#da1 da2

[papa-evershed]

THOMAS BARROW || BUTLER EDITION

“How did you become a butler?”

“Well, it’s a lot less glamorous. I got a job as a hall boy. Then I was a junior footman, first footman, valet, and finally, butler. There’s not much I couldn’t tell you about how to run a house, sir.”

[thecoffeerain]

Some completely average Blackwall content

[wonderfulxhappiness]

dragon age 2 the loml

[neroushalvaus]

In a way I would have liked it if the screentime given to Chris, Richard and Guy in the two movies had all been given to a single character who would have been Thomas's love interest because that would have meant the love interest could be fleshed out more and all that jazz.

But at the same time I'm so glad that in the movies he has not one, not two but three men who are interested in him. After six seasons of Downton Abbey and no man showing on-screen interest in him during its run I was half-prepared for the first movie to throw a man at him and him being just so grateful that any guy could ever show interest in him that he'd swoon on the spot. And don't get me wrong, I would have taken that storyline like a shot and humbly thanked Lord Jules for offering us this tiny crumb of representation, but at the same time that would have made me question if Thomas truly likes the man or does he just think he has to grab this opportunity to have a lover because this is the only gay man on earth besides him, his long-forgotten ex and that one dead marquess he never met, and he ought to be grateful that this gay man condescends to like him.

But the fact that Chris, Richard and Guy all see him in these movies and instantly think he's attractive and desirable... They're not exactly fighting for his love or anything because none of them know about each other, but they create the same effect as, I don't know, Mary having multiple suitors at the same time: Thomas is someone people want, he is handsome and fascinating enough to attract more than one man, he doesn't have to settle for anyone he doesn’t like because he will have others who are interested in him. No matter what you envision his future to be like (where he will live, who will he end up with), he will have the knowledge that he is wanted and desired and even if one of his relationships were not to work out, he will find someone new. I love it. It makes me happy.

[plaingrumpy]

BRUH REMIND ME TO RANT LATER ABOUT DRAGONAGEKEEP.COM!!

[manicpunk98]

I feel like Circle mages would realistically have the highest rates of atheism out of any other demographic.

They are taught from a very early age how to recognize and react to being manipulated and deceived by demons.

Especially emotional manipulation on just about every front. Anger, sadness, seduction, starvation, fear, etc...

It think it should be hard to pull a fast one on a Circle mage too. Especially ones who have survived the Harrowing.

By extension they should also be masters of these things. Know thy enemy. They'd know the most effective forms of manipulation and deception.

[pseudogirlie]

I’ve decided I like Anders again. Ive come full circle

[sadcowboy69]

Oh he Crazy crazy

[tuesdayintheservantshall]

DA1 gave Thomas two people who responded positively to his humor and DA2 gave Thomas his flirting skills back and I’m gonna sit here hugging my knees to my chest and smiling about both of those things.

[delusion-of-negation]

Please tell me about zevran of dragon age! I adore DA2 and DAI, and I tried so hard to play DA1 but I couldn’t get through it :(

I love DA2, Awakening, and Origins. I'm not too fond of DAI, I feel like it didn't deliver on a lot of expectations, had a few plot holes, and didn't live up to the prior two. I loved Blackwall's plotline, but the way they handled Cole really upset me. Asunder gave us a character who was deep, profound, introspective, a new look on identity, and then DAI went "fuck it the player gets to decide who Cole is for him, and he has to be one or the other". bad.

Zevran is great tho. Zevran tries to kill you, gets stopped, and then immediately starts to flirt with you. I love him more than life itself.

[d-kee]

thinking about how da2 is set roughly a year after da1 and that kinda definitely means that thomas and richard had a Thing going on for all that time up until thomas received The Letter…and i wonder how many letters they exchanged and how many times they met up or even how many times they kissed within those 12 months

[infinity2020corner]

Some personal feelings about Thomas Barrow in DA2

Warning for spoilers

Before the DA2 trailer dropped, I had been really looking forward to seeing Thomas Barrow again. It would have been a complete delight, had it not been for what I was presented with. Even prepared as I was, watching most of it was rather painful.

As we likely all know by now, Julian Fellowes chose to retcon canon yet again (e.g. Carson's health, retconning canon seems to be the rule now, more than the odd occurrence); he went ahead and erased the hopeful ending of DA1 by recycling an abandoned plotline that was spoiled 3 years ago, a plotline that in my humble opinion makes very little sense in the wake of how Richard Ellis was eventually portrayed in DA1.

