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The man living every day like a Three Days Grace song

Rook: Gee, I wonder what Solas felt about these things we see in his regrets, such mystery, big mystery, lets put all of our minds together and see what we can come up with! Solas in every painting:

Rook: I've got nothing.

(I know it's about POV, I know it's A Choice, I still find it funny.)

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I think I've cried every episode of Arcane so far this season :' ))

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I can only interpret the line delivery of Solas’s “Varric is—!” as a trace of agitated anguish leaking out.

No Rook. You fool. Varric is dead. I killed him. That excruciatingly affable, down-to-earth man whom I fought alongside a decade ago is gone. That man whose gift of literary artifice provided a spot of joy and levity in this colorless world.

He believed he could stop me. Save me, as if I were a friend he believed himself obligated to rescue from the brink of catastrophe. I did not ask him to. He thought there was something left to save. I warned him several times to cease in his search. I wished nothing more than for his happiness and to live out his days in peace for the years yet left in this world. And now that peace he was so justly deserving has been forfeited. I robbed the world of yet another good man foolish enough to believe that I was worthy of his friendship.

Varric’s charm and philosophy of perseverance clearly left an impression on Solas. Solas chose not to follow Varric’s advice, but he still held great respect for the man. When you think about it, Varric almost functions like another high approval “Stop (save) him” Inquisitor. Someone who, after learning about Solas’s true identity and his motives, still holds to the belief that the Solas that he knew during Inquisition was the real Solas, no matter how much Solas would insist it was a facade put on out of necessity and strategy.

And Solas most certainly mourned Varric privately. Briefly, maybe a second-long ‘god damnit, I did it again’ but it definitely happened.

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im sorry but i cannot stop thinking about isha's pastel memories that play during her sacrifice scene.

look at how full of colour this beautiful fuckin shot is:

it's been well established in episodes 4-6 how grim and dark the undercity has become under cait and ambessa's new rule. but look at how isha sees/remembers it - because of jinx.

jinx, who went through a severe childhood trauma that has carried over into her present self - she covers extremely destructive weapons and grenades in bright pinks and blues, neons, childlike doodles, graffiti. (joy and destruction, powder and jinx, a contrast so striking it becomes like a signature for her).

and then we see the world through isha's eyes. when we meet her in episode 2, she's running through sewers, from goons dressed in black; it's grimy and grim. and then all of her recent memories are done in these childlike pastel, almost crayon-y sketches. because what isha saw was jinx covering a dark and grim world in colours.

and so isha covered her world in colour, too.

because jinx made her world bright.

isha looked at jinx and saw the child in her. she saw powder and she saw jinx. she saw joy and destruction. and that's why jinx gave isha so much hope. isha knew the world was grim and dark - but then she watched jinx, and she learned that you can paint over all that grim darkness with neon blue spray paint.

that's why isha believed in hope. that's why in her final moments - in a scene that is lit dimly and dramatically - she sees nothing but a bright world coloured in pastels.

never underestimate the hope of a child.

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we need 15-20 episode seasons again these limited series have the worst pacing in the world and none of the character decisions hold any weight

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A list of things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard Part 2

I already touched on a few things that caught my attention and personally irked me about the game. After getting through some more of it naturally a few more points have come up. Though I think they are not really new aspects but more concrete examples of what I had touched on last time.

Without further ado, let's get into it.

!Spoilers below the cut!

The dialogue is repetetive and at times contradictory

Like I already discussed last time the dialogue is bad, to express it in the simplest of terms. As I progressed through the game I stumbled upon a glaring example for what I mean.

In the questline where you infiltrate a Venatori meeting there is a part where Neve in disguise and in company of Rook and another companion gets a Venatori to admit that Elgar'nan was present but not Ghilan'nain. For some inexplicable reason Neve turns around and repeats this twice as if Rook wasn't present.

I stated in my last post that the game feels the need to state the obvious. This is what I mean. It makes the dialogue feel like a rough draft that was incorporated into the game without further polish.

As of its contradictory nature two examples come to mind.

