#romance through combat my beloved

[mirukimary]

FFXIV Swap piece for @pyrothevoid

[moonselune]

Minthara finally figuring out why a romanced Tav walks through cities like there's not danger upon meeting their family. She ends up meeting an older drow who introduced themselves as Tav's former personal guard. It can also make other things click like certain fighting stances are like a drow fighting style.

I made it an elf!reader so the plot made a bit more sense hope you enjoy it!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Minthara x Elf!Noble!reader | Now it makes sense

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Minthara had always been puzzled by the way you walked through cities with an air of unshakable confidence. It was as if you believed yourself to be untouchable, moving through the bustling streets with a grace and poise that belied any hint of danger. It wasn't until she joined you for a formal dinner at your family estate that she began to understand the source of your serene assurance.

The estate was a grand affair, sprawling and opulent, reflecting the high status of your elven noble lineage. As you walked her through the halls adorned with intricate tapestries and golden accents, Minthara felt an odd mixture of admiration and curiosity. You introduced her to various family members, each one more elegant and refined than the last. Yet, there was a warmth in your interactions that made Minthara feel surprisingly welcome.

As dinner commenced in the grand dining hall, Minthara found herself seated next to you, the table laden with an array of exquisite dishes. The conversation flowed easily, and she couldn't help but notice how relaxed you seemed in this environment, contrasting sharply with the intense focus you exhibited in battle.

Halfway through the meal, an older drow woman entered the room. She moved with the silent grace of a predator, her eyes sharp and calculating. As she approached the table, you rose to greet her with a smile, which she returned with a nod of respect.

"Minthara," you said, gesturing to the woman, "I would like you to meet Sarya, my former personal guard and teacher."

Minthara's eyes widened slightly in recognition and understanding. Sarya was a figure of legend among the drow, known for her unmatched skill in combat and her unwavering loyalty. It now made perfect sense why you moved with such confidence and exhibited fighting stances that were distinctly drow in origin.

Sarya inclined her head toward Minthara, her eyes glinting with approval. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Minthara. I have heard much about you."

"The pleasure is mine," Minthara replied, her tone respectful. "Your training is evident in Y/N's skill."

Sarya smiled, a rare and genuine expression. "Y/N was an exceptional student, and it seems they have found an equally exceptional partner."

The conversation shifted seamlessly into Drow, the fluid and harsh syllables blending perfectly with the soft elven melodies that filled the hall. "Your elven family is more tolerable than most," Minthara remarked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

Sarya chuckled softly. "Indeed. They have always treated me with respect, which is more than I can say for others of their kind."

"Agreed, I am fortunate to have found the exception" Minthara added, as she looked to try and find you, expecting you to be conversing with your siblings, only to be surprised when you appeared at her shoulder.

"Remember, Minthara, I know Drow too, thanks to Sarya's teachings."

Minthara turned to you, her eyes filled with pride and affection. "It all makes sense now, my beloved. Your confidence, your fighting style—everything. ."

"Oh, I get all that from being taught Drow ways? Not at all from my natural personality," You smiled, teasingly cocking a brow at her. Then when Minthara didn't answer instead taking a sip of her wine you looked to Sarya, who also chose to sip her wine. You scoffed and whacked both of them on the side, but before you could walk away Minthara wrapped an arm around your side and brought you close, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

The rest of the dinner passed with Sarya and your family regaling stories of your youth. One particular story ended in a heated debate on who had broken the carafe gifted by a noble family from Calimshan which ended in you and your siblings tussling and Sarya had to step in one final time.

By the end of the evening, as you walked Minthara back through the estate, you stopped in the gardens, Minthara pulled you close.

"You truly are remarkable," Minthara whispered before drawing you in for a kiss. You smiled and placed your index finger on her lips, pausing her advance

"And I am all yours," you replied with a mischievous smile, stealing the words out of her mouth. Minthara rolled her eyes and cupped your face, your lips melding together in passion. She then pulled away, unable to help herself.

"And you are all mine"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

[doctorvondooms]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thoughts

I've never played a game on release like this (even though I'm arguably a smidge late lol), so I thought it would be interesting to catalog my thoughts & feelings as I go through Veilguard. I'm not that far, just recruited Lucanis. Under the cut!

Writing/Character Things

So far the writing is mediocre at best. But since I'm not that far into the game, this could change. Also, the fact I can't talk to the companions in the Lighthouse is driving me up a wall.

There is NO WAY Varric is alive. Current theories is that either he is inhabited by a Spirit a la Cole or a straight up hallucination.

Why is Merrill not a leader in the Veil Jumpers??? Hell, why isn't she a returning companion instead of Bellara? Don't get me wrong, I love Bellara and I'm planning on romancing her in my first play through but she just feels like a Merrill expy.

And all these Titan mentions with Harding makes me miss my boy Sandal but I am THRILLED that I'm going to get to see my beloved Shaper Valta again

I feel like I missed something in regards to the Blight? I really can't put my finger on it, but I just get the vibe I've missed some exposition or something. Maybe it gets explained later though.

Fandom thought: I love how I've seen quite a few people HC their rook as the child of the HOF + a companion. We're all on the same wavelength lol. Mine's a Tabris + Zevran kid and they were so pleased she was essentially going to be a scholar with the Veil Jumpers and not follow in their footsteps

And then she wrote home saying she MIIIGHT have unleashed two Blighted Not!Gods at once. Also, there's this kinda god in her head but she did see Aunt Morrigan! (she says hi btw)

Gameplay/Design Things

I feel like this is Bioware trying their hand at an Assassin's Creed style game, which I do enjoy! But that's also not the kind of combat I go into DA games looking to play? It's also a bit of a double edged sword because I was really missing the stealth aspect as we broke Lucanis out of prisoner and went after the Qamek Master.

Continuing on this theme, the looting, the skill tree, and even the chest opening feels so much like Assassin's Creed (I've seen some God of War comparisons, but I've never played them). They're not the worst, but I'm personally not a big fan of how Valhalla did the skill tree and it seems like Veilguard is emulating that. I personally prefer how the companions skill tree is set up. Reminds me of Odyssey, who's skill tree I did like.

I DO like the variety of builds we can do. I've always wanted to be some sort of magical assassin that TES has never allowed me to play and it looks like I can live out my dreams with the Spellblade build. I am sad that the magic options are confined to necromancy, electricity, and cold magic. LET ME SET SHIT ON FIRE BIOWARE

Whoever posted that the game looked like it had been designed in Hero Forge, I can't get that out of my mind. It looks very...plastic-y to me?

So far level design has been a mixed bag for me. But since I'm not that far, I don't think I can give a good opinion on it ya know?

[centrally-unplanned]

Watched a bunch of stuff last night, including the Alita OVA from 1993! I thought it was a lot of fun, the thoughts:

--- It did the "obvious" thing of adapting the romance arc with Yugo of Volume 2 as the core, while blending in the events of Volume 1 as sort of backstory and setup as opposed to their own story. This arc is Alita at her most humanized in the early parts of the manga, and its the plot that centers Zalem as the untouchable overlord city most effectively. Any short adaptation is gonna choose this - part of why James Cameron (lol) did the same thing!

--- Speaking of, the manga does not actually have any particular focus on Alita's eyes, but the anime definitely has more than one shot where it establishes them as thematically special. Given that the James Cameron film is famous for going full CGI on Alita's eyes, and he knows about the property from Guillermo del Toro passing him the OVA as opposed to the manga, I think I can see the chain of events that lead to that (ill-fated?) decision.

Her eyes are pretty amazing in the OVA, so I get it! As my previous reblogs showed lol.

--- I think I can break apart the manga into three "concepts": the setting as cyberpunk dystopia, Alita as a character dealing with identity issues as an amnesiatic combat robot, and shounen fighting & levelling arcs. The OVA heavily focuses on the first part, ditching almost all the shounen stuff - its fight scenes are quick and focus on violence & bodily destruction over strength or "fighting techniques", etc. This is great for me, obviously! But it also, almost accidentally, ditches most of her identity issues? Because its less than an hour long, and needs to do a ton of worldbuilding - including even adding in a new character from Zalem to help with that - and is doing Yugo's entire arc, you really don't have time left for Alita's struggles. Yugo actually gets more "inner depth" than she does! She commits to being a bounty hunter, then after that she is pretty much just In Love while Yugo goes through his detailing of his past and collapse.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does as a story. Just interesting for something that is known as very "protagonist associated" to have an OVA where she is barely the protagonist.

--- While no Urotsukidoji or anything, this is another one of those OVAs where its reputation, particularly in the west, is as a hyper-violent, gory OVA? And like so many it really isn't. People get decapitated, don't get me wrong, buts its never lingers on those moments. Instead they serve as tone setters for the crapsack world or just are part of the action sequences.

I think in general the OVA era rarely made horror/gore films the way some other mediums/industries did? There are exceptions of course but in the end anime is trying to do too many other things; beautiful animation, focus on character designs, often being adaptations and so doing the plot of those more complex stories, erotic content for audiences that aren't *that* fetishistic on average, and more. All of these priorities compete for space in comparison to having endless jumpscares and blood splatters. So far my track record for watching the famous "gorefest" or "~crazy~" anime is that every one of them is tamer than the rep suggests, and I believe this medium/genre mismatch is why.

--- The biggest question I have around Alita in general is why there was never any more anime? Its weird, right? Its a famous property from a beloved genre, it had a hollywood film for some crazy reason, things like Ghost in the Shell got multi-season anime after all. Why no feature film remake in the 2000's? Why no 13-cour in the 2010's? I don't have an answer to that yet.

