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mazuru7 · 26 days ago

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Just Finished Midnight Mass and I have some (a lot) of feelings...

Finished watching Midnight Mass in two days and three days later it's still on my mind (along with fanfics in the works...)

Firstly, I like the setting of Crockett Island; it has this calming beauty about it with a clear sense of isolation. The houses on the island are small, fitting because they're on an island but the chippings and the bits of dilapidation on the house's exterior is a nice touch. I don't know if the chippings are an effect due to the salty beach air or whatever, but the dilapidation does show the poverty of the Islanders.

Warning I am going to ramble about characters while also adding headcanons for future fanfics...

As an atheist myself, I did like how they went about Riley's character, granted, Mike Flanagan is atheist too. I'm just glad he wasn't a God's Not Dead or a PureFlix stereotype about atheists. I loved his relationship with Erin and maybe because I've been watching a lot of decentering men content and just being emotionally unavailable and unimpressed with getting into a relationship but I liked how he wasn't jealous or had audacity about Erin being pregnant with her ex's baby. He just accepted it and still loved her. (Ugh, in an AU, he would be stepdad, the dad who stepped up). But even though he was an atheist, he respectful of the community's religion.

Me and a lot of other atheists while we don't believe in God, we can see why others do. It brings them peace and even joy and it let's them be apart of something. Hell, sometimes I'm jealous of those who has love and faith in their God. And just like Riley, I research other religions, I even watch Christian TikTok of TikTokers who don't fit into what "Christians" (you know the type) believe are good people. I watch a femme pastor who uses they/she pronouns, a Christian Witch, and Jegaysus. They have the historical and cultural and the linguistics understanding of the Bible, and I appreciate that as someone who wasn't taught that.

But anyway about Riley, what I love the most is his end. Tragic and beautiful. He didn't want to hurt anyone after turning, more than likely thinking he doesn't want to kill someone again like he did to Tara-Beth; he spent his last moments with the woman he always loved, but just like how the Islanders found peace and forgiveness with each other and by each other and God, like how John/Paul found peace and forgiveness with and by Millie while holding Sarah, Hassan and Ali found peace with Allah, Riley found peace and forgiveness within himself. And THAT is just as important as someone finding peace and forgiveness through religion.

And speaking of Erin, let's talk about her. I was sad that she lost her baby, she was so happy to become a mother (she would've been a better mother than her own). Her relationship with Riley is so sweet. I liked that she was quote unquote what "Christianity" (society too) would see as a "fallen woman." She left her Catholic community, she partied and was wild, she got a divorce, was going to be a single mother, but she was still and kind and compassionate person. Which side note, that whole "born from the dust, return to dust" thing can be applied to, I think, to her and Riley, they were from the Island, left, and returned.

Another side note, this, to me, think of the parallels to her and Millie, which in turn causes parallels to John/Paul and Riley. From what Millie talked about from what she was doing in her youth in the Uppards, "Boys and booze," and seeing how old she was and how the societal expectations of girls were (and honestly, still is), Millie too, had a bit of an adventurous side (well, adventurous as she could since she never left the island and was surrounded by her catholic isolated community) and she was called "the mother of whores" by Bev (who we'll get to). She had an affair with a priest.

So, Erin and Millie, being seen as "fallen women," but still being so kind and compassionate, and loving and having small support systems (Erin from Riley and his family, Millie from her daughter) and being brave and strong (Erin left her abusive ex, she literally uses herself to distract the vampire long enough to slice its wings and using the hurt "the clipped wings" trauma her mom did to her to save others, Millie in front of the whole congregation proclaims that her and Sarah will *never* go back into St. Patrick's when John/Paul was up there talking all sorts of wild shit and SHOOTS him, the man she loved, IN THE HEAD, to stop him when he goes all Jim Jones on his congregation. (I love John/Paul, but honey...no).

Both women were "fallen women" who were loved deeply by the men who loved them even when they were apart; who, at least at a certain time, were seen as, what society (Christian and the like) thinks are good men - John/Paul a priest, Riley the "Prodigal Son" (until they fucked up. John/Paul literally brought a vampire to the island and lead to its destruction and Riley killed a girl and was an alcoholic. Both were cast to side - Riley in beginning of the show by many and John/Paul by the end of it by many too. But at the end that didn't matter, because they had the women they loved with them at their ends).

Unlike Bev who uses and manipulates people and does terrible shit to get attention and power and was seen by those who she manipulated as a "good woman," she was abandoned at the end and died alone and a coward, Erin (and Millie), the "fallen women" had love and compassion, they were genuinely loved by those that truly mattered to them and they were saviors, Erin clipping the vampire's wings and Millie forgiveness to John/Paul.

Erin's speech at the end didn't make me cry, but made me feel deeply. You go, Erin and even though I'm iffy on my belief in an afterlife, I hope she's with her baby and Riley.

Now we'll talk about Bev Keane...*sigh.*

Bev, Bev, Bev; I love to hate her, I love the actress that just makes her hateable. She's like the actress who played Umbridge. Such good acting that you just hate them because they're real people who we've met. Granted, I've never really met anyone like Bev, but I've been around judgemental Christians, few in my family and a lot in the church my grandparents went to (non-denomination) just saying some shit about the queer people and Harry Potter (which granted that book should be judge, not because of concept of magic as a whole but it was written by a bad person).

But anyway, Bev got on my nerves the first time she just lets herself into the rectory (someone take away her keys and get her away from poison), because I raised to respect people's houses and it would just irritate me if someone just walked into my personal space especially without warning. Like girl, get out of John/Paul's ass and go home 🙄. Pike the dog was right to bark at you.

Bev's whole thing was about obtaining power and she could do that since the place they were on was an island. If she pulled this shit on the mainland, then yeah, she would have like-minded people listening to her, but she would have a lot of people argue with her and a lot of those people would have facts. But barely anyone on the island opposes her until the end. Sheriff Hassan, rightly, was concerned for the Bible being passed around the school, Bev with no knowledge of Islam or anything thought she knew better but when he corrects her, she freezes, has an "Oh, shit" look in her eyes while the rest of the PTA look actually interested and nodding, learning in what Hassan is saying about his religion and how there are similarities between Islam and Christianity, how Muslims love Jesus and study the Bible too, but Bev shoots that down, taking power by bastardizing scripture, something she does and something familiar to the community.

She doesn't want her faith and inconsequentially herself, even though how she believes is terrible, to have a connection with another faith, another person, that she deems as beneath her. Which is impossible because Islam came after Jesus and Jesus is a prophet in their eyes too, and before Christianity, there was Judaism and Jesus and his disciples were Jewish. Now I want to know how Bev feels about Jewish people, probably not in a good light, and probably refuses to acknowledge that Jesus wasn't white.

This just goes with the theme of not asking questions, not seeking knowledge, just blindly following. Bev takes advantage of that, and lets be honest, what average person actually learns the historical, cultural, and linguistics of the Bible to actually understand the scripture and unravel that what the institution has taught them wasn't right?

...Not that many, right? And you would think as a teacher, Bev would like to learn but doesn't.

I've seen posts around here saying that Bev wants to be John/Paul's Mary Magdalene to his Jesus. I've looked up about Mary Magdalene (love her by the way) and I can see the comparison even in an ironic way when I'll talk about the pop culture persona of Mary Magdalene and what I think is Bev's internalized misogyny and her obsession with Erin and what I think was jealousy of Millie.

Mary Magdalene was a close confidante to Jesus to the point that we today speculate that they probably had a romantic relationship. I, personally, just think that had a spiritually close bond that didn't have or need romance. It was Mary who told the people (while the men where hiding behind close doors) that Christ has returned. Bev sees John/Paul "resurrect" and goes on about spreading the gospel, granted when she figured out who Paul actually was, she was about that whole "he has returned!" thing, but was full on into it when he came back to life. And Bev and Paul do have a relationship, it's fucked up, Bev uses him for his high position and wants to be close to that proximity of power, but Paul uses her too; the island didn't know that he was Monsignor Pruitt, he was a new face to them, therefore not having a relationship with them and even when he is performing miracles, it's Bev telling the people what to do and he lets her because that'll further his plans and he knows what kind of influence Bev has.

But there's also this weird, inkling sense of care underneath. You can make the argument that Bev was just using him and discarded him at the end, that Paul was using her for his goals, but the way she rushed to him when he fainted and held his face, how she immediately wanted to take care of him, how she made him homemade soup, and how she held him when he "resurrected." She looked genuinely upset, thinking that he died but her instinct was to hold him, caress his face, connect their foreheads, whispering to him while crying and being genuinely happy that he was alive. Mike Flanagan on his tumblr said that Bev had feelings for the younger Monsignor.

And after Riley's death while he is grieving, Paul softly touches and caresses Bev's cheek. There is care underneath that fuckery. And I speculate their relationship before Canon. Bev is the only one with keys to hid rectory. Why is that? Was it because when John was starting to get dementia, she was given the keys to help him? Seeing how old he was, in his 80's, he had to have known Bev FOR YEARS; I'm going to use the actress's age for simplicity sake, which is 45 and we know that she was raised on the island. Her mother was the teacher and Joe Collie knew her since grade school, so that means more than likely (likely, I headcanon) that John/Paul watched her grow up. So, she has always seen him as an authority figure, a powerful figure, but not a romantic figure, yet. Through the eyes of a child, adults are gross (and seeing the kind of person she is, she had to learn that from somewhere, so I'm guessing her mother and I can see her mother being like, "we're not going to talk about your body or sex) and by the time she was an adult, 21, he would be in his 60's, still not attractive to a young person.

But John/Paul comes back de-aged, around her age, attractive, with power, but he needs her connection and influence, yeah, she's going to be attracted to that. But then here comes Millie, John's love and mother of his child, you can see at the last episode, Bev put the pieces together, she looks more hurt than angry to me. But instead of cursing John/Paul, she insults Millie. You can say she did it to hurt him to insult his love, but societal and in circles of religion, it's easier to blame and insult the woman than a man, a man with power, even though she discards him when he wasn't useful, told her to stop, and didn't have her in his heart. She still called Millie "the mother of whores," which is wild because pop culture sees Mary Magdalene, the woman Bev is supposed to mirror, as a whore.

