you updated on here/twitter/discord.

[alongtidesoflight]

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

[theanimetrackstar]

Have I ever consumed any official content of svsss? No. Do I even have the faintest idea about what is and is not canon? Also no. But I firmly believe yall ain't making Mobei Jun pathetic enough. I have no evidence as to why but gut instinct. He is equally pathetic as he is stoic. His poise and regalness are simply a facade, outside of the professionalism his position demands, that man does not know how to efficiently communicate or convey his emotions. That man is perpetually second guessing himself in social situations but he does a good job of hiding it.

Anyways the fanfics in the svsss fandom are immaculate.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[commandertartarsmoocher]

Enjoying the concert together with

totally not Commander Tartar in disguise

the fallen ice cream!

[parspicle]

i think an underappreciated part of Being A “Functional Adult” is learning to appreciate something You Do Not Like, but a Loved One Does. it’s a skill you do need to work on, to listen to something You Do Not Care About, But They Do, but it is so, so worth it

[sunnys-side-upside-down]

Blorbo's Eepiest Soldier

Thank you everyone for your kind words, I'm doing better and am back to it <3

[maliro-t]

replaying dav act 1 and the way i instantly prefer the minrathous route is wild sorry antiva 💀💀💀

[thelesbianoffrontiers]

so it turns out side quests are actually important and can affect the main plot. don't ask me how i found that out.

[entropolism]

dropping in just to say really quickly that kcd is massively enjoyable and I'm mad I let myself think it was for chuds only