sexy but in a Rat kinda way.

27/queer/they. sideblog, mostly dragon age. icon by mooreaux, sidebar by lonicera-caprifolium.

[fadetouchedsilk]

27 | they+she | dragon age sideblog | often running on untagged queue | not spoiler free | writing inquisitor | rook | 🔞 minors/blank blogs do not follow | racists, homophobes, transphobes, ableists, antisemites, zionists & any unlisted bigots can get fucked

[fadetouchedsilk]

i know whenever the devs have said or done some shit because the “load bearing gaider” post starts getting notes again

[bleedthebeat]

see this is why when people tell me “veilguard presents you with morally dubious things your companions/allies/factions do and wants you to think about them on your own” (paraphrased, previously said to me regarding the mourn watch) i cannot agree because i simply do not believe that the writers had any intention for you to think about the morality of anything in this game. the shadow dragons are Good and they’re Helpful Good People who are Perfect and Nice and Saving the World. just like you as the veilguard are doing Good by stopping solas. if we were meant to question the shadow dragons at all there would maybe be something anywhere in the game about “hey, isn’t it weird that this resistance group is being led by wealthy human altus mages and there are no elves or former slaves in positions of leadership” but there simply is not. you are expected to go along with the shadow dragons being The Only, or at least The Best, resistance group in tevinter—never mind that they have existed for logically a maximum of 3-5 years. they are Your Friends and therefore you can trust them and they’re doing everything right. same goes for the mourn watch using wisps for labor and the crows “ruling” antiva and every returning character saying you have to stop solas from tearing down the veil.

if you were meant to question these things they would not be presented as certainties. your companions would not be regarded as 100% trustworthy sources on everything. you would be able to raise your doubts and express disagreement with their motives or logic. on the other side of the same coin, the antaam and venatori and evanuris and every companion villain like aelia and hezenkoss and anaris are Evil Bad No Nuance, Evil To Be Evil. you are not supposed to dig any deeper. and there is no “deeper” really, in most cases, because the devs just fully didn’t want to deal with all that, or in cases like anaris made them flat cartoon villains on purpose (thanks epler). sure some content got cut and the game was rushed but the level of smoothing over bumps and glossing over potential questions and inability to disagree with your companions or allies about literally fucking anything is so ingrained into every aspect of the game that it cannot be unintentional

you are not supposed to think about veilguard because if you do everything falls apart immediately. from the varric twist to the integrity of the factions to your companions’ motives to the solas of it all. everything is given to you as straightforwardly as possible and you are intended to take it at face value and if you try to pick it apart it’s obvious that this game is held together with duct tape and false promises and snarky bluesky posts

[idontevenlikedragonage]

So, a while ago someone mentioned doing a Veilguard survey and then... just didn’t. And unfortunately for everyone, I actually do this kind of thing professionally. Sooo, guess what:

It’s Veilguard survey time

It’s short, it’s anonymous, it’s for fun, and it’s for science (but the fandom kind). I also personally blame @postcardsfromheapside for this. I’m planning to make a dashboard and write up the results in a big post later, so we can all argue about the data like God intended.

Please fill it out and reblog if you can — I’d love to get as many responses as possible so the graphs look sexy.

[idontevenlikedragonage]

Also if anyone who’s been critical of Veilguard and has not blocked me yet could share this, it would be awesome! 

[vigilskept]

respectfully, if you’re trying to include veilguard critical bloggers within the scope of this poll it might be more helpful to include an option that doesn’t boil down to: criticism of this game is emotional/irrational.

[idontevenlikedragonage]

Don’t worry, I’ll go through the data and add new categories as needed.

[damnicant-deactivated20250920]

Tbf the question asks about backlash. Backlash is not the same as criticism.

[idontevenlikedragonage]

I’ve been mulling this over and looking through some of the responses, and here’s where I’ve landed: there was always going to be some degree of bias in the survey, if only because I’m the one who designed and ran it. That said, I think that’s true of most surveys to some extent — the framing, the questions, even the platform all inevitably shape the outcome.

But what I’d actually be more curious about is seeing a kind of mirror version of this — maybe even an intentionally critical counterpart — that approaches things from a different angle or stance. What would it look like if someone who didn’t agree with the framing took a shot at it? I think that could surface some really useful insights.

I’d genuinely be happy to either help set that up, or just support someone else doing it. If there’s interest, I’d be happy to do a follow-up survey with more community-sourced questions to bring in a wider range of perspectives.

Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve read through the tags and reblogs, and from what I can tell from the survey red, it seems pretty far from accusing all criticism of being bigoted. If anything, it seems to be much more nuanced.

[vigilskept]

Sorry, but this suggestion is genuinely a little bit baffling to me.

True, some amount of bias is inevitable. There’s no such thing as a perfect survey. But surely the goal when you’re setting out to make one is to target a representative spread of your target demographic and allow room for them to express a range of opinions?

The idea that putting out a survey that is biased in the opposite direction is going to expand on these results and provide more “useful insights” is just… untrue? All this would provide is a set of results that are skewed in the opposite direction.