(Nice. Very nice and not embarrassing and lazy at all. Moving on.)

Early in the film there is a scene between Thomas and Mrs Hughes where we learn that Richard is getting married, Thomas is visibly heartbroken, and this understandable emotional mindset is a constant shadow throughout the film. What got to me even more, though, was how Mrs Hughes acted towards Thomas. She felt nowhere near as warm an affectionate as any of the previous times she comforted him in the series; she looked, if not outright cold, rather aloof and almost disinterested, in spite of her claiming the opposite. This personality shift is so random, so obvious, that to me it seems very deliberate she was written as such.

For what reason would they do something like that? Perhaps it has to do with the sense of forced alienation which I perceived around Thomas; it is so jarring that it feels completely artificial, instead of a natural development. Among other things, personally I was in utter disbelief at witnessing Denker, of all characters, being more involved in downstairs antics than Thomas was. It felt like some sort of upside-down world, to be honest.

It is true that DA1, too, rather lacked in terms of more meaningful interactions between the downstairs characters, but it was clear the atmosphere was one of general harmony, Thomas included, and they all formed a united front in the face of the RV. Even the professional, yet relaxed attitude Thomas conveyed as a butler in DA1 was abruptly changed for no apparent reason; I recall a couple of times in DA2 where Thomas acts more like Carson would then himself, and it's so OOC it's just plain awful.

Overall, Thomas looks generally upset or sad, almost lifeless, for at least half the time he's on screen; for the rest of it, he either wears his polite servant mask or looks confused/uncomfortable, barely cracking a smile or two until the end. Most of the aforementioned issues could be attributed to the loss of his relationship with Richard, yet even that does not explain everything that feels so off in DA2.

At this point, I'm starting to believe the break-up, the deliberate isolation and all their consequences were nothing more than plot devices, aiming to ensure that few viewers would be inclined to question Thomas and the extremely rash life decisions he makes in the film; in the light of this theory, it is quite telling they felt the need to retcon multiple characters and storylines.

Then, once he gives his notice, he simply disappears, with no hint of goodbye from Phyllis and the others, and not even one tiny snippet of how he's doing after the time skip, nothing.

What a disappointment, on so many levels.

[springlighthappytogether]

DA2 thoughts

Spoliers Spoliers Spoliers

Just some personal thoughts of DA2 regarding Thomas Barrow.

Sorry in advance for my incompetent English as a non-native speaker. But if I am not expressing my thoughts right now, my head gonna explode.😂

To be clarified, I am a latecomer of being Downton Abbey fan. I watched season 1-6 and DA1 three days straight in early April 2022. I fell in love with the show quickly and mostly due to the existence of Thomas Barrow. Thomas is the main reason I watched the show in a continuity almost without sleeping or eating because I was dying to know what would happen to him. It gave me tremendous hope after DA1 and I became undying Barris shipper ever since. In the short period of time as in two months, I watched almost every Barris fics on AO3 and rewatched the clips including Thomas Barrow and Richard Ellis at least 100 times. I was devastated after I learned the spoilers, still, my expectation of DA2 was high until yesterday when I finally watched DA2 with ultimate disappointment.

It is not even about Richard getting married that upset me, it is the way they handled Thomas's character. I would rather like to be convinced that there is another hopeful ending for Thomas, but yet I felt nothing at all after watching DA2... Everything is in such a rush, Thomas only gets dialogues that keep the plot going, can't even see him as much in the background.  Compare to DA1, I simply don't think they give Thomas enough attention and care in DA2. I have searched Thomas in every shot, I couldn't help but notice the difference. Thomas is either having grim expressions or lacking emotions in most of his screen time which felt a completely different person from the show and DA1. They reduced everything to a minimum and only kept the dialogue scenes that keeps the plot going on. Am I the only one think that they didn't do Thomas justice??? If they gonna give him a new romance, shouldn't they give it more development? To be honest... I am not convinced by Guy and Thomas's minimal interaction... I found Guy adorable and I'm a fan of Golden Hollywood era but yet I am not convinced that Thomas should leave everything at Downton and go to Hollywood. That smile on Thomas's face was treasure though, besides that, I was disappointed in how they filmed Thomas. Like, for example, they didn't give Thomas a reaction shot when Molesley propose to Phyllis, while Thomas and Phyllis's relationship has been developed for so long. And in the funeral scene, Thomas was wearing a fabulous long coat and so handsome(I was screaming in my heart how gorgeous he look), but they only shown him in a wide shot and then that's it. I was like " You guys didn't even want to show him in a medium shot with the others. Urgh." and sometimes in the background he was just blurred...