Why the initial OVA was so minimal is at least partly answered by Kishiro here:

MNS: Many fans have wondered, why were only 2 anime OAV episodes produced in 1993? YK: It was based on the plan proposed by the animation production company. It might have been better to turn down the plan and wait for a better adaptation proposal to come up, but back then, I couldn't afford to review the plan coolly. At that time, I was still serializing the work and was so busy that I wasn't ambitious to make it into animation.

Essentially he took the "deal on hand", not offering much, because he didn't have the time, money, or business savvy to work the industry for a better proposal. 100% understandable. I don't think the OVA did too well? I can't find a lot of sales figures, but the comments I see are in the "respectable" range, and it didn't get quick or expansive rereleases over time.

More broadly, and again speculative, I think maybe Alita overall isn't that successful? Like sure Kishiro is still out here releasing more sequel manga to this day somehow, but when I look at the "media mix" its just really sparse. No big video game adaptations - it has a PlayStation game in the 90's - it has like a drama CD and a novelization? No big merch waves or tie-ins. I am betting the big anime production committees just don't think its a hot enough property to sell that great. Wouldn't be a bad idea or anything, but not one you have to do like idk Chainsaw Man.

In the western fandom spaces its quite well known because of the idiosyncrasies of licensing history, the weird James Cameron factor, and I think a general fascination with anime cyberpunk; the west eats up any of the older cyberpunk properties for its aesthetic in a way that can blind people to the reality of that just being a subgenre in Japan at the time. Alita might just be niche enough that it not getting any wider anime adaptations is no grand mystery.

(But I hope to dig into this question more)

[streets-in-paradise]

I'm in the mood for other short troy meta debating with some of the most common perceptions I have seen about the film.

Following the line of my other posts on the topic, I want to talk of how I never understood the claim that Achilles' thirst for vengeance was cheapened or downplayed because it was made about a relative.

Here i'm going for the " WHO cares that much about their cousin?" argument.

Look, I totally understand people can be frustrated because they expected romance and the movie made it about family, but HOW is it any less of a tragedy because they are related? In the film, Patroclus is not just his cousin. Not only he was little brother coded, the story makes it clear that Achilles feels very responsible for him since the lad became an orphan.

Fun fact: in the (luckly rejected) first draft of the script he was going to be his son. When Benioff did the rewriting, the family relation was changed to cousins, but something of the spirit in the first script remained in their dynamic.

Like i said before, it also had a plot function creating a pretty much in your face parallel with Hector and Paris.

Patroclus being like the little brother Achilles feels responsible for and he failed to protect brings him even closer to Hector. He is moved by the same motivation causing the death of Menelaus, Hector knows he is a dead man the same way the spartan king seiled his demise when he threatened Paris. It even creates a tragic parallel between Achilles and Agamemnon!

At the start of the film Agamemnon has for Troy the intentions of a colonizer. Destroying it is not in his original plan, he wanted to take over the economical and militar control keeping the trojan rulling class enslaved to mycenaean interests. The death of his beloved brother triggers this monstruous thirst for vengeance the movie uses as vehicle to explain the horrors of the sack of Troy.

In a similar way, Achilles' plans for his eventual combat with Hector were merely about personal glory. When he has the first chance of killing him, he doesn't do it because he doesn't have enough audience to make it epic, and he has nothing personal against him. With the death of Patroclus, he ends up desecrating the body of Hector guided by the same blind rage Agamemnon keeps since the death of his brother. The marks he leaves on the remains of Troy's fallen hero are an omen for the wounds Agamemnon will inflict in Troy itself later on.

In both cases, it leads to their deaths, but with different meanings. Agamemnon is at the peak of his vengeance during the destruction of Troy, he orders for no one to be spared and attempts to attack Briseis as perfect culmination of it.

His death is not only a defensive act, but a revenge for the whole fallen city. In contrast, Achilles feels remorse for what he has done, gets inside the horse with the sole purpose of fixing something up, and ends up paying with his life when Paris gets revenge for his brother.

Unlike Agamemnon, who is surprised by death while going through the more evil version of that peak on revenge satisfaction he experienced when he dragged Hector's body with his charriot, he embraced the death he knew was awaiting him as a redeeming experience.

Achilles cares for his cousin with the same affection Agamemnon and Hector had for their little brothers. He killed Hector moved by the same grief leading Agamemnon to destroy Troy in memory of his brother because Hector couldn't watch his own brother die.

The film presents a tragedy structured on a chain of revenges moved by family. You are totally valid in disliking that, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Haruka and Michiru as Aylin and Isobel. Y/N? I've never actually played BG3 but I'd love to know your thoughts.

I loved getting this ask right after seeing fanart of that very concept (but the other way around). And I love pondering stuff like this!

Certainly I've rolled this around in my brain as soon as people started calling Aylin and Isobel "the moon lesbians". I absolutely see the vision if it's a kind of more surface-level "cast the BG3 characters as senshi/the senshi as BG3 characters" or writing an AU/crossover in which case that's absolutely and without question the roles they'd get. But I think that going much deeper it starts to break down.

There's neat parallels, absolutely. That iconic romance! That all-consuming devotion! Beyond even death! And the whole dying-and-resurrecting thing, too! And a literal magical girl transformation that will forever be the best scene in the game. We sadly never get to see Aylin and Isobel in combat together the way we do Haruka and Michiru, but they'd make a really neat battle couple, I'm sure. Though their "I fight better when I know my beloved is safe" stuff might get in the way - a fun thing to explore.

And yes, one of them is loud and boisterous and tall and strong and sword-y and loves putting up a front and brushing her own feelings off as irrelevant even when she is suffering horribly. Also has the whole extreme dedication to duty thing going on, good ol' Being A Sword, while being brash and reckless and having a concerning disregard for personal safety. (You can't tell me Haruka wouldn't jump into 500 godawful fights a day, just plain facetanking everything, if she knew she couldn't die.) The other, meanwhile, is a way more subtle fancy princess lady type who seems to be calling a lot of the shots in the relationship.

My darling Isobel says we will stay allied at your side. I am pleased to hear it.

(Never fails to get me - Aylin, you already swore your sword and fealty to me 5 minutes ago, were you just going to dip if Isobel said so?)

She is also very insightful, is "the mage" and is capable of some excellent and on-point snark and verbal cuts, though I can't really see Isobel as being very ~ara (she's also a laughably horrible liar). Selûne actually has a lot of divination-related stuff in her portfolio and Isobel (who already uses mirrors in her iconic ritual we see in the game, and I love love love the setup she has there) doing some augury, scrying, and future-sensing via mirror-gazing would be super on brand.

(The moon, the tides, the sea... I could go places with this. But of course, now I've thought of Umberlee Cleric Michiru and The Seas Are Stormy, and that is a true delight.)

But the one place where it really breaks down for me is probably my very favourite thing to chew on with regards to Michiru, and that is that one iconic line, no matter how seriously you decide to take her words:

A world without Haruka isn't worth saving.

I cannot see Isobel saying anything like this, even as a joke, even as a taunt aimed at a defeated enemy.

Because we see Isobel go through exactly this: she wakes up in a world without Aylin. Against all odds, she is in the exact opposite of the situation they two with their mortal/immortal disparity have discussed and prepared for. She is told her unkillable demigod beloved is somehow dead and she believes this lie fully - we have no indication she ever doubted this. And what does Isobel do?

She makes a stand against the shadows, makes herself a beacon and protector, adamantly refuses to abandon any bit of her faith and her lifelong service to her goddess (even while expressing her dissatisfaction with Selûne's apparent laissez-faire approach there, if pressed), gives her all to set up a shelter and support the people mounting a resistance against her own father. "At any cost," she says, and it all clearly does cost her quite a bit - she is so very visibly exhausted and at the end of her tether when we meet her, but also chooses to be patient and to stay back and support and heal and all that. I feel like Michiru, in this situation, would rather march up to Moonrise and take on the entire army herself in a doomed last stand. Unless, I don't know, maybe a Jaheira-Setsuna situation could help?

All this actually makes me think Isobel has a lot of Hotaru vibes! The goth girl whose antagonist dad is part of leading an entire elaborate evil operation (she's the only thing he has left, she is an obsession, he will keep resurrecting her no matter the cost), being brought back from the dead by him in a weird way and suffering the various consequences of this. She even has an Ominous Cough going on, and her most prominent magical power is shielding and healing. Then, a tadpoled Isobel as a parallel to Mistress 9? You could go places with that.

Looking at the other halves of the couples, Haruka, when she thinks Michiru is dead:

You’re so unfair, Michiru, to leave for a world of your own. Don’t leave me here.

Aylin, in turn, seems to have dealt with Isobel's first death fairly... healthily. I mean, it's hard to say, when the one point of coping comparison we have is Ketheric. Certainly her grief is immense and when she says "I have mourned her these hundred years" it is the most believable thing. If Isobel dies again before they get reunited, we see a more subdued version of Aylin who is extremely duty-focused and determined to soldier on (her epilogue letter guts me) and who gives me that very I Will Never Love Again impression of kind of cutting herself off from the more mortal/human parts of her that Isobel seems very much a tether to (and you could go neat places with this being a parallel to the senshi dealing with having human identities, i.e. Haruka vs Uranus). But we do get some truly chilling stuff from Aylin if Isobel dies after their reunion (as well as a serving of some absolutely heartbreaking "I don't care what happens to me as long as Isobel is safe" right before that).

When I am free, I will destroy you! I will murder you, and your children, and their children beside! I will rip this world apart, plank and beam, until every iota of your being is scalded by my light.

