#nopequisition

[nopequisition]

Where to find me again!

Well since everyone agrees on Tumblr being dead already i guess i’ll have to create some follow-up accounts in other socials.

So! For the very few of you that would like to follow me for... some reason, here’s Twitter and Instagram:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nopequisition Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nopequisition/

Note, this DOESN’T mean i’m gonna leave for good. Besides, i just reblog for most of the time.

[tianhai03]

Random story i like to share: when i was 14, me and a friend were the only DMC fans around the zone we live in in Italy, internet was our only way to talk about the game with someone else (back in the forums days and when wi-fi probably didn't exist at all). Now i may be 27, but 1) i still feel like i'm 16 or so, 2) i'm still a great fan of DMC, and 3) i think it's awesome to know a new person that loves the same game. Especially when being a disaster in communications LOL

Well good for you who had a friend actually liking and knowing the game! My friends don’t know anything about DMC, all they’ve known are through me screaming and rambling non-stop everyday lmao

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

Using Varric in Inquisition was such a wasted opportunity too.

Even people who hated DA2 loved Varric so I guess it was a no-brainer to bring him into the new game, but then he was just... there.

His role in the game is to banter with the other characters and bring Hawke into the game. But what do we learn about him? Now that he’s not the narrator of the game, do we see a different side of him? Is this where we find out character flaws he left out of the story he tells Cassandra? Do we get insight into his personality, his backstory? 

There are a couple little bits in the banter maybe - like he seems much angrier at Anders than he let on in DA2 - but because it isn’t really explored it comes off as more of an inconsistency in the character than actual development. Does he feel betrayed by Anders, someone he considered a friend, causing him to lose the only home he ever knew? How much blame does he put on Anders? Does he still consider him a friend? Does what happened affect his opinions of mages, his ability to trust people?   

They never REALLY dug into how heartbroken he was over the destruction of Kirkwall. He just mentions that Kirkwall’s a wreck in banter once or twice and sounds sad. But come on guys. Give me more. How does it feel for a surface dwarf, his parents exiled from their thaig, now twice-removed from his roots? How is it for him to live at Skyhold after having to flee Kirkwall? Does he want to go back someday? Or is Skyhold his home now? I really can’t tell!

Is he lonely? His friends of over a decade have scattered to the four winds and some of them he will probably never see again. He calls Hawke his best friend and he can only rarely see them, because they’re a fugitive. He apparently sees Bianca only rarely too. How does he feel about this? Is he fine with this arrangement? Does he resent it? Does he miss her terribly all the time? Or is he used to this now, her being a memory? Does he ever think about moving on? Or is that inconceivable?  Are the Inquisition companions his friends like the DA2 party were friends, or are they temporary business associates? How does he feel about Cassandra, who technically kidnapped and interrogated him? He can laugh and joke with her, but he’s Varric, he can do that with everyone. Is he still angry at her? Does he even like her? I don’t know these things! Why don’t I know these things?!

I feel like I understand him LESS after Inquisition than I did in DA2 and that’s really sad for me. We can use some of the factoids they added to his backstory to try to reconstruct this stuff but we really, really shouldn’t have to. 

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

Probably-controversial Iron Bull critical opinion that I can't put under a cut because mobile so I will just put a bun of useless spaces in here for ppl to avert their eyes I'm sorry * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Ready? I wish they had cast a different voice actor for Iron Bull. His voice really doesn't work for me. It's weird because I loved FPJ as Vega and he fit that role perfectly but as IB he sounds like a guy doing a voice. He doesn't talk like a big guy, he sounds like someone *trying* to sound big and boisterous and it ends up kind of strained and weird. I wish they had cast someone with a naturally deeper voice. I feel bad for complaining about this but it bothers me every time I hear him. :/

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

That reaction I just saw to that Sera post was accusing people of wanting to “fix” sera and that’s problematic and I’m like…

Remember character arcs? Characters getting to grow and develop as people? Actually addressing the things they do that are shitty within the story rather than forcing you to just tacitly approve? We’re just not going to ask for that level of storytelling anymore, huh..?

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

“cassandra is straight"  wow, really? That was his response? Now I really wish I was there too, because my default reaction is sarcasm. And I know I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from saying something like “really, she told you that? Last I checked, Cassandra was a fictional character who was made straight by someone else”. Cullen and Solas are both straight in game, but they were bisexual at some point in development. Its like all the BS they were trying to sell about why Samara would wear that boobs-out-outfit even though it clashes horribly with her characterization.  There’s also the tweet from Gaider about “how he knew fans were hoping” which pissed me off then and pisses me off now. Because he basically said “yeah, I know what many of the fans wanted but I don’t care”.

