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yeah no take your time man i know it's a lot to process. it's chill. or not, haha. oh, sigrun? yeah she'll be fine. at least it's raining

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okay it's been so long since i played awakening and. love this expansion, love all the characters introduced in it

but man did i forget that all the weirdest stuff about how these games treat the dalish come out ROARING in the the way velanna is framed and treated, which sucks because i love her so much,,,

It's just so striking to me that all your options, even as a Dalish yourself, are consistently to talk down to and demean Velanna, to make her feel foolish for being "fixated" on the past, which is...consistent with how the Dalish overall are talked about going forward.

Like the first conversation for example, she's just. Openly grieving her people's lack of coherent stories and heroes. I didn't have the foresight to screenshot the earlier bits, but she talks about how she's envious of humans having so many different heroes and role models of all stripes. The Dalish don't have that. And your responses are to...tell her to get over it? For real? Not a single option to empathize with her.

Velanna is a genuinely introspective character for as young and angry as she also is, but that's often painted as a negative, like the ways she introspects are still "wrong." I love Velanna, but I dread talking to her because every time I do, I know I'm going to see dialogue where I like none of the options because they're all purpose built for lecturing her. It sucks! I don't like it! A lot of the things she feels are valid and I don't like that it's assumed you'll only want to tell her that they aren't.

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i think it's really funny that you can just do anders' personal quest almost immediately, because it means like. you can throw out the "it's what friends do" dialogue and something about the way anders responds here makes me not read this as

"i...guess they do (wow...camaraderie and companionship...someone who just wants to help me...i didnt think i could have that)"

and more

"i...guess they do (wow, i've known you for like, two hours and you're my boss! this is a little uncomfortable for me actually! are you normal?)"

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There's a question which the west coast Fallout games are quietly litigating, which is that age-old gotcha about what you do with the remaining orcs once you've deposed Sauron. In the original Fallout, the Super Mutants are basically universally aligned against the quote-unquote "good guys," for whatever value of that term is applicable to the wasteland at large, but subsequent games make it clear that this was an ideological thing, and a product of the political moment of the mutants creation rather than an ontological quality that they have. The game is very aware that this is something that was done to them, and the tragedy of that; the first mutant you're likely to run into is dying scared and alone.

Fallout 2 presents super mutants who've broken in every direction ideologically in the aftermath of the Unity's collapse; the peacemakers under Marcus at Broken Hills, Gond as a member of the abolitionist NCR rangers, reactionary remnants of the original mutant army, genocidal self-hating fascists like Frank Horrigan. Fallout: New Vegas iterates on this beautifully. The mutants dovetail perfectly with the theme of how every faction in the wasteland is trying and oftentimes failing to reckon with the weight of history. Their utopian movement imploded outside of living memory, closer to the apocalypse than to the present day. The survivors- who can only dwindle in number due to their sterility- have been left to reckon with that in whatever way they can. And they have their backs to about a hundred and twenty years of that reckoning not going particularly well, of being the bugbear and boogeymen for bullies and ideologues whose grandparents weren't even alive to suffer from the Unity's actions. The lack of a collective future for mutantkind casts a pall over even the best ending for Jacobstown; humans are collectively resilient within this setting, but through violence, and accidents, dementia and senility, the day will inevitably come when there are no mutants left. And worse still will be the day before that, when there's only one mutant left. Finding some form of satisfaction or contentment within that dwindling window, with the world against you, is a task that falls to the individual mutant. (Take Mean Sonovabitch, for example. He seems to be doing alright for himself.)

Then we slide on over to the east coast games, where the mutants are.... morons. Cannibals. Marauders. And when you meet one who isn't, the game throws itself a ticker-tape parade for containing such an audacious twist. To go back to the orc thing, it's like if The Hobbit had contained a lengthy, empathetic subplot about the rich internality and fleshed-out-if-deeply-flawed ideology of the orcs, and then there was a pivot to treating them like a monolithic block of ontologically evil marauders in LOTR. While staring you straight in the eye the whole time, unblinking. Daring you to say something

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ORIGINS FINISHED AGAIN AND GAAAAHHH...I STILL LOVE THIS GAME..

If I might yap for a sec, at risk of getting sappy and way too real about a video game, I have such a vivid memory of the first time I beat Origins.

I was really sad.

It was bittersweet, because the ending isn't a promise of future whirlwind adventures with the gang—if anything, it can be the opposite. A few of them can explicitly tell you they're not sure if you'll ever meet again. Some of them have duties and desires taking them far away. What you want to do may or may not align, even if you want to go wherever they're going. The day is won, the world is saved, and now that it is, everyone goes their separate ways.