So she is going to make very sure that a world without Isobel is also a world without you, traitor. And after that most thorough vengeance is done? I can't think of anything that bodes well, I'm afraid. But the senshi I could most easily see going down this particular dark route is, well, Michiru, and not Haruka.

Continuing this extremely self-indulgent thought exercise, it reminds me a bit of "every yuri couple is Utena and Anthy if you try hard and believe in yourself" and I'd say let's go for a twist: while they are absolutely nothing alike, Aylin sure makes an interesting Anthy because she's magically imprisoned for an unimaginably long time, has a thousand swords stuck in her over and over again, and she suffers because men objectify her and covet her for her power and what she represents and want to use her, and it seems to be a cycle she is doomed to repeat forever purely because of who she is. Meanwhile, Isobel is, uh, a car? I don't know how far I can stretch this, hahah.

In any case, thank you for this excuse to blather on! Always appreciated. Again, this is peak self-indulgence, and I love it.

[msunitedstatesjames]

Ranking the RPG style games I played in 2024:

Just a note, I'm ranking based mostly on my enjoyment, and this ranking is not meant to be an actual statement of their respective quality. I enjoyed every single one of these games regardless of their ranking, and I played through their complete stories and most or all side quests. Also, as you'll see, this was just a stellar year of RPG gaming for me, so really the worst I can say about any of these games is that they're just good.

9. Greedfall

I made the big mistake of playing this right after finishing Baldur's Gate 3. No RPG was going to compare well to that. Greedfall certainly had an interesting world and story, and I liked the diplomatic aspects of it. Greedfall does attempt to have an interesting companion system by letting you grow your relationship with companions and choose one to romance, though it's really quite a shallow relationship you have even compared to other games from around the same time or earlier. The thing that really bothered me most about the game is the repetition. Environments are almost identical everywhere you go, and the combat gets repetitive after a while too. However, if I remember, this game was made by a fairly small studio with limited resources, so it's actually an impressive achievement in that sense.

8. Mass Effect 1

Don't kill me, internet, but ME1 didn't impress me all that much. I think the best thing about it is the thing that really held the series together from game to game: the characters. The companions are mostly great, even in ME1. It introduces some of the most iconic characters of the series like Garrus (my beloved), Wrex, and Liara. The romances always felt a little lacking and awkward to me in this game, but maybe I was just bitter that you couldn't romance Garrus yet. The combat and leveling up system were still not perfected, and exploring the planets often felt kind of clunky and grindy. But overall, it introduced us to one of the most iconic video game protagonists of modern gaming, and it set the base for the rest of the series, so I can't complain too much.

7. Octopath Traveler II

So, I went into this one with no knowledge of the first one. Now, I fully intend to go back and play it. This game had a lot going for it. You get to know the characters so well through their stories, and somehow the huge variety of tones from story to story made it more engaging instead of jarring. Going from really dark and depressing tales to lighthearted and hopeful ones was actually a lot of fun. I loved the way you got to see where each character was on the map and pick which order to meet them in. The art and visuals were gorgeous, the bosses were awesome, the storytelling was effective, and the different abilities of the characters were fun to use. My only real complaint is that the combat did start to feel repetitive after so many hours of gameplay, often fighting similar enemies. Overall, it was one of my favorite games this year, even if it didn't make it to the top of my RPG list.

6. Sea of Stars

I would die for Garl, that's all that needs to be said, right? I technically played over half of this one in 2023. I put it on pause when BG3 came out and only came back to it months later. I'm glad I did. This was really just a beautiful game. The scenery was beautiful, the attacks and ultimates were beautiful, the character models were beautiful. The story was fun in a classic JRPG style. There were certainly dark moments, but it was overall a hopeful game, which I personally appreciate, and there were several times the humor really knocked it out of the park. The characters certainly could have had more depth, but in this style game I didn't genuinely feel like that was a problem. Like many games in this genre, the combat did become repetitive at times. But this game made me do one thing almost no game does. After finishing the main quest it motivated me to get back in there and finish up the few dangling loose ends that I left behind. And boy was it worth it.

5. Mass Effect 3

Even though I didn't play Mass Effect until this year, I've been a gamer all my life, and I remember the outrage around ME3 when it came out. And some of that I understand. The ending left something to be desired, there were plot holes, many things just felt too convienient, and, of course, Kai Leng. Still, in my opinion, this series has always been built on the back of it's characters, and few if any games have let you build such long lasting and meaningful relationships with the companions. I guess I might have been angry if I romanced someone other than Garrus, but getting to build on that relationship (and the friendships) from game to game was amazing. And I can't discount the fact that ME3 contains perhaps the greatest piece of DLC of all time, The Citadel DLC. So in the end, maybe it all balances out.

4. Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I don't care what anybody says, I loved this game. I genuinely liked all the companions, which (unpopular opinion) is more than I can say for some of the previous Dragon Age games. I found the combat really fun, but I always think playing as a mage is a good time. The Spellblade specialization was a great time, and I liked that mages in this game have the option to get up close and personal, which combats one of the biggest issues with mage gameplay in many RPG games. I didn't think the villains were anything to write home about, but the same could be said for Inquisition. I thought the game made interesting additions to the lore of the world as well. I've seen some complaints about voice acting which is just baffling to me because I thought the acting was stellar. And of course, my beloved Emmrich is going right up there with my favorite Dragon Age companions. He was such a well acted, animated, and written character, and he was a great, fresh take on necromancers. It was interesting playing this in the same year as the ME games because honestly it often played like it was an ME game, but I love them, so no complaints about that here.

3. Mass Effect 2

Most people in the RPG community seem to agree that this is an iconic game. I loved the character focused missions, though at first it took some adjusting. I had to realize that the characters WERE much of the plot. This was perhaps the first game I've played where you get to keep more than just 1 or 2 characters from game to game, and it was probably the only game I'd played where you got to carry over a romantic interest from game to game. Playing the ME games right in a row really allowed me to properly experience the improvements in everything from combat to traversal to character arcs. In any other year, this probably could have been my top game.

2. Disco Elysium

I slept on this game for far too long. I'd heard how weird it was, and while I like a little weird I thought it might be too much for me. But it was on sale and I was still in the post BG3 funk. When I started it, I still didn't think I would like it. But I quickly got invested in the mystery and in the fabulous characters of Harry and Kim, and it was over all too soon. I absolutely loved the attribute/skills system in this game. It genuinely felt like some of the best I've seen, and not only was it a cool and story relevant system, but it legitimately affected the way you played the game and reacted to different situations. The voice acting was equally amazing. The art style worked perfectly with the tone and the setting. It was uncanny and absurd, it was timely and serious, it was heartwarming, it was tense, it was devastating, it did everything so well. Even the music was perfect. My only complaint is that I stupidly played this on Switch, and crashing was a huge issue for me throughout the game. Don't repeat my mistake unless you have no other option.

1.Baldur's Gate 3

Little needs to be said about what makes BG3 great. Sometimes less is more. The character interactions and relationships are among the best I've ever experienced, the acting and animations were top notch, the sheer variety of role playing choices and endings were absolutely the best I've experienced, and this is the rare game that I plan on playing more than once.

Honorable Mentions (Games that are only sort of RPGs)

Stray Gods

If you look at the official title of this game, it has "Roleplaying" right in there. Still, I would say this is RPG-lite. You do make decisions that affect your ending, you do interact with characters, and there are even romance options. On the other hand, you don't really have choices in regards to customization or building your protagonist, there's no skill/level up system that I remember, and there really isn't any fredom of exploration or side quests, so in many ways it didn't feel like a full RPG. More than anything it feels like a visual novel (which is not a complaint). It was a great game. I loved the protagonist. The songs were fun, and getting to change the tone and content of the music was an awesome concept.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

I loved this game. I don't know why I hear so little about it. Much like the other Witcher games, it forces you to make really difficult choices over and over again, often with no real right answer. Meve was a fantastic protagonist, and most of her companions were memorable and interesting. Your choices do ultimately affect the ending and often have basic resource related consequences, but while the actual combat always felt life and death it pretty much never had real consequences. You're often told, "don't fight these guys, we don't have the troops," but you always win and rarely lose troops anyway. Still, it was a great game, and I played for over 60 hours. This one doesn't fully fit into the RPG category for me just because it's primarily a deck builder, but it does have a lot of other RPG traits. It has world exploration, fun companions, and you can level up your army through building your deck. If you haven't played it and you're a Witcher fan, take this as your cue to remedy that.

[eye-of-yelough]

anyway. here’s my veilguard review

varric’s narration cutscenes are very pretty but both unnecessary and just really lame. the character creator fucks hard. the main plot fucks surprisingly hard too. but the pacing is weird. the soundtrack is fine, good but not memorable. our beloved dumb dragon age humour is alive and well but the “well that just happened!” one liners are a little excessive. the voice acting leaves much to be desired, particularly neve’s. the dialogue is… well. the “gruffest” companion (taash) is better at articulating their emotions than i am. the woobification of the assassins and pirates is. it’s bad dude idk what else to say. i adore the combat. the villains (the big bads and the little bads) are conceptually cool but their performance is very generic. i’m surprised by how much i enjoyed the solas stuff, genuinely very interesting, one of my fave aspects of the game. the worldbuilding and lore revelations are apparently one thing dragon age will always pull through with, but it’s not given the gravity it deserves. the ability to roleplay is almost nonexistent. the character writing’s not so bad once you get used to it, but it’s inconsistent. same with the romances; initially very lacking but you get used to it and it makes sense when you think about who these people are.

in conclusion if you expect it to be good you’ll be disappointed. if you expect to be disappointed you’ll be pleasantly surprised. the best way to enjoy it is turn your critical thinking brain off and have fun which sucks for a dragon age game but what can you do. i give it a 6

[baddieladdie]

Hello!! So I'm an RPer (gross) and I dabble with Joshua Graham. I do cross-canon occasionally and I have stumbled on weird romantic (maybe??) tension with him and RE5/blonde Jill Valentine based on the fact they both were manipulated by someone they respected and did horrible things (even if hers were against her will and he did them by choice) and it's become this heavy, weird tension full of lame, longing gazes and pretty decent fight scenes! Is it possible to get them together? 😬

Regardless, stumbled on your work and I love it!! 😍

I have not played Resident Evil, actually! I had to look up who Jill Valentine was, at first I thought she was Nick Valentine's daughter in some AU\

SO - How 'bout this? I will get us started with some opening context on Joshua Graham. Then you could take it from there? I have a feeling you are a bit more familiar with Jill than I am :)

Tag me if you add on to this - I'd love to give a read!

