#so i thought great - game over

[crescentfool]

reunion 🌸

[brekkie-e]

Ok. I am all for giving Veilgaurd the space to be it's own game and appreciate it for what it is, but every time I see a person who openly talks about only getting in to dragon age this year or some other nonsense go off about how long term fans hate the game cause they cant handle change I see red.

I mean, to be a Dragon Age fan, you have to be able to accept change. Change is at the core of the experience. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is a different question. But if you're a long-term fan of the series, you've succeeded in the task of accepting change.

The criticisms of Veilgaurd are, in my opinion, a little unique to the franchise. For all Inquisition tweaked certain lore and it irritated a lot of people- it did so with self-awareness and intention. I am thinking about how it did the Dalish dirty in many respects. For all I do not agree with that writing direction, the game itself atleast acknowledges it is 1. New information. 2. Dependent on the clan. 3. Gives you the room to roleplay your character according to previously established lore. This is just one example, of course.

Veilgaurd is unique in the fact it ignores much of the series pre-established lore and in no way owns up to it.

I have seen a lot of hateful comments about how Origins hasn't been the framework of the series since 2009. And yeah, sure to a degree that is true. The gameplay certainly got tossed out. But in many ways, Dragon Age 2 is a direct continuation of that world and setting. DA2 and Origins and the lore they established are solid and share a vision. Play as a Mahariel and engage with Merril's clan. It's the same world. The same npc's. Inquisition does not deviate that far from that vision when you look past the companions all playing devil's advocate.

I really don't think everyone disappointed with this game or finding it lacking are "blinded by nostalgia." Most Dragon Age fans will be the first ones to tell you the franchise is a mess. But acting like the games that established it as beloved to it's fans are no longer relevant is so nasty to me. You as a newer fan would not be able to play Veilgaurd if the older fans had not made the previous titles financial successes. If they had not kept the love for the series alive, this new game would never have made it out of development.

The game is good. It's enjoyable to play. It's not without its charms. It should be given room to shine for what it is. It's a miracle we have it given the development journey it went on.

But it's also a massive smack in the face to many people who loved all three previous titles. And that's a bad thing. And I hope future titles remember the lore and tone of the series better.

These two things can both be true.

[quirinah]

ummmmmmm guys this dungeons looking a little dark here..........................ummmm..... hello??? guys??

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[lucabyte]

transfem loop + siffrin... you agree

i does agree.... i does in fact ... write a 7k word essay on the subject..... if you would like to perhaps click that link and read it if you were not already aware...... kisses u on the forehead......... sorry its that long but i had to cover all of my bases you know how it is with textual analysis when you're trying to draw a distinction between "headcanon" and "reading of the text" because those are different things.... to meeeeeeee.......

[yakool-foolio]

Only a game like TGAA2 can get me tearing up real bad over tapdancing

[lerildeal]

doodles for a game I haven’t played in over 5 years 😔

[southern--downpour]

okay first thoughts. i dont HATE the ending i just feel like it needed more time in the season to reach the conclusion it did

[aquilamage]

bad and naughty iterators get put in the microwave to atone for their crimes

[eliks-edge]

I love the idea of a death wizard who parallels Malistaire pre-Sylvia’s death working together with Cyrus so much. Cyrus sees his brother in this child and it hurts because he misses his brother so much but it also worries him deeply. The wizard and Malistaire are so similar he can only hope that the trauma the wizard will have to live with after dragonspyre (and even more so after future worlds) will not make them into the man Malistaire is now. And really and truly, Malistaire is just a man overrun with grief over a loved one, which could so easily happen to the wizard. I think it would so interesting to see a villain arc very similar to Malistaires with the wizard

[caluupin]

been catching up on TGAA/DGS !! :D

[vynegar]

"Albie" (main story 11-21)

At the end of Episode 11 (Part 1), we find out that "Albie" is simply a name that Vyn made up on the spot when Rosa asked. He may have been inspired by his own birth name, Vilhelm Richard Albert de Haspran.