And that realization hit me really hard. It felt like I, the real person holding the controller, was saying goodbye to a group of people I loved. That feeling comes back to me every time I finish this game.

It's far from perfect. The consolized nature of it means your options aren't as varied as other CRPGs, certain mechanics like traps or pickpocketing feel really underbaked, even with the LAA patch it can crash quite a bit in some areas, it's buggy to a degree that mods have never completely ironed out, some specializations just suck, its humor can be gross and its politics reflecting a writing team of Canadian liberals, the game has always looked a little ugly, but god do I love it so so much. And even as my relationship with Dragon Age as a franchise is so much more complicated I don't think that will change.

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HELP IVE NEVER NOTICED ALISTAIR TRIES TO HOLD ANORA’S HAND IN THE MARRIED ENDING AND SHE FUCKING SHUTS HIM DOWN THAT’S SO FUNNY. OH MY GOD.

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god the battle of denerim makes me so emotional every time. i love these people

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gang ive never actually romanced alistair before despite playing this game SO MUCH (this is the first time ive played it since i realized i was bisexual and trans incidentally) and let me tell you the way my heart fucking dropped when i got the sequence of this conversation slightly wrong and he fucking dumped me. oh my god. im so cooked. i hate him so much he's not even real why does he make me feel this way. i literally stood up and paced around the room after i reloaded. stupid dumb handsome funny kind asshole i hate him i hate him so much

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GFEHJUM NDBNUJKSHBNF IT. IT WORKED??? THIS WORKED????????

installed the mod that adds back shale being able to rescue you from fort drakon and yeah this should be funny

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installed the mod that adds back shale being able to rescue you from fort drakon and yeah this should be funny

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dude shut up you dont know what you're asking for

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I have never been on the same page as fandom’s clear communication fetishists and I never will be. I love miscommunication, concealment, pigheadedness, and lies. I think characters should talk around what they have to say and ignore each other and impute needs and beliefs onto others that have nothing to do with those other people and everything to do with maintenance of the ego. A little clear communication is fine but it should come at the end and be earned by repeated instances of snobbery, tomfoolery, self righteousness, or blockheadedness. If you decide you hate a character just because that character isn’t communicating in the way a therapist might coach them to, well consider that people don’t actually talk like that at all and that most of us get things wrong many times before we inch our way out of the labyrinthine darkness of our own heads.

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the genius of megamind (beyond the obvious genius ofc) is that it's superman parody actually presents a genuinely unsettling depiction of the "hero" that I like wayyy better than "what if superman was evil" or "what if superman was wrong"... it's "what if superman didn't care"

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It’s literally the kind of thing you see late Evangelion episodes do, except there, it’s a choice made stylistic prompted by their total lack of budget

they just did this because they wanted to

I think the main thing that makes the iconic Xemnas Goes For a Power Walk scene so hysterical is just the fact that the entire scene plays out in utter silence. No background music or anything aside from the brief moments of flashback dialogue that play over the echoes of chain clinks and Xemnas’ big ass boots clopping all the way down. For over 2 minutes. Incredible choice

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I remember Weekes saying something that Solas was never under any spell/geas to follow Mythal so everything he did was of his own free will and even if she told him not to tear down the veil centuries ago he would’ve gone ahead with it anyway so I don’t honestly believe at all that everything solas did in Veilguard was because of Mythal as it’s straight from the horse’s mouth but it doesn’t change the fact that that’s exactly what it looks like so regardless there it is

as for Solavellan… there were implications already that there was something between Solas/Mythal that hinted towards a romantic relationship. In Trespasser, in my opinion at least, if you drank from the well, you would know the secret password to one of Solas’s hideouts and the Inky comments about something between Solas/Mythal but to be fair it’s an ambiguous comment

also Inky can tease Morrigan and Solas at the temple of Mythal saying that they look like they are going to kiss when they argue which of course knowing what we know now it’s more on the nose than ever

i'm pretty sure i saw that bsky(?) post you're referring to and like. i'm trying super hard not be rude about it but that was incredibly frustrating LOL. no one is under the impression mythal is literally mind controlling solas or that she was threatening him or literally whatever. the issue was that the entire relationship is built upon a dynamic where mythal makes the decisions and solas is the reluctant, unhappy victim who never wanted to do any of the bad things they did. "everything solas did was of his own free will" is a. VERY generous interpretation when it is shown repeatedly that he was unhappy and uncomfortable and begged mythal to reconsider her decisions repeatedly. there is also the fact that mythal summoned and made him flesh herself, and we Know what spirits are like when they're newly corporeal (baby deer justice) and as a result solas was like. hopelessly devoted to her. like yes in the most literal sense of the word he was "willing," but come ooonnn. we're humans. we're smarter than this. he was so thoroughly wrapped around her finger that he did whatever she said and that was absolutely intentional in the writing.