Mary Magdalene wasn't a whore, even if she was, that's okay. Jesus hung around them, but there's still that negative connotation about sex work. Pope Gregory XIII in the 6th century combined Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the anonymous woman from Luke 7:37, *"...And behold the woman in the city which was a sinner..."* to diminish women's role in Bible. We don't know who this woman is and from my quick research, in Jesus: A Life in Conflict, Crossley and Myles point out that the term "sinner" in the gospels does not have a sexual connotation but in fact refers to "exploitative rich people". They persuasively argue that the "sinner woman" was actually one of the core group of affluent women that were supporting the Jesus followers "out of their resources."

And Bev did that whole money laundering thing, so that with what you will...

So, here's Bev mirroring Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus's confidante and pop culture's hoe, she does help John/Paul and desires him but doesn't act on it because that's not what "good Christian women" do and she has an image to uphold, she looks down on the quote unquote "fallen women" Erin and Millie who are actual good Christian women. Kind and compassionate and was all about love. I think Bev was jealous, Erin lived life (even if she had an abusive mom and ex-husband) and Millie got with a hot priest who still loves her all the while Bev stayed on a boring island, seeped in poverty and the only power she obtained was through manipulation while not being powerful enough like a priest because the Catholic church doesn't really ordain women, I mean there are 200 ordained women priests in the States, but they weren't ordain in the traditional way and I don't think, maybe, more than likely that the institution sees them as real priests.

Oh, God, imagine Bev as a priest...

When Annie Flynn basically said that Bev couldn't stand the thought of God loving anyone else than her, I was thinking, "Oh, it's what Sara Raztresen said on TikTok..." Christians like Bev, I think now, are so and viciously and ferociously insecure in their own existence, their importance, and general standing in the world that they cling to some sort of outside force to validate their own existence. Projecting her own insecurity as faith...

It was really ironic that Bev met her end beside the two people she looked down on the most, Hassan and his son while digging in the sand screaming, alone without love, peace, and no forgiveness. I do love to hate her.

Minor stuff before we get into two hot men and cutie pie who I want to write fanfics of with headcanons, my personal feelings, and rambles...

All of the couples in this show are so cute and as a mainly Canon x Oc writer, I was shocked that I loved all of the couples. I can count on one hand of Canon couples who I don't see making Ocs for. Utena x Anthy (Revolutionary Girl Utena), Maomao x Jinshi (Apothecary Diaries), Darcy x Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice), Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka x Reiko Kanazuki (OHSHC)...

Uh...

I'll think about it...

Anyway, love the couples. Ed dancing with his wife, them finding each other at the end 😭. Annie calling out Bev was so good and her leading the singing when everyone made their peace, like what Paul said, in times of darkness, we sing. Although I do side-eye her a bit when she said she was glad that Ali "left that behind," and I'm pretty sure she meant Islam.

But everyone making peace and forgiving each other was just beautiful.

Sarah is my wife. She was just so loved by her parents and I just love that fact that she's just accepting the weird shit going on. Like her mom is just de-aging and her bio, true dad is a priest. She's just going with the flow and I liked how smart she was and nobody made a big deal of her being gay. Maybe some did internally but it wouldn't be a good idea to piss off the only doctor on the island. But when she spat out the blood given to her by Paul, rejecting it, even shaking her head no, she knew what would happen and didn't want that. If she was going to die, she was going to do it as a human.

Leeza's speech to Joe Collie was powerful and I hope this was a good representation of disability for disabled people, I can't say anything about it, because I'm not disabled (although I'm 90-95% sure that I'm autistic) and I do like with her and her mom Dolly that we got black Catholic representation. She was brave and badass too at the end.

Joe Collie deserved better, loved his bluntness. I loved that Riley related and cared about him. I wanted that friendship to blossom, dammit! His and Hassan's relationship I enjoyed. Pike deserved better too, he was a good boy. And I, personally, think that it's ironic that he, a dreg in Crockett Island's community, an outsider, someone Jesus would've fought for, literally got sucked dry, ate, killed by Father Paul, someone who represents the corrupted institution.

And now here we are where I babble about two hot guys and a cutie pie who I'll write fanfics of. And these fanfics will deal with and have intersectionality, especially with black women.

I been a nasty girl, nasty, I been a nasty girl, nasty, I been a nasty girl, nasty, I been a nasty, nasty, nasty...

This fine ass mfcker🫦 the reason I watched this show.

This man is clearly still grieving over his wife, he still wears his wedding ring which I just learned muslim men are prohibited from wearing gold and is allowed for women for spiritual reasons. He said that before he met his wife, he wasn't religious and Ali said that he became Muslim (or something along those lines) because of his wife. So, I imagine her having such an influence on him that he took religion seriously. From what him and Ali were talking about when discussing about the miracles, he talked about how kept her faith, even when she was withering away from cancer. He probably admired the way she worshipped and kept her faith.

Despite their disagreements, Hassan and Ali have something they can agree on, whenever Hassan tells Ali to kiss his mother's picture, Ali does so without question. That tells me he misses her too, I mean he is a child that lost his mom, that is something painful to go through. To me, it felt like Hassan was more upset over the possibility of Ali leaving his faith because it would feel like slap to his wife's memory. (And honestly, just me, I got a forced conversion fear feeling, but that's just me because if you know the history of Christianity and forced conversions...ick).

Hassan just wanted to protect his son and keep him safe, keep him away from the Islamophobia he experienced but he ironically brought him to a place where it's isolating and the Islamophobia is still happening, just on a small island. He didn't want to rock the boat and cause problems to people who just ready to jump him and attack. But honestly, it didn't matter if he didn't fit the stereotype or did, he wasn't respected some people because of who he was. And as a black person, this reminds me of respectability politics which has its own issues but still...

At the end, he did what did before arriving at Crockett Island, protecting people and got to do what he missed, praying with his son.

Fanfic Idea, probably an AU where vampires don't exist or follows Canon, I don't know yet, but anyway, black revert muslim Aaliyah Ambroise has been husband hunting for awhile and job hunting after she quit being a history professor for personal reasons. She and her friends go to a Muslim singles event (I decided it was a skating event) where she meets Hassan who's just there to support a friend. They surprisingly hit it off and afterwards she gets a job as a teacher on Crockett Island where she meets Hassan again.

This will have an older woman, 39-40 years old and on the thicker side in terms of body, hijabi fashion, a revert, a black woman, topics of ageism, misogyny, racism, colorism, stereotypes, toxic family, women's health issues (Aaliyah has endometriosis), finding love after losing a partner and connecting with a future stepson.

Since we did Hassan, we'll do cutie pie, his son, Ali.

He just wanted to fit in, to belong and I've been that only black kid in a classroom of white kids and it was so awkward especially when we had to talk about slavery, so I can guess how it was being the only Muslim kid. I do wonder if he had friends on the mainland when his dad and him went to mosque on Fridays, and maybe that made him feel connected or awkward because these are friends you only see on Friday while thinking about possibly choosing to go the Christian God.

But anyway who else felt so offended when Bev called him 'Boy' at the last episode? I did, I lurched. That was when he realized that it didn't matter, he didn't matter to these people, they just wanted him to be a sheep, and maybe Bev felt this condescending superiority for taking away Hassan's son from him. I've seen "Christians," you know the type, how they behave when they convert someone, there's this air of arrogance...ick.

But I'm so happy that Ali was the one to burn the last safe space on the island, realizing and coming to terms with that these people will never accept him, no matter what. And he dragged his dad east where mecca is pointed at, the beach is calm, the sun is rising, and he's leading the prayer, something his dad and him did together. And at the end, he's holding on to his dad as he burns, accepting Allah back in his heart. I've seen Muslim paintings of them on fire, but golden fire and as he burns he looks like something holy. Have you ever seen what a halo looks like in Islamic art?

Yep, looks like fire.

But anyway, fanfic idea of Ali. New girl Yelena Spinoza, she insists of being called "Lena," moves to the island to care for her grandma and she doesn't even try to fit in. She's a afro-russian-cuban Jewish girl and Goth, but from the few instances where they do talk, Ali finds her quite charming.

This will be more of a teen romance, first love type story, puppy love, school drama, food, antisemitism, racism, misogyny, health concerns (Lena is celiac), reconciliation between family, learning to accept yourself, finding who your real friends are, and a grandmother who knitted a black blanket with the star of david for her Lenochka, because that's what Goths like, right?

And now we're getting to this man who started everything...

Mummy don't know daddy's getting hot, At the body shop, doing something unholy, He's sat back while she's dropping it, she be popping it...

God, he's such a slut.

So much has been said about this man already and I agree with a lot of them, so I'll keep this brief. Although I will say, that while I do love the Islanders, their refusal to see that old man John was sicker than he was, riddled with dementia, sending him away by himself to Jerusalem, reminds me of the "Let God handle it" blind faith I heard when I was a child and not get any professional help. Granted that costs money, then granted again, get John, Leeza, Joe, the Shabazz's...get all of the traumatized people some actual help.

But anyway, this man has caused so much shit and I love him. Everything he did was for love, he cared so much, and wanted the life he didn't have with Millie and Sarah. But that was his downfall, the desperation, he wanted to help the islanders and the intensity of his feelings caused Crockett Island to burn. Very Shakespearean.

This main was still grieving over his sister Alice, he became a whole priest to understand why did she die, especially in a horrible way. How could that be God's plan? He couldn't accept that things can just happen for no reason and that there doesn't need to be a reason behind everything. Life can just suck. He couldn't accept that because, to me, that'll mean Alice's death meant nothing, that she meant nothing, which further means that his death will mean nothing, he means nothing, and that just means death means nothing and life means nothing. How could that be God's plan? Why make people? Why let them suffer? There *has* to be a reason for him.

He might be a calm person, but he feels intensely. He can hold in his irritation, staring on and moving his fingers, but damn, when he explodes...he screams at Riley when trying to gaslight him, his first response when Sarah is shot is to throw himself on Struge and strangle him, that was instinctual, and he screams "WHERE ARE YOU?!" outside of the rec center after pacing like a fiend needing a fix, wondering where his "angel" was (ironically happens after an AA meeting with Riley and Vampirism has been used as a metaphor for addiction).

