#sidenote: i just want to also say

[shift-shaping]

Rewatching trailers: a midnight analysis

Long post ahead.

On the recommendation of some folks in the fandom on tumblr, I went back and watched the game trailers for every other DA game to compare them with the Veilguard trailer.

There are definitely some tropes in these trailers that have always been a mix of cringe and effective --especially the pop song over cutscene footage. In that sense this trailer is exactly like many of the other ones (DAI: A Wonderful World, DAO: This Is War). Also, the quips are unfunny in trailers for both DAI and DAV, and I think that's intentional: the quips aren't really there to make you laugh, just to give a specific type of levity to certain moments and specific vibes to certain characters. If you listen to the Veilguard trailer instead of watching it, the biggest difference in tone between this and the Inquisition trailers is the amount of in-character narration, but I think that's serving a very functional purpose here and even though some of the lines are cringy ("you KNOW there will be dragons" yes I understand the title of the video game implies as much thank you), I get it.

Moving on to visuals: some shots are almost identical. These are from the DA2 Launch trailer, the DAI Breach trailer, and obv the Veilguard trailer.

The DAO Sacred Ashes trailer has a few similar moments, but nothing that shows off your entire possible party like this, as it adheres much closer to the gameplay conceptually (i.e., you have three companions in that trailer, you can have three companions in the game at one time).

Every game trailer since DA2 has had individual shots showing off your companions fighting. They don't have big fancy titles over them, but they all have them. The difference here, I think, is that the DAV trailer that we saw on 6/9 (nice) is specifically meant to introduce the companions. With that in mind, it's not particularly interesting or noteworthy that this trailer looks like it's for an Overwatch update. Like yeah, sure, it's introducing the characters, of course it's going to look like other modern trailers that are introducing characters.

Another familiar visual aspect is the color saturation. DAI is green, DAV is purple/pink. Rewatch the A Wonderful World trailer for DAI and look for how bright and vibrant the green shades are compared to the red, and then rewatch the Veilguard trailer and look for the vibrance of the purples/pinks. This is not surprising, Bioware have been telling us this game will be Purple for years. DA2 might have some extra yellow/gold in its trailers but ehhh I think it and DAO are just brown af.

So this is all to say that some of the things setting the tone of this trailer are things that have been present since Inquisition, if not earlier. Some of the tropes in its presentation are to be expected if you actually played Inquisition, and frankly if you played DA2 as well. There are definitely people in the YouTube comments of the Veilguard trailer whose idea of "Dragon Age" is Origins as their nostalgia recalls it. Origins came out 15 years ago. If you want to go play Origins so bad, fucking play Origins. Or Balder's Gate, whatever. If you didn't like the last installment of a franchise like this, and you REALLY didn't like the one before that, you are probably not going to like the new one.

These are some of the tamer ones, I'd encourage you to go look at the comments yourself to get a feel for what people are saying.

I don't know what to tell these people. Your expectations for this trailer were unrealistic; DAO is not coming back. Sorry. I liked it too.

However.

What most people are complaining about in the comments is not that this is a drastic shift from the specific type of Dark Fantasy of DAO. The vast majority of complaints are about the art style. For me, the most jarring moment of the trailer, when I actually realized the art style is different, is this one:

Emmrich looks like Handsome Jack from Borderlands. His face is cartoonishly angular and his eyes are animated in a dead eyed stare that just looks cheap. I don't know how else to describe it, sorry. The other two characters have this weird stare too, and it looks really, uh, bad.

But to me, the worse model is the skeleton. It looks very far from any kind of realism. The cheekbones are too wide, the ribcage is oddly triangular? Compare it to the Darkspawn in the Warden's Calling DAO trailer, or the various demons in the Breach trailer for DAI (linked above). It looks like the Wizards 101 skeleton pet.

It's a bad sequence of shots, and there are other bad ones after that. Davrin and the griffon look good, the dragon looks good, but Taash looks like plastic/gelatin. What material is her armor made of? It's very matte-looking. Rook looks fine.

Varric and Harding look. Uh. Bad. Their models are simplistic, and the hair physics are chunky and awkward. I know I initially said they look good, but upon further review: I was wrong.

The clothing looks kind of low poly, too. The lighting on Varric's collar is... wrong? Neither of them look like they're wearing fluffy fur, so I hope that wasn't the intention.

I don't know why they would choose this art style for a trailer that's showing the game for the first time. It looks at best unfinished, and at worst cheap. This is not an art style to present to people who have been waiting for a game for ten years, or to new players unfamiliar with the alleged tone (a la Tevinter Nights) the game is going for. Like, compare Harding in 2014 with the above shot.

This is not about aging a character, this is a clear difference in how a character is modeled. Inquisition has aged beautifully and still looks fantastic. I'm still taken aback by how wonderful that game looks.