In Harding's companion quest you meet this dwarf of Kal Sharok. His dialogue is stoic, no bullshit straight to the point and passionless. Which was fine. But after several minutes of him being that way they get to stone statue Valta who speaks in these misteryous riddles and suddenly he switches to this unserious tone of "Oh that weird statue, we never know what she's saying, ain't she funny." (I'm paraphrasing here). I was confused for half a minute because of his sudden change in attitude and left wondering what his characterization is supposed to be now: serious or quirky?

Same thing with Taash's whole story. This is especially upsetting because I feel like they could have done such great work with it.

Instead it suffers so much from several inconsistencies that I felt sorry for the VA because they actually did a great acting job.

Taash has a coming out scene with their mother where they reveal they're non-binary. Ignoring the usage of modern terms in a medieval-ish setting, the conflict about their gender makes no sense.

The writing wants you to believe Shathann is not okay with her child being non-binary but she never actually expresses such a thing. Actually Shathann sort of had an inkling that Taash was no ordinary woman ("Behaves more like a man...") and she never passed any negative judgement on it. When Taash told her this she even tried to understand by categorizing their identity into qunari vocabulary she knew (remember the term aqun-athlok?).

I get how hard it is to have an overly critical mother and the feeling of not being good enough but that was not what Shathann was about in that scene and it did Taash so dirty because they looked more like an entitled teenager than someone suffering from trauma and perfectionism.

But moving on.

Some old characters are mischaracterized

It's Scout Harding. I mean Harding.

I was really excited to have her as a companion in the new installment but they sort of butchered her character that I found myself annoyed everytime she opened her mouth.

And this is because they make her sound so immature. Really think about it. DATV somehow makes Scout Harding sound younger and more childish than she was in DAI despite the fact that she is supposed to be a whole decade older in DATV than in DAI.

I don't know what direction her VA recieved while recording but everything was pronounced so slowly and extra clear that it seemed at times that Harding was either talking to a confused elderly person or a child.

She herself uses expressions not fit for her age. The most jarring moment was when she called the Blight in D'meta's Crossing 'weird' and sounded like a teenager who has stumbled upon furry art for the first time on deviantArt. This pattern pretty much continues throughout the game. And it hurts so much.

Also Morrigan. She at least still uses her even for DA setting standards antiquated vocabulary but she is too happy and cheery and friendly.

Morrigan is not a nice person to those she does not know and like personally. But to Rook she was so nice despite having met them for the first time.

The Morrigan we have come to know love/hate should have been more snarky or at least more neutral in her demeanor.

The Venatori

I don't know why they are still a thing honestly. I was under the impression they have lost all footing after the death of Corypheus. Why would they follow the Gods of the people their country systemically abuses anyway?

Bonus: Why would the Antaam for that matter, as the qunari are so notoriously arcanophobic that they leash their mages, sew their mouths shut and literally call them "dangerous thing"?

Solas' spy network and agents

What happened to them? Where are they? Shouldn't he have a small army? Why weren't they used as the gods' agents instead of the Venatori? Surely, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain would have an easier time simply controlling Fen'Harels elven army after imprisoning him in the fade.

The Chantry

It is just not present. Sure there are some Chantry buildings but there is no discussion of faith. In all previous DA games the Chantry has had a constant influence that could be felt everywhere. Faith was discussed and explored from various angles and perspectives, ranging from ultra conservative to progressive. But in Veilguard it's not there.

Why are we not exploring the Tevinter Chantry more? Why doesn't Emmrich discuss the nevarran Chantry, who follows the Sunburst Throne in Orlais, in regards to the Mournwatch, their necromancy practices and magic? Why was he not affected by the mage uprising that started in Kirkwall? How does he deal with faith and the Chantry? It is simply never mentioned.

By all accounts, this game avoids delving into the world like the plague.

Part 3

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Anders approves if you sell Fenris back into slavery. THE HATE IS RADIOACTIVE.

People saying that Davrin and Lucianis hate one another and are mean in banter and people saying Neve is too mean to you if you chose Treviso Wouldnt last an hour in the asylum where they raised me:

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Ok I’ll give Veilguard this. In Inquisition you grow to love Solas (if you actually like him, haters need not apply here). In Trespasser you can feel the weight of his hinted past and sorrow and feel that uncomfortable mixture of betrayal and sympathy but also more betrayal and doubt. You look at him as a friend or a lover, and in high approval he very much behaves as a thoughtful man with a touch of wry irony to him. But always gentle. That’s the framework Solas loving/liking Inquisitors see him in.