An idea for a structure could be:

Ch1 - Joshua Graham (see below the cut) Ch2 - Jill Valentine Ch3 - Combat/Meet-cute, Joshua and Jill meet in fire fight Ch4 - Connection/Tension/Romance

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Rating: Teen

Description: Mormon missionary turned co-founder of Caesar's Legion now roams Zion under the guise of folk legends as the Burned Man. He is haunted by his actions while part of the Legion, yet cannot so easily release his dependence on violence as he leads a vicious campaign to bring 'God's justice' to all those who would threaten the safety of the innocent.

Joshua drags his thumb across the bumpy ridges of his Bible. Absent-mindedly, he traces each letter stitched into the black leather. The book was worn down. It could hardly be recognized for what it was - the Holy word of God. The book, like Joshua the man, had been irritably changed in time by the unforgiving nature of this mortal life. Joshua flips through the book, pausing at a page crinkled by a dried blood stain.

18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1:18-19

“Divide et impera,”  Edward exclaimed, gesturing to his beloved novel ‘Commentarii de Bello Gallico’. “Divide and Conquer. Joshua, this is just like the Roman Empire of great! We conquer these tribes and we make them better. Stronger! Outfit them with weapons and battle strategies. From this tribal strife, we will raise a great and mighty empire!” Sallow laughed with cynical joy.

“It is brutal,” Joshua mumbled in thought. Edward had studied all his life with the Followers of the Apocalypse. His knowledge of societal development and anthropology were next to none. Perhaps Sallows knew something he didn’t. And the good Lord knows it’s good to have friends. He should trust Edward to the very end. Joshua nodded hesitantly,“What better way to unify these groups than under the threat of death. They would have a better chance of surviving if they worked together.” 

“Yes, yes!” Edward walked around the table to get closer to the hesitant missionary and man he called friend. “Leave the brutality to the soldiers. I-” He awkwardly cleared his throat and corrected himself, “We only need you to translate.” He gestured openly with a wide smile. “You’ll never have an opportunity like this again, my friend.”

So that is what Joshua Graham did. He translated for Edward as he spoke to the crowds of tribals he had gathered. But soon, translating became giving orders. Giving orders slowly became leading in battle. Leading in battle became training, punishing, terrorizing. A series of small mistakes before Joshua Graham's great fall.

In time, he would become Caesar’s second in command and most trusted advisor. Never had Graham held such power. Death came as he demanded it. Riches poured from the Earth as he wished it. It was as if the very thread of fate was his to design. 

Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. Galatians 3:13

Sweat beaded at the tip of Joshua’s nose as the Mojave sun beat down on him. Sand carried in the wind irritated his skin. He cursed, putting the hammer down for a moment to adjust the legionary mask snuggly around his nose and mouth.

“Please, I haven’t done anything wrong. Let me go!” The man cried in desperate agony, trying to pull his hand free from where it had been nailed to the cross. Blood spurted generously from the wound Joshua had inflicted. The naked man screamed from a place of consuming pain, but no living soul was around to hear. Their only witnesses were the bodies left in Joshua’s wake. And the man’s pleas meant nothing to the heart that had hardened inside him. Joshua had heard the dying screams of men, women, and children far to often to feel anything at all. He was as stoic as the corpses behind them. 

Graham leaned over the man screaming and punched him squarely in the jaw. The jaw swung open lazily, the man stared up at Joshua horrified that he could no longer speak. Joshua firmly grasped the man’s free hand and pinned it to the right arm of the wooden cross. The man under him squirmed in futile effort to free himself from his inevitable fate. The hammer came down swiftly, pushing the rusty nail through the delicate flesh of the man’s palm. Blood sprinkled Joshua’s legion uniform. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. No matter - his job here was done. The resistance group dead and their leader crucified. With a grunt of effort, Joshua stood the cross up. It was an eyesore against the flat desert landscape. However, it sufficiently served as a warning to any who would cross Caesar and his legion. 

Joshua dusted himself off and stowed his hammer away. He turned his back on the suffering man and walked slowly across the desert plain back home. Home to Caesar’s legion. 

John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16

The nervous raw recruits stumbled forward towards the center of the dam. The veteran's stood before the Malpais Legate (Joshua Graham), silently recalling their first battles as a raw recruit. Joshua felt no remorse. He had followed the Legion military doctrine excellently. They had the enemy on the run and he intended to leave no survivors. Dead men tell no tales.

THUNK

The legionary veteran collapsed next to Graham, a bullet wound oozing from the back of his head. Instinctively, he traced the bullet's trajectory to a platoon of sharpshooters. The First Recon of the New California Republic.

THUNK THUNK THUNK

Bodies of veteran soldiers fell around him at an alarming rate. "Fall back!" the Malpais Legate cried. The raw recruits panicked at the order, dropping their weapons and running for their lives. More experienced soldiers simply pivoted and ran for the ridge.

THUNK THUNK

Bodies of legionaries continued to mount as they made their escape towards the pass through the ridge. Joshua's eye was caught by a glint in the afternoon sunlight. More First Recon shoots and NCR rangers. It was a trap - this whole damn time! Joshua cursed himself, then Caesar for underestimating Chief Hanlon. Swallowing his rising panic, he shouted over the pop of rifles, "Be weary of crossfire! To Boulder City! For Caesar!"

The is when he lost the remainder of his good men. Boulder City wasn't just protected by rangers and sharpshoots. The whole damn city was rigged to explode. Mines and traps lined every square inch of the town. The opposition, having placed them, evaded the threats, only luring the legionaries in further. What was meant to be a great victory for the mighty Caesar had become a costly defeat.

-

veni , vidi, victus

-

"Mighty Caesar," Joshua approached his life-long friend's throne. "We have lost this battle, but not the war. I won't give up. We-"

"You will do no such thing," Edward barked at him. "Your failure has brought shame to the great legion of Caesar! Such a disgrace will not be tolerated, Malpais Legate." Sallow spat his words with such vile hate, Joshua could no longer recognize him. The personification of the roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, had finally consumed the former- follower of the apocalypse completely. No more was Joshua's friend present before him.

"And for your transgression against the might of Caesar, you shall be burned to death!" Caesar shouted til he was red in the face. "Legionaries! Cover the former-Malpais Legate in pitch, lit him on fire and cast him into the Grand Canyon!"

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and it to the full. John 10:10

“Life has not been good to us without your guidance, Joshua.” Follows-Chalk guided a stumbling Joshua Graham through the Dead Horse camp. “We tried to live in your ways but have been driven from our home. With your return, we can take back Zion from the White Legs.”

"I am sorry to hear what has come to pass. God willing, I can undo the harm that has been done here."

"What...happened to you, Joshua?" Follows-Chalk paused, noticing that Joshua had been lagging behind.

"I do not enjoy reflecting, but I pray to God that someone may learn from my mistakes. Was there something specific, Follows-Chalk?"

Follows-Chalk eyed the puss oozing from the bandages around Joshua's face. His bloodshot eyes and uneven gait all clearly showed the man was in undeniable pain.

"How did you survive, Joshua? Such a fall would have killed most men."

"I survived because the fire inside burned brighter than the fire around me. I feel down into that dark chasm, but the flame burned on and on. The next morning, I woke up and crawled out of the northern edge of the Grand Canyon, that cursed place. It took me three months to return."

Follows-Chalk hung to every word of Joshua's tragic downfall, guiding him to the healer's tent and away from the gaze of the merciless sun.

"The Dead Horses are happy you have returned to us. You are welcome to stay," Follows-Chalk spoke sympathetically. He opened the tent wide for Joshua. The man hissed at the pain as he crouched under the flap to enter the room. "You have been good to us, Joshua."

"You are kind to offer," Joshua groaned as he lowered himself onto a straw mat. A woman rushed over with a basin of clean water and bandages. "It never stops burning. My skin. Every day, I have to unwind the bandages and replace them with fresh ones." He nodded his thanks to the woman. She smiled politely and awkwardly shuffled out. "Exposing my body to the air is like living through it again. But it's better to be clean than comfortable."

Follows-Chalk nodded and turned away to give the Burned Man space to clean his wounds. "Have you met Daniel? He is a missionary like you."

"Who?"

"A Mormon, like you Joshua. He is helping the Sorrows not far from here."

"Take me to him," Joshua gasped in a pain as he removed a bandage that has wound had adhered too. Fresh blood trickled down his back. "In the morning. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. And there is much to do. God be with you, Follows-Chalk."

Like an enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready…he has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion. Lamentations 2:4

"Ye have sown death and so shall ye reap it!" Joshua roared, lunging towards the remaining White Legs tribals. He greedily drove his knife into the back of tribal, revealing in the screams of man he had not heard in years.

