#varric too rip bud

[rookamell]

Ignore me I need to yell for a second about the almost kiss because I just watched it again and I might have gone a little crazy with the screenshots

Ok so we have Lucanis sauntering over acting suave. Because he is.

But then look how genuinely Happy he is to be there too! Look at how he's looking at Rook! Look at how much he likes them!!

^she has never been more in love btw. He makes her stupid. The wall lean has put her into a catatonic state.

Then obviously there's the look at Rook's lips. I do find it interesting that this happens After Rook touches him so it's not the touch that makes him hesitate. The touch only spurs him on.

Bonus I caught the face scrunch

And then look how close they get!!! I didn't even notice they got this close!!

Devastating. His eyes are still closed when he pulls away. He wanted to kiss them so fucking bad. I have very many thoughts on what might have happened here but I'm saving them for the fic. This screenshot made me take psychic damage.

Like look how much effort it takes him to pull away. He Knows he's hurting Rook. But also this has to happen, because he's not ready. I do always wonder if he's like... taking it upon himself to try and protect Rook from themselves a little bit too? 'At least I know I'm doing it' -> Rook might like me but they don't know exactly what they're signing up for so I have to pull back for both our sakes rn. Also I don't think Spite had anything to do with this. All the other times Spite said/did something it was a lot more jarring. I could be wrong tho that's just my interpretation. It's even worse when you compare how happy he just was! And he's not letting himself have that happiness!! Lucanis!!!

Homocide

Double homocide

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [678]

“I don’t think the boss needs more pokemon,” Sera says, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “God, I hate traveling. Why can’t I just be posted up in Ferelden permanently? I wouldn’t even mind the trips to Orlais, it isn’t that big a time leap.”

“It’s not a big time jump to the Free Marches, either,” Bull points out, craning his neck a little to peer around the stack of shelves that separates the front area of Professor Magnolia’s lab with the back end where Ellana and Leliana disappeared a few minutes ago to discuss the basics with the professor. Bull’s curious to see about this whole dynamax thing. He glances down at the Snubull snoring by his boot. Pookie would be kick ass if they were huge. Pookie’s already got the attitude of a Tyranitar. Might as well get them the size of one, too.

“I’m surprised she was wiling to leave her team behind,” Varric says, examining the shelves of books. “Some of these aren’t scientific journals. I think this one is an Orlesian dictionary. Isn’t that cheating? If you’re a big shot professor and you’ve got your stacks of books to make you look smart and then you look closer and some of them are just dictionaries? Hey, Sera, you’re young. You think this one is a legit book or is it just a rip off pulp?”

“Lemme see,” Sera gets up to join Varric in browsing the shelves.

“She still brought Giggles, so that’s something.” Bull glances up and sees the aforementioned Haunter duck back into a shadow, momentarily peeking out to stick its tongue out at Bull before popping out of sight. “Besides, the others had jobs to do. Hear that, Giggles? You’re unemployed.”

Giggles’ hand barely comes into visibility to give him the finger. Bull laughs. He’s pretty sure that the Haunter doesn’t know what it means exactly, it just knows that it’s bad.

“Isn’t your Snubull lonely without its friend?” Varric asks.

“Pookie’ll live,” Bull says. Pookie was very upset.

“You left your team behind, too, right?”

“Yup. Giant pokemon? Hell yeah, I’ve got to make room.”

“And Pookie’s going to be fighting them all for you?”

“Are you underestimating the power of my love for my precious little Pookie? We’ll get through it. I mean. Boss threw a Magikarp at a pokemon god and it turned out fine.”

“You can’t just use her as a standard for anything, she’s an outlier who should never be counted,” Sera complains. “I mean, if you have her stand still in a wild area long enough pokemon will just come up and start begging her to catch them. Pretty sure that some wild pokemon that she hasn’t caught just follow her around. It’s the only explanation for all those Murkrow.”

“That or she’s feeding them.”

“It’s like…a billion Murkrow. Across every nation. She can’t be feeding every single one of those mean fuckers.”

“Bull!” Ellana calls. “Come look at the starters!”

Bull leaves the two rogues to their inspection of the stacks and walks into the back area.

There’s three pokeballs on a wooden desk. Ellana and Giggles are holding hands and looking at the pokeballs like they hold Ellana’s flesh and blood newborn child about to be announced to the world. He leans against a wall and waits for Leliana and the professor to finish talking.

