just plaid

I doodled Spite in a Santa hat for similar reasons and because I needed a pfp, but now it’s an offering for your bad times. 🫂

9 out of 10 online weirdos recommend taking a hatless character and giving them a hat just for funsies, I hear.

Ahhh crud, that’s gonna live in my brain for a hot minute. I didn’t want to write anything but now I might have to 😅

Putting that up against the way he yells for Rook when the crew pulls them out and that’s a whole meal.

It was 😅

I spent hours looking like the “this is fine” dog. I love Alistair, but some people REALLY love Alistair and they did not appreciate that comparison, not one bit.

VG discourse has been a real rollercoaster.

Gotta mash :D and D: into something like :D: to really capture the yesyeswaitno vibe of reading a defense of a character that has you cheering, until it pivots into something that someone else needs to make a defense post about.

anyway, shoutout to the one person that reminded me that I’d actually have three nickels, because I forgot Gil from Andromeda.

(But also maybe we can stop doing that to the love interests, maybe?) 💀

Made a “two nickels” joke about BioWare making two love interests impregnate other women (Jacob and Alistair), but ppl just keep explaining to me why Alistair “had to”, as if I’m comparing their motivations and not just poking fun at it happening in 2 (!!!) romances.

Please…no more. I do not care.

The first time I ever got Blackwall’s “You alright, love?” party banter was after I rogue backflipped off a cliff lol

…I need to do another run of Inquisition. 😭

On day whatever of Veilguard being both a blessing and a curse. I haven’t been this internally confused over a game, ever. I like it, I enjoy it, but it’s got me side eyeing so many decisions made in this and other games.

This is far from the only time this imbalance happens. 🤷‍♀️

Someone on Reddit pointing out that a woman’s role in culture and media is usually to suffer/sacrifice/be humiliated, and how that affects women’s romance options in games vs. men’s, and then thinking some more about hardened Lucanis inescapably pursuing Neve in front of my Rook.

Pardon, I—AHHHHHHH

But I’ve been out of DA fandom since Trespasser and I need to catch up on the yapping. more of it, plz and thx 🥺

(Sorry about the list, I didn’t know there was such a thing, oof)

Idk. I don’t have a conclusion. It’s frustrating discussing past the impenetrable “it makes sense b/c—” wall.

I agree that it makes sense that, of the 2, Lucanis is the one that gets locked out, just for a diff. reason, and it feels bad.

I like Veilguard, just disappointed in this bit.
/end

Cyberpunk does it even “better”. 2 women/2 men. 2 romance options met in the main story and 2 met in side quests. 2 locked out of the “hopeful” ending. Only one can die. Wonder how the realistic consequences and “understandable” reactions are divvied—oh.

Well…
4/

Was it cool that ME3 Jacob was like that? It was “real”, people move on sometimes.

But was it satisfying for the players that romanced him? Presumably, those players weren’t straight men, so who cares, right? So realistic that some romances end miserably! Theres 2, even! Jacob and…Thane. Hm… 3/

It could have made just as much sense for Neve to get locked out and Lucanis to still have a romance. Lucanis has bad memories in Treviso + living w/ Spite. Neve lives and breathes Dock Town. Alternate reality, a diff group of people would be saying “why lock out just one?” b/c it’s strange. 2/

“It makes sense that hardened Lucanis won’t romance Rook because—“

I…kinda don’t care? I’m not media illiterate, I get why sad town=sad man. I’m just tired of male romance options getting shafted and it getting treated like it’s a revolutionary narrative decision, and not the norm. 1/5

Mmm, just gonna pretend the Lucanis answers on Reddit never happened, actually. I can’t wrap my head around the “didn’t dim his passions” thing without wrecking my enjoyment of what we did get. More power to the people that can, but it ain’t me.

Demi + virgin Lucanis though? Thank you, Mary. 🙌

Yeah, joined here to have some “that bit didn’t hit right, did it?” moments with like-minded people and was weirded out at how defensive people seemed at pretty minor criticism.

Now I kinda get it. Fandom/creator division is basically gone, in the worst way. I feel old and out of touch.

Hated seeing accounts have been deleted in the wake of the Thing. Hope they’re doing okay.

I had a lot of feelings about some of the reveals, but chose to just sigh loudly and rant lore at my husband. I wanted to discuss the normal amount of disappointment w/ others, but now it feels icky.

I wasn’t a big fan of that answer either. :(

it makes it seem like Neve is the one he organically falls in love with, no matter what, and Rook is easy to forget/cast aside. The fact the rejection doesn’t come up during the “I made a pie for Neve” scene is very blah for me.

maybe I’ve been reading too much Lucanis discourse, or game discourse in general, but there’s a certain…energy directed at people that would like more from video game romances.

Not assuming bad intent, just noticing the language mirrors capital-G(amer) “women b crazy” talking points. It feels bad.

A little p.s., also made with love: this is all in good fun. Can it please just be fun? 😅

Assan got some pie, so it’s a happy story being told here, really.

Rook is in distress, holding a pie, a pie that is not theirs, above their head.

Rook is still distressed, like exactly the same amount of distressed. It’s like the artist was lazy and just copy pasted the same face and rolled with it, but the once-whole pie is now airborne pie chunks.

A creature vaguely resembling Assan is eating pie off the floor, content. Distressed Rook stares off into the distance. Clueless Lucanis asks, “Sooooo…it IS too much????”

Lucanis no longer has time for a romance with you…but he does have a quick question about Rook’s opinion on his romance pie. He made it with love, in his spare time.

(AKA—I’m not an artist, but I had some feelings.)

My ongoing gaming struggle…finally having money to spend and nothing I want to spend it on.

Does no one in game dev like kissing guys? Where are all the male love interests? I’m bored and want to watch Some Guy fall in love with the MC while I mash buttons and save the world.

peak romance is actually just skipping anything of emotional substance and making the NPCs discuss the situationship of the MC through banter. 😇

I’m mostly playing around. I love the first/last scenes. Nearly my favorite in the series, it’s just really, really strange how empty the middle bit is.

fellow Illario enjoyer, nice! I see you, hear you, feeling it with you :(

As the player, I felt out of the loop. Inky said “tell me about this thing you have w/ Lucanis” and I hollered. Tell ME about what Rook has with Lucanis!

NPCs banter about it, what are they seeing that the player doesn’t?

I felt like a dork googling whether I was missing something. I’m usually the one reading into every little thing but there was just nothing there to be read into. The pages are not just blank they are MISSING.

I’m glad other people are enjoying themselves, but where is the burn? 😩

It’s not your fault, that’s just the Lucanis experience. His content is very spare and weighted heavily toward the beginning/end.

What’s there is very good, for what that’s worth. 💕

Posts like this help me keep what is left of my sanity. If the end game kiss was 100% their first kiss, it would make sense to call it a slow burn. But banter makes it seem Lucanis and Rook are doing SOMETHING.

They just made the relationship development happen offscreen? It was ok but unfinished.

“I’m so glad Veilguard fandom has kept up Dragon Age tradition of psychoanalyzing people based on whether or not they have a very specific interpretation of or reaction to Complex Character/ Narrative Decision.”

—said the literal devil. holy shit, why does this keep happening?

Yeah, his 1st and last scene are top tier, no notes.

…they just forgot to put the rest of it in. The party banter/codex/Inquisitor question makes it seem like something is going on offscreen, but I want to see the slow burn actually burning too! Where’s the pining? The development?😩