the unspeakable surge of warmth and affection that rises in my heart whenever I interact with taash in this game. that's it I don't have anything smarter to say I just love them very much

Me: These are my healing crystals. I absorb energy from them that keeps me physically vitalised, mentally rejuvinated, and gives my body the power it needs to mend and maintain itself.

Person listening to my Enlightening Crystal Lecture: That's sugar. You're literally just eating crystalline sugar with a spoon.

Me: I can feel it working already!

@derinthescarletpescatarian ... added this for you

Mood boosting crystals that actually work

They're boosting my mood right now

So, people keep saying Veilguard is "sanitizing" Dragon Age because it’s not letting random NPCs hurl slurs at your character anymore, and listen. I get it. There’s a real fear that the game is smoothing over the sharp edges that made Dragon Age’s world feel raw and oppressive. But here’s the thing: oppression in storytelling isn’t just about how much overt cruelty a game throws at you. It’s about how a world is structured, how power moves, and what choices the player is given to respond to that.  

Veilguard isn’t getting rid of trauma or struggle—it’s just shifting the focus. Instead of telling a story where the PC is explicitly victimized because of their race or status, it’s exploring grief, loss, and the way people hold onto each other through suffering. And yeah, maybe that’s not the same power fantasy as "you called me a slur so I’m going to stab you in the town square," but does that automatically mean it’s bad.. What it does mean is that Veilguard is asking different questions.  

Origins threw you into a world where the first thing you did was fight back against the system that tried to break you. Veilguard is looking at something else: what happens when fighting back isn’t an option? When your world has already fallen apart? How do you rebuild? How do you find strength in kindness instead of just revenge?  

veilguard recognises that oppression isn’t just big, dramatic acts of cruelty; it’s also the slow erosion of hope, the systems that make resistance feel impossible, the way grief isolates people and makes them vulnerable. And what Veilguard seems to be doing is giving the player a different set of tools to push back.  

Because let’s talk about mechanics for a second. Veilguard is letting you build alliances, resolve conflicts, and use emotional intelligence as a tool and that’s not a weak approach to oppression. That’s a different kind of power fantasy. One that says, hey, maybe dismantling oppression isn’t just about vengeance. Maybe it’s about survival. Maybe it’s about finding people who won’t let you fall apart. Maybe it’s about healing.  

Like, yes, I understand why people loved the City Elf origin. It was cathartic! It was painful and messy and let you tear down the people who hurt you. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only valid way to explore oppression in a game. Power isn’t just swinging a sword—it’s also choosing to be kind in a world that tells you kindness is useless.  

Veilguard isn’t saying "oppression isn’t real." It’s saying, "What if we looked at the ways people actually survive it?" And if the idea of a game that values understanding and emotional resilience as forms of resistance makes you uncomfortable, maybe ask yourself why you think the only valid response to oppression is cruelty in return.

This is a really good post, and I think it gets to the core of what I think is one of the things people are missing about Veilguard - it's just a different type of story.

In Origins, you play as one of the two people in the country who can save the world. You are fighting impossible odds - you and Alistair and the mishmash of people you've managed to recruit - against a ceaseless mass of mindless creatures. Not only are you fighting darkspawn, you're fighting against the system, controlled now by a man who sees his fears around every corner. Depending on your Origin, you may feel more strongly about certain factions in the game, and by the end you can feel hope for the future as you ask for a boon (self-governance for the Circles, or land for the Dalish clans, or a noble seat for the City Elves). It's one type of fantasy - and it's a good one!

In 2, you're playing as a hopeless refugee, who manages to build something for yourself through hard work. But the core of 2 is that in the end, it didn't matter. Nothing Hawke did ever mattered, because you still lose basically everything, and even if Hawke wasn't there, and did nothing, things would play out the same. Things in Kirkwall would have come to a head, Anders would still have blown up the Chantry. It's another type of fantasy, and a particularly dark one on a personal level, imo.

In Inquisition, you're someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time (or arguably, the right place at the right time), thrust into a leadership position you didn't ask for but that you have to take. In some ways it echoes Origins, with you and your allies standing against people in power, but the difference is that you can accumulate a significant amount of power and become a force to be reckoned with. One again, a different type of fantasy for people to enjoy.