This man felt so much, his stubbornness, his refusal to see the "angel" is a monster (once again, the theme of not asking questions and blindly going along with it) and it wasn't until the end, he realized his huge mistake. But at the end of everything, he doesn't ask for God's forgiveness, he throws away his clerical collar, becoming the father he wanted to be, and ask for Millie's forgiveness because that's who mattered to him the most and she, their relationship, their daughter wasn't a sin. How could love be a sin?

Now, here's my fanfic idea, it's 1967, pre-canon, when John Pruitt becomes the new priest for Crockett Island and the welcoming committee is one person because he was brought to them early. And from that moment, him and Lydia Mangiaracina were connected.

This is more of a forbidden love story between a priest and a lay woman, midwifery, fertility issues, medical fears, Island gossip, historical events, singing/music (especially opera), racism, misogyny, ableism (Lydia has a limp), societal pressures, war, herbs and witchcraft (African-American hoodoo and Sicilian stregheria, because that's her heritage).

So, yeah, those are my two cents, my thoughts, feelings, and future fanfics, and I'm done rambling.

#Midnight Mass #midnight mass spoilers #midnight mass fanfiction #black oc #black writers #father paul hill #hassan el shabbaz #riley flynn #erin greene #bev keane #sarah gunning #mildred gunning #intersectionality #vampires #romance #writing

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3gremlins · 7 days ago

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ahhhh i finished it last saturday night (11/9) (this will post from the q so after other q'd things)! it was really enjoyable tbh, i really liked it. it was good (if we don't get another da game, i am fairly satisfied) not perfect but few things are. def stick with it if you're not sure, there's a LOT at the end

spoilers for the end of veilguard- initial notes after the cut, not particularly organized

not me figuring out the varric reveal like 5 minutes before it was actually revealed tho XD tbh i was expecting him to die from the trailers and then he didn't and i was like "oh perhaps they're doing something else with him?" so they got me with the bait and switch and i was properly horrified. good job, you got me bioware. (as an aside, i still don't think varric was a strong enough choice as solas' friend for the intro section, like you never get the impression they are friends in dai at all. varric was stronger friends with anders than he was with solas, despite weird dai retcon about it. I wish they'd centered the narrative around someone else there- cole would have been a good choice? or cole and varric even since that's the most interesting interaction varric has with solas in dai) i'll def have to watch the cutscenes with him in subsequent pts. I kinda wish they'd done a follow up with him somewhere, maybe like the endings in that one fade book you find in trespasser (like at that fade bar with alistair/the warden/hawke/etc, would have been nice). got some solavellan conclusions, more than i expected and it was pretty good all things considered (i would have loved more, but also this was much more than we've gotten from other cameos of previous protagonists).

(is this the most awkward screenshot ever? possibly XD look she loves him so much, she'll even kiss his blight-y mouth and go live with him in the fade) i do wish they'd figured out a way to keep cole in (esp since spirit cole has that sad line about needing to help solas at the end of trespasser) somewhere. it was still pretty good honestly, i cried (this whole game made me cry at various points tho). I do think it could have resolved with them both living outside the fade and just his life being tied to it but i also get them wanting to literally tie up loose ends with this particular narrative.

it feels very mass effect 2ish (esp the end game section), i think most people will like it but i did find the end game section kinda stressful (where you have to pick the right person for things). Also for a dragon age game, usually by the end you have your team so having to break up the team so they live is not necessarily what i want in a DA game (i can appreciate it narratively while disliking it in practice lol) The format is also very mass effect-y in how it doles out companion stuff (esp romance stuff)- it's paced around the plot which is for the most part a good thing (but it also made it hard to tell where you were with things). I definitely like how they utilized the factions better than DAI or DAO tho- even tho only their rank mattered, having the characters in cut scenes and as npcs you can chat with at the end was really nice. I don't know if it's just lucanis' romance or all of them, but i kept thinking i'd missed something b/c of how long they make you wait for private time alone with your partner (the parts we get are really good, don't get me wrong, it just made me wait FOREVER to smooch him or get more than burning looks lol). 100% worth it tho. will romance many more times probably

(aside: getting to have a rook who's got a body like mine and a flat chest and have another character look at them desirously was just gender euphoria really. like okay actually their chest is nicer than mine -i have to do more pushups- but STILL. THANK YOU BIOWARE FOR INCLUDING NON BINARY PEOPLE SO MUCH IN THIS NARRATIVE and integrating us so deeply in all the bits, not just pronouns and basic shit) Like it wasn't even before the first "final" mission but before teh for realskies final mission ish (and i got more dialogue towards the end too). Real Return of the King BUT WAIT there's more vibes with the end (past the point of no return warning). I wish there was a little bit more romance partner time in act 2 even if it was just vibing? I did get a lot of good companion banter about it which i love (i live for banter and the banter in this was so good) i think my biggest note is i didn't feel the music helped it that much? idk i wish they'd just gone with one of their previous composers so it felt more dragon age-y (the zimmer score felt a little generic except when it did reprises of previous dragon age themes). Sometimes it felt too bombastic and sometimes there was not enough, idk, it just didn't have quite the same feel. i did like that they reused the bard music from DAI in the cities, made me smile hearing the sera song esp. i also wish the approval/tone system was a little more like dragon age 2 where you got unique dialogue choices based on which you chose more. Also sometimes the "sassy" answer wasn't that sassy or felt mean, there felt like a little bit of a disconnect between what i would have expected from the choice and what was said. The approval system was a bit weird too - like there were no approvals early on and then suddenly people reacted to things (but it didn't seem to impact their bonds). It felt like that could have used more tweaking or been more obvious anyway. It also felt like it required your character to code switch when talking to different companions since some of them responded to the different tones differently- which felt really weird and a little clunky. I def wished for more of the DA2 style where your companions just accept that you are a fun or kind or straightforward and you can rp that for the whole game.

i really liked the art direction (tho i did sort of miss the persistent splatter gore) and loved all the companions! the story was overall pretty good tho it suffered from a few pacing issues early on (you could sort of tell it had been reworked a little bit and bits were still a bit weird- but tbh all the games suffer from this a bit).

the combat was fun! i wish the targeting was a little better (as i've mentioned) and toward the end of the game, i got some stuttering when a lot of things were hitting rook at once (so it wouldn't register my dodges correctly). I played as rogue rook and it was super fun, glad i went with my actual fave class on my first pt (i always think i should be a mage and then want to be a rogue so im glad i can finally be like no no, i love knives and arrows!) The optional bosses were the most fun/challenging. Finished the game with the poison squad ofc but most of the companions felt reasonably balanced when I had to use certain parties (i'd say the warriors felt the weakest in their skills, have to see how player warrior feels, rogue rook was awesome). i loved that you could refund your skill tree at any point for no cost and also that it explained the bits of the tree (bursty, control, etc) so you could work out your own build for it. I wish the super special rune you get for beating the optional questline wasn't presented as your last ditch effort thing- i got confused by this dialogue and was a little afraid to use it at first (i thought i'd have to use it at a particular time in a fight, but nah it was just a really good rune with a normal cd) Obviously there's still more questions (the "secret" post credits scene) and i kinda wanted a post credit party scene? Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one like we did for bg3 i'm pretty satisfied, already started some more rooks and ready to make some fan art! [im also pretty sure my first pt had the most bugs since i started it on release date and didn't get the starter quest achievements until my 2nd rook, so we'll see how it plays with war rook and mage rook)

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solavelyan · 16 days ago

Text

i will

compile some thoughts. though tbh i'm not in a place to be terribly critical of this game right now, and may never be just because of the environment in which i played it. i'm also just... losing my stomach for Discourse and drama, so i'm concentrating on the positives

uh. maybe a list. full ending spoilers, tho, beware

I like how they handled Solas and his level of involvement. I wish we'd gotten more conversations with him, but considering his meddling with Rook's brain to keep them seeing Varric, I'm lowkey counting Varric conversations as "talking to Solas" or "Solas is directly involved". Having him there physically at the end was mega fucking cool

I've seen here and there that in The Missing, Varric is super cynical about Solas and it's a switch to have him insist on trying to speak to him in Veilguard. But I didn't read The Missing, and tbh Varric being the eternal forgiveness machine speaks more true to his character to me. Then again, I also generally think that if Anders is alive, Varric is prickly and bitter but also not about to let you, dear Inquisitor, know where he is or that they still talk

I wish we'd gotten a little more context of Rook and Varric's relationship, though. We know they've been working together for about a year, are clearly good friends, and Rook is so devastated by his death that The Everything happens. But in a game that is extremely blunt at all times, it did feel like it was missing a more explicit reference to "Rook" being Varric's nickname for them that stuck (which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the case).

In general I feel like Veilguard isn't very accessible to people who haven't played Inquisition, at minimum. I honestly wish it had been marketed as a direct sequel to Inquisition rather than just The Fourth Installment, because I think that would've been more honest

Actually, speaking of marketing, Bioware's marketing can blow me because why was SO MUCH of the final sequence in the TRAILERS? The coolest parts of the game didn't get to be a surprise if you watched a TRAILER, and that's fucked up. Still extremely cool when you get there, but like, come on...

I have. So many feelings about Rook

(these feelings are positive)

Veilguard is Dragon Age by way of Mass Effect. The combat is very ME3/Andromeda, and the story structure is basically lifted directly from ME2 (positive). I LOVED Andromeda's combat, and Mass Effect 2 has a very tight and effective narrative scaffolding that served Veilguard well. It feels like Veilguard has ME2's bones, DA2's heart, and Inquisition's grandeur, and it adds up to a really good, character-driven narrative with some really wild boss battles

I like Rook a bunch. While I understand the complaints wrt roleplaying them, in that there's just less flexibility to do so, I generally prefer my custom protags to have the kind of "structure" that PCs like Shepard, Hawke, The Dark Urge, etc. have in them. It helps my immersion and gets me invested, and having bits and pieces of canon backstory to hang my details on is very satisfying for me

You can absolutely tell that Weekes worked on Mass Effect

Also I can't help but feel sometimes that Varric's bond with Rook is because Rook reminds him of Hawke, especially with "Rook" also being a bird name (a sneaky thing Varric would absolutely do and is fully my headcanon now)

Just. Augh. Rook! I loved my Rook! Francesca Ingellvar was a wonderful protagonist to spend so much time with, and I want so badly to play all of the factions because I got so much great Mourn Watch-specific content.