[sha-brytols]

my thing about datv is i have literally no beef with people who enjoy the game like you'll catch me dead before you catch me shitting on fans for the simple crime of being fans but what i think is actually borderline disgusting is how many fans feel the need to shit on everyone else for not liking the game and refusing to separate their enjoyment from the degradation of everyone else who dares criticize it. its never normal ass criticism either its insane reductive garbage like "disliking the sanitization of the setting makes you a rape fetishist" or "wanting more conflict between characters is an indication you are emotionally stunted" like unironically in what world do you live in where these are even remotely sane conclusions to draw about people who didn't like your insane corporatized fanfic

[sha-brytols]

if your thesis to why the game is good is "people who hate it are misanthropic freaks who need therapy" i'm speaking with all the sincerity in the world you need to get off the computer like asap you have regressed into a brainworm ridden corporate mouthpiece for some kind of bizarre parasocial validation of your $70 purchase and it is actively damaging your critical thinking skills ok?

[sha-brytols]

deleted the reply because im not looking for this person to get shat on but this is EXACTLY what i mean. you don't see criticism against the game as criticism against the game you see it as a personal affront against your own tastes. there's literally nothing personal in my post outside of pointing out how insane some of these criticisms against the critics are. you can literally only interpret this as an attack if you're so thoroughly married to the concept that your enjoyment is intrinsically tied to the quality of the game that any criticism is tantamount to criticizing you directly. how do you not see this. how do you take "insane corporatized fanfic" as any more than a subjective take on how i view the narrative structure and the creative intent behind the game. where do you see "you're delusional" in this post anywhere. like. genuinely. how.

[swanbornbyleda]

the maker's favorite little invasive species

[skaiind]

im afraid im cooked fellas

[joudama]

So they just dropped some free content cosmetic dlc for DATV and uh…

Why.

[fadetouchedsilk]

I’m not really interested in DA anymore for uh. Reasons lmao but I’m interested in my own ocs because they’re my ocs yk

“Write fanfic” I did, I do & it’s great & is probably the only reason I have even a shred of lingering attachment to the franchise atp

There’s crumbs for me in the most recent instalment to pick through if I think about extending my own canon tbqh. Which is a shame for a lot of reasons, but if I’m being purely selfish, it’s also because I make good characters that I enjoy for these games. Mentally I’m trying to look at the bare bones of the plot and pick the meat off so I can reshape it into something I enjoy thinking about more (I sincerely doubt I’ll be putting pen to paper beyond that, the interest just doesn’t exist.) I think in my ideal vision my Inquisitor Isenril is still at the helm of things in an actual leadership role, while Camellia gets assigned a sort of sub-team as a contact agent in Minrathous. I don’t feel anything about Varric so his death is still something I feel completely neutral so like whatever that can still happen I guess. The rest of the game is like. A Void basically lmao “the plot advances” is about all my brain wants to fill in. (Well, that and scenes from Dorian’s marriage & their Weird Little Girl™️ daughter who has to be forcibly removed from the catacombs when it’s time to go home)

If I were to actually explore anything it would be a post-game situation where Camellia deals with the reality of still being on the outs/unpopular with the Shadowdragons plus not having a home there anymore, and threading that with giving Lucanis some actual character growth wrt being appointed Talon despite not wanting that for himself but folding for family expectations anyway.

So basically the interesting parts of this game to me are things completely divorced from the game or just something I made up for myself. lol.

[jadeempire]

[fadetouchedsilk]

New hot Veilguard take: Taash’s mother would have been an infinitely more compelling companion than Taash ended up being

[monabee-draws]

As someone who is acepec, the whole demi Lucanis debacle just doesn't sit right with me. He has so many dialogues that just cut off suddenly, scenes that feel like they're missing (that missive in Act 2 where he talks about dealing with Spite once and for all that just became a completely different scene with Zara??) All the concept art for the romance that was never explored. The massive difference in relationship progression between Rookanis and Nevecanis in terms of both emotional and physical intimacy.

Lucanis' romance is so clearly incomplete even in a game where the romance arcs are sparse on the whole. His character without the romance feels incomplete as well - we get two or so big moments of characterisation and everything else is just the same scene about coffee repeated as infinitum.

I have no issue with a character being awkward and inexperienced, wanting to take things slow, not recognising flirtation or romantic cues, wanting to figure out their complicated situation before jumping into something. I am that person! It took 6 months after my partner and I acknowledged we had feelings for each other for us to start dating because I was not in the right place mentally to do so. Both of us are demi. Both of us have had very few previous experiences with romantic relationships. But that doesn't preclude a person from understanding or wanting emotional intimacy.

The Lucanis situation does not come across as 'he just doesn't have sexual attraction to Rook yet', it's just complete shutdown of conversation on all fronts (something he does not do with Neve, btw.) I too find flirting scary from people I don't know and agonised over it before my partner and I were together. This is not how he's written. His expressions do not reflect shock or awkwardness when Rook flirts, nor does his tone when he responds. Do you know when he does do this? With Neve right at the start of their banter. And he overcomes that shyness quickly. He just does not acknowledge Rook speaking at all the same way any video game character does when their conversation tree is bugged, the game decided to cut some response dialogue and just transitioned directly into the neutral follow-up line. He isn't rejecting emotional intimacy because of Spite and the Ossuary prison because during the ambient dialogue it's clear he's sharing that emotional intimacy with Neve waaaaay before Rook helps him.