“Alright,” the professor says, tapping her cane on the ground, “The three starters for our region are Grookie, Scorbunny, and Sobble. Grass, fire, and water types respectively. I don’t think I need to neg about this since you’re who you are, so I’ll just let you meet them.”

The balls open and three pokemon come into form. Grookie, the grass type, is a little green monkey like creature with a little stick. It smiles up at them. Ellana smiles back, instantly in love, but she’s always in love with every pokemon she sees.

“Only one,” Leliana reminds her. Ellana huffs as she kneels down and holds her hand out for the Grookie to inspect. It taps her hand with its stick and laughs.

The second pokemon comes into form. It’s some kind of rabbit.

It zips around the room, creating a faint burning smell, before coming to a tumbling stop back where it started, bouncing up and down.

Ellana’s eyes lock onto it and she grins. “Hey buddy!”

The Scorbunny bounces high up into the air, doing a little flip and chirping at Ellana as it tumbles up to her. It gives her a sly look before jumping onto her hand and using her hand to bounce up and give her a quick, light, headbutt that startles Ellana onto falling back out of her crouch and laughing.

That’s the one.

Ellana’s already holding the Scorbunny up and tossing it into the air as it laughs and lets out puffs of smoke.

Bull almost doesn’t notice the third one. Sobble is huddled up in the shadow of the desk, holding its little hands and looking at the rest of them with big wet eyes.

Ellana’s Haunter chooses that moment to come out of the shadows the Sobble was hiding in and give the Sobble a quick, friendly, poke in the back of the head. The Sobble startles, jumping straight up and smacking its head on the edge of the desk, falling down into a heap with a sharp cry.

Ellana looks over as the Sobble starts to cry and Bull knows instantly.

This. This is the one.

Ellana gently puts the Scorbunny down and rushes over to the Sobble, taking it into her arms and shushing it as it whimpers and sniffles.

Bull can see the Scorbunny knows it too, because it sighs and gives a what can you do? shrug before wandering over to Leliana and chirping up at her, pointing at her hair and then its own red tipped ears. Red heads bonding.

Bull turns to the Grookie, who is happily sitting by itself, playing with the little stick its holding. Throwing it up and catching it, tapping odd rhythms on the wooden floor, using the stick like a cane to mimic the professor. Pookie wanders over to it and points at the stick. Grookie offers the stick to the Snubull and lightly taps it on the nose.

“Hey,” Bull says to it, slowly kneeling down next to the two pokemon. “Guess you’re with me, bud. Between you and me I think we’re gonna need some of that cheer to keep us steady.”

[cosmiciaria]

In defense of Dragon Age 2 (review - no spoilers - long post!)

It seems I'm only allowed to play games in disorder, because I played this one after Inquisition, and guess what I'm almost at the end of now (yes, you guessed it, Origins). But it's not a problem for me, because after I *checks notes* ejem, played, uhm, like nine playthroughs of Inquisition, cof, cof, I've learned all the tiny details and branches and possible endings of each installment. So this game's story wasn't a surprise in many aspects – although there were still things I didn't know or I didn't expect.

So DA2 is the black sheep of the family, and somehow I can see why. It differs greatly from the origin prologue you get to play in the first one, and the silent protagonist is gone, replaced by an already created and established character, Hawke. Hawke can be male or female, mage, rogue or warrior – but they are only human. We are ripped off of the option of choosing between races.

And that's not the only thing the game takes away from us – we are used to travel around Ferelden, searching for allies, to fight the Archdemon, because the End is Nigh and we Must Save the World united with friends and so on – here, it's just a city. We only get to know Kirkwall, a Free Marches city that used to be owned by the Imperium and now rejoices in its so-called freedom. Kirkwall consists in some neighborhoods and some notorious buildings, but that's it. It's just the city. And I daresay, it's another protagonist of the game.

Yes, you get to go outside a few times – you even go through the ( I don't know WHY) still mandatory Deep Roads quest and whatnot – but the main storyline will still happen inside the city walls.

And that's… not so bad. But I'll get there in a moment.

So you play as Hawke, the older sibling of the Hawke family. You're escaping from Lothering, which you may remember from Origins – yes, it's the same town you visit right after Ostagar. Lothering has been overrun by darkspawn and so you take your mother and your two younger twin siblings with you: Carver, a warrior, and Bethany, an apostate mage.