My Lavellan came out perfect. RIP to everyone else on this one, but as my playthrough was plagued with bugs, I feel like karmically I get to brag that Eala was perfection, and I felt like all of her dialogue was "in character". I was full "let these two be together" apologia in regards to Solas and Eala, and the ending I got because of it is, to me, the very best one

There were parts of things that definitely made me question the way they did previous worldstate stuff, just things where I felt like it would have been more naturalistic if we'd gotten to pick more stuff, and the choice not to consider who drank from the Well of Sorrows and do something cool with an Inquisitor who did it is baffling. I will be writing fanfic about it, I'm sure. Still, it's not really any kind of sticking point or dealbreaker for me, just something that makes me roll my eyes and go "...ok" whenever there's an awkward spot

I got a party member killed and I'm not sure if that happens to everyone?? But it was so satisfying and so good and I can't imagine the narrative complete without at least one death, even if it makes me sad that it's there

More obsessed with Solas now than ever my god what a cool character. I've watching the other endings, because I convinced him to voluntarily bind himself to the Veil (and he let Eala stay with him this time), and I fucking love them. I love that he accepts defeat if you trick him and that he has a full villainous breakdown if you brute force it. It's so in-character.

I hope there's a lot of bad ending Rook/Solas where they're trapped in the Fade together

(although honestly it might take me a while to play any of the other endings, trapping Solas in his own prison is just a little too heartbreaking for me right now. not that he doesn't deserve it and you know i love a good tragedy, I just don't have the stomach for that level of sadness right now)

I did Emmrich's romance with a Mourn Watch Rook and i recommend it, 10/10 it's like being god's favorite

I loved EVERYONE. They're all so good I honestly can't pick a favorite companion at this point if I tried. The effort and care put into fleshing them all out and actually building relationships with each other was great. I ended up getting Taash/Harding and Neve/Lucanis together (I CALLED NEVE/LUCANIS DURING PROMO I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT), and when I started Act 3, Harding died and Neve got kidnapped. GOD what a twist of the knife. So fucking good. I need to do a run where Bellara is kidnapped because I need to know what unique touches she gets when she's Blighted at the end

It really feels like this game was made for me, specifically, and I'm very glad I got to play it

#bog post #datv #veilguard spoilers #datv spoilers #bog plays veilguard #veilguard

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invinciblerodent · 21 days ago

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YEAH i instantly knew that you didn't get to that point yet and didn't explain further as to not spoil anything! First my condolences its a fucking hard decision i dont think i'll be able to handle it when i get the game, secondly my question: Do you meet dorian regardless of the choice made here?? And does the game say anything about sacrificing minrathous means hes dies or something like that? Thank you and sorry (lol hahaha 😵‍💫)

Okay!!! Now that I'm thorough THAT shitshow, I'll do my best to answer lol!

So, few things-

You meet Dorian in Minrathous before you would get the quest to recruit Davrin from Varric, which is what triggers this decision. I don't think Dorian dies if you sacrifice Minrathous (he's a powerful mage who can take care of himself, a Magister, AND a returning character- if the Crows in Treviso all survive the attack there, I don't think they would put such a big stake on the other choice), but I could be wrong. I don't see a very big chance of it happening, I think he, Mae, and Viper all probably survive.

I think choosing Minrathous might cut you off from Lucanis' romance altogether, though. I used one flirty line with him before (immediately post-recruitment, it was honestly just the one that sounded the most correct, I don't even think the prompt read as flirty but it definitely was delivered as such), and as I rushed to Treviso after saving Minrathous, I got a strange piece of dialogue from him that I feel implied that he's too heartbroken.

I noticed when taking them out together before that Neve and Lucanis sounded like they were flirting a little bit (I wish I had the line, but she at least definitely implied that she was attracted to him, something about the demon having "good taste"), and after getting to Treviso, he very specifically asked if she was alright- he didn't name any other companion, so that felt significant. I think that if you go long enough with them before doing this quest, the implication of them being kind-of-together becomes more explicit. (They did say in the promo stuff at one point that there will be an NPC romance that makes a choice in the game more difficult, I didn't think it would be this one, but yeah, it definitely came earlier than I had expected.

I don't know if they will reconcile after this- it would be weird if they did, when she had all of the same exact reasons to choose Minrathous as a Shadow Dragon Rook. if they reconcile, it might be possible for Rook to still romance him too, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The choice didn't cut me off from the Treviso area, but I DID get a prompt that said that the waypoints will need to be rediscovered, and it DID remove Lucanis' personal quest from my journal, so I think I'll be reloading to just before recruiting Davrin, and doing that part all again.

Overall I think I lost like a good, idk, 2 hours of progress and Davrin for the time being, but that's with my slow, exploratory playstyle- now that I know what I'm doing, it'll probably go faster.

I won't lie and say that I'm not a little bit bitter about this, but I'm not exempt from "you can deal" when applicable either, lol.

I just wish it had at least, like, another "progress with the main quest?" prompt or something, because I gotta say, I really didn't like that the recruitment quest of the first warrior character tossed me immediately into this. Feels like Mass Effect 2, but at least there you could choose the order in which you recruit the first batch of available companions...

If you're not playing a warrior yourself (which I know most people aren't, it's definitely my preference though), three out of the four companions you get before this part are ranged (two mages, two rogues), and you're basically going the whole game until now without a tank- I think many are likely to rush into recruiting Davrin asap, and that decision fucking things up for them like this, it's... kind of weird. I don't like this aspect.

So, yeah. Might be useful to finish the Treviso and Minrathous quests before recruiting Davrin.

They are keeping me away from my Warden husband, damn it, i don't WANNA go to Treviso, I wanna smooch. :c

#squirrel plays datv #datv spoilers

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dg-outlaw · 1 year ago

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Spoiler-Free commentary... I think... for Gotham War: Red Hood #2

So...

Jason likely would've made it out of that burning building without Bruce and Selina's help. So does that mean the fear juice/brain hack on Jason only kind of works? Will this be fixed or retconned? Honestly, I hope they go the magic route and the effects are temporary because Jason is part Homo Magi or something. He's already got the All Blades and taking him down a magical hero route could be interesting, especially since he's not the gun-wielding guy anymore. He also had those supernatural creature darts in the recent 'Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun' comic so it could allow for him to have supernatural guns.

I get the tying of loose ends from this series and 'The Joker Who Stopped Laughing' run, but I feel like 90% of this issue was just a collage of deleted scenes or "Remember in that other comic? No? Okay, we'll show you." and then a few added scenes for context. Honestly, most of this could've been crammed into extra panels in other issues. If anything, this issue felt like those montage scenes in heist movies where they flashback and show you how the thief/thieves pulled it off.

With only one issue left will any of us be able to look back and call this a Gotham "War"? If anything this feels like Fox News' commentary every year about the "War" on Christmas.

So, in the end (at least until the actual end) Selina had an idea. It kind of worked yet was a little half-baked, but Bruce no-likey. The kids, some of which aren't even in Gotham that much or in this at all, didn't mind or were on the fence. Bruce, no likey. Jason had his own reasons for siding with Selina, but they were personal and to be honest we all agree that Joker should die (plus, it seems like there are always spare Jokers somewhere), so are any of us mad about that? Again, Bruce no-likey. Bruce slept too long after a series of actual major comic events but also needs therapy. Instead, he's got a rogue personality in his head that may or may not be taking over and may or may not be responsible for him being super paranoid and severely trying to handicap his son who really hasn't been that "bad" in a long time much less some crazed mass murderer. Also, Bruce has not been afraid to pummel his other children because of the above mentioned things. Oh, and Vandal Savage is up to something because Vandal Savage reasons.

#jason todd #red hood #batman #dc comics #batman comics #gotham war #I was eager to read this issue but was left disappointed #I hope we get a legit Red Hood comic after this #Someone get Bruce a Snickers #Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham... Minor Disagreement (with a side of family trauma and violence)

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ssaalexblake · 2 years ago

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I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Ghost Monument. I know some people feel the stakes aren’t high enough, and that maybe if the racers were pitted against each other more it could be a more ‘interesting’ episode I guess, but I find the dynamics of the 2 guest cast to be interesting because they aren’t enemies, they’re not friends either but there’s not a desire to kill each other, because they are their out of necessity and to me that’s more then just being there out of ego or a prize. That surrounded by the history of the Stenza on the planet, it’s fascinating and one where I don’t think I’m fully across yet, so would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Honestly, I was mostly just shocked that people thought this episode was bad? It wouldn't make my favourites list but there's literally nothing wrong with it either in plot or the execution of it imo. I enjoy it in a rewatch! It builds important dynamics and sets up important arcs. The foundation for the main characters are more firmly set.

Also, like, whatever peoples feelings on the stakes in this episode, it should be noted that The Ghost Monument as an episode has a dark twin. Its name is Ascension of the Cybermen. Narratively they function as a pair and the second one is supposed to be a lot darker with more stakes that shows the development of the characters, so you can't really do that if the first one is absolutely Go Go Go GO high stakes all the whole way through? The tonal difference belays the seriousness of the second episode. The contrast shows to demonstrate both how far the fam have come in AotC and how far 13 has fallen from TGM.

Not to say the sitch they're in in TGM isn't serious, it is, but this is not super stressful to the doctor, she's not, till the very end, scared she can't return them home or that they'll die (well. anymore than the doctor apparently normally is. The monologue in Once, Upon Time was fabulous but very sad). The fam are mostly just following 13's lead to get through this all figuring it's their best chance. In the second episode, they show their own initiative. In effect TGM is their training wheel episode that allows them to survive when the stakes get high.

The links between 11x01 & 2 and 12x09 & 10 give me Life. Such brilliant arching plot threads. Great bookends to Ryan and Graham's time on the show.

And really? This is a personal opinion, but disaster apocalyptic scenarios (which this is applicable to even if our group aren't natives of the place) where everybody lives in hell but just fight and try and kill each other as well as the environment trying to off them are just Bad. And belays an absolutely twisted view of us as a species. I feel like them all banding together when it gets tough and forming a community, if a very terse one where not everybody gets along, is actually an accurate portrayal of people in general. Even whatshisface Enzo or whatever joined the group he hated for safety because he was a lousy person, yeah, but he was Not stupid. I cannot stand grimdark crap like those zombie shows where people just kill each other en masse in their warring factions or whatever like the whole of human history isn't us forming societies and working together.

