#pack it up

[aerishey]

when you and your platonic coworker meet for the first time, and the memory keeps replaying in your head like a broken record, helping you through tough times

[mechabert]

“…You can stay tonight. If you want.” (I don't want you to go)

“…Tonight works.” (I don't want to leave at all.)

Could not figure out what to do about the upper body area, but rendering clothes is super fun actually!!

[girldan-pip]

"depressing dagger eyes" and he's heart-eyes-howelling like he has never heart-eyes-howelled before

[scribeofmorpheus]

Why Dragon Age Veilguard isn't a "Cathedral"

Concept art by Matt Rhodes

"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.

[savemefromthedepths]

Theyre besties okay

...ill render this someday

[love-quinn]

also it's quite late so i might not find the right way to say this right but robby's reaction to baran's seizures is a direct result of langdon's diversion in season one.

he feels like he failed because he didn't report langdon, he thinks he's a bad mentor and a bad doctor and he hates himself for it. he will be damned if he lets that happen again.

but the two things aren't really comparable are they? a resident stealing medication from his patients and using it to get high is not the same as an attending who has been cleared by her doctor to work on non-critical patients with a medical condition.

and there's definitely nuances here that i won't have picked up on or that'll come to me later or that people will point out. but robby feels like he handled langdon's case poorly, so he's overcorrecting in the other direction.

[kuroi-kotoba]

qEwron yesterday, projecting like crazy and speaking truth in a very harsh delivery: you are weak

qEwron today, after Ghosty broke qAsh down: she is a liar. you are not weak. and if she is just that bad, then I will kill her again, because no one can insult you this way but me

[secondstar-acorn]

so robin mentions vickie being a candy striper and literally the next scene it cuts to nancy in a candy striper outfit. which could mean nothing