The lost courier beside him fired lucky shots from a .45 pistol. The bodies of White Legs fell around them until only Salt-Upon-Wounds remained alive.

Joshua stood over Salt-Upon-Wounds. His jagged features highlighted in the dim firelight. It was akin to watching a skilled hunter taunt and play with its prey as it made feeble attempts to escape. "We warned you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion. And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth. But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice!" He smiled grimly at the terror in Salt-Upon-Wounds as the tribal leader curled in terror under Joshua's gaze. "Kale watcha nei conserva oh! You understand me, don't you? Don't you?!"

"Outman!" Salt-Upon-Wounds hissed at the mentally distant courier. "Kuma-man mad! He has killed all White Legs. Please, you talk. You stop this!"

"Stand up and look at what's come for you!" Joshua pulled the tribal leader to his feet. Salt-Upon-Wounds raised trembling hands behind his head.

"Don't listen to this… thing!" Joshua spat. "His cries are those of a mad beast caught in a thicket! He gave no mercy to my family, and I will give none to his!"

The courier squinted their eyes at Joshua, "Is this coming from the missionary Joshua Graham or Malpais Legate? This is brutal and beyond reason. You know it is. Look Joshua, you've already won," The courier gestured to the bodies of the dead that surrounded them. "There's no need to kill him."

"He has a debt to pay for what he's done and I've come to collect," Joshua stammered, but the anger was already starting the leave him and along with it, his conviction. "And so he's chosen to cower in the water like a dumb animal."

The courier stepped over still bodies, moving closer to Joshua. "If what you believe is true," the courier stumbled slightly over an arm shrouded in the darkness. "he'll pay for it later." The courier balanced themselves next to him and whispered, "The Sorrows don't need to see you this. Let's go."

"Go," Joshua sighed in defeat. He released Salt-Upon-Wounds and continued, "Get out of here. Go back. Back to the Great Salt Lake."

Joshua watched Salt-Upon-Wounds scamper off and abruptly turned to the Courier. Angerly, he fumed, "I wanted to take from them what they took from me, from my family!" The courier watched him with mindful pity.

Joshua sighed, allowing his true sadness, underneath all the rage, to flow in. "In this life. I want them to suffer. I want all of them to die in fear and pain," He continued. "I want to have my revenge. Against him. Against Caesar. I want to call it my own, to make my anger God's anger. To justify the things I've done. Sometimes I tell myself that these wildfires never stop burning. But I'm the one who starts them. Not God. Not them. I can always see it in my mind. The warmth and the heat. It will always be a part of me," Joshua paused, looking down the path where Salt-Upon-Wounds had fled. "But not today."

[sol-consort]

You have just opened the floodgates to my long-repressed ME smut ideas I had nowhere to air out. I hope you know I appreciate you💙

Anyways. So. I have a headcannon that biotic fields are, like, personal to each user. For example, if someone raises a shield on someone else, it will feel slightly different depending on who does it, if that makes sense? Anyways, I was thinking in relation to that about human biotics, whose fields feel a little more staticy, especially the early generations, each use giving them slight zaps, sometimes its just their hairs standing on end, other times it's stronger, like getting shocked by an electric fence, really it depends on the strength of the ability and on how they wake up that day, but each person just... feels different. Could inspire deeper connections whether or not romance was present, the comfort of knowing its them, the familiarity of not just their touch or voice but their general being, knowing they have your back each time enemies fly into the air and the air gets that slight smell of ozone and their unmistakable presence.

Ngl, I forgot where I was going with this. I know it was about Kaidan, but I can't remember what it was😅 I'll let you know when I remember more, lol

AAA first ever request on this blog let's fucking gooo!!☆°•●○~

Gonna make it about our beloved support man, Kaidan.

Humans are unbelievable good at pattern recognition in everything. Even things we are not aware of, we still recognise a pattern for, that's the core mechanics of a gut feeling and what helped us survive.

Much like each person having a different gut biome☆ biotics would definitely be different from person to person, think like fingerprints or how each hug is different.

Kaidan's would feel different especially because he is an L2 and one of the first generation of human biotics.

Electricity is more natural to us than we think, it runs in our brain, neurons constantly firing off. So it's nor far fetched for the biotic shields to just align the right way to make us feel certian things on our skin and in our body.

Kaidan is constantly behind you in battle, watching over you and assessing your health and shield. The closest thing to a token medic you could call out for in desperation.

His shields would feel like a wave of soothing chill after the burn of a bullet, like the comfort of a ibuprofen after a strong headache. It's refreshing and makes you focus on the moment.

It's also intimate in a way you can't explain, in a way that feels very Kaidan. You've felt the shield of other biotics, ones that felt like a warm soft blanket, others that felt reassuring and desensitisating like a surgical table.

You would always murmur a small thank for Kaidan after his soothing shield cools off your burning body, drying off your sweat under the armor suit and lessening the ache of your joints.

And he'd eat those small compliments up. Be it a full thank you or an appreciative nod of the head. One time, you said, "Good job, Kaidan." A slip of the tongue where you forgot his title amidst the battle, it rings in his head to this day.

How breathless your voice was, the genuine gratitude in it as you praised him for doing such a good job at watching over his commander, having your back. You acknowledged his effort in supporting the team when lesser soldiers would scoff at his lack of combat power.

Somehow, you're always the first to get his shield during battle. His top priority over everyone else in the battlefield. You can confidenlty storm through a crowd of enemies and be confident that your lieutenant has your back.

One time your hand brushed against his and you noticed something. How soothingly cold it was.

Also feel free to flood my inbox with all of your thoughts I am literally starving like a hungry mutt for Mass Effect concepts. I am frothing at the mouth as we speak I am going to gnaw at the GPU of my pc.

[allmannerofmalady]

Disgustingly long ramble about Dragon Age, love letter to my Inquisitor and... idk anymore

Ok so apparently, I can become so attached to a game/story that I can develop post-game depression... without even finishing the game?! At my ripe old age??

After 35ish hours in Veilguard, I realized I wasn't happy with how I was feeling, and more superficially, how my Inquisitor turned out and it was breaking all kinds of immersion for me 🤡 I played around with the character creator a bunch and then just closed the game and haven't restarted it since, and that was 4 days ago. I think that says a lot about why I was playing - I was playing to wrap up Inquisition.

I have a thirst to ramble, so a lot of Dragon Age (and a touch of Baldur's Gate 3) talk ahead. Spoilers, I guess?

The things I'm disappointed about with DATV haven't faded with time like I hoped they would. But, I will say that I’m also starting to get very emotional about the Solavellan ending which I was not a fan of when I first saw the spoiler. Whoever posted the flycam footage of the ending on Twitter, thank you!! It soothed my sad little heart.

My feelings aside, I'm happy for people who are fully immersed and enjoying the game, and I was truly hoping to be in that camp immediately :')

DA2 was my first Dragon Age game, and I love the shit out of it and that merry band of misfits. Marianne Hawke, the woman that you are. DA:O is one of my favourite games of all time as well - when I can get it to run because it always crashes on me.

But DA:I, for all its faults, just hit something very personal for me. I have played it for countless hours, been continuously immersed, and I have leaned on it a lot during crappier periods of my life. The things people hated about it (the Hinterlands, fetch quests etc) I found almost... relaxing? Meditative? I used mods to fix banter issues and would just roam, always changing my companions out to get that extra bit of dialogue and lore.

I know it has its issues and the combat annoys a lot of people, I was kind of indifferent about it, but to be fair I always play a Rogue/archer in DA , so I can't speak too deeply about the other classes. Once I discovered guides and videos about the best gear to craft, the best paths for leveling up, my Inquisitor was a beaaaast and I did enjoy the combat, as simplistic as it may be. Again - truly my comfort game.

I replayed DA:I in the months leading up to DATV, with my beloved canon Lavellan Inquisitor, Solas romanced, the whole journey. It was my first DA playthrough after 700+ hours spent in Baldur's Gate 3, and I remember the thrill at having a voiced protag again - for all the stilted moments (it's a feature atp with DA games) my Inquisitor still feels so real to me, especially after playing a voiceless Tav for so long. Yeah, even the infamous "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE" lololol

I just truly fell in love with the character I HC throughout the years, and I really really love the companions. Even the pricklier ones. I loved the intrigue, the politics - whatever, I loved it. Warts and all. The overwhelming lore that I learned piece by piece over 3 games, through codex entries and novels and art books and comics.

The DATV discourse has somehow become even more draining. It's hard to have a genuine discussion when trying to speak above the incessant bile being spewed by bigots who are hating the game blindly and are going out of their way to hurt anyone who enjoyed it, was excited about it, reviewed it - the vitriol is insane. Then came the waves of actual fans loving it, being disappointed, hating it, hating others for loving it, vice versa... and it goes on. Which I guess kind of happens every BioWare release lol but the 10 year gap feels like it's exacerbated everything.

I'm not even going to try and parse through my heartbreak at the dissolution of the Keep, player choices, and what DATV puts forward as happening in Southern Thedas. I have read the discourse, I have heard those who support it - and I just cant pretend to be ok with it. Months before DATV came out, I put together a slideshow of Chantry-level propaganda to convince my BG3 co-op friends to give DA a chance (heheeee) and one of the reasons I hooked them was that CHOICES MATTERED. Your world state mattered, the lore was incredibly rich, it was your story, and was such a key feature of BioWare games that even when other negative feelings might fade, I just don't see myself letting go of that one.