But speaking of whatever his name is, I feel like his contributions to the dialogue of the episode played an important part in delivering the themes they were going for, so making them fight instead would just have damaged the episode's core aims.

Mr 'I love my mum she taught me people are awful and selfish and horrible by breaking my trust and allowing me to get badly injured' is, congrats, the first person in this era to talk about his terrible mother whom 13 Immediately says sucks (gee i wonder why they did that. he even got hurt because he fell and his mum didn't save him). This is also the first time the cycle of abuse is mentioned because uh, the loser in the mother of the year competition did it specifically so it'd perpetuate itself in her son. This is the episode the timeless child is first mentioned. Considering the cornerstone of the arc is that this child in the end Broke that chain of abuse I do not consider this a coincidence. I'd bet him and his mother would think that Tecteun made that child Strong by what they did to them. 13 did Not like this man and she wouldn't, he's a dark mirror but also the victim of a really shitty mother.

There are other things i take note of in this episode. It's the first time out of post regeneration weirdness we see 13 really hit her stride. It's the first time we see her eschew pacifism as Her Thing despite the fact that she's already demonstrated her willingness to use violence with a few bombs the ep previous. Contextual morality. Reoccurring theme. It Wasn't a good idea to use violence in the situation she was in in TGM. Still doesn't make her a pacifist though bc lol, the bomb thing. So it's Kind of the first blatant portrayal of 13's private actions contrasting ones witnessed by the fam which are used to make her look better in their eyes. This will continue all season.

The stenza are now explicitly portrayed as violent colonizers as opposed to weird guys with the universe's most messed up election system. The lady is going through a race from hell is here to buy her loved ones out of the hell of their society. It's the first time the theme Properly pops up in the era. The first of many times. 13 continues to be a support to Ryan here, deepening their relationship. She's dad-ing him. She's not mad, she's disappointed! (she's also mad). She's also supportive of him.

I also think that 13 totally running out of ideas and thinking they're all gonna die at the end when the others disappear and the tardis does Not appear sets up something interesting. The fam, the ones who have been sceptical about her ability to save them this ep but still figure her as their best chance Immediately bolster her confidence and try and prop her up. They continue with the 'you've got this doc, we have faith in you!!' for a while after that, i assume they think she needs the morale boost? But I think it just leaves her with this terrifying pressure in the end?

She tries to let them know later on that this travelling is Dangerous and that they could get hurt but i think they have kind of started to buy into their own hype about her by then and aren't as worried as they should be. They think tim shaw is the worst of the worst the whole of s11 and 13 doesn't barely deign to acknowledge him bc he's so beneath her. So by the time the real bad guys pop out of the woodwork that Actually scare her the fam are overconfident in her ability to save them, which in turn eventually leaves them in the AOTC situation where they have to save themselves because she Cannot save them herself. She gave them an out before then and they didn't take it because they were not worried. I think the journey to that overconfidence starts right here.

I guess if i had to gripe it'd be that the scene where the two racers decide to take the prize together was Way too easy and more of a footnote in the story? There wasn't really another way this was going to end, but still. That seemed a little weakly done to me. I'd like a little bit more time devoted to it because it's not like i can't think of a few different scenarios to get here, it's just they'd have taken more screen time. In the end, I think that the episode had more important plot threads to go into so they just rushed it a bit. Maybe that's where people wanted more conflict? I don't want more conflict as much as a deeper discussion. They Didn't have a gripe with each other beyond that they were competing against each other and wanted to win and it didn't seem to occur to them that they could just share. But also, i've not watched this for a while. Maybe i'm misremembering, but i remember it feeling short to me.

idk, in the end it reminds me, weirdly, of Jurassic park where they're working their way across the park to the guest centre when all the dinos are escaped. Yes they're in danger and at times it's severe, but they have time to talk and bond and work together using their own skills as a group. The stakes Are high, there be monsters out to kill them and they want to go home, but it's also not 100% dire at all times. It hits the same mood for me.

This episode wasn't grim but it wasn't trying to be either so i guess if you Like grim it'd be a disappointment, but it did what it wanted to pretty well with setting stuff up and having a reasonable compelling episode plot.

Also... It's Super pretty. The bright sun. Glorious.

#13stardisposts #dw shit #dw meta #kind of #i mostly just talked #i like this ep and i'm mostly just surprised people object to it so much???

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myaoiboy · 11 months ago

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Rating All The Metal Gears By Hotness

No, not the characters. Yes, literally the Metal Gears. If I forgot any, let me know.

Metal Gear TX-55 - 4/10

This is just a lil guy. A friend, even. Reminiscent of a gonk droid from Star Wars. Sucks that he was made to do murdering. I can see where someone would find appeal, but not really for me.

Metal Gear D - 6/10

This one I can see. He got some depth to him. Kinda shiny. More smooth, less boxy. Kind of insectoid. In most franchises this would be like an 8, but it gets knocked down because of what comes later being so much sexier.

Also can I say that MG2's spriting? Mwah. Chef's kiss. So pretty. Didn't even read the intro the first time I started it up bc I was marveling at the pretty spritework. I fucking love good spritework, just find it so much more satisfying than equivalent-quality 3D art.

Metal Gear G - 2/10

Never actually completed or seen in game. Was supposed to be a smaller, mass produced version of D. Kinda sexy, loses points for being so fictional that it's only theoretical even in the games.

Metal Gear REX - 7/10

OOOO YEAH, NOW WE'RE TALKIN'!! SHINKAWA ERA BAYBEY!!! Man's got impeccable taste. He could make a literal slab of titanium look inviting.

Rex is not the sexiest Metal Gear to me, partly bc Otacon treats it like a son or a pet dog and I find a 25-yo's son-analogue to be offputting. BUT. I must concede. REX is the blueprint for all the sexy traits to come. He's got the hips. He's got the saunter. He's just a lil too brutalist for me.

Metal Gear RAY - 11/10

I know I have psychological problems because this thing's childbearing hips and murderous mandibles distract me during the boss fight.

Why is it so sexy?? What the fuck?? It's like mecha furrybait but specifically for people who are into garrus mass effect. Please tell me I'm not the only one, I'm pretty sure my boyfriend thinks I'm insane.

Arsenal Gear - 4/10

Basically just an aircraft carrier. I would say not fuckable but it DOES, canonically, have a digestive tract and asshole so like. Technically fuckable I think. But at what cost?

Honorable mention for making me deal with Raiden's daddy issues and fight the sexy mech in this thing's enormous rectum (damn near killed 'em).

Shagohod - 4/10

Not technically a metal gear. I can see the appeal, but it doesn't *quite* nail the drider-esque niche for me. It does get a bonus point for the way it moves being kinda sensual tho. Additional bonus point for being piloted by an evil fa-

Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear - 0/10

literally could not even find an image of this that wasn't completely dwarfed by the Saturn V rocket attached to it. Not really much to look at. If you've always wanted to fuck a Saturn V, I guess this would be a good way to get introduced.

Metal Gear RAXA - 2/10

Somehow managed to capture "first day of kindergarten" energy in a death machine. I could be convinced based on its behavior tho. Damn, Portable Ops kind of an L design-wise, huh?

Gekkos - 9.5/10

WHY DOES IT HAVE SQUISHABLE THIGHS?? SIR???

And the feet. Like, we gotta talk about the feet. Why? Why the toes? Why does it stomp on me with its weirdly well-defined toes??? Did they make this mech specifically to appeal to dinosaur foot fetishists? Why does it bleed? Why does it MOO???

Extremely fuckable to the point that it loses half a point purely because it *feels* like horny bait.

Dwarf Gekkos - 7.5/10

This is an object that feels like it was designed by and for lesbians. I have no notes. Slightly offputting only due to the odd number of hands but it IS the perfect number for some activities, so honestly that may be a plus.

Metal Gear Mk II/III - 1/10

Adorable. Not fuckable. This is a gopro with a personality. Not to be confused with the vampiric gopro with a personality from Ultrakill, V1. Literally just a baby.

Outer Haven - 5.5/10

Only technically a Metal Gear by virtue of technically being a stolen Arsenal Gear which is technically a Metal Gear. Gains .25 each for being the site of the infamous russian tuant

and whatever fucked up display of devoted homosexuality this is:

also additional bonus point for being piloted by an evil fa-

Pupa - 3/10

This is just the Shagohod but with an AI pod. -1 for being touched by Huey, but balanced out by the +1 from being made by Strangelove. Even if it IS creepy that she made her dead crush/girlfriend's psyche pilot it around.

Crysalis - 6/10

Not super sexy but it does fly and has a rail gun where one could feasibly conceptualize a dick. Kinda MILF-like (has mini-drones). Has a grappling hook, so could do bondage. Probably would, ngl.

Cocoon - 1/10

Pupa, but less sexy. I barely even remember this boss fight because the game became such a rush right around here, pushing you to the postgame/first ending.

Peace Walker - 7/10

Weird dog, functioning by sheer lesbian willpower. She is beauty, she is grace, she would probably rate a lot higher if my emulator didn't suck ass and make me angry every time I see her now, fuck that bitch.

Rage aside, who doesn't love killing their momgirlfriend and then reliving that multiple times throughout the course of a single game, culminating in her just straight up pulling a Virginia Woolf.

Metal Gear Zeke - 6/10

Really just nothing that special. Okay, wait, +2 for being piloted by an evil little girl in her panties for some fucking reason.

Also +1 for the sick ass boss fight.

Walker Gear(s) - 8/10

HERE we go!!! Hell Yeah Babey!!! Basically human sized! Has lil Fuckin' Roller Skates!!! Carries My Ammo! My Best Friend! (Okay, third best friend, after Quiet and DD)

Yeah Huey developed it but it gets WAY more bonus points for letting me manhandle him.

Sahelanthropus - 7/10

I can't deny the raw sex appeal of Sahelanthropus. Also, it's literally piloted by pubescent rage which is something I deeply resonate with ngl.