Veilguard is once again a different type of story. It's about saving the world, yes, but it's also about making that world a better place to live in, both in small and large ways. It's a story about hope in the face of hopelessness, looking to the future in the face of loss. It's about acknowledging your regrets and your failings, but getting to your feet and saying "I can do better."

And for me, that was a really cathartic story. Being positive and hopeful doesn't suddenly mean it's sanitized, and it certainly doesn't make the writing bad. It's a different type of story.

And it's okay if that story doesn't resonate with everyone! Not every story will! It's okay to look at something and go "that's not for me, thanks." The problem for me comes when someone looks at something and instead of going "oh I don't think that's my thing", they go "I don't like this thing, which means it must be objectively bad".

I think it's honestly a symptom of a bigger problem in wider fandom spaces, how they've evolved into this less nuanced place where some people seem to think it's unthinkable to go "no thanks, not for me".

It's okay to just dislike something. Veilguard being different doesn't erase the joy you found in the other games.

this is a good post and I like it a lot

as a narrative dev, what veilguard is doing as a heavily authored rpg is really interesting and sleek.

when i say heavily authored, i mean that the game and its dialogue options have been designed to limit player freedom in exchange for ensuring an internally consistent player character narrative that cannot help but engage with the themes they've built in.

it IS restrictive. there are some kinds of initially desired roleplay for some kinds of players which is not supported by dialogue options. it is more notable for rook than for hawke, because hawke can get quite vicious in a very direct way at times.

however, the characterization of rook as the protagonist is deceptively complex. i recurring critique i see which i disagree with but do understand is the concept that all of our dialogue options are "different flavours of nice".

It's very rare the game lets you do or say something that's clearly, overtly, fucked up. the first example that comes to mind is what we can do with the mayor of d'meta's crossing.

and make no mistake, choosing to leave that guy wrapped in the blight tentacles and alone is a monstrous act. that is The most fucked up individual choice we can make with our entire chest. i haven't played a grey warden rook yet, where i presume you have the option to send him to the wardens - but imagine a Grey Warden Rook choosing to condemn a man to be both wrapped in the coiling and invasive blighted tentacles and either slowly starve to death or be torn apart by wildlife.

wildlife which will in turn be corrupted.

it's the worst thing that rook will do to another person directly. it's only possible because they are furious, panicked and mostly alone, and being egged on by bellara, who is also, entirely fairly, furious. in my first run, i picked that option anticipating it would probably end in a mercy kill. when it did NOT, I was horrified. it was the only time i reloaded the game to change a choice that i had made.

there's a lot of nuance possible in mixing and matching the choices rather than just doing the nice/sarcastic/stoic options all the time, and also - a lot of the "stoic" options are very conservative and deeply rude, especially in recruitment missions. Some of the flirt options are incredibly poorly timed, and I like that you have the option to do that - and especially when flirting with harding at first opportunities in the game, i adore that she is then having an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT conversation with rook than the one rook thinks is happening, something that's only catchable on a second run or with foreknowledge of the blood magic at work.

human rooks can be dismissive and at times racially microaggressive towards others. qunari rooks have a potential to connect deeply with taash, or to have some issues with their own heritage - my shadow dragon qunari rook gave the impression of really having internalized some nasty shit when i had them talk about the challenges of their upbringing.

one of the things that's been notable to me on a dev side looking at the feedback for veilguard across platforms is that many people's rooks feel to them like viable people within the world. like, notably so, for rpg player characters. the more intimate focus of the narrative, the repeated checking in with companions and being taken on outings, the way they respond to the challenges and situations they are in - it's normal to them. they aren't an out of context entity airdropped into this environment.

Look I know this is a scientific publication but you don’t understand— we need to include milk and cookies in the photo. We have to. Otherwise the science suffers

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not to worry mutuals, I’ve recruited a halfling to detect any and all spike traps on your dashboard, just make sure not to scroll too fast so he has time to find them

yeah okay ill reblog that

hey everyone its april fools. but dont worry i dont have anything planned. just going to sit here and...

I LIED !!!! GET PRANKED

POST BELOW ME GET FUCKING WET

Hey guys! Check out this block of pure sodium that I got!

I'm seeing a lot of posts where the overall point is good, but it's still full of dubious information. People act like questioning the sources is a betrayal of the virtue of the point, but, and I cannot stress this enough:

You should still question sources you agree with.

— Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking, 1978 Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (via jillymomcraftypants)

HEY.

Every single darn day