”how did you get into writing” mate, i’ve been maladaptively daydreaming since i was five and used to run around making my family read stories I wrote in small notebooks. there was never a “getting into it” the stories just existed in my brain and needed to be released
This painting is an amalgamation of elements from 5 different scenes from a random story got into my head last Thursday at 2 am, and technically contains none of the plot details from any of them. It does allude to some of the events but doesn't depict them literally, because how do you fit an entire plot in one image that is not some form of sequential art?
The image itself aesthetically has some elements from a few of my older pics, I suppose.
"To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals."
What is inherent with Veilguard that keeps bothering me is the fact that the world's choices truly didn't matter--and it doesn't simply bother me from a player perspective, it's not simply a grievance borne of frustration to what I (as a longtime fan) have lost. It's about the very culture of the arts under capitalism's new media habituation cycle [x][x].
Yes, I spent hours of my life playing and replaying each instalment of Dragon Age. Yes, I painstakingly curated a 'canon' world state by replaying what came before in preparation for Veilguard. Yes, I am even more unsatisfied with the end product--time hasn't helped, it's just widened the divide. But, and I can't stress this enough, these very personal gripes aren't what hit home the most. It's the inherent disregard of legacy. A legacy that the previous writers and game developers were building towards.
In the DAV artbook, "cathedral" is the word used to describe the process of making a game. Matt Rhodes' exact words are: "One artist can make a painting, but it takes a team to build a cathedral." Cathedrals took centuries to build. The architect who drafted the first blueprints would likely never see his work realised, he had to rely on those who came after him, like-minded and passionate, to see it through--for the culture, for the future, for legacy. Painters took on several apprentices for this reason too--giant frescoes were not completed by one man's hand, even if it is one man's name that immortalises them. Similarly, if you weave a narrative around choice, what good does it do to take it away at the final act if not to fall to caricature?
To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals.
Late-stage capitalism and profit-margin-obsessed game producers forcing developers to churn out meager content, to make a known brand into something it's not, to chase a fad or a popular trend... o, how reductive and cliche you've been forced to become Bioware. We have lost the cultural thought patterns relative to Cathedrals. We know only of barn-raised churches--done in a day but unlikely to last the turn of the seasons.
And don't even get me started on the music of Veilguard either. From Origins to World of Warcraft to Everquest to Baldur's Gate to Dungeon Siege, you can hear the intricate interconnected weave of sounds inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons-esque fantasy genre. You hear it in the repeated use of certain instruments, in the harmonic weeping notes of a bard-like singer or the foreboding echoes of drums as if of war. In tavern songs. But then, rather than hire someone who loves these worlds and this genre, who is a hungry artist looking to make a name, a legacy if you will, for themselves with a spectacular score, you hire any already sated composer, one well-into the encroaching years of career fatigue, whose notes repeat in countless projects, who feels less concise and more uninterested with each new project. One who has long since cemented his legacy. Someone in it for a paycheck and nothing else! And, to top it off, you let him compose something so minimalist? I am offended actually.
Cathedrals! We should have witnessed the final tile being placed on the Dragon Age cathedral. Instead, some architects walked up, tore down the interior and installed IKEA furniture and called it authentic before having to call the previous architects to come and fix the "load-bearing issues", forcing them to rush and add a coat of varnish and a few 'aged' details for authenticity.
its taking everything out of me to finish it. I can’t wait to delete it off my PC, what a shame. Seeing my favorite franchise fizzle to this abomination.
They done killed THEE varric tethras and with this HORRID writing? Reads like fan fiction to me or a spin off or a retcon goddd it’s not even the decision to kill him its everything. Where the fuck is hawke? Why make the characters from the first games glorified mascots do you know how much they meant to the people playing these games?Why is the writing and dialogue so horrendous; i’m NOT the team’s therapist. I hate taash too, needed to put it in here. Their writing is.. lets leave it at that. Why is it easy for me to break out of a fade that took an ancient god so much time to do it there’s not a sufficient explanation to any of these.