But in Veilguard… hoooo boy, I hate him (in a good way). Like I love him? But the game showcases him at his most snide, his slyest, his most calculating, his most haughty. We can argue whether it’s a facade that he’s channeling to help him push through to finish his goals or if his Pride is in fact twisting him, or if this truly is all of his flaws front-loaded for Rook and the player to see.

It *does* fulfill the warning that Solas gave Lavellan in Trespasser that he didn’t want her to see what he’d become. I came into the game a die hard pining Solasmancer and yeah, I wasn’t.. frightened or put off, but I was admittedly unnerved. In fact it fulfilled a specific fear I have of people, it being “I don’t know who is secretly evil”, so watching Solas sneer and talk down to Rook in their first two conversations from a place of power and self-importance made my stomach turn in an evocative way. It was effective for me, and they managed to keep the facade up by not making Solas one-note in his evil. He was regretful, nostalgic, and gave kudos to the people of the Inquisition. I was happy to know he didn’t see them only as pawns in the end. He did grow to care for them. But in his mind, that phase of his life, that “mission”, is over.

Like thank GOD they didn’t completely butcher this character. Lotta stuff surrounding him was fucked but Solas himself remained at least somewhat coherent and functioned adequately as a versatile ‘anti-villain that thinks he’s an anti-hero but also a villain and it’s complicated, okay, but he does have some villainous mannerisms that make you go ‘uh..hold on a sec, you seem to be enjoying that a bit..’ villain.

To see my man be that wicked to Rook is like.. wow, this is how he treats people he has no feelings for who stand in his way. The Solas we got in Inquisition was de-powered, and maybe you built an antagonistic relationship with him, but he got to *know* you. With Rook you are conversing with a Max Disapproval Solas from the jump. It is greatly derived from the fact that you foiled his ritual—you, some guy. He treats you like some random off the street who infuriatingly messed with his plan, because you are. You have no direct connection to him. You might as well not even exist to him. That it wasn’t eveb a former member of the Inquisition who managed to pull a fast one on him. If it were a member of the Inquisition he would have deemed them worthy. But you? You’re unworthy of having accomplished trapping him.

Like Who are you to stop him? Who actually in the fuck are you? You’re a whelp, you’re vapor, a waste of perfectly good yearbook space.

It’s giving Sovereign v. Shepard vibes, naturally. And I’ll admiiiiiiiit it was at least modestly interesting to see this dynamic play out with a humanoid rather than a giant eldritch space monster.

But anyway, yeah. Solas was kind of misused, as was everything in Veilguard, but there are some decent truffles to dig up in this mud.

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do i, chuckles?

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🥰 these two

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💜>w<💜

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Varric and Solas both lost Cole in the divorce 😢

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in the old times of fandom there were many different ways to name a ship. if you were feeling lazy you could just do name/name or namexname. you could have your portmanteaus, à la spirk. you could have your homestuck style TwoNames naming convention. you might occasionally get your more creative names like wolfstar. and some fandoms would be absolutely obsessed with initials and brevity; why have erik/christine when you could be E/C? in 2014 we all collectively discovered creative tumblr tagging systems and so every ship on here was called shit like #otp: i am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. in 2018 every ship was called Shenanigans Bros or a random pair of barely connected nouns that were completely inscrutable to anyone who wasn't in the discord server where somebody made it up. in 2024 we have realised our madness of recent years and attempted to throw it back to the good old days, but we have done so without regard for restoring the diversity of the ecosystem and so every ship has a portmanteau regardless of whether the names actually sound good together. by this i mean i just saw a ship poll that just referred to jesus/judas as JEDUS?????????

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More older Kieran!! He’s still figuring things out 🥹

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Ok I think I actually love Taash, like, as a person. They are funny, competent, proudly dual culture (don’t talk to me I had them go for the Qun while they still honor Rivain in idle dialogue THIS IS CANON TO ME. anyway), they do their damndest to understand even Emmrich when called out, they try to find their place and do better, while just being a good friend…

But Trick Weekes really shouldn’t have written them.