In Chinese, Vyn choose the name "阿明". "阿" is a prefix used to form nicknames, "明" can be a name but also means "bright, clear". In Vyn's Romantic Rail Getaway card "Food for Thought", he tells us the meaning of his name:

You can see the character 明 appear in the word 明亮 ("bright"), although 明 is such a common character that I wouldn't say that this Chinese text alone is enough is sufficient evidence to show the connection between the two names. It's the way that the "Albie" and "阿明" happen to coincide in the name "Albert", which made me take note of Vyn's "careless" choice in name.

If the Chinese name was intended to subtly reference "Albert", I can certainly imagine imagine this as one way to preserve that reference through translation, even if it becomes more obvious. We do have an example of the translation preserving plot-relevant wordplay in a name: Lowe Leare ("Lowly"), originally 萧仁 ("小人", both pronounced "xiao ren" but with different tones). However, there's also an incident of a plot-relevant name being missed through translation, though it was in an event (not the main story) that probably foreshadowed a distant plot point and had infamously bad translation issues.

Anyway, it remains possible that "Albie" is a coincidence. However, after Vyn and Rosa wrap up their conversation about Albie's name, the narration makes a comment on the importance of that moment:

It isn't until the whole case is settled that you are surprised to realize something... You had briefly touched on the key to cracking the case at this very moment.

...which at least gives me enough confidence to not feel silly writing up a whole post about it. We've only seen part of this case, and there's a lot of mystery still surrounding Vyn's behavior so I don't have any definitive hypotheses on why Vyn might have chosen his own name for Albie. Is there something that made Vyn seen himself in Albie? Did the delinquent's attitude remind Vyn of the cruel, stratified world that he was born in? Is he reminded of how people who have imperfections will be tossed aside and abandoned? I guess we'll see when part 2 of this episode is released.

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[atissi]

WOW...............tf2 man. tf2...........................

[loregoddess]

some rambling thoughts about Unicorn Overlord and the angels and how they're written under the cut (lots of endgame spoilers), because I haven't been able to stop thinking about some things since finishing the game

So, I've been watching some of the other maiden rite dialogue and endings for UO, and some of them are insane. Like. Alain can marry Dinah--their paired ending says she becomes the new queen, so he definitely marries her, and presents to all of Cornia he beautiful wife, who is also Literally A Fox.

But! despite having very romantic rites with say, Raenys or Umerus, he does not marry them in his paired ending (they both return to Albion and just. Live their lives. no marriage implied, like, Alain's got more romantic "but not married" endings with some of the male characters than he does any of the angels).

Fascinating implications honestly. I had suspected that the bestrals were willing to live in family units with humans (as implied by Ramona, Morard, and Yunifi being a family unit, batshit backstories aside; and also the entire orphanage side quest). Like sure, there aren't any like, half-bestral half-human offspring in the game unlike the confirmed "half-elves exist, and a lot of humans are hot for elves", but the bestrals are shown to live in family units with human members. And while no one (aside? from? Alain? sir?) is hot for the bestrals (at least I didn't find any NPCs who were like, "hot damn" about the bestrals), we also don't see any human characters fawning over the angels (whatever Sharon and Ochlys have aside, I'll get to them in a sec).

And like, in-game the angels (technically "the winged", I know angel is a specific term but bear with me here) are all religiously and culturally treated as like, literal divine messengers of the heavens. But we also learn from the sage in Albion that they aren't divine in any way, they're literally just humans with wings, the result of an ancient magical lab experiment that apparently went wrong.

So it's like? The idea that they're divine messengers was definitely made-up, probably by the first pontifex, to give the winged a place to exist safely in society, but! But also this ends up getting warped in the most fascinating ways bc it leads to the "present day" culture(s) in the game, where other races are jealous of the angels but generally get along with them, but also, most importantly, view them as divine. Even though there are like, winged children and families, and they're clearly just people with wings, no one treats them that way, and while this leads to some of the angels being really arrogant (Ochlys's parents thinking humans are lesser beings), it also puts all the angels in a really weird spot.

Like, Ochlys loves Sharon bc Sharon treats her like a person, and doesn't revere her with reverence to the point of isolation (which seems to be how most humans treat angels), and so we get the idea that generally, a lot of angels are isolated from all the other races because they are viewed as divine. And this also places some absolutely insane expectations on the angels themselves, like, if they're divine messengers of the heavens, then they're supposed to be perfect, they're supposed to embody and represent everything that is the heavenly divine, they're not allowed to be people.