As I recall, these didn't happen in DA1. Maybe I just noticed these things as I watched films on a daily basis and being picky. Somehow I just felt like the direction of DA2 didn't care about Thomas that much, except the plot they got to show as JF has written down on the script. I think the reason why DA1 and Barris has such a huge impact on me is because the direction had lifted up the script and the actors did a marvellous job. The way they captured how Richard looking at Thomas... His eyes didn't hide the affection... I had studied it frame by frame and Max Brown's eyes don't lie... They glint in a way that tell us everything about how Richard fell for Thomas which makes it believable. Robert James-Collier is still the best in DA2, although felt like not enough scenes for him to elaborate...

I wish I could like DA2, but unfortunately I dislike it... Such a disappointment...

[corinthreean]

So anyway my feelings of ‘maybe Richard wasn’t serious to begin with’ have grown into something more concrete with every rewatch of DA1 and the DA2 letter scene, and every comparison of his behaviour to Guy’s.

I really think he was just having a bit of fun to begin with. Picking up blokes on his tour round England. Why shouldn’t he?! What’s the point of looking like Max Brown if you’re not going to break a few hearts on your way?

And as I’ve said before: I like him much better as a bit of a player. It’s so much more interesting than ‘relationship that was almost something wonderful but faltered before it really began.’ A Richard who was careful with his words (no promises, no declarations), who came with an act ready to play (the CAR LEAN, the lines, the gesture of finger to lip, the token ready to go) like he was basing himself on a character in a story. Who gave Thomas a bit of hope, a bit of confidence, and let him go with an invented marriage for an excuse when he felt like their correspondence had reached its natural conclusion.

This feels more genuinely like the Richard we saw to me. Just my opinion of course, mind! The text can clearly be read multiple ways.

Anyway. Please read @alittlewhos-this’s excellent drabble that runs with this HC in beautiful style. I am still swooning over it.

[airmanisr]

DSC_1875 - Eurofighter EF-2000, ZH588, Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, London, 13th January 2022. by Martin Laycock Via Flickr: One of the seven EF 2000 Development Aircraft (DAs) built by the Eurofighter Partner Companies (EPCs), six of which later formed part of an intensive Flight Test Programme (FTP), as one had been lost in an accident. DA2 was the first British-built Eurofighter prototype and also the first to be completed. Despite this, she was the second Eurofighter to actually fly on the 6th April 1994, albeit powered by 2 RB199 Mk. 104Es, these engines originated from the retired BAe EAP. She was eventually retrofitted with EJ200 turbofans and flew again in this configuration in August of 1998. She was also used to complete the first air-to-air refuelling trials. The 'Fighting Cock' marking on the vertical stabiliser relates to her being temporarily based at RAF Leauchars, Fife, home of 43 Squadron during 2001 for airflow measurement trials. She made her final flight on the 29th January 2007 landing at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire after a total of 652 sorties and a total flying time of 614 hours 44 minutes. Eurofighter prototype DA1 is also preserved, being with the Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleissheim near Munich since March 2007.

[heydragonfly]

i love dai so much but there is something so lovely and irreplaceable of the experience of the first two dragon age games for me. bc like okay dragon age 1? some of the most beautiful soulful writing i’ve experienced in a video game, absolutely the best romances i’ve ever experienced like the genuine TRAGEDY of everything with alistairs romance, how from every angle it fits the basic mold of a tragedy because there is almost no truly happy ending (cousland aside but even then like u can’t have the warden without Some Form of Trauma). and then it also has some of the most hysterically bad combat mechanics i’ve ever seen in a video game. there is almost no variation in the fighting animations. your attacks automatically lock on and the main function is waiting a bit to use ur specific abilities and remembering to use potions. the leveling isn’t so much of leveling as it is if you’re higher than easy u will do a grand total of one damage per hit for some enemies (looking at u brood mother). but i STILL keep playing and ENJOYING the game bc the story and world building is just that good. like what the fuck.

and then da2… like i think objectively has the most flaws of the three games but the JOY i felt booting up that game shortly after finishing da1 and not just seeing the CRAZY boost in graphics but watching my mage BE COOL? INSTEAD OF POKING THE AIR???? so now there’s this CRAZY fun fighting system and great characters and story and it is a HIGHKEY mess and i could critique the writing a lot but at the end of the day???? it’s my favorite of the three?????? idk man i just. the experiences of those two games both alone but especially back to back is something i don’t think i’ll ever be able to fully replicate