Looking at the other trailers, what sticks out the most in the context of the art style is that the graphics of the trailers look as good or better than the gameplay. This is usually how game trailers work. I can't imagine why you would show a trailer with worse graphics/art style than you have in the actual game. Like, someone (do not recall who, sorry) brought up Morrigan from the DAO Sacred Ashes trailer as if she looks terrible and is an example of trailers being worse than in-game, but if you watch that trailer, she looks really good for 2009. She looks objectively more realistic and impressive than the in-game model. The models and art style in the Veilguard trailer would also look really good for 2009. They look very bad for 2024.

Maybe the wonkiness of these models is being exacerbated by the lighting. That would explain why Bellara and Davrin look better than Varric and Harding, but Emmrich is fairly well-lit. Maybe his model is especially odd and will look better in the gameplay? This was definitely the case with Varric (and solas lmao) in his own Inquisition trailer.

So, TL;DR:

Dragon Age Origins is dead and is not coming back. This is not news.

The Veilguard trailer is primarily a character intro video, so obviously it focuses on the characters.

Much of the tone re: shot composition, overall structure, and music is in-keeping with previous DA trailers.

The art style/graphics are both visually bad and what people are primarily complaining about, but the degree of badness could be the result of some odd lighting/modelling choices.

As has been the case for the last ten-ish years, we'll just have to wait and see.

6/10/24

[paperlovesadness]

Sometimes I feel like I'm just psychotic, connecting all these red threads on my mind's wall (and maybe I am).

But... But... Tell me you don't see it too.

[larrythefloridaman]

WOAH, HE'S BIGENDER? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!

[buthappysoverrated]

forever losing my mind to his reaction here in making dennis reynolds a murderer

[talentlesshuman]

Hi, sorry if this ask is misguided, but I was seeing your art twice on my feed and realized @ communist-hatsunemiku had reposted your art from Twitter and didn't see any indication that you had given permission. I would want to know if it was my art, so I apologize again if it's nbd 👋

Nope! I didn't give permission. I'll go ahead and start reporting the post, if anyone else wants to join me i greatly appreciate it :)

Edit: I've decided to send them messages before i send the copyright infringement report (i'd like to avoid putting my irl name and address out there whenever possible, since filing the report might have the work and my identity stored in a 3rd party website). under the cut is screenshots of my messages to them

[dullahandyke]

and like sidenote if i can make a post with a target audience of zero. i feel like fhsy was to d20 what aa3 was to ace attorney but aa3 pulled it off better for reasons i cannot explain

[zed-the-buggy]

larry is literally a foodie. he prefers good and special food, eith a refreshing kick. its like the only thing he cares about. he doesnt like plain frozen milk ice cream. ill die on this hill

[quietwingsinthesky]

soulless sam was at his best when he was still being written as a version of sam, to accentuate parts of him that normally get held back, and not as 'guess he's evil now'. soulless sam when he's reflecting sam's tendency to lose sight of everything else in pursuit of a goal. soulless sam when he's just kind of rude without thinking about it without his filter on. soulless sam when he's equal parts intent on keeping dean with him and also happy to lie to him and keep him shut out of the things he knows dean won't like so that dean won't leave. soulless sam when he equally recognizes that he is a better hunter now, and also that he probably can't continue to exist without his soul. (you know. before they went along with making him just kind of evil.)

...soulless sam when he's begging for literally anyone to acknowledge his autonomy in this situation and not force him to take his soul back without knowing how much it could damage him and being ignored.

[misclogarts]

i love how ellie is all "i want to create a world where you and your people can live in peace and safety" to miss lightkeeper and then she's all "the entire world can go to hell as long as i can keep you happy" to her like THEY ARE SO IN LOVE I AM ILL. I AM SO ILL.

[horrorwebs]

why are men literally the fucking worst

[themyscirah]

This is technically a Diana's age poll but I framed it partially around Julia's rescue because that's the event I need to contextualize and whether or not Diana is a thing yet is p important for my purposes. I would keep the Pérez run and postcrisis continuity in mind when answering this bc that's when this is relevant but I'd keep in mind that even though Diana is very young there (like early 20s) we don't know I don't think if she ages differently as a child (esp as a themysciran AND being made from clay) and in some versions she is older than she looks and was made earlier

Edit: I accidentally logic-ed this out in the tags lol 🤦‍♀️but feel free to still vote however you want. Going to publish this anyway bc I think I made some good points later in my tags

[aobawilliams]

💫

[Let's Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks]

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

Those that comment on the story!! Moments the reader liked, things they've noticed/guessed on the story, especially when they point something that's clearly a "wink wink this will be important later" moment!!

