#rotating my rook in my head like a rotisserie chicken

[goodsprings]

my veilguard thoughts if you care

- the writing was so all over the place. sometimes it was pretty good but sometimes it was just offensively awful. some of the lines were like kind of insane how cringey they were

- i haaaaated that rook had a set personality and that he was just written as a super friendly empathetic person by default. i almost exclusively picked the bottom dialogue option and they were still always nicer than i wanted to be. i get the nice silly protagonist is the way most people play and i’m in the minority of people that don’t play that way but i think it’s lame to not have rook be more of a blank slate. like i wanted to play as a serious guy who didn’t have a sense of humor and was pretty cold with most people until he got to know them and it just literally was not possible to play that way. but i love my rook and the version of him that exists in my head teehee

- that said i think rook’s voice acting was great, i picked the british male voice and loved it, he was really emotive and just has a really nice voice

- emmrich and davrin were standouts for me and i thought their writing was pretty consistently great, i just think a necromancer with a deep seated fear of death is such a cool character concept. also emmrich is like the sexiest bioware companion ever next to blackwall. sorry but he is so so fine. i also loved taash, they were in my party a lot and they really grew on me

- the found family thing felt pretty forced. i generally enjoy that trope when it’s done well but this didn’t feel natural to me, it felt like i kept being told these characters were family but i never really saw them building that bond. it was just like oh we’re a family now btw

- gameplay was generally quite fun, i played as a rogue instead of a warrior like i usually would for my first playthrough and did not regret it in the slightest. it’ll be tough to play as another class in future playthroughs

- the villains were lame and the story generally didn’t really work for me. but there were some cool quests, weisshaupt fucking ruled and i thought the ending stretch of quests was awesome

all this being said i did put 120 hours into my first playthrough and i’m already planning on replaying it so you know. i just really like dragon age. WHATEVER !!!

[vonspe]

doodling to get emmrook out of my system(its not working)

[thegoodceai]

many thoughts about how warden!rook and davrin's shared faction makes their dynamic and relationship so much more compelling (for me) than the other same-faction relationships in the game if only because the grey wardens are always. tragic, i guess. and just the commonality of 'we both willingly joined an order dedicated to stopping a threat that most of the world cares very little about, even when considering the fifth blight was so recent, and we knew from the start our lives will be forfeited sooner rather than later and yet we're both willing to fight and sacrifice for the greater good with no expectation for recognition or reward'

the game makes rook into a hero, so i doubt they got conscripted, joining the wardens feels like their decision, plays into rook's heroic main character trope. especially with some of the choices you can make (saying rook was completely right when saving that village when they ignored direct orders and not regretting it and reiterating that fact when you meet the first warden for the first time, talking the first warden down, even punching him but still having the order trust rook enough to know they have their back etc)

also rook telling davrin multiple times "i'm a warden too" sounds so much like "you're not alone in this, i know what you've been through, i've been through the same things myself, i know what others see when they look at us, i know what fate we brought onto ourselves when we drank from the joining cup, i made the same choices as you, like recognises like and we're both of us both monster and monster hunter." it also adds another layer to every interaction when davrin asks for rook's advice, or just picks their brain, cause rook knows. they know what it's like. we share the same family, the same purpose, the same cursed blood.

also something something the parallel between the warden and alistair in origins (young, inexperienced, one of them conscripted, fighting a seemingly hopeless fight against a country and a blight) and warden!rook and davrin in veilguard (older, capable wardens, here of their own volition, knew the early death sentence they signed up for, fighting a seemingly hopeless fight against literal gods and the blight to end all blights) and it feels like no matter how you play it their epilogues always feel like "we survived but at what cost"

anyway. many thoughts. love creating some "history is a circle and it will inevitably repeat" type narrative with my game characters

[riadoodles]

I desperately need you to know i am obsessed with ur lucanis in the "rooks and their lovers" image. The hearts??? His dopey smile.?? I am rotating him in my head like a rotisserie chicken and kicking my feet back and forth giggling

Waaaah ya’ll are so sweet!!! Thank you! 🥹❤️

Here you go my friend. A collection of close up lucanis i’ve drawn so far for you to draw hearts on your monitor with 😌

[biowareaddict]

There’s just something about Spite, who started out as a spirit of determination, falling for Rook, who never gives up and always finds a way….

I can’t stop rotating the entire Lucanis/Rook/Spite situation in my head like a rotisserie chicken