But the thing is, Baltro knows damned well (as do all the ancient Zenoiran souls) that the angels aren't divine anything, they're a failed magical experiment that got propped up on an isolated pedestal, who've have been acting the part of divine messengers bc that's what's expected of them, that's all they've ever know, it's so ingrained in the culture after 800 years that no one even questions it. But the angels are people with flaws and emotions that can be manipulated, and that is exactly what Baltro and the other Zenoiran forces do. Baltro doesn't even need the mind-control magic, because the way the culture of Fevrith treats the angels makes them extremely easy to manipulate by toying with their emotions and how they view themselves and how humans view them.

Take Umerus for example. Umerus throws aside all her values in a desperate attempt to save her brother's life, because she loves him, he's the last family she has left, and she'd even turn her blade on her oldest friend and anyone else if it meant a chance at saving him. And when Alain and Scarlett are able to save her brother for her and free her from Zenoiran influence, she ends up so guilt-ridden over her actions because she went against everything that her culture and everyone in the world has told her she is--divine and perfect and holy--because she's failed at being "an angel", so she's wracked with immense guilt that she can't escape.

Had any other character (human, elf, or bestral) been in Umerus's position, their actions wouldn't have been questioned, others would have been like "well, of course you'd act that way in that situation, that makes sense" and all would be forgiven, and while Alain and Scarlett are able to forgive Umerus (bc they treat and see her as a person), Umerus can't forgive herself, because she doesn't seem to see herself as a person, only as an angel who failed at being an angel.

And like, it's like this for almost all the angels in the Albion section. Fodoquia is ready to die fighting Zenoira right up till his own people make a sacrifice of his son, and then Zenoira uses his grief and rage to control him until Alain shows up (Fodoquia's admittedly faster to forgive himself, but he never truly bent to Zenoira's will and it seems he felt justified in a lot of his resentment towards the people who killed his son, even if he also feels guilt in his lost faith in them).

Sanatio is presented with a dead pontifex and the promise that all of Albion and the theocracy that upholds it will fall into utter chaos if he ever lets people know that the pontifex is dead. Baltro uses Sanatio's faith like puppet strings to make Sanatio mislead all of the orthodoxy, and Sanatio hates himself for it afterwards because he's not only an angel, but one of the highest ranking angels in the orthodoxy, he's supposed to be divine, to be above being manipulated and toyed with, and he failed that. And all the reasons why he failed are totally understandable and would have been forgiven so quickly had he been literally anything except an angel (and again, Alain and Scarlett don't hold any of Baltro's manipulation against Sanatio), but Sanatio can't forgive himself, he can't see his actions as anything outside of horrific and sinful bc that's all the culture around the angels has taught him.

And on the flipside we get Raenys, who is so devoted to trying to be the paragon of an angel, to protect others and uphold what is right, that her actions are nearly self-destructive, because she would die rather than fail.

Ochlys is the only angel in the entire game who seems even remotely well-adjusted, and that seems to be because she cut ties with her parents and their ideals, and also decided she was going to do whatever she pleased in her job rather than listen to her boss. And she met and spent an immense amount of time with Sharon, who treated her like a person from the start and gave Ochlys a chance to see herself as a person, rather than just as a divine angel.

And yet! Alain can't marry any of them. He can marry elves and bestrals, and of course other humans, but not the angels. The culture around the angels is such that even though his rite dialogue with Raenys ends with them kissing, he can't marry her, bc she is an angel, she is the divine, and I honestly don't know if a marriage between an angel and someone of literally any other race would be allowed, because it'd probably be viewed as sacrilege of some sort, because people aren't supposed to fall in love with something divine, they're supposed to revere it, but never bring it down to their level, because the angels--to what seems to be the cultural norms of all Fevrith--aren't people in their own right.

And I dunno, I got off topic, I was just gonna make a joke post about the fact that Alain could take a fox-woman as his queen, but not a human woman with some wings. But the fact is I've had a lot of thoughts about Albion and the angels, and how subtly the writing shows the culture around them, and like. It's so interesting, but also tragic, and hrm, the writing in the game, man. The writing gets me.