this isn't the first time the writers pulled that weird, willful obliviousness in their response to criticism. they did the same thing with the executors. "you guys misunderstood the Secret Ending; the executors weren't literally mind controlling all the antagonists in the games they were just subtly influencing their behavior!" like okay so nobody was under the impression that the executors were doing anything as blunt as that, it's not about the Literal mind control it's about the way in which their influence in the games, no matter the extent, retroactively stripped everyone of any autonomy they had as antagonists. it's the exact same blame shifting that anyone with critical thinking skills recognizes as "oh. so these characters were never fully in control of their actions. it was the italian shadow government. ok." like it's very frustrating and tbh an insult to everyone's intelligence

and plus even if you disregard all of this, word of god means very little if the text itself isn't supporting it. like david gaider saying "the tranquil can leave the circle at any time!" like we all know that's complete nonsense and not at all how the games play out. if the writers somehow failed that spectacularly at accurately communicating information to the audience, that's a them issue and they're not off the hook for it

also yeah i know mythal and solas was always implied. the liddol hug after the end credits was 😳. but that's not really what i'm getting at. they literally only mentioned the relationship in order for it to come up that mythal was being romantic with him, and then immediately to say that it actually wasn't like that. the game has this weird refusal to commit to it despite going out of their way to bring it up and then to immediately walk back on it. like idk maybe it isn't very noticeable if you arent super invested in writing (google how do i reword this sentence in a way that isn't patronizing im not trying to be i swear this is slash gen) but as a writer, Everything you write is deliberate. everything in the script has a purpose. and this is especially true in the context of a cutscene that was meant to be an exposition dump.

like again. "solas and mythal were fucking? haha ❤️ no. maybe?" ok. net zero information gained. why. what purpose did this exchange have in the story? if it is clearly romantic, why did they try to tell you it wasn't romantic? and if it wasn't romantic or intentionally ambiguous, then what in the sam hill was the point of that exchange at all. there was no reason to include that part in the conversation. solas and mythal were Already established to be super super super super close. everyone already knows that.

like. imagine if there was a cutscene where harding was like. "did you know i have a baby. she's in skyhold. i had to leave her behind." and rook was like, "sorry. you what." and then immediately harding is like "looool no i don't lmfao i'm not a mother bro. ok anyways bye." and that was literally the entire interaction. what would you. as the player. take out of that. like. you wouldnt just FORGET she said that right. because why the hell did they even put that in there if there was no purpose to that conversation.

again it's like an attempt to leave it ambiguous so the fans who dont like solythal can ignore it, while still. heavily implying it's there. in such a heavy handed way that the only way to ignore the subtext is by being willfully obtuse. like i would have to think they were REALLY stupid to not see the obvious reaction from fans a million miles away. especially with the knowledge that the writers are heavily involved with fandom

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the bite animation for reavers is hawke ripping out the enemies hearts and eating it. btw.

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i DO think weekes is an exceptional writer like. not even just in dragon age like the parts of mass effect they were directly involved with are coincidentally the most fun i've ever fucking had with that trilogy and i hate mass effect LOL.

but i also think they um. their writing very much Drips with self-satisfaction. like they really really really need you to know what this symbolism means and what this dialogue is foreshadowing and exactly word for word what this exposition means and i think that's why they only really seem to thrive in environments with heavy editor oversight. i'm literally constantly thinking about that interview where gaider said solas was literally the most insufferably unlikable character he has ever seen and they had to like. come up with a "rule system" for his character to make his rat bastard side both more subtle and more likable

subsequently i think gaider is a terrible writer LOL but a fantastic consultant. his insufferable know-it-all "well actually 🤓☝️" personality is definitely an advantage when you're working quality control. i feel like his horribly fucking annoying habit of Never Letting Things Go actually kinds of complements his passion for the lore and worldbuilding. his bsky threads where he went into detail about his thought process behind each of the characters he was responsible for was actually incredibly interesting because it feels like his primary concern when writing is balance. "alistair should be the comic relief and can even speak anachronistically. as a treat. but he should only crack jokes during xyz or he'll be annoying" "fenris' hatred for mages has to be contextual to his trauma to avoid coming across as abusively bigoted while still being a character flaw" like he's a terrible fucking writer but he's really good at keeping in mind what is appealing to a Consumer.