Oh yeah, of course they knew. Hell, they knew people assumed Leliana and Cassandra were a couple - remember when Gaider reblogged the fanart that someone had drawn, on someone else’s commission, of Cassandra/Leliana? And he said they were laughing about it in the office? What a dick move, man. And this is supposedly the LGBT-friendly company.

What I don’t really know is how much of this was actually Bioware’s idea and how much was dictated by EA. That they put development effort into making several additional characters bisexual suggests to me that EA put the kebosh on it at some point. Still shuddering from the fan outrage at ME3′s crappy ending, they may have decided to tone it down on the whole bisexual thing so that the dudebros crying about DA2 could call it a win. But that’s just speculation, and they’re never going to confirm that one way or the other. Still, even if that decision was out of their hands, since they knew many of us were going to be disappointed with the romance reveals, they could have at least have handled them a little more sensitively. And not brushed off the people who were legitimately hurt by these decisions.

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

They don't even give Vivienne a good motivation for not being romanced. She literally says that there's "no benefit in such an arrangement". Yet she joins the Inquisition to make sure that she has a hand in the big, important decisions that she knows the Inquisition will be involved in. Just having the Inquisition's support strengthens her position to be made Divine. Yeah, it made no sense....

After the way she joins the Inquisition making it perfectly clear that she wants to improve her own position, it makes no sense that she is then content to sit around Skyhold with no involvement other than talking to you occassionally if you go over to her.

I mean, Vivienne is supposed to be a player. She is an expert in The Grand Game and she can pull everybody’s strings and make them dance, etc etc. But it’s all talk - you never get to see her do it.

The Orlesian Ball was disappointing on so many levels but this one most of all. I made a point of bringing her with me and then she just stands around like everyone else. WTF. I want her to be operating, come on. I should have come back into the ball covered in blood from fighting in the courtyard and have her scold me for making a mess and tell me she’s already settled who’s going to sit on the throne and also signed 3 peace treaties and arranged 2 political marriages while I was out galavanting around, now go get cleaned up to meet the Duchess of Bersailles, dear.

But they clearly have a pretty hazy idea of how exactly the Grand Game works in practice, so it’s no wonder they couldn’t think of anything for her to do. 

And yeah, they made a pretty half-hearted attempt to explain why Vivienne wasn’t a romance option, almost as if they know damn well there was no good reason for it. Just throw in a scene with her dying elderly patron, that’ll cover it. Even though the Inquisitor is apparently the most powerful person in the world by the end of the game and that flies right in the face of the whole “no benefit in such an arrangement” thing.

It seems like they were content to just have her there as a companion and figured that was enough. They high-fived each other for being progressive and then gave her no involvement in the storyline whatsoever. So frustrating.

[dreadwulf-dragonage]

I said I would talk a little bit more about what I said to Patrick Weekes and really I don’t want to go into it too much because stories involving me are naturally embarassing, you understand.

But one thing I wanted to mention is that when I asked him why I can’t romance Cassandra, after he kind of shifted uncomfortably and a couple other people chimed in about how this didn’t bother them at all, his answer to me was “Cassandra is straight” as though this was a hard truth that I need to accept.

And if I’d had my shit together sufficiently I would have called him on that. What I actually said was, “Okay, but with the way the love interests for female inquisitor are lying to her and betraying her and being really gross, it would have been really nice to have Cassandra as an option, since she’s pretty much perfect in every way.”

What I actually should have said was this:

Bullshit.

Bullshit Cassandra is straight. Cassandra is not a real person with a real sexual orientation you have to respect, Bioware invented Cassandra. This is a choice that you made. This is a video game. This is a video game you helped design that made a romance storyline for this character and then chose to close it off to female inquisitors. You should at least be able to justify that choice.

I’m not asking to romance Dorian as a female inquisitor - his storyline is all about his sexual identity and I don’t want to erase a gay male character. But there is nothing about Cassandra’s romance that demands only a male partner and I would really like to know why you chose to make her male-only anyway. Especially when basically all the other options for female inquisitor are garbage.

If you can’t explain that choice then maybe it was the wrong one.