I think the spoilers I saw for Veilguard has solidified my decision to never play the game. What a slap to the face. Does Bioware even like or respect fans? I was willing to play it in a couple of years after the hype and outrage has died down and after my own feelings about their lack of respect for and dare I say, laziness about player choices in previous games (they were able to handle this well ten years ago but now it’s too hard for them according to defenders) But seeing what they did to previous regions in the previous games and effectively what it did to beloved characters in those regions (ineffective, incompetent, or now irrelevant) is too much for me. Forget it. I’ll look for a different series to love and content myself with three Dragon Age games.
its taking everything out of me to finish it. I can’t wait to delete it off my PC, what a shame. Seeing my favorite franchise fizzle to this abomination.
Goddd I keep seeing ppl defend the use of "non-binary" and saying it's unapologetic and doesn't allow for interpretation and how that's good because that means bigots and chuds won't be able to look away and deny anything.
And like cool I'm glad that you found this empowering in some way but to imply that anybody who doesn't is a hater who doesn't get it or a bigot is uuh. Well it's fucking insane and I'm tired of being nice about it!! Sorry dude! If you think anybody who's uncomfortable with Taash's writing is a bad person then you're brain broken!
First of all the implication that representation should be written to pre-empt the reactions of bigots rather than to organically depict and integrate the people you're claiming you care about kinda sucks ass?? Kinda insane actually? And also like ... how has that worked out for them lmao. Taash has become the icon for Veilguard itself among the very chuds it set out to prove something to.
Second of all. Dorian didn't go around saying "I am a homosexual man. I am gay" but we still knew what the fuck his story was about. Sera didn't say "yeah I'm a lesbian btw" and we still knew! If they'd established that using modern language was something that was fine in previous games, this wouldn't have been as jarring. But they didn't!
Third of all I'm fucking tired of having my own discomfort with the writing of Taash be sneered at as though I, a literal nonbinary person who literally has a mother who doesn't "get it" and literally has struggled to figure out where I belong due to my multicultural, immigrant existence, am the same as a trans/enbyphobe for not liking the fucking SLOP I'm being served.
Like, it's fine! It's fine if you like Taash! I'm glad you relate to them and that you see yourself reflected in them! Genuinely! I wish I could say the fucking same! But if I have to see another fucking "um actually Taash is so so so so important to me and anybody who doesn't feel the same way is just a bitter hater and a bigot who doesn't GET IT" I'm going to start blasting.
The blanket-dismissal of genuine criticism as bigotry or just "not getting it" or implying that anybody not comfortable with this "representation" somehow has no emotional intelligence is so much fucking WORSE to see than the reactionary chuds. Like okay wow you, the person supposedly pretending to be SOOO concerned with enby rep in video games are telling ME, a fellow enby, that I'm the same as an anti-woke reactionary assholes who hate us both? Is this a joke??
Well, to be fair, I have yet to see anybody actually, like, tell me they're nonbinary but liked Taash. Mostly it's people going "well yeah um anybody OVER THERE who doesn't like them or is made uncomfortable by their writing is a bigot" without acknowledging that fellow enbies might fucking hate their writing, too. Because that would be acknowledging valid criticism. And we can't fucking have that, can we?
Fuck, man. You felt that Taash was good rep. I felt that it was bad rep. We're both entitled to feel this way, but you don't get to dismiss ME as a bigot because I wasn't pleased with this depiction of a nonbinary person.
Any enby, trans or cis (ally) haters of Taash who also didn't like their writing have my full permission to use all of my Taash hater posts to back up any argument they might have for why their writing sucks. I do not even care anymore. I'm a proud nonbinary multicultural Taash hater and anybody who tells me I'm wrong or bigoted for this can eat my shorts.
Also can we please. Can we please fucking stop with the "well you didn't have a problem with the word MAN or WOMAN so why does this bother you?" Like be so for serious. Be so so so so for serious. I won't even pretend that's a valid argument.
Anyway, give it up for the FIRST TRUE AND BEST ENBY REP IN DRAGON AGE:
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
amandla
gummygunk
stormborns