(Coincidentally that's the kind of comments I try to leave when I'm reading a fic)

[doctorwhoisadhd]

there's a certain quality the harmonies of like... early to mid 2000s alt rock has. which i am obsessed with... like i wanna do that. i NEED to figure out how to write harmonies that sound like that

[finely-tuned-line]

RP:

Log 218

FTL: FTLR-3 has taken the form of the cyan lizard that was its host. It remains immobile, but the form it has taken is clearly that of a cyan lizard. One especially similar to the one from which it originated from. I've described my hypothesis as to why it would do such a thing in Log 216, but to summarise, it's for the sake of efficiency. Efficiency of movement, efficiency of existence. It's taking the best of all three sub-types of Rot and combining it.

FTL: I fear that this new form may grant FTLR-3 a much extended range of movement that, especially when combined with its apparent ability to learn, could result in it breaking out of the containment chamber. If all goes well, this will not be the case. I will carry on in my attempts at creating a potent corrosive substance, just in case LIFEGIVER's treatment does not arrive on time.

FTL: As for updates on the progress of my attempts to create such a substance, there aren't many. The progress has been lacking and it all is strikingly reminiscent of my attempts to create organisms without a foundation. I do believe that I am on edge of something, though. I cannot tell you what, only that it will aid me in my quest.

FTL: The time after FTLR-3 is eradicated is eagerly awaited. I cannot allow myself to get distracted from this process at this time, but the thoughts of experiments I could be doing now are alluring to me. For example, Eternal Anomaly (as our conversation has unfortunately not yet ceased) mentioned a slugcat-poleplant hybrid.

FTL: Creating a hybrid with a poleplant is indeed a curious idea. One that I wish I could afford the time to explore at this moment. Perhaps not with a slugcat, that seems to defeat the purpose. Slugcats are insanely adaptable creatures, they can withstand just about any modifications. Though a slugcat-poleplant hybrid would have its benefits, my interest lies in the reactivity of the poleplants leaves. What if a poleplant's genetics that pertain to them were implanted into say, a lizard? Forgive me for the amount of experiments that lizards have been the main subject of.

FTL: The 'leaves' could function as a warning system, though perhaps it wouldn't be that much of an effective one. Append them onto the tail though, and they could perhaps warn the lizard of any vibrations in the ground. The red colouring the lizard would be sure to inherit from the poleplants would also serve as a deterrent to predators, invoking the image of a typical red lizard. It could also potentially employ the poleplant's typical hunting method of ambush. Though it would lack the ability to blend in.

FTL: Perhaps if the lizard that would be modified were a white lizard... its camouflage abilities, if combined with the reactiveness of the poleplant. Truly could make a capable predator, armed with many ways to protect itself from any that may threaten it. Its red leaves would make it stand out, even when camouflaged, but everything needs a weakness, no?

FTL: I'll have to put this idea on hold. After this whole fiasco is over, this will be the project I pick up. Just another incentive to get this over with as quickly as possible. I tire of researching FTLR-3, it has too much urgency to it. But I shall carry on doing so, as though my interest grows weaker as my attention attempts to drift elsewhere, I remain curious about its nature.

[milkbreadtoast]

Wait does Cedyes actually become a thing? I only follow the webtoon

i have not caught up with the novel (impossible for me to since there's over 800 ch and theyre not all translated) so I can't say anything about where the novel will go and what the "endgame" will be but as far as I'm concerned that's not important... as far as I can say, yes and no..?? TWSB isn't classified as a romance or a BL, so yeseo likely won't get a romantic "love interest" whether it be gay or straight, and my guess is the bond btwn the main trio will be akin to platonic soulmates... I can guarantee that yeseo and cedric won't be making out onscreen or anything... but at the same time imo if ppl don't pick up on the LGBT undertones (specifically with Cedric) then they are not reading it right (/lh i don't like to say anyones interp is "wrong" but... this is like saying killua isn't gay kdbfmd)

I'm just gonna give the answer I gave before and that my guess is it'll be like ORV where no it's not explicitly a BL, or romance, but YET its so extremely and soul crushingly romantic and they end up winning the 2023 tumblr yaoi awards over spirk and sasunaru (this actually happened

[deepestbluesky]

im actually fascinated going through the tags on that last poll about 'i don't usually like X but i like your version' comments because so many people are clearly on the exact same page? there's a lot of people saying it's very flattering, and a few saying they hate it always, but genuinely almost all of the mixed answers are either 'as long as you're not bashing a thing i clearly like while you say it, it's fine!' or 'as long as you're not insulting everyone else who likes X while you say it, it's great!'

idk i just expected more variety in the reasons, but it's pretty clear!!! which i think is super handy for anyone who DOES want to leave a comment like this—sure some people may hate them, and i think that's super valid, i get it!!! but a large majority either actively like them, or like them as long as it doesn't feel like you're insulting the things they like or pitting them against their fellow writers