In your way to the port, you come across Aveline, a well seasoned captain, and her husband Wesley, a templar. Wesley isn't in a very good condition but you still allowed them both to join your escape.

It isn't so long before the darkspawn reach you, and you make your last stand here.

Now, in this part of the prologue, what matters the most is the class you chose for Hawke. If Hawke is a mage, Bethany, the other mage, will perish at the hands of the ogre that is leading this barricade of darkspawn. If Hawke is a warrior/rogue, it will be Carver the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice so his family would survive. As I have stated in my Inquisition review, I love mages, so of course I created a mage Hawke, and so I watched Bethany, so young and rebellious, die in front of my eyes (Wesley, Avelin's husband, dies as well but we don't care much for him sorry not sorry).

Choosing a class isn't a minor or just a gameplay thing here, because it leads to two very different stories. Carver is resentful with you, he blames you for the death of his twin, and he can't get over the idea that you (and him, as well) are being hunted by templars. He can even become a templar if you choose the required options – so ironic, you a mage and your own brother a templar! His inferiority complex makes it really hard to get on well with him. Bethany, on the other hand, seems to care more for her older sibling, and bears a great admiration for their father, who was a mage and the one who taught her everything. She's guilty over the fact her family is doing everything they can to protect her from the templars and the Circle, and her attitude towards Hawke always follow that line. Her destiny has more options than Carver, though, so it makes me think that maybe Bethany was the "canon" sibling who survived – Still, I always play as a mage so I'm used to Carver by now and it feels kind of contradictory to see Bethany alive and well.

Amidst the chaos, a dragon appears, stretching its wings – it destroys the rest of the darkspawn, and soon we see that it's not just a beast. It transfigures into a human, quite known for us DA's fans: Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, Morrigan's mother. She's saved us, but of course she wants a little favor in return, nothing too problematic. For those who are wondering "but HEY I killed Flemeth in Origins", well this encounter happens before you do that. And if you know anything about Flemeth is that she always comes back.

Finally, you reach destination, the almighty Kirkwall, with its columns that seems to go on forever into the sky. Here, you'll start over. Here, you'll pave your way to your future. And the plot begins!

The story is divided into three well marked acts: the first Act you'll be saving money to go on an expedition to the Deep Roads to gain enough coin and reclaim the Hawke estate in Kirkwall; the second Act has you going around playing the diplomatic link between the Viscount and the Qunari who have made the city their headquarters; and the third Act, well, everything blows up. Literally, I might add.

Between the prologue and Act 1, one years passes. Between Act 1 and 2, three more years go by; and finally, Act 3 happens three years later as well. The whole story takes up like 8 years or more inside the same city. This… wasn't a good decision on the developers, in my opinion, but I'll say it after I talk a little about the characters.

First we have Hawke, our Champion. Their personality varies between diplomatic – sarcastic – upfront and direct. And this time is easier to know because gone are the days with the many responses available and now we have the wheel which shows you an icon displaying the "tone" of your reply. If there's something common across all the Hawkes you can create, is that they care for their family, they want to recover what's theirs, and there's no stopping them. They are loved by those around them and seen as a leader. Loyalty is a powerful word here, which will play a big part in the final act, because only those who are truly loyal to you will remain by your side. And it's endearing, really, to see the support of those characters that accompanied you the whole game. Oh, and they have voices. I say this because in Origins we have a silent protagonist (which took me aback considering I played Inquisition and 2 prior), and they are so well portrayed it makes them more human and approachable.

Now that we are on that topic, voice acting here is just FLAWLESS. I can't get over Gideon's voice for that stupid elf damn it.

Alright so, just like in the other games, you can recruit companions. I already spoke a little about Carver and Bethany, who are playable… for a time, at least. 

This is the first time we come across Varric, our favorite storyteller. Varric isn't only just your best bud for life here, but he's also the one telling Hawke's story: he'd been abducted by Cassandra Pentaghast (yes, the one from Inquisition) who wants to interrogate him about the Champion. Varric is like your north in the game, he's always there for you, he's always supporting you, he doesn't take sides, he's funny, he's welcoming and he cares so much that I want to hug him. Goodest best friend forever.