As for the Solavellan side of things... I think that most people who love Solas (myself firmly in that camp) are very attached to the character and the storyline, especially if they chose to romance him. He's just an endlessly fascinating character, and he will forever be iconic to me and part of my video game/fantasy pantheon - romanced or not. The first time I played Trespasser, I was blown away by the magnitude of the revelations, it felt like a Greek myth being played out. The burdened Inquisitor, the hand that led them to glory starting to kill them, the trickster God, once a trusted companion/lover. Euuuuufff I have never gotten over it, and after my, quite frankly, extreme emotional reaction the last few weeks I don't think I ever will.

I don't know if any ending would have filled the gap of the 10 year wait, to be fair. A game full of Solavellan scenes and dialogue would have been bitterly unfair/ridiculous for those who had different stories and relationships in their game. I am pleasantly surprised we got a scene (for a moment there, I was starting to lose hope), but again, I sorely wish it was fleshed out, on par with the Crestwood scene, or the magnificent climax of Trespasser. I think it took the flycam footage and Trick Weeke's Q&A on Bluesky for me to start to see past the disappointment and enjoy the scene for what was (I'm ignoring the Varric in the room and lots of other things rn, thanks for asking).

Everything else - I will try DATV again later and start with a clean slate, and accept that this is the game we got and not the follow up to Inquisition I had always hoped for. I feel like I have to caveat that I recognize that is MY issue, it is not a read on anyone who is enjoying it. My emotional attachments make me biased, not an asshole lol. The cliffhanger of DA:I always made me feel that the story was not over and the stakes were so high - and I'm realizing how much I wanted to continue that chase with the Inquisition to the end. That’s in addition to the end of bringing in player world states, the destruction of Southern Thedas - it’s just all a lot to accept. What was it all for?

All I can say is, as much as I am conflicted- I will always love Dragon Age from the bottom of my heart for giving me this world to play with and escape to. I hope to be back to Thedas once the feelings subside, after the highs and lows of the last 10 years. I would like to wrap up my Lavellan’s story, at the very least.

In the meantime, I have turned to my ~other comfort game of BG3 to finally start a post-Patch 7 run. And it all starts with a very confused and slightly worse for wear Lavellan on a mindflayer ship, with a fade touched left eye and arm somehow intact. (I realize the immense irony of taking a Dragon Age break by playing another game as my DA character but idk what to tell you). She is a Ranger/Wood Elf (see what I did there), with a suspicious bald man in a suit of armour talking to her in her dreams (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). Anyway, she's probably going to kill a TON of Goblins, try to avoid the charming wizard (mage) hung up on his Goddess ex (!!!) and then climb mount Halsin. Good for her <3

[missellaneousworks]

So I finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard...

(Note: this is by no means a professional or complete review of the game, just some points I’m drabbling about after I concluded my first playthrough.)

Man, has it been a wild ride.  Overall, this was a very fun experience and I’m so glad I got to play this game.  I tried going into it blind and avoided as many spoilers as possible – which was a partial success and a partial failure (damn you untagged posts and TikTok edits). But I digress… 

Let’s go over the good stuff first – [SOME SPOILERS AHEAD]

I loved the chemistry between the companions.  Some companions got along better than others, some hit it off right off the bat, and others went from rivals to friends. It was a joy to watch these interactions happen throughout the game.  Most of the dialogue felt natural and engaging, with well-timed humor sprinkled in between the sentences as the comradery grew between Rook and companions.

The world and locations you visit are beautifully crafted. I rather like that they went back to more linear level designs, similar to Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. Inquisition had a lot of versatility, but I would often find myself overwhelmed at times from the sheer amount of fetch quests (my least favorite kind). Because they minimized the “playing field area,” I believe that allowed the developers to pour their resources into the architecture of the landscape, as well as the combat system.

Speaking of which, the combat was one of my favorite features of this game.  The movements flow so nicely and the controls feel like each attack has some weight to them. Overall, very fun fights. I’d even argue playing the warrior class is even more fun than the mage class – though I would almost consider it scandalous since mage class is my favorite amongst the series. 

I’ve also noticed certain combat and gameplay mechanics that can also be found in the Mass Effect series.  It seems that the more games Bioware makes, they take the good mechanics that works and implement them in the other series. If that’s the case, I’m interested in what the next Mass Effect game will have that was shared with DAV.   

Now, for the critiques.

The writing.  I do genuinely love how the game is ascribed to build bonds with all of the companions.  It was good in certain areas, but unfortunately lacking in others. Not all of the companions got the same amount of treatment and care.  I cannot comment the same on the romances, since I have yet to play them all/watch video compilations. 

The most notable instances I pulled from my first playthrough wasTaash and Bellara.

Taash’s storyline had good emotional beats, but felt like it was rushed or underdeveloped, especially in the beginning.  Bellara’s development had a lot of potential but just fell short of making an incredible impact. It also felt like we had the same conversation with Bellara multiple times? Sort of? 

There were times the dialogue was outright awkward.  While the occasional awkwardness in text can be seen in all of the games, it felt more prevalent in Veilguard. I do recognize that a good chunk of the writing and development was done during the pandemic, and that sometimes it is hard to keep track of an entire storyline spanning 30+ hours of gameplay, so I can be a little more forgiving of the fact.  However, an additional comb through of the story line and to correct any plot holes was sorely needed.

There were also certain plot holes in the lore, or certain pieces of the lore that happened in earlier games were retconned.  The Antivan Crows, while a beloved and intriguing faction in Veilguard, was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, and the faint memories I have of their lore, through conversations the Warden can hold with Zevran in Dragon Age Origins. Granted, Origins took place 20 years ago, so many things could have happened in the lore that I may have missed or did not read up on–Dragon Age also has several light comics and novels published.  I also later learned that certain pieces of lore in the game only have proper context if you read the side/light novels.  Which is… not a good move for a video game series.  I support story mediums expanding past their original form, but if you do not include characters or direly important information IN THE GAME, it will be missed by the majority of your audience, which is not a good move.  

It was also a tad disappointing that only 3 major choices from Inquisition impacted the world building in Veilguard.  Granted, Veilguard takes place in northern Thedas, not Southern Thedas like the three previous games, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that certain previous actions from the South did not greatly effect the North. However, previous actions from the games effecting the timeline has always been an expected factor in all Dragon Age games which let players, myself included, disgruntled as it left our wonders and theories of the future of Southern Thedas on the wayside. Perhaps Bioware is now implementing the “rule of three,” where only 3 games at a time will be impacted by past decisions.

Throughout the course of the game you find multiple letters by one of Solas’s old comrades and friends, Felassan, and apart from scattles letters and at least one or two flashbacks, he’d have a greater impact within the game’s lore.  Right?  NOPE!  [SPOILERS!!!]  Solas killed him in the Dragon Age novel, The Masked Empire. And the game makes absolutely NO reference to that from what I could tell. 

Despite where the narrative failed at points, the bonds between the characters were the ultimate highlight of the writing.  I hope that for the next game, they will iron out the plot more thoroughly and not leave little lore tibbits to the media outside of the games, which is unfair to their franchise as well as their fans. Whatever may come, I do look forward to how Dragon Age will grow from here on out. 

Also… apparently there’s a secret ending to the game that may be teasing the new villain of the next game.  I don’t know HOW you get this ending, only saw a clip of it on TikTok.

[celestialkth]

mourning the loss of your boyfriend's beloved childhood pet, he surprises you with an afternoon that helps to mend your broken heart.

➵ pairing ; taehyung x fem reader

➵ genre ; fluff

➵ word count ; 2.3K

➵ warnings ; talking of losing a pet , use of affectionate nicknames , some language , they're v in love w each others

➵ author's note ; first drabble that occurs in the mikrokosmos universe ❥ a lovely friend and moot ( @axialitae ) mentioned that i could write drabbles about this couple, then work on their origin fic. so that's what i'm going to do •ᴗ•

i'm excited to write more drabbles about them and introduce them to everyone. i've seen other authors open their inboxes for people to ask their characters questions, and i would love to do that with them. i'll link it below if you'd like to talk with them •ᴗ•

masterlist | series masterlist | chat w the characters

boyf <3 [4:54]

bad news

miso died

[4:55]

NO

PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE JOKING

boyf <3 [4:55]

babygirl 

:|

why wld i joke abt tht

[4:56]

ok ASSHOLE

that’s not what i meant

boyf <3 [4:58]

can’t believe my duck died an ur bullying me

[4:58]

how are you doing?

boyf <3 [4:59]

im ok. he was old an wasn’t eating. kinda expected it

what abt u, tho

eomma was more concerned abt u

[5:00]

i feel like i’m going to be sick

boyf <3 [5:00]

nooooo

deep breaths

[5:01]

i’m just so sad

i love miso so much

and now he’s gone

i can’t feed him anymore

or give him kisses

he’s not going to lay in my lap anymore

boyf <3 [5:03]

:(

u were his fac

fav*

loved him mom. eomma’s boy

[5:04]

eomma’s boy :(

boyf <3 [5:04]

i was his dad but fuck me ig

[5:05]

thank you. that made me laugh

i’m so sad, tae

time to change my lock screen

to that photo of you and miso

the one i love sm :(

boyf <3 [5:06]

what abt the one of u w him?

[5:06]

noooo. i want you two

my boys <3

boyf <3 [5:07]

cute

i love you, babygirl

[5:08]

i love you too

very, very much <3

Two weeks have passed since losing Miso. A week and a half since Mrs Kim had made the decision to rehome Namjoon’s duck to someone with an entire flock. The first visit to Tae’s house had felt lonely. Your heart aching when you had looked out the back door, hitting hard when realizing there will never be another moment where you can see the duck that had captured your heart.

