#so it's part nostalgia talking

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

real talk having the 2nd worst new years eve yet 🤢🤢🤢 (throat infection, twisted neck, banged-about-foot, ego AND the rest o' me all bruised like misjuggled peaches 🍑🍑🍑)

im bent outa shape and suspectin the universe owes me 8 buck if anyone wannsa chip in

[ganondoodle]

1 year since i got scammed by nintedno leaving me forever yearning for a game we will never get and an extreme worry for the future

[beedreamscape]

This has to be the last thing I say on C3 finale because otherwise, I will not stop, it simply baffles me in its mediocrity. And obviously, this will be negative, if you loved it, good for you, this is my takeaway as someone who loved this campaign and was severely let down.

This finale changes everything that came before and not for good, better yet, it emphasizes all the faults in the structure of what c3 tried to be, it made most of the campaign feel like a true exercise in futility — How far can we go in a campaign that is meandering and unsatisfying? How long can we have the same discussion over and over and over again despite everyone knowing how this will end? How long can we drag out characters that don't change without anyone noticing? (spoiler everyone noticed)

Can't say I was emotionally invested in the finale because I tapped out back in the 70s, came back for Aeor/Downfall shenanigans, and left again. But in experiencing the finale something became clear to me:

THIS STORY NEEDED TO BE SHORTER.

WITH ANOTHER PARTY AT THE HELM.

If the objective from the very conception of C3 was to wipe out the gods, that had to be clear from the very start. And it wasn't clear, at all — not in the characters, not in the starting city, not in theme. This was a completely different campaign at the start! That clarity was what made Calamity so great, it was short and precise, and every pc SERVICED THE THEME, filled with hubris and contempt, not to mention the setting.

Even Ludinus went in circles for convenience of the campaign length and became a weaker opponent for it, more of a nuisance than a villain. The threat he posed at episode 50 was much stronger than now at 120 something. The battle against Otohan was more nail-biting and emotionally engaging than fighting Ludinus and Predathos, a god eater!!!!

This campaign would've benefited from three to four acts instead of one overarching objective like the past campaigns because urgency is the name of the game and we can't carry urgency for 70 episodes straight (and they didn't).

The constant inclusion of the other parties made it clear how easy it was to detach BH from the story, how easy and fun it was for them to tell it through another party's eyes (one of the main reasons why I walked away back when I did, but that's more of a personal preference).

Which is not to say Bells Hell's didn't deserve a long story! They could very well have existed in a more intimate campaign which these characters were clearly built for! Their premises begged for closer looks in slow moments, something tragicomical, exploration of the inner world while developing MARQUET and its microcosm of injustice and politics which was left in the dust mid-campaign (pun intended).

And I'm not suggesting this just for our enjoyment, I know it's them playing and their enjoyment comes first blah blah, though this is a multi-million company therefore their jobs but this would contribute to their enjoyment! You could see several moments in the campaign how tapped out they felt and acted. I doubt it was "fun" discussing the gods situation ad naseaum, trudging through landscapes they barely cared about, with empty arcs.

I could nitpick every fault I see in the finale but it would be pointless, these issues have been dragged from ages ago and poor character matching, and now this is a culmination of everything and it barely fazes me anymore.

(And yeah it's their game and it's "free", but that doesn't undermine its weight as a story, stories were made be analyzed, and it was a poorly structured one no matter how much I still like and admire them as people.)

WHICH is not to say I had no fun at all ever, I did! several times! and that's what makes me upset, it could've been great instead is just meh.

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)

[uncanny-tranny]

It's not uncommon at all to miss your abuse, to miss disordered behaviours, or miss when you were at your worst.

It's understandable why you might feel like you have no clue what to do - recovery is an uncertainty. It is unfamiliar, it is scary. It's okay to long for the stability of those dark parts of your story. You aren't a bad person, you aren't ungrateful, nor are those feelings proof that you cannot recover.

You still deserve to recover, however that looks for you. You don't need to run from yourself, you are not a net negative.

[samantha-and-nellie]

jfc i need people to remember that american girl characters are nine year olds

[xmaomao]

nothing more than a personal opinion but english dub for anime series? make me cringe so damn much.

[licorishh]

Replayed Modern Warfare 3 2011 on Veteran tonight and goooooooood night. Blood Brothers never gets any easier to watch no matter how many times you've done it and the ending really never misses huh

I apologize for the amount of yapping in the tags I reread it all on mobile and started giggling because it went on for so long but eh. Blessed are those who won't shut the freak up and all that

[lucc4-luck]

Why doesn't childhood come back? Grow-up life is bad and boring

I don't want to grow up anymore

I want everything to go back to how it was before, I don't like the new

Change is boring, growing up is boring

I hate changes

[emodennis]

just rewatched the first pirates of the caribbean and oh my goddd i love these movies so much

[multifandom-rambler]

Man I love the 2000s style of animation so much more than the current trend of supper rounded stuff

give me the sharp edges of clone high, invader zim or even TD island over rounder thin lines any day

[tentacletournament]

3 part rain world infodump anon here. what can i say, the brainrot consumes....... i think you mentioned not being much of a gamer but theres lots of good playthroughs on youtube if youre interested! i would recommend one without commentary (especially near the ending) but anything works tbh. IM JUST im so not normal about the setting. youre a little scugclat youre just a little guy slonking around in these ruins that you have no idea the significance of. through bits and pieces you scavenge around the world for you can piece together this absolute tragedy that's on a scale you can barely comprehend from your viewpoint as an Animals, even some shit thats confusing from your viewpoint as a Humans and a Gamers. and the way the world progresses through the chronological campaigns... watching even the gods above the clouds slowly return to the surface, because even a god cant outrun time. and if you go in blind you can more or less COMPLETELY MISS ALL OF THIS. BECAUSE YOURE JUSF A LITTLE GUY. SLUGCAT. SCUG. whats a computer bitch im just trying to eat this fruit so i can go nap hard as hell! wtf!!

I cant actually watch playthroughs without commentary bc i need to be doing something or listening to someone while doing something at all costs or i will evaporate so ill try to find youtube playthroughs

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[yumenoyousei]

I wrote in a comment that “i loathe RHATO but i like the idea of Kory, Roy & Jason teaming up” and it just summarize most of my DC experience

I hate or don’t like a story (or sometimes its just one element in a story) but i adore the idea, or see the potential it could’ve been so i search for artists/writers that think alike, stumble on new ideas, create my own little universe to the point where i genuinely forget what’s considered canon and what is not.

As a fandom, DC is the most “canon is a suggestion” that i have ever been in and im loving it.

[coffecub]

sometimes I think I'm over my football thing that I had between roughly 2014-2019, but then out of nowhere during the start of the season/during the winter months I get a random burst of interest back?

[sparxemberflame]

Man. I wish it was easier to be understood.