Aside from him, you'll be crossing paths with Aveline again, now a soldier in the guard. Aveline is the correct type of person: she takes pride in her job, she wants things to get done well, following the rules. She respects honor, dignity and justice, and she doesn't approve of taking advantage of "illegal" situations and underground activities. If she's on your good side, you'll get a great supporter and a great friend, who will got your back, always.

Fenris is an elf who comes from the Tevinter Imperium – if we know anything of Tevinter apart from its blood mages, it's that they are slavers. Fenris used to be a slave who managed, somehow, to escape from his master. He bears a burning hatred towards the Vints, mages and every slaver out there. He always remarks he's a free man and he will disapprove of your support for the mages or any kind of sympathy towards slavery. So much so, that I started my relationship with him in -10 because I was a mage.

Merril is a dalish elf whom you'll be recruiting after finishing Flemeth's little favor. Merril is a blood mage, and she doesn't see the demons as enemies, but rather friends. She intends to leave her clan and go live in the city, because she's sure she can help her kin from outside instead of remaining cloistered and secluded inside. This will grant her the dislike of all her clan's members, but that doesn't stop her. She's naïve, she doesn't seem to understand most of human customs, and she's quite direct because she can't see through sarcasm or white lies. She's the purest of the team, although her abilities may tell you otherwise.

Isabela isn't new for us, if you come from Origins. Here she'll be joining us again after losing her ship. Her intentions remain a mystery most of the game, but let's just say she's quite involved with the plot of the second act. She's a forced to be reckoned with: she doesn't mess around when things need to be done and she gets them done in her own way. I'm still a bit spiteful about her because she abandoned my team after the second act, although I thought I was doing everything right!

Sebastian is only available through the Exiled Prince DLC – he's a chantry brother whose family was brutally murdered and his estate back in Starkhaven lies headless. He's conflicted about whether to remain in the chantry or go back to reclaim his land. He's righteous, he doesn't accept any rule breaking and, to be honest, he's pretty dull – specially if you're trying to romance him only because of those shiny blue eyes. The fact that he only joins you after Act 1 supports this allegation, in the way that he's not available through the first part for party banter, which always adds a lot of more depth to the characters you're playing with.

And at last… we have Anders. For those of you who played Origins' expansion, Awakening, Anders isn't a new character either. This time, though, it's not just Anders: he's possessed by a spirit of Justice, the same Justice we meet in Awakening. Anders remains in control most of the time, but when he loses it or when he enters the Fade, it's Justice the one who takes over. Anders serves as a healer in Kirkwall, helping refugees for free. He wants to move on from his past as a Grey Warden and he fights for the rights of the mages who are being hunted by the templars. Oh, man, of course I would fall for the subversive mage! Boy was I deceived… He plays a large role in the final battle, which, depending on your choices and your principles, will change your view of him forever. Let's just say that he's a pretty hated character in the franchise.

In this game you'll have choices as well, and your comments and actions will bear points of friendship or rivalry with your companions. This doesn't mean that if you get 100 rivalry points with one of them they'll abandon you, no, it doesn't work like in Origins or in Inquisition. Here you have to see the bar in both directions: the closer it is to one of the extremes, the better. The danger zone is the central one: if you have little points of friendship or of rivalry, the companion is likely to abandon you. This is what happened to me with Isabela: I had a good chunk of friendship points with her, but it seems I needed to max them out, which I didn't, and thus she flew away, goodbye. You can even romance characters with high rivalry points, and their romance plays a little different because of it. As it says, it's "rivalry" and not "deep hatred with death wishes", so maybe it spices some things up in your relationship.

Each companion will have their own questline that stretches across all three acts, and if you want to have all your team available by the end of the game, I recommend you do them. Although… well, you won't have the whole team, but I won't spoil it for you.

So I mentioned before I would talk about why the eight year story decision wasn't a good take for me after speaking a little about the characters – well, it's simple. In those three year gaps, the story acts as if nothing happens. Yes, sometimes the characters say "hey, I haven't seen you in a while" or "that thing happened three years ago" or whatever, but it doesn't work well. For instance, if you romance Fenris, you'll sleep with him in the second act, and then he goes away, seemingly not wanting to continue with the relationship. Three year pass, and then you resume your romancing with him, and he's like "yes, idk why I left that night I so regret it lol" DUDE, you're like just two meters away from Hawke's house, are you truly telling me you didn't talk to them after what happened in these three years? 