Never another time where you’ll see him waddle around his enclosure, swimming in his little pond and feasting on his food. No more chances of teasing Tae that he should’ve chosen the name ‘Cow’ instead for Miso’s black and white features. Tae had held you close when you lost it in his room. Quieting you each time you tried to apologize for being so dramatic and telling you that it’s never easy to lose something you love.

Comforting you when you should’ve been comforting him.

He’d been the one to lose his childhood pet. He’d been eight when his parents introduced the idea of getting their sons a pet to help combat the stress of moving to a foreign country and the difficulties of language barriers. But dogs were out of the equation. The high maintenance of providing a good life clashed with their bustling one. And cats didn’t stand a chance for consideration with Mr Kim’s allergy.

The idea of welcoming birds into their home merely falling into their laps on a random afternoon when they’d traveled to the local farming supply store, and Namjoon had been enraptured by the assortment of ducks and chicks for sale.

Miso had been there for Tae through it all. Through his high school graduation, through his romances and heartbreak. Through the heartache that came when Jin and Namjoon moved out to study in prestigious universities in different parts of the country. He’d always been there, and it hurts that now he’s not.

boyf <3 [11:02]

u home?

[11:05]

ya

in my room

boyf <3 [11:06]

im outside

let’s go for a drive pls?

[11:07]

cannot lie. that’s a little concerning

boyf <3 [11:08]

hush. its not bad :|

im trying to be cute n spontaneous 

[11:09]

give me like five minutes to change?

boyf <3 [11:09]

ok :)

He’s scrolling through Twitter when you climb into his front seat. His gentle humming to the unfamiliar song from his Spotify is music to your ears. “Hi, Babe.” Tae closes out of the app, dropping his phone into its designated cup holder before leaning across the console to greet you with a kiss.

“Hi,” you smile, buckling yourself in. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.” Showing that he’s serious about being spontaneous. He’s never been one to do surprises, always spoiling it before he can stop himself. “But it’s a bit of a drive. Would you like a silly little beverage for the ride?”

“Of course.”

The neighborhood is quiet. Despite the picturesque sky and the warm, welcoming sun, there’s not a single soul in sight. It’s the perfect weather for a leisurely adventure.

“You’re very serious about being spontaneous,” you comment. He reaches, his hand finding its favorite place upon your thigh. “You’re usually horrible at keeping secrets.” Tae bursts out laughing. His beautiful smile filling his face. “But I love it. I can’t wait to see what you have planned.”

“Trust me,” he snorts. “I almost blew this one too.”

He stops at a small gas station not too far from your house. Gathering a snack and drink each before piling back into his car to begin the adventure he’s so excited about. Road trips with him are fun. From singing along to your favorite songs, forcing him into duets of songs he pretends to hate, to the ridiculous little comments made that send you both into fits of lighthearted giggles. Even with no clear destination in mind, it doesn’t feel like you’re traveling for long, and after an hour, you arrive.

“An industrial park?” You tease. Pretending you don’t notice the sign for a small trail tucked away in a mess of trees. Tae lunges at you, wrapping you in his arms and lifting you off the ground. “I was joking!” You exclaim through giggles.

“No, not an industrial park, you dingus.” His own laughter mingles with yours, and he sets you back onto the ground. “Hobi was talking about this trail. And I found this. Thought it would be fun to get out and explore.”

And so you do.

Following the paved pathway through winding trees. Gentle sounds of rushing water are distant background noise but loud enough to coax you away. You set out to explore, finding dirt paths and stairs, worn down grass and hills to climb. A beautiful little creek hides amongst it all, and you’ve never felt so carefree.

The path is small. A welcoming swing overlooks a hill that peers down onto the water, but after finding a spider hidden within the webs and Tae’s refusal to kill it, you carry on. Going until the path ends in another parking lot and you start making the trek back.

“This was fun. I’m glad we came.” You swing your hand entwined with his, basking in the different sights and noises that surround you. And Tae beams, proud of himself for a successful day. “I bet there are so many more beautiful places to discover.”

“We’re not done yet,” he promises. And when you return to his car, rather than get into it, Tae drags you along, continuing the walk. Following a sidewalk that runs alongside the creek and leads into a busier part of this small town.

“Now city hall? Are we going to pay our property taxes?”

He heaves a sigh. Trying his hardest to seem annoyed but falling victim to a laugh. “Fine, that one was funny,” Tae admits. “But no, we’re not going to city hall.” The sidewalk ends, a marker points in the direction of where the trail reconnects. And after crossing a small street and passing through another parking lot, you’re back on track. Stumbling upon a small pond.

“This is cute,” you smile. Loving what different treasures are hidden about. Even in the midst of the bustle of small town traffic, the cutest little pond offers peace. “I can’t believe this is here, and that you found it.”

“Wait, there’s more!” Tae reaches for your hand. He drags you along, moving a little faster than before. A small red bridge crosses over the creek, and he doesn’t stop until you’re on the opposite side. “Surprise!”

And tears spring to your eyes. A small flock of ducks. All gathered under the tree for shade from the unforgiving sun. A few stragglers even swim in the water. “Taehyung!” He beckons you into his arms. Holding you close and his sweet laugh is music to your ears. “I can’t believe you!”

“I wanted to surprise you.” His hand wraps around the back of your head. Holding you, comforting you while you sob into his chest. “It’s been so heartbreaking seeing how hard you’ve been taking Miso’s death.”

Your heart floods with warmth. The tears that fall are filled with the love that overflows, and you can’t find the words to describe all that he is to you.

“I love you,” you beam. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you even more.” Tae presses a soft kiss to your head, giving you an affectionate squeeze before slipping from your grasp. “Come on, let’s feed them. There’s a machine over here.” And he drags you back across the bridge towards a large stand where two dispensers are filled with pellets.

“I left my wallet in your car.”

He scoffs, “As if I’ll let you pay. I’ve come prepared.” Tae dips into his front pocket, retrieving a handful of quarters. And with the largest, proudest smile upon his face, he thrusts his hand towards you.

“I’m so spoiled.” But he passes a couple to you, holding the rest securely while the dispenser releases a load of pellets into your awaiting hands. “Come on!” You beam. Leaving Tae being as you race back towards the flock.

But he doesn’t speak. Still watching with a loving smile, he allows you the moment to bask in this happiness.

A couple ducks take interest at what’s in your hands. Inching their way towards you when you toss food in their general direction. Tears of utter bliss threaten to spill, and you lower to your knees when others become curious.

“Tae,” you whisper. He stands off to the right, not wanting to risk scaring them off if he were to come closer. “Look at them. Look at the babies.” He digs for his phone. Memorializing the moment with pictures.

He’s unaware that your heart is on the brink of exploding. From the overwhelming love that resides for your second favorite animal to the immense love that your heart possesses for him and only him. A few tears slip through your lashes, the only way you can express the emotions that bubble inside you.

You’ve never had someone care so much for you. And you’re not sure what you’ve done to deserve this.

Tae’s patient as you continue feeding the ducks. His smile not budging each time you return for pellets, and when his stash of change runs dry, it’s your cue to leave. You walk back to his car hand-in-hand. But you cling to him, your arms wrapped around his. Your head against his bicep, desperate to shower him with your love and affection after all he’d done for you. You’re desperate for him to know how in love with him you are.

“Have fun?” He asks.

But he has no idea. You nod. “Best day ever.” And a small tint of red burns in his face. “I love you so much. Thank you for doing this for me.”

He shrugs, as if it were nothing. But his permanent grin gives him away, how proud he is that he’s come up with this idea. “I’m glad. You deserved this,” he replies, and you heart is not safe. Seconds from combusting. You’re impatient to get back to your house and love on him well into the night.

The drive back is peaceful. Exhausting settling in from the heat, you two ride in comfortable silence. Halfway through the drive, his phone buzzes with a message from his mom. He asks you to answer, sneaking the briefest glance at the screen. And when his phone unlocks, opening to their last conversation, one of the numerous photos he’d taken stares back with a message in Korean that you can’t understand.

“She replied with a heart,” you answer. “And something I don’t understand.” Coming to a stop at a green-light-turned-red, he looks at the screen, nodding but not uttering a word. “What did you tell her?”

He starts to smirk. Leaving you to dread whatever’s going to come from his mouth. “It’s right there,” Tae teases. “You can’t read it?” His laughter fills the car when you groan. Delighted in your reaction as he always is.

“No,” you answer. “I’m trying to learn, but my tutor always get distracted during lessons.”

“Can’t help it. Hearing you speak Korean makes me want to kiss you. Is that such a sin?” He scoffs. “If wanting to kiss your girlfriend is a crime, then lock me away.” The light switches to green, the car in front of you hesitating a second before slowly crossing the intersection.

“Charges dropped. But please tell me what you said? Please, Tae Tae. Pretty please.”

He laughs a little more. “All I said was that you have no idea how happy you make me.” The tips of his ears turn a little red at his admission. But your heart is damn near close to exploding again. “I think she said that she loves us. I’m not sure, I didn’t really read it.” His attention remains focused on the road.

But yours is stuck on him.

“I love you.” His lips curl upward, sneaking a glance before turning back to the road. “I wish there was something stronger than love. Because I more than love you.” Tae peels a hand away from the steering wheel to take yours.. “Do you realize how frustrating it is to look at you and not have any words that can tell you how much you mean to me?”

He nods. “Every single time I look at you,” Tae replies. “But actions speak louder, and I can feel how much you love me in everything you do. I am one lucky man.” You want to throw yourself at him, want to shower him in your endless love and affection. But you settle for a squeeze of his hand. One that you hope he knows means you’re lucky too.

And you pray that he’s yours forever.