I just want more of his writing. Where is he and his character in this story? He's so incredibly inaccessible to us. And I know people will say that characters do not have to be emotionally available to the player (which is true! A great example of this working well is Vivienne, who is warm but not directly open if befriended.) But that should then be a consistent character trait, and it's clearly not. In fact, Lucanis is incredibly declarative about his feelings for Rook romanced or not once you hit Act 3, he's just completely missing in Act 2. Which to me is a flaw in the game's structure. And that 'missing-ness' is being read as demisexuality instead of 'hey this character's writing is actually incomplete and needs restructuring and additional scenes.' Those additional scenes could very much be as awkward and non-romantic in tone as you please, but we needed more of them. Have Lucanis visit Treviso more often to do things other than drink coffee. Have him visit other locations as well! Teach Rook how to cook a local dish, the gondola fight we saw in the concept art. Deciding after the game's poor reception that a character who is clearly only 3/4s of a character, who is lacking in so much characterisation, is the demi character? That feels bad man. Demi characters should be written with just as much care and attention, should get to express themselves in as wide a variety of circumstances, show us more of themselves and how they interact with the world. The reality is that Lucanis has the weakest romance arc in the game, and posthumously attributing that to demisexuality feels like an indictment of acespec people's ability to read the room and express emotional intimacy rather than a true attempt at representing us.

Just as Cullen's heterosexuality and preference for elves and humans is in fact a game development constraint rather than a character writing decision, and Solas' heterosexuality was a result of running out of dev time to record voice lines and re-rig cutscenes, I think we should be able to acknowledge that this version of Lucanis is not a good representation of his character in multiple ways. And that is due primarily to the development cycle rather than writerly intention.

We've had beautiful slowburn romances that were also deeply affected by character trauma throughout the Bioware series. Lucanis' is (in its present state) not one of them. Leliana, Cullen, even Alistair. I think using demisexuality or even slowburn as an 'excuse' for Lucanis' incomplete character isn't a useful way to think about his writing.

Note: This post is purely about quality of writing wrt emotional intimacy. I have zero issue with virgin Lucanis and think that fits his wider writing. I also don't wish Lucanis to be someone he's not - Zevran or Davrin or some other flirty/dommy archetype. I just don't like the casual conflation of awkwardness and inexperience with asexuality. These things do go together but also I don't think we should use demisexuality as a bandaid for poor writing because it reflects poorly on our understanding of ourselves and the community.

[kirkwallguy]

i don't think this is a good way to write autistic characters lol

[doribull]

I'm the OP that wrote the original thread Trick is replying to and I feel like ONLY showing this reply is kind of taking shit out of context. My thread was about how I think Taash is OBVIOUSLY autistic, but people say that's not true, that they're just "childish" and "sheltered".

Like how with the whole non-binary thing, they put that in game, and people complain it's "spoon feeding", but it's very damn clear people had to be told Taash is also autistic, and yet that is also a bad thing apparently? Damn if they do, damn if they don't? Trick is basically saying they could not have made it any more obvious and YET people have 0 media literacy.

[kirkwallguy]

sorry for putting your thread on blast, i didn't really expect it to get many notes, but i don't think context makes it better. i get they're joking / being flippant but the joke is basically "i wrote this autistic character by going down a checklist in an american psychological text that is frequently criticised by autistic people", and regardless of whether or not this is actually true, the mindset that portraying an autistic character is just about giving them diagnostic traits definitely shows in the way taash is written. maybe they display traits that are relatable but there's no real thought in how being autistic actually affects them as a character living in thedas beyond them experiencing symptoms. this would probably be worse if dav didn't overall feel as modern and disconnected from thedas as it does which is one small relief. merill isn't perfectly written either but i think she's a good example of a clearly neurodivergent character who interacts with the worldbuilding, and i don't think it matters that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily think of her as autistic because you're also not going to be able to recognise every autistic person you see irl either.

i also just don't think writing a character constantly worrying about whether people will "get it" is good. you're ALWAYS damned if you do damned if you don't when you're writing for a large audience, there's 0 guarantee everyone will connect with what you're saying or interpret it in the way you intended. taash was written as explicitly non-binary and explains very thoroughly to the audience what this means, and people online still dismiss their identity and misgender them. so was it really worth stripping their character and trying to make them into something cis people would understand at the expense of nuance and good worldbuilding? idk, that's probably something that was affected by higher-ups but i do think weekes' characters have issues with subtlety at the best of times and it's fine to criticise this

[kirkwallguy]

i don't think this is a good way to write autistic characters lol

[beemot]

[pigeonwithapen]

Freshly hatched Assan must’ve been so scrungly

[nicolajpg]

mythal...