The story plays as if there are no gaps in time. In fact, if you take away Varric's narration, which states that x amount of time happens between act and act, you won't even notice it! And that's the thing: I don't know why they chose to do this. I mean, I guess I understand the point, they wanted Hawke to make their own name, to be known and loved by the citizens as years went by, they wanted them to start in rags and rise to fortune, I get it. But something similar was accomplished with the Inquisitor in the third game: time passes, I believe almost a year, and you feel the love and respect you've earned from your companions. It didn't take my Inquisitor eight years for that. It didn't even take her half a month to get Cullen in love with her ok sorry. What I mean is, the eight years thing isn't well developed, and characters act as if no such time had passed, and the story is planned as well like that. It's almost as though they wanted to stray as far as possible from Origins in terms of design and choices, which is a great idea, but some things just don't add up.

For example, in Inquistion's expansion, Trespasser, two years have passed. And here you see, you feel that your characters have been away for long. They've all been following their own paths and when they finally reunite they catch up and speak about their futures and what they want for themselves. It truly feels like two years have passed. There's a huge impasse between the ending and the expansion, which marks a milestone, and you can understand why all these characters haven't seen each other for a while. Whereas between Act 1 and 2… it's like… yeah we went to the Deep Roads and yeah… hmm… Varric really three years and you still didn't hear of your brother or… wait is this letter by Carver just sent? I mean he's been away too long now but he could always send me letters why wait three years…. and so on. It breaks the continuity. In fact, it doesn't only do that, but it also makes your characters stupid. Are you telling me Anders has been in love with me for three years and he still hadn't done anything?? What are you, fifteen?

But apart from that, I believe this game is really good. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I enjoyed the mechanic regarding your siblings: their appearance changes depending of what preset for the face and skintone you choose for Hawke. I like the idea that only one of the twins is available throughout the game. I like that the gameplay has been improved from Origins, I love that as a mage you feel so destructive with all those spells, I love that it's fast paced and more colorful. I got also really involved with some of the companions, specially Anders, Fenris and Aveline. I love that, even though they may disagree with you on some topics, they still remain by your side if you were a good friend, because that's what friendship's about. Friendship/rivalry here feels like a human thing, something quite relatable, instead of just shoving gifts onto your companion so they'd like you better. I like that somehow all of your companions are entangled with what happens in the city, and this leads me to my final point about why DA2 is still a good game.

Kirkwall. Our vedette. Our goddess. Kirkwall is the scenario for 90% of the events of the game. We're not saving the world here. We just want the peace for the city. Who should rule? Whose forces should Hawke support? Is Hawke good enough to be Viscount? Are the templars doing a good job? Or is Knight-Captain Meredith going too far?

Political intrigue. And just one city. Not all of Ferelden. Just one bad person trying to control the strings in this small portion of land, not an army of zombies or a dragon ready to consume the world. I love that the plot is just restrained to this small thing, because it lets you go deeper into everyone's stories, and it doesn't mean that it gets less epic, on the contrary. I enjoyed the final boss here way more than I did with Corpypheus in Inquisition. Here Meredith has an actual goal and she's acting upon what she thinks it's right, and at some point and to some extent, she's right! But her methods are questionable, in the least. She's not just a bad guy for the sake of being a bad guy, like it happens with Corypheus. She's bad, but she has her reasons.

You don't get to know a lot of people, because you just know those who live in Kirkwall. The familiarity, the warmth of its streets, it's like you've been living there as well, sharing with these characters and learning about their pasts. Instead of allowing you to see a huge picture with hundreds of characters involved, you just focus on those you care about, explore them more in depth. Sometimes covering everything doesn't lead you anywhere, so it might be better with just a handful of well written plot points and characters.

I'm not saying that Origins is the worst because of this, because it seems like I'm hating on it. In fact, I can't still speak much of it because I haven't finished my route yet (although I know how it ends). I'm just saying that Origins is good, that Inquisition is good, and that DA2 is also good. It's different, but still a good game. Sometimes you're tired of playing as the chosen one hero who must save the world, and maybe saving one city is enough for your heroic career.

I loved the game. I loved that it pushed my beliefs of helping the mages to the limit, to the point of questioning myself. I loved that it played tricks on me like that with the romance option. I loved the sarcastic Hawke, such a well written script. Also, Cullen is here so of course I'd love it.

Just… don't hate it that much. And if you still haven't played it, give it a shot. You might be surprised.