HOWEVER it DOES get docked points for uhhh

-getting strangelove killed

-making baby otacon a child soldier

-huey :/

Battle Gear - 0/10

Is there even a single frame of this entire thing? Especially without Huey??

negative 1 billion points for blue balling me in the late game, i want to ride this motherfucker right into the kgb outposts and let 'em have it for what they did to babygirl

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i-had-bucky · 10 days ago

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Okay, my actual unfiltered veilguard thoughts! Keep in mind this is pretty much overwhelmingly positive. I adore this game; it is pretty much my IDEAL dragon age game.

So, the only complaints I have, I'll get out of the way right off: I wish we could take unlocked transmogs into new playthroughs, and I wish we could customize the inquisitor's prosthetic.

Other than that, though? This is my favorite game. It just edged out Jedi: Survivor. Of note: I played a crow and romanced Lucanis. I have seen the other romances, though I haven't played them yet. Lucanis's romance is my favorite. It's soft and sweet and full of yearning. I think being a Crow makes it better. You have to save Treviso to be able to romance him, which makes complete sense to me because Treviso is DEVASTATED if you choose Minrathous. So I haven't really understood the people saying it feels like a bug. Treviso is far worse than Minrathous if left to the blight and Lucanis is the effective head of the Crows; he's too busy for romance and doesn't trust that you'll come through for him. Also, I heard you don't get the imprisoned-in-his-mind scene if you save minrathous, which explains A LOT of the complaints I've seen about him as a character. To me, that's necessary to understand what he's going through, which is a lot, but if you put the work in, his romance is sooo worth it. It has joined Shakarian in my favorite video game romance.

The story is fantastic. The twist Got Me. Much like Rook, I ignored all the signs that are obvious in a subsequent playthrough because I didn't want to believe it! So it punched me in the gut and made me cry! But the reveal is a beautiful part of the story and definitely one of my favorites. Also, yes, I did sit there going surely the god of lies and trickery isn't lying and tricking me THIS TIME every time. It was great 10/10 no notes; love solas. Yes i did call him a lying flea bag and threaten to stab him. Still gave him his happy ending tho.

Also! The way all the sidequests are important to the main quest!! I love it! I love that decisions you make early in the game have an effect later! I love the reactivity. I love the choices; i love that there are sometimes huge consequences. This has always been one of my main complaints about video games, and dav gives it to me beautifully. Everything felt meaningful, from the side quests to building relationships with the factions, and with the companions.

Rook is my favorite video game protagonist ever. I love them. I was already sold, but the hand puns in Arlathan made it BETTER. I like that they are their own character, that they're kind of silly and snarky, but more than all of that, i love that they struggle! They struggle with the leadership, with building trust among their companions, with feeling like they're good enough. The scene in the infirmary after you get back from the fade prison just. It was so good. Also!! The fact that Rook can be nonbinary and it COMES UP IN THE GAME, IN THE STORY, THAT YOU CAN TALK ABOUT IT AND HOW MUCH IT MEANS TO THEM. That in itself would have sold the game for me, honestly. It meant so much to me to have that. I cried about it.

Anyway, longwinded way of me saying I love this game, I will play it forever; it means so much to me. If you're still on the fence about it, I do recommend it. I recommend it especially for anyone who liked mass effect 2 because it felt a lot like that at points.

#dav spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard #veilguard spoilers #datv #now i'm going to write so much fanfiction

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moonlight-mindfulness · 16 days ago

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Unfriendly reminder to the Americans: STOP BLAMING GROUPS FOR THE FAILURE OF A SYSTEM!

Gen Z didn't ruin the vote. People not voting because both options were trash didn't ruin the vote. Specific minorities didn't ruin the vote. What ruined the vote is a system that isn't democratic from the ground up that let's criminals into government positions and the primary. What ruined the vote is the lack of work done by the collective including you pointing fingers to make it a multi-party country. What ruined it are big corporations paying for propaganda and the enshitification of the internet to create more radicalization amongst young men. What ruined it is an education system making it easy for rural women to choose conservatives against her own best interests.

Y'all start to piss me off with the "let's blame this on Gen Z / Women / stupid subgroups in minorities" instead of fundamentally trying to understand and change why subgroups of minorities or generations even get into the position to vote for trash and reading one of the plenty books explaining the pipeline of white women wrongfully supporting conservatism. One hint might be that the alternative is genuinely bad as well so they'll obviously opt to vote for their own convenience because voting dems wouldn't given them a big enough jump in a good direction because dems are centrist at best and people look for improvement in their lives instead of stuff staying the same which is unfortunately how dems sell their stuff (and I say that from another country looking into how they sell themselves). And that's just ONE reasoning people might vote this way, find all and actually do something about it instead of blaming them for basic psychological decision-making processes they make based on the shitty education they got and the algorithms that feed them.

Not to forget that unfortunately the internet and the people running its algorithms ruin even the more democratic and leftist countries into a more right wing position. This is, and I cannot overstate it, not something you can blame on specific groups unless we classify mega corporations as a group. It's time you name the actual core issue which is the global economic system that allowed power to be so messed up that even minorities started feeling more comfortable in conservatism than alone under the pressure of the system. Yes, capitalism is the problem. And a ton of y'all/us are not doing enough against it. Corporations want power and conservatives are easier to buy, meaning people with money will make sure to manipulate the masses through pushing the wrong stuff on algorithms so they become more partial to voting that way so the corporations get from conservatives what they want. I think we all know this and it shocks me that y'all still blame groups instead of a system y'all vehemently don't want to tear down yourself by doing more than just posting about it online. And honestly, I include myself in that for my own country.

It's always easier to blame even the boomers instead of finding ways to actively actually work on the downfall of these toxic systems. The blame game won't get us to a place where people vote better. You can't blame radicalized men into voting libs, you can only work on ways to cut the pipeline radicalizing them and find ways to reverse the effects. Shame will not get us to a place where we all live in a better system because the system exploits feelings of shame for political and monetary gain.

#us elections #election 2024 #presidential election #us election 2024

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softsky-daily · 18 days ago

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11/4/2024

Vague shapes in the vast mass of cloud.

Positive thing: I maintained some incredible level of excitement I hadn't reached in a while.

Today... was a blur. I guess I'll start off saying I woke up nauseous as all get-out, so I ended up calling out on work. I felt bad about that since I've been doing that a lot lately, but I decided I wouldn't linger on that and instead really focus on making today fun and relaxing so I could feel better. And boy did I!

My friend a while ago had recommended the anime "My Happy Wedding," which is funny because they don't technically hold a wedding at all in the anime and it's actually got demons and magic and crazy stuff, anyway, I decided now was the time to go on a binge-watching session since it was only 12 episodes and I knew I could finish it within the afternoon. And it was really good. It's literally a fantasy about being fixed by a hot anime boy after you've been through trauma but they do it tastefully. And there's magic, yay! Really though, I liked their interpretation of someone learning to heal after abuse by finding healthy relationships (not just romantically, but with friends and chosen family).

Midway through I decided I should get some tea for my aching stomach (and also for a treat) so I went to a nearby cafe and got some white peach oolong tea. Hot. It was so good. Sweet and mellow and just the right amount of bitterness to really make the flavor linger in your mouth. And it made my nausea go away, so it did its job in that regard too. But what I didn't know is that oolong tea actually has a fair amount of caffeine, and I had gotten a pretty big size of it. I chugged the whole thing while watching the anime and to be honest I really don't know when the caffeine hit but it did. Oh my god. To be honest I'm still wired as hell and feel like I could bounce up to heaven in one big hop and high five an angel, and it's probably been 12 hours since I drank it.

Needless to say, in my heightened caffeine state everything got, like, 100x more likely to have an effect on me. I cried a lot during the anime and jumped up everywhere when it got exciting and then, and then, I decided to to rewatch nigehaji scenes and that got me so giddy it just carried the high even further, until I blinked and there was full handwritten essay about what I liked about nigehaji sitting in front of me.

It feels like there's a big cloud in my head and electricity is bouncing everywhere between my ears. Like I'm floating and I could be carried off by the wind at the smallest nudge. Like there's a drum in my chest and every beat is reverberating in every vein in my body. Is excited even the word for this?? I feel like my body is just a vessel for some wild thundercloud that I'm barely channeling to form coherent thoughts. It's fun though. I think. Honestly it's like I'm working through a thick fog but I guess because I'm in a heightened state, by default my brain is interpreting that as a good thing. I guess I'm enjoying it while I can?? I'm usually so exhausted I don't know what energy feels like anymore. Maybe this is just how everyone else feels normally? No way this can be sustainable, right?

Okay so I just did the math and based on what I looked up, I had about 180mg of caffeine. Good lord. I have caffeine sensitivity so that's extra overdoing it I think. It's a good thing I did fun things today and not anxiety-inducing things or I think I might've exploded from the heart palpitations alone.

Soo I guess now I have the Herculean task of trying to get to sleep tonight. I've had a lot of water all today even with the tea, but somehow it hasn't faded away at all yet. I already have insomnia so this'll be a fun challenge. Hopefully tomorrow I'm not absolutely dead from the caffeine crash, whenever sleep does happen.

It really was a good day though, whether despite or because of the caffeine. It's been a while since I sat down and binged an anime, and there was something very nostalgic and healing about it. I mean, the anime was good which definitely helped, but even just the act itself was fulfilling in some way. And I of course always love indulging the nigehaji brain worms in my head. I drew, I worked on building the Gundam my friend gave me, I wrote and danced around my room and had a yummy tea... yeah, it was a good day.

Now let's hope I sleep. Thank goodness I work from home tomorrow.

#thoughtposting #skyposting

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ghost-of-you · 1 year ago

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Why do people feel the need to produce break up rumors out of thin air after every tour/album 🫥 the expectations of some people in this fandom are wild to me.

What do people think they should do? Even if it weren't for Michael's baby, they released an album last year and played two tours, of course they'll need some time to recharge now. Why would you expect new music or ANOTHER tour now already?

And they have not said or done anything that would indicate that they are thinking about breaking up and still people choose to be paranoid instead of putting some trust in them and just let them rest.

Idk maybe I'm the opposite of those people who are still traumatised by 1D or whatever but my other favourite band just had a 5 year gap between albums, they didn't play any live shows for like 4 of those years (partly bc of the pandemic od course) and the front man did a solo album + tour in the meantime. One other band member did some stuff as a producer and from like 2 of them I think I saw a total of 4 social media posts during that time lmao. I didn't see a single person worried that they would break up. That never came up as a possibility anywhere. And then I go to 5sos fandom spaces and people are freaking out when the band goes on a break because one of them will have to care for a damn newborn like please 💀

Sorry for ranting, I'm sure you have a lot of this stuff in your inbox now. No need to respond, I just needed to express to someone how truly baffled I am by this behaviour.

