#cus i'm just yelling into the void at this point

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

ok sorry i'm just. ????

rant and spoilers ahead because i gotta yell into the void a little

first of and most of all. WHY does it sound like Solas front and center of everthing now??? Including both Inky's and Rook's stories/motivations???? Like okay i understand that Solas will inevitably be important in Rook's story and that's chill! We knew he was gonna play a part in this story! But why do they make it sound like half or Rook's purpose is just there to further Solas's story/character

and it quickly becomes clear that Rook will have their own unique relationship with Solas, as the Inquisitor did before them. I think what's been fun for us, too, is trying to build Rook as kind of almost a mirror of Solas.

Epler also acknowledges that the Inquisitor “obviously has a very personal relationship with Solas,” one that will need to be reckoned with in The Veilguard.

“And I'd say the Inquisitor, to some degree, feels guilty or responsible for what Solas is doing to the world. So while we're not going to get too far into details about what role they may play, they absolutely are somebody who is going to be interested and invested in the outcome of Rook's journey in The Veilguard.”

Why. are you telling us how our Inquisitor is supposed to feel about this?? When you play DAI you agree to play The Inquisitor, yes, but you don't agree to play someone who Cares About Solas. Like. Yes. I get that he is important. That much has been clear since Trespasser. And i'm ok with that! But how come you say "this is a game about Thedas and a world in conflict" and then also talk like this story is About Solas, Actually.

The other thing i absolutely do not get and do not like. At All

Those decisions are: who your Inquisitor romanced (with the options gender- and lineage-locked in the same way that they were in Inquisition), whether or not you disbanded the Inquisition, and whether you vowed to stop Solas or save him.

?????

No "who drank from the WoS"? No "who is Divine"? No "does OGB Kieran exist"? No "is Hawke alive" (Varric is there. SURELY he cares about this a lot)? No "what happened to the Mages & Templars"? No "were Wardens banned from the south"? Arent't those uh. Really Relevant Decisions???? WHY is one of the whole grand three (3) decisions that carry over if Inky wants to save Solas or not. I mean ok i guess i get it cus that was The Big Decision TM at the end of Trespasser but again. Why is that the big thing that matters. out of all the things that SHOULD matter.

There's not as many decisions you have made up to this point that have an impact on what's happening in Northern Thedas.

But it’s also part of the advantage of moving the setting up to Northern Thedas, Epler says, with the prior games in the series taking place in Southern Thedas, a significantly different region both geographically and sociopolitically.

Uh. Yeah they do. See above points and also some that i forgot probably. Northern and Southern Thedas don't operate independently from one another that's not how this works. Especially again with things like the WoS or the Divine decision. Also half our companions from the other games are from the north?? Like yes ok i know get what you mean kinda and it's true to an extent but not like this

for one, the team focused on choices that they felt they could react to meaningfully – not just a cameo or one-liner.

“There's never a sense of, ‘Oh, that decision doesn't exist.’ But maybe we don't touch on it in this particular title,”

The. Cameos and one-liners are what make it special though?? You can't say "We want those stories to be personal." and then say you're not making any of those small decisions matter. And i don't mean matter as in having A Big Impact TM but i know that a lot of us LIVE for those small tiny nods to previous decisions that make the world feel actually alive and connected. I understand that we can't have full on-screen cameos or questlines or whatever for every little tidbit but not even. idk. Background convos about what's going on in Orzammar? Gossip about Ferelden's monarch? A line from Varric about Bartrand? Dunno man. Again not to mention the Big Things like Kieran. or the Well of Sorrows consequences. Or the Divine (which. yknow. is directly relevant everywhere except maybe Tevinter??). Those were always the things that made importing a worldstate so charming! because you could see the small little impacts that you have on the world. The tiny things like the line about the pigeons in Ferelden in DA2 or a wartable mission with Wade and Herren in DAI are so so special to me

[britesuns]

where are the swiftie dinlukers.................... they need to know my assigned taylor swift songs for each of them... we need to discuss luke "the archer" skywalker and din "peace" djarin

[flip-mode-engaged]

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

For what it's worth, I deeply respect that you're focused on the actual texts of the Ulster Cycle rather than Fate-related stuff. I actually ended up getting into that series specifically because it was sold to me as having Cu Chulainn in it and I was a big fan of his stories, so I'm always glad to see other people who know about the source material cause it's so cool.

I know virtually nothing about Fate and everything I know about it, I’ve learned unwillingly 😂 As a medievalist with a particular academic interest in Cú Chulainn, you can imagine I was pretty confused when people started adding pictures of some dude with blue hair onto my posts, at which point I was obliged to find out what they were talking about. (I wasn’t wild about the answer, but there we go...)

I literally have a degree in medieval Irish language & lit, so the source material is all I know about. Apparently the majority of my life is just spent yelling about medieval literature into the internet void and hoping the internet void occasionally yells back.

From what I’ve seen of it, the main/only thing I like about Fate is how it seems to have prompted people to get into the stories when they wouldn’t otherwise have heard of them, and I’ve talked to a few people who’ve developed a real interest in medieval Irish lit because of it. I’ve seen nothing that has made me want to take an interest in it for myself, though...

I mean, for starters, why would you give Cú Chulainn blue hair when he already has the most anime hair in the history of legendary heroes? It really doesn’t do justice to how ferociously weird his appearance is meant to be:

Beautiful indeed was the youth who thus came to display his form to the hosts, namely, Cú Chulainn mac Súaltaim. He seemed to have three kinds of hair: dark next to his skin, blood-red in the middle and hair like a crown of gold covering them outside. Fair was the arrangement of that hair with three coils in the hollow in the nape of his neck, and like gold thread was each fine hair, looseflowing, bright-golden, excellent, long-tressed, splendid and of beautiful colour, which fell back over his shoulders. A hundred bright crimson ringlets of flaming red-gold encircled his neck.Around his head a hundred strings interspersed with carbunclegems. Four shades in each of his cheeks, a yellow shade and a green, a blue shade and a purple. Seven brilliant gem-like pupils in each of his noble eyes. Seven toes on each of his feet; seven fingers on each of his hands with the grasp of a hawk's claws and the grip of a hedghog's claws in each separate toe and finger.

-- from Táin Bó Cúailnge, Recension 1, trans. Cecile O’Rahilly

But eh. If they want to be boring about it and give him blue hair, whatever. Their loss.