It just shows that Weekes still had so much Stuff going on in their life, and everything AROUND Taash feels so… condescending. I am being talked down to how gender works by someone who is figuring it out for the first time, and whose writing reflects the worst parts of that process.

Like… excuse me Trick Weekes, WHY would a Qunari SCHOLAR mother ask this stupid-ass “if you’re neither man nor woman then what are you” question when she knows VERY WELL that the Qun has a word and a concept for that already???? As a writer myself, this is like. The worst you could do to your characters: put yourselves in them.

Of course we all have our themes and topics that just surface and resurface through our writing over and over, but Taash’s surroundings suffer so much from all this baggage Weekes still must have carried with them while writing; all this desire to overexplain gender in the whitest way possible through the blurred lense of a 20 year old Qunari-Rivaini just doesn’t do that character any justice.

Taash deserved better. Damn.

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Was there anything you liked about Veilguard?

The hair was an improvement over Inquisition's notorious fifty shades of bald. Emmrich had a lot of potential and was easily the best of what turned out to be bland, underdeveloped batch of companions that the game makes you coddle and affirm at every turn (or, in Taash's case, an insanely childish companion that I felt I had to babysit constantly). Davrin was also fine. The architectural design was beautiful to look at, even if the cities felt empty and stale. Some of the armour was nice, and an improvement on Inquisition. I wasn't a fan of some aspects of the CC (but that's more my general dissatisfaction with BioWare constantly issuing massive overhauls to the designs of elves and qunari, so it's not Veilguard-specific), but it was also a marked improvement over Inquisition. Combat was... fine. It got dull after awhile, but it was just your standard stuff. Nothing offensive. Solas' voice acting was great for the .5 seconds we got to see him. Some of the other characters were voiced well.

As I've said, my main issue just lies in the sterile, corporate writing--not just the companions. My dissatisfaction also extends to the general culling of roleplay options (and some of the reasons why they were cut--namely, because a certain head writer was against players being able to do things he personally didn't approve of, and yes, it's common knowledge as Weekes was vocal on social media about it for years), the rampant lore issues (which BioWare has always struggled with in this franchise; lore consistency is not Dragon Age's strength), the coddling and hand-holding (not just for companions but for all major plot points; it's like the game thinks we're all stupid toddlers who need everything spoon-fed and told to us in the most simplistic terms, leaving no room for nuance or discussion), and just how... demeaning a lot of this game felt, I suppose? Someone pointed this out once and it stuck with me, but this game feels more like it was designed for "lonely people who really like found family fanfiction and project way too hard onto interactive media." Everything's just constant affirmation, constant "how-are-yous" from Rook to the companions; you cannot disagree with a companion or risk hurting their pixel-feelings, even when the companions are objectively acting like arseholes. It kills the roleplay aspect BioWare has always been famous for.

In the end Rook feels more like a therapist to a bunch of whingey thirteen-year-olds than a leader of professional adults, and the sterile writing as well as the writers' deeming determination to coddle their audience just makes this M-rated game feel G-rated, and not in a good way. In the risk of going into spoilers, I'm not going to rant about the Executors (though know I hate them so very much) or about the whole thing with Southern Thedas (yes I'm mad, because it's so unbelievably lazy), but so many aspects of Dragon Age's lore was just... watered down to the extreme in this game.

Also, the fact that they turned the Antivan Crows, of all things--you know, the same Antivan crows who purchase and recruit child slaves, who kill them if the deviate, whom we've spent three games going "man, you guys are kind of nasty, aren't you" at, etc--into this soft, fluffy, weird little uwu family unit really stood out to me as a symptom of this game's overall problem, which is, again, the infantile writing and the overall issue of over-sanitisation. Everything has to be uwu family friendly and nice and no one can ever have bad thoughts or do bad things or be mean! Good vibes only! I mean, we spent years being told about Tevinter and its legacy of slavery, particularly in Minrathous, and there's none of that in this game. Just more good vibes because can't risk anyone being upset or encountering challenging narratives!

BioWare also failed to improve on the issues with the dialogue wheel from Inquisition, meaning you'll choose an option and then Rook says something completely different. Again.

I'm just so thoroughly disappointed in it.