Honestly, I blame one direction for a large part of it. Obviously not the boys in 1D but the whole culture and the intensity around them. I like them but I was never in really invested in them so I did watch everything that happened from the outside and I keep seeing the effects of it. A lot of people did not handle their break up and since 5sos has this connection to them that ended bringing fans over to 5sos people get triggered. But it's bullshit because 5sos is a band that wanted to be the band they are. To act as if 5sos is doomed to follow 1Ds footsteps is stupid because 1D was a bunch of kids who didn't want to be in a band, who got put in a band package and explored until they broke. And all of them are doing the thing they wanted all along, which is be solo acts, so the comparison is not fair. You can't compare 5sos to the boyband curse, because they are no are not a boyband. And this is the dumbest argument ever but it is true, 5sos has a lot more freedom with each other to do other things while still keeping the 5sos project alive. Everything they do that's not exactly like the 17 yo posting keeks and doing twitcam from a mansion creating a constant stream of content creates a wave of mass histeria and honestly, I am so tired of it. Even if 5sos were about to take a decade long break, which I don't think they will, they like making music with each other too much to just stop, they can. They gave us over a third of their lives already. They are allowed different dreams.

Also I think there's this layer of desensitization surrounding famous people in general, that makes people not see them as real people with real feelings or see them as this character they get mad won't follow the script they made in their heads. And the whole way some parts of the music industry just want a really fast rotation that's not really possible and things like K-pop that end up having a higher rotation that creates a bigger stream of content that's not really sustainable in a healthy way for very long but creates a weird expectation anyway. And people think they're allowed to demand shit just because (and this goes from the temper tantrum for the lack of tour to the obnoxious hbg chanting)

5sos already did the killing themselves for the band. Now they live and have a band. I rather to see things this way. They are happy, they are thriving in other aspects of life. If that means waiting another 2, 3, 5, 10 years for new music, so be it. To use 5sos own metaphor, they're driving the bus, we're just along for the ride so whatever stops and turns they want is what goes. They can do whatever they want because is their life and it's their band. And I'm not worried they're gonna break up. Not even a little bit. If not seeing them for a year while Michael settles into being a father is what it takes for them to be happy and healthy, then so be it, let them exist outside the band.

#i had a longer more elaborate answer typed but tumblr ate it #anon i wish more people thought like you #also people out there if youre seriously this distressed over it. if your well being relies this heavily on something you cant control #get help. im saying this on the most kind way possible. one thing you cant control shouldn't control you like this #you can love something but the second it starts to take over you need to take a step back #but this is not the point here #and you're good im just blocking the annoying people skspskpaakpska #anon 😌#i was asked

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carrinth · 1 year ago

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Whelp I've done it. Just finished Witch Hunt which now marks the end of my Dragon: Age Origins run. 10/10 would recommend. Especially Awakening and Witch Hunt DLC.

And y'know what? Witch Hunt was worth it for this moment. A fitting end for my Warden. Reunited with his love (and baby mama) and peaces out of work and responsibilities via magic mirror. Just look at that face. I think this is honestly the first time I've seen my Warden-Commander smile in a LONG time. Poor guy.

Minor DA2 rant below cut;

Actually I finished it awhile ago but had been procrastinating by replaying Awakening.

Because uggghhhhhh... I don't want to play DA2.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll grow to love Hawke again but right now my mood is just... meh. Replaying Origins and all its DLCs just made the differences in quality and content between the two all the more jarring. Aaaand on a more personal level -- I don't want to stop being a Grey Warden. ಥ_ಥ

For the last near 150 hours, I was sold on being a Grey Warden. In fact, I think my best fun was Awakening where I actually got to BE a Grey Warden doing Grey Warden things WITH OTHER GREY WARDENS. We ALL drank the nasty juice! It was a bonding experience! This game spent so much time building up the lore and excitement of being a Grey Warden -- leaving so many unanswered questions about the Taint, the Blight, what it all means, dO wE GET griFFONs -- only to just... drop it all in DA2.

I'm just so confused by the direction DA2 went. Replaying Origins with the knowledge of the upcoming mage/templar plot in DA2, the conflict in Origins felt... minor. Sure we get hints here and there that things are Kinda Bad. But nothing major. Heck, I played a Circle Mage as my Origin and I never felt that 'Oh wow, mage rebellion should totally be Main Focus of the next game!' Like don't get me wrong, mage/templar conflict is 😌👌but the Darkspawn and Grey Wardens was what set Dragon Age apart from other fantasy.

"Well the Blight's over Carrinth, there's no more story to tell about Grey Wardens" you say. And yet, Awakening did a fantastic job of making an entire campaign post-Blight.

Part of me feels like if they didn't want to keep the Main Character the same (ala Mass Effect with Cmdr Shepard) then couldn't they have still made the DA2 MC a grey warden? Like a junior(?) Warden that's investigating Corypheus or whatever in Kirkwall but gets caught in the mage/templar mess. Sure we would have gotten a very different story but would that have been so bad?

In the end, I will likely end up playing DA2, if only for the excellent companions and to reunite with my Sad Mage and Angry Spirit Husbands. But at the moment... *sigh*

So goodbye Marzel Amell. You were the best Warden-Commander and I had fun throwing Storm of the Century on fools, flexing my maxed out Coercion, and painstakingly working out TACTICS. I will probably still keep stubbornly drawing Awakening fanart (because I am Not Normal about those idiots) but DA2 stuff will likely eventually bleed in. ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Farewell Marzel and go live gloriously in mirror land with ur spider lady and kid.

#dragon age stuff #marzel amell #carrinth's continued da adventures #minor DA2 rant

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goblin-face-sucker · 2 months ago

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Recently been experiencing this fuckery at work where people find out I am trans and start saying the weirdest shit.

"What are your pronouns?" You've known me for over nine months, spoken to me three times a week, said hello to my partner on video calls and received countless emails from me with my pronouns in the signature. You wouldn't ask me before, don't start now.*

"Oh my god I had no idea. I couldn't tell." Yeah because my gender history isn't relevant to fucking dashboards or site tracking, which is the thing we largely talk about. And no that is not a compliment. I didn't transition for this one moment of validation.

"Isn't modern science amazing." Yeah, truly. Chances are, before mass inoculation, 1 in 5 of us would be dead.

And then this one, which is the real kicker.

"Have I ever got your pronouns wrong?"

I am a bald, bearded man, who uses he/him pronouns. I happen to be a transgender man. I appreciate these people are genuinely sidelined by learning I am not what they consider a transgender person to be based on the Daily Mail stereotypes. But if you honestly mistook me for a woman, looking like this, I would suggest a trip to Specsavers.

Normally this is all followed by the itchy expression cis people get when faced with the enigma of my transexuality. They want to ask questions - questions which are 100% HR violations and totally not okay to ask anyone. What they don't realise is that I am a massive oversharer, and will yab their ears off about all the teenage boy effects of testosterone, like bottom growth and how my pussy smells different after my T shot, or how itchy my scars are five years on, or the weird black heads I get on my nipples and how I can't feel them at all, but when it's cold they still get pointy.

That's not information that they want.

The next person who asks me if I have had the surgery is being offered a picture. I will then show them a screenshot of some text which reads "You just asked to see a picture of my genitals. In the work place. I'm telling HR."

*I'm not saying that people asking for pronouns is a bad thing: quite the opposite. But if you only ask for them when the passing trans person tells you they're trans, you need to evaluate just how much you value that information. This weird performative allyship is making it really hard to tell funny anecdotes.

#thinking words #it happened like three times last week #and all the same things #multiple saying “if i ever got your pronouns wrong just tell me” like wtf #i appreciate non-hes and non-shes dont always get this kind of chivalry and treatment #but i wish cis people could be normal for five minutes #heaven forbid they find out i have a secret hidden pronoun #my party pronoun as it were

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icespyders · 5 months ago

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i honestly really really hate being so negative. dragon age is my very favorite video game series; KotOR was my first bioware game, and i had a lot of fun in mass effect, but i fell in love with dragon age, warts and all. my favorite of the three is DA2 for god's sake, clearly i'm a very forgiving soul when it comes to these fucking games; i've always been so taken by the character writing and the lore that i don't mind all the jank. the gameplay never got in the way of my exploring and romancing and codex-hunting. and some part of me was truly desperately hoping i could find it in my heart to get excited about Veilguard after the first trailer like ruined my entire sunday but i watched this gameplay video twice and i just hate it. the second time i watched i kept notes and i didn't realize how long it ended up, like, it's just this infinite depressing list of things that i didn't like. so i'll try to organize my word vomit. let's start positive.