[dellamortte]

oh i’ve just finished veilguard

no spoilers but oh god…….. i absolutely loved this game…. completely and utterly adored every single second. took me two weeks to finish it but i savoured every moment and even deliberately took my time, not fast travelling or sprinting everywhere because i just wanted to stay in that world for as long as possible.

i loved it so much, i had so much fun and laughed/cried my way through it. i loved the combat and gameplay (i played as a mage but it was really fun, i’m glad that was my first choice!! i am looking forward to seeing what the warrior and rogue combat is like :3) i loved seeing all the new areas of thedas, i loved all the references to the other games + even the books/comics!! the music was beautiful and the story was incredible, the end of this game made me feel like i was shot in the chest honest to god…. it was insane!! i was sobbing and weeping during the credits….

and the characters are so amazing oh god i loved them all so much but lucanis……. OH LUCANIS!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!!! new fave just dropped!!!! he’s been on my mind constantly since i started playing, i knew from the trailer that he was going to be my fave but i genuinely didn’t realise i’d love him so dearly.

i really do want to romance the others, especially emmrich but i truly don’t think it’ll be possible for me to romance anyone other than lucanis like……. oh he was made for me…

anyway……. i guess you can say i liked it alskdkdkd ohhhhhhh i love dragon age so much, i can’t wait to replay it over and over 🥺💖 this was my first ever experience playing this game and oh i will never forget it. i will cherish this moment

[crancisfrozier]

Okay I just finished Dragon Age the Veilguard after about 100 hours and I have SO MANY thoughts I need to get out of my system.

First, the positives; 1) This game was FUCKING GORGEOUS. It is lightly stylized and I can see what people mean when they say it’s a little sims or Disney like, but overall I think they made a really bold choice to not look like every other game that’s coming out now and I think it paid off. I’ve never cared about photo mode in games before but I found myself stopping to take a screenshot every 5-10 minutes. Even in boss battles!!

2) The combat. This the first time ever in a DA game that combat is genuinely fun and not kind of a slog you have to get through to advance the story. Playing as a mage has never been more enjoyable.

3) The major story points. I won’t go into spoilers right now but Weisshaupt and the entire last act of the game were phenomenal. Peak Dragon Age. I was crying. I was shaking. I was scared for my companions and the state of the world. These battles were enormous and epic and world changing.

Okay putting the rest under a read more because this post is really getting away from me. There will be spoilers under the cut :)

4) The Solavellan content. I fully expected to have their story lowkey ignored because of how much time had passed and how much was going on in the world. At best I thought there might be one or two lines of dialogue about it. I was not expecting to get a conversation with my inquisitor solely about him that so beautifully sums up exactly why me and my inquisitor fell in love with Solas, or to be able to get the happy ending with them that I have yearned for this past decade.

Before I go into the negatives I want to state that I really enjoyed this game. It’s probably a 7 or 8/10 for me! But enjoying it does not make it immune from criticism. So, the negatives for me:

1) The writing/dialogue. I know this has been a massive point of hate for a lot of origins-only crybabies and I don’t want to necessarily validate them but I think we have to admit that the writing was…shall we say inconsistent perhaps? As I mentioned above, the pinnacles of act 2 and 3 are Dragon Age at its best imo, but in between that? There is a lot of tell not show going on and modernization of dialogue that can take me out of the immersion, which has never happened for me in a DA game before. My theory is that they overcorrected from inquisition, a game that is not very new player friendly (I say this as someone whose very first DA game was inquisition and I wouldn’t change that for the world) and ended up simplifying, excessively repeating, and underutilizing themes and parts of the story.

2) The companions. I enjoy them as characters don’t get me wrong (Emmerich Volkarin my beloved I will romance you every playthrough)! But they feel much flatter than in any other DA game. There is not a lot of tension or realistic personality dynamics between them. I’m not saying every game needs to have a Fenris/Anders level rivalry but when a group of people come together in a situation as stress-inducing as stopping the end of the world, they are not going to immediately be happy and love each other and give found family vibes off the bat. That has to be earned, they have to actually go through things together! They will have people they like and don’t like, people they get along with and don’t get along with! Consider the dynamic in inquisition: Sera and Solas do not get along. She hates his arrogance (and his “elfyness”) and he dislikes but mostly pities her. But Sera and Blackwall are best friends! Blackwall and Solas have a super interesting dynamic given their *ahem* personal identities. Solas and Bull have a mutual respect as strategists (I will always love their mental chess match in banter). Bull and Dorian have a whole enemies to lovers thing going on! Vivienne hates Cole because she sees him as a demon, But Cole is basically Varric and Solas’s adopted son who they have a minor custody battle over. I could go on and on! This drama, these personality clashes are what flesh the companions in previous games out so well. Everyone joining the team and then having next to no internal conflict (or if they do it is basically immediately resolved) makes it boring, I’m sorry! And on that topic, I have to mention their approvals and disapprovals. They mean nothing. There are not really any consequences for doing something a companion hates. They will typically immediately forgive you no matter what. Thinking back once again, what would the inquisition companions be without the approval/disapproval system? Without Vivienne changing around the furniture out of spite? Being able to punch Solas? Having companions leave because they disagree with you so much or straight up telling them to leave?? Not only does this give characters agency and flesh them out, but it provides the perfect role playing opportunities in what is supposed to be an action RPG!

3) The world state/choices from previous games. These were essentially non-existent and boiled down to “did you romance Solas in Inquisition or not”. It feels like they were trying to kind of soft reboot the universe which feels incredibly disappointing after a legacy of choices that can leave so many unique world states. A lot of them even conflict with some of the storylines in the game. For example, I always romance Alistair in Origins and keep him a Grey Warden. Where the hell was he in this game?? Multiple times they say every single Warden has gathered at Weisshaupt, you’d think you might want two veterans of the fifth blight (counting my HoF) to help fight an archdemon??? Are they dead then? Did you kill them bioware??? Also Morrigan, not only does it seem like Kieran doesn’t exist but it’s heavily implied that Morrigan drank from the well of sorrows, a choice that I have agonized over for these past 10 years because I am firmly in the “my inquisitor drinks from the well” camp. I also feel bad for anyone that romanced someone other than Solas in Inquisition because it seems like you get a little note from your beloved and that’s it.

4) The soundtrack. I don’t dislike all of it, there is some battle music I like and the dread wolf and end credits music were great! But a lot of this music felt disconnected from Dragon Age and almost like it was for Mass Effect. Like why are there weird futuristic synths in ancient Arlathan Forest? I was very worried about this the first time I heard Trevor Morris wasn’t coming back for the OST. And when I heard that he was being replaced by Hans Zimmer I couldn’t help worry that they were replacing high quality and understanding of the source material with a big name. The first time I heard the title music it sounded like Starfield. Or like generic epic action movie soundtrack. There has been nothing as truly memorable as the Inquisition theme. Nothing that I will cry in my car to like the lost elf theme.

5) The sanitization of some of Thedas’s darker parts in what feels like an attempt to not upset anyone. Tevinter is known through Thedas for its slavery, for its abhorrent treatment of elves. But we are in the capital of Tevinter and see none of that? The main story of the game unravels the central religion of the world and there is not a single religious person in your group or near it that can feel the full effects of this unraveling? If you play as a dalish elf, gods that you likely worshipped your entire life are proved to be real but not only are they callous and cruel they are trying to kill you personally? And all we get is a few lines of dialogue just saying “oh wow can you believe this”? Where is the mourning for your misplaced faith??? For people’s lives given to devotion for nothing???

6) The state of the world at the end of the game. There is a certain hollowness in preventing the end of the world but having possibly millions killed in the process. And about having places we have loved so dearly, and worked so hard to save in previous games, being completely destroyed offscreen. Then treating the protagonist like this is a great triumphant victory! There should have been a post battle scene at the end, like in origins and inquisition. A breather after all the hard work, but a more melancholy one this time. To register and convey how much of the world has been lost, what the price of this victory was, and the work it’s going to take to recover from.

I know I’ve listed more negatives here than positives but I want to again express that I did really enjoy this game! Not only did I put 100 hours into it, I’m literally already planning my second and third playthroughs. But it does have some major flaws that I think need to be pointed out. We can’t pretend this is a perfect game. For me, Inquisition is still the best DA game and that’s okay! I still have Inquisition, I can go back and play it whenever I want. And if anything, it’s a miracle that this game came out at all. We came very close to living in the Bad Place where it didn’t come out or where it came out as a live service game. I am truly so appreciative of all of the love and effort that went into DA4 and my hope above hopes would be that they do something like Larian where they identify and fix the major issues, but I know that likely won’t happen :(

[void-of-lazyness-and-cats]

So 20 hours in and I'm finally out of the first area

(well really 19 hours and 52 minutes but who's counting)

Some highlights include:

Karlach booking it through the blighted village downing every health potion she looted from her dead companions trying desperately to survive. With no weapon because I threw her axe away like 6 turns ago and forgot to pick it back up

Wyll constantly falling flat on his ass because I keep forgetting grease is a thing(sorry wyll)

That one lady kidnapped by the hag dying seconds after berating me for saving her cuz she walked right into the spikes I put down earlier. Whoops.

A rat encouraged me to steal

Lae'zel wont stop propositioning me

Desperately picking fights around the edges because I'm only a couple hundred xp off from level 5

Saying fuck it and taking on the outside goblin camp after I'd already killed their leaders for aforementioned XP purposes

Finding shovel(my beloved)

Gaining fun forbidden necromancy secrets from a neat book

And trying(and failing) to romance gale:(

So far I've been enjoying it, tho I definitely suck at the combat part