STUFF I LIKED:

Minrathous looks cool, though i'm pissed we seem to spend so little time there. but it looks totally different from everywhere else we've been in the series and that's cool! the neon-y magic lighting, the big ominous circular floating tower, the narrow streets - some of the layout reminds me of kirkwall which is apropos since kirkwall was originally a tevinter city. so that's nice

Neve is hot! her design is cool and very tevinter and I like that. but the dialogue is so generic high fantasy garbage that I feel like I only got a sliver of her personality (confident + sense of humor which is honestly not much to go on for personality but i'm searching for crumbs here). i'll definitely be interested in getting to know her better, once i inevitably get brain damage and trick myself into playing this shit when it's on sale for like $3 in a year and a half

We only got a little bit of it but I like the reactivity/mention of backstory, anything that acknowledges player choice! Like neve's response to rook's stoic/direct dialogue line, and all the mentions of rook's faction in dialogue, that's all very nice

I don't mind the map markers/waypoints broadly but they're not necessary for this railroaded gameplay segment we see in the trailer. it'll be useful for other quests i guess

I also don't care that we're back to the DA2/DAI-style dialogue wheel with tone tags. i'm glad it's the same icons from DAI so i don't have to learn new hieroglyphics. i know a lot of people bitch about it but it's the neatest way to express the options imo

LORE????

i know a lot of these plot points are set up in supplemental novels and whatever and i personally feel like bioware needs to be banned from putting plot-critical information in novels and comics that nobody in the world wants to read. i've been playing and re-playing dragon age games regularly since 2018. i have never ONCE wanted to read any of this material. but apparently neve and one or two of the other companions are featured in Tevinter Nights and The Missing and whatever and i'm just fed up. no. i play the games. include the information there

so the shadow dragons faction is linked to tevinter/based in tevinter, but broadly, not just in minrathous, based on rook's dialogue about how he's unfamiliar with the city when the others expect him to know more. probably they're also linked to dorian? maybe shadow dragons is dorian's faction of non-horrible magisters?

bioware said in the developer Q&A that it's been 8 years since trespasser. that is absurd. wtf took solas so long to do whatever he's doing, what was he waiting for. the end of trespasser made it seem like disaster was imminent, but apparently solas needed 8 more years to find his little plot knife and set up all those incredibly unstable pillars

Where is the Inquisitor/inquisition??? Why is varric in charge of this???? Esp talking to solas, the end of trespasser makes it very personal between the inquisitor & solas and now they're just AWOL. the fact that inquisition isn't even a faction you can pick according to the developer Q&A is such a mistake, them saying inquisition isn't a major faction in the game is shocking to me. why does nothing matter

The venatori?? The venatori????? they're back but not the inquisitor?????? i thought i killed you losers

so who's that at the end, two of the other evanuris. Solas accidentally freed them from their prison bc rook fucked up the ritual. that's a fine hook but i hate the entire retcon of the evanuris lore but that's a longer rant

ART STYLE/UI

oh boy

the rain effect/puddle effect looks like it's from another game + why is it raining everywhere??? the huge ghibli rain droplets on everyone's clothes look weird, they're ginormous and so prominent. why is everyone is wearing hydrophobic clothes lmao

the interact button is ew. the approval/disapproval UI looks weird and it's in a weird place on the screen. the demon designs are bad. the hair textures are suspect. again, what's up with the hydrophobic clothes. but i lost it with neve's snowflake spell effects hahaha oh my god it looks so cartoony and weird, it's so unserious. those snowflakes are SO BIG!!! and SO PROMINENT!! everything has its moments of looking weirdly cartoony; the walls in minrathous stuck out to me as just looking odd in a way i can't quite put my finger on, the walking through the eluvian effect looked SO bad that my immediate thought was "oh wow that can't be the final version"

the lip-sync is...weird sometimes. I can't quite put my finger on why that's bugging me either but it's disturbing my eye

they got rid of so much of varric's chest hair, it's a felony. i also don't like harding's re-design, i feel like they tried too hard to make her pretty and i barely recognized her at first glance

it looks better than the reveal trailer but i don't love it

it's so funny how rook changes armor mid-cutscene. they clearly cut out a menu of the player setting equipment but the first time I watched the thing, I blinked and rook had fully changed clothes and it made me bust out laughing

finally: lol you can see texture pop-ins even in the gameplay reveal video (rook's armor around 8:00) they still can't optimize a game for shit

DIALOGUE

how did they fuck up the dialogue sweet god

right off the bat: the exposition is really clunky, enough so it made me wonder whose benefit it's for. do they really think people will pick up this game without playing at least DAI first? varric is explaining shit that no one in their right mind in-universe wouldn't already know, like "solas bad! breaking the veil bad!" i know that. bioware hates making games for people who already like their games

the dialogue overall is just...boring mostly. super predictable and utilitarian. i get like zero personality out of anybody, like i noted with neve in her intro. i get the SENSE of a personality but it's like. drinking la croix. just a hint. harding is particularly boring (and, side note & apparent hot take: everyone is acting like harding was a big fan favorite and i'm like. she's fine. it was nice to chat with her in DAI in every new region, just to see a familiar face, but narratively she brings very little to the table for me, she's not that interesting. and I don't get how everyone's acting like she was an obvious choice for a returning NPC who gets the promotion to companion. I'd rather have like. Josephine or somebody who had an actual character arc in DAI. Krem from the chargers (i know he can die so it can't be him but i'm dreaming here, sue me). Briala from WEWH. fuck, I'd be more interested in maryden the minstrel honestly, then we have half an excuse to bring cole back too, I feel like he probably has some reaction to all this veil-destroying shit. cole is better friends with solas than varric ever was, why isn't he here talking to solas. isn't varric still the viscount of kirkwall. why is he here at all). the delivery of the dialogue is really bland too, it's like all the actors are reading their lines for the first time and whatever idiot at bioware's in the booth with them was like "ya that's a wrap" bc they wanted to go to lunch sooner

DISHONORABLE MENTION: the entire dialogue exchange in arlathan forest btwn neve and harding is egregiously bad. "I've never seen anything like it!" "The tremors are getting worse!" "We've got demons!" it sucks

COMBAT

i'm just so pissed off

it uh. i hate it. it's my least favorite thing by far and it dashed my hopes the hardest. i can tolerate ugly UI and questionable art and a dumbass story, it's dragon age, that's what i'm here for. but it simply doesn't look like a game i'd enjoy playing. it reminded me of God of War 2018, like the leakers said way back when, and also like the Batman Arkham games with that little alert effect around rook's head and the dodging/parrying and the combos. but it's not what i come to dragon age for and i'm really bummed out. the additional details from the developer Q&A didn't make me feel any better (3 abilities??? i thought DAI was stingy with just 8, to say nothing of DAO and DA2 which, by endgame, grant you so many abilities that you can't even use them all in one fight. i like playing mages, i only get 3 spells? fuck that). it looks like a fixed camera focused on rook in combat, so you're getting attacked from offscreen and there's nothing you can do about it. the little lines showing you how projectiles will move is lame. the pop-ups about picking up gold are silly. i can't control companions??? what the fuck game even is this

I hate the action wheel. I hate that it takes up the whole screen, and it seems you can only pause when you're doing the action wheel. gross

so I see the little line with the dots on the bottom during combat that indicates when you can use special attacks. question: does each companion get their own bar for their own abilities, or does the whole squad draw on that one pool of points/resources/whatever. bc I have a bad feeling it's the latter

lol @ fighting those venatori goons on the edge of a cliff and you can only knock them off once their health bars are empty, you can't shove them off to kill them quicker. you wish you were bg3

it's like they made it to be played on consoles/controllers not PC

10 xp for killing like 8 demons?????

VARRIC & SOLAS??? STORYLINE?????

seriously, can anyone explain to me why talking solas down is varric's job. for real. it's been 8 yrs since trespasser and we're only just now getting to the evil plan???? the fuck is solas waiting for

harding & varric are suddenly besties with solas??? lmao. are harding and solas ever in the same room together in DAI, seriously. i know varric and solas have friendly banter exchanges but all of that content is determinant, the only actual quest that links them is cole's quest and they spend that whole quest respectfully disagreeing

anyway. varric goes to talk to solas (it should be the inquisitor doing that but ok) and solas destroys bianca (death penalty for that alone tbh) and then they just like...keep standing there talking??? why isn't solas trying to hurt him or anything. also, why is he so dumb that rook can sneak around and knock over a pillar to ruin his ritual. how does this ruin the ritual. he's so stupid. why can't varric just tackle him, we're all just STANDING THERE waiting for the world to end

"The veil is a wound inflicted on this world!!" ...yeah inflicted by...you...right solas...come the fuck on. shut up

this intro in minrathous is basically the beginning of me3 including walking across thin planks and doing lame auto-platforming with a recurring character from a previous game while the world is getting exploded around you. come on

THIS IS JUST FUNNY

Varric about Solas, a career liar who he knew for maybe a year and is now actively trying to destroy the world: he's my friend!!! Varric about Anders, who he hung out with every day for 6+ years and merely blew up a church to start a war, which was not a world-destroying event: hes dead to me!!!!!!!

man oh man i'm just. aaaaaaaugh

i think a real big problem in dragon age that bioware clearly has no idea how to handle is...hmm how to describe it. narrative compounding?? the weight of all these games filled with choices that somehow have to cohere over one narrative despite being written and developed by whole teams of different people over the course of like 20 years. it's a problem mass effect doesn't have, at least not in the original trilogy, since the original trilogy is all about shepard. so it's easier to cohere all those choices together, and in ME3 i was actually really satisfied by the sensation of continuity and completion i ended up with, how many characters reappeared and remembered how i'd interacted with them before. i've always liked playing someone new in dragon age, but it makes it really difficult for the story to track all these previous decisions and ensure they have weight. and everyone's gonna get attached to different characters and questlines and outcomes and feel like they're important, but not all of them can actually BE important. i understand that. that's just part of the RPG experience. but i feel we're reaching a point in dragon age where each subsequent game disregards increasingly critical aspects of the previous game's story and it's making so much of the prior games feel retroactively...worthless. like. where's the inquisition? did nothing i do in that game matter? the developer Q&A mentioned that you'll design your inquisitor in the character creator, so clearly they're part of the game, so why ALSO say the inquisition's not a significant faction in the game? wtf are we DOING??? and obviously the Warden's been AWOL since DAO and i doubt that'll change, and the developer Q&A mentioned the Here Lies The Abyss choice won't make an impact so that possibly rules Hawke out too, and as the games go on it just feels more and more absurd that these past heroes have nothing to do with current crises, and all the timeskips create increasingly long lengths of time between each game, making new appearances from old characters seem more and more unlikely. and so many of the companions/old heroes can die in their respective games, so if bioware decides, hey, let's bring merrill back or whoever, how do we write around that? there's just too many choices, but the POINT of the games is the choices, and it's just become impossible to account for everything, but ignoring past plot beats/decisions/characters is frustrating for people like me, who play and replay and try different options and speculate about what might happen next based on their own specific choices. and some of it is understandable. like, i'm biased in favor of my preferred characters and questlines, obviously, and i can't always get what i want. but it's such a bizarre choice for something like...oh idk THE ENTIRE INQUISITION to stop mattering. ugh. augh!!!!! i can't take it

IN CONCLUSION

if varric dies in this game you will see me on the news

#dragon age #Veilguard negative word vomit don't like don't read etc #like. a lot of word vomit. this is way too long #i'm sorry. i really am. i hate being so mad about this game already. i wish i loved her. i just gotta get my thoughts out

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