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dela

@rebelarchivist.bsky.social
11 followers 29 following 121 posts

Associate producer, former librarian, & thedas enjoyer

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Reposted by dela
Mike Laidlaw @mikelaidlaw.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Look, I'm not a fancy CEO guy, but if someone said to me "the key to this successful single-player IP's success is to make it purely a multiplayer game. No, not a spin off: fundamentally change the DNA of what people loved about the core game" to me, I'd probably, like, quit that job or something.
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Reposted by dela
Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Canadian MP Charlie Angus: Our beloved Canada is under threat. The threat comes from the president of the US—a convicted felon and known predator. But the threat is also being driven by the hate algorithms of oligarchs like Elon Musk….
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Bonus memes for fun
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Congrats on 1k! You might remember my Amell, Frederick - I treasure the valentines commission you drew of him 😍❤️
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Reposted by dela
Mariló Delgado @ Madrid Otaku | ExpOtaku A Coruña🌻 @emedeme.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
I've been wanting to do a giveaway for some time and now it feels like the perfect moment! So 🔥 1K GIVEAWAY🔥 One winner will receive a character portrait in this style. To enter the raffle: ❇️Follow me ❇️Repost ❇️Comment with a character ❇️No giveaway/bots accounts 📅 Deadline February 7
Text: Emedeme's 1k giveaway. One winner will receive a portrait commission. Deadline: February 7. Thank you for your support plus a heart emoji.

Below there is a portrait in my style of Garrus Vakarian from the Mass Effect series and my custom Hawke from Dragon Age 2.
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Reposted by dela
Mariló Delgado @ Madrid Otaku | ExpOtaku A Coruña🌻 @emedeme.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
While the world is ending (again), the Hero of Ferelden and his son are on a journey together... (1/2) #DragonAge#DragonAgeVeilguard #veilguardspoilers
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
I think I understand! Like he can comprehend the spirits a little more clearly than most so they're inclined to want to interact with him but the corpse whispering itself is his own request/demand, the spirit/corpse/whatever a soul is is responding rather than assisting with the magic itself?
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Follow up question: could Emmrich be considered a spirit healer, or rather whatever it is that makes a spirit healer have that extra affinity for spirits? (I always felt like the healer bit was encouraged out of fear) Is corpse whispering a subset of that or a different thing entirely?
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Best wishes for the future!
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
My HOF was a spirit healer, very kind & very curious, & for years I've considered how that special connection to spirits might lend itself to an interest in Thedan necromancy & puzzling out where spirits & souls begin & end. Emmrich, Manfred/Curiosity and the wisps gave me so much to think about!
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Hello, glad you're here! Just want to say that Nevarra was one of my absolute favourite locations, it felt like home. A skelly-filled, delightfully morbid home. A breath of fresh crypt air, even! I've always been interested in exploring spirit healing & necromancy and was delighted by Emmrich
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
They say be the change you want to see in the world #veilguardmods
nexusmods.com
HOF Joining Chalice
Changes the description of the Joining Chalice found in Weisshaupt to reference the Hero of Ferelden
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Living her best magical girl life #dragonagetheveilguard
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Clearly the answer is so that the crows can have dramatic, fleabag-esque confession moments
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I've gotta ask and I know I'll never know, but why are there confessionals in the Antiva chantry? This has been puzzling me for weeks, have the antivans invented andrastian sacraments? #veilguardspoilers
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
This thread is incredibly cool, I love seeing the ideas behind motion capture realization
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
And not just a budget or resources - it’s their internal process that they’ve done time and time again. While it’s a Larian standard it’s abnormal in the industry No one else is beholden to Larian’s processes, and they don’t work for every game. They don’t work for most games even. Nor should they
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Raynda come home I miss you #veilguardspoilers
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
By the end of the Treviso quest line (giving no details here) you can see hints of what might have been a more complex narrative with the occupiers but with the exception of one conversation it seems to have been erased #veilguardspoilers
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
You're not wrong. I had thought that we would see a qunari civil war with the antaam believing they were the "true" qun, but the game shies away from discussion of belief to make the antagonists unequivocally evil - and ironically unintentionally proves the qun "right" that the tal-vashoth go wild
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Reposted by dela
Birmit @birmit.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Morrigan in the outfit from the Veilguard artbook 🖤 I fell in love with this design #DragonAge
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
If nothing else I became very attached to my Rook, Amadis de Riva #dragonagetheveilguard
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
I’ve played it once. I already started a replay. I'll recommend it to others. I enjoy the game a lot when I am playing it, overall. But I miss Thedas, and I miss that the “world worth saving” that I cared for is a slate wiped clean and this new world is a more simplistic place
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
And it kills me because if the nuance and subjectivity and moral complexity had been there, I would have considered this the best DA game ever made. It will always be the most fun. But it is legitimately more fun for people who don’t know lore than people who do, and that is soul-crushing
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
I know from their previous work that they can foster nuance. From the art book that their instincts were there from the beginning. But somewhere after multiple reboots they made a world with contradiction and complexity removed, more reactive to fan discourse than to telling a complex narrative
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
It’s such a fun game that when I play I can almost forget all of the things that I dislike until a codex or cameo punches me in the face. It has such great gameplay that I can finally discuss DA with my partner who refused to play the other games in the series. But what a monkey’s paw
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The set pieces and narrative flow in the major battles and main story missions is really wonderful. I also did enjoy the faction reactivity, even if there were few chances to explore the intersectionality of being a particular lineage with a particular faction. I’ll make our House proud Viago!
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The Hossberg Wetlands were also a standout area. Absolutely horrible (complimentary). Evka and Antoine my beloveds and the environment storytelling was fantastic. Like a hideous combination of the Fallow Mire and Chateau d’Onterre and I was so there for it. Davrin’s story broke my Last Flight heart
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Every time I was in the necropolis it felt like coming home. Maybe it’s because the lore was the most similar to past lore, maybe it’s just because it was cool, but I loved being there. I loved the wisps most of all. And I loved Emmrich’s journey
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The puzzles were exactly the right amount of investment for the reward. I never felt frustrated by them but also not disappointed by the simple ones, there was a good balance. I had a lot of fun uncovering them
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The environments are so gorgeous. Lighting, animation, level design, all spectacular. I’m bad with maps and yet I never got lost and always managed to find my way around. Secret passages to treasure were just the right length to be satisfying
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
On a positive note, this is the most fun DA game I’ve ever played. The gameplay is top notch and combat is so fluid and fun. I felt excited to fight rather than dreading the next battle. Really getting into the roleplay of a slippery rogue
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
These last comments are the reason it’s 8/10 as a game rather than 10/10 for me - the lore I care about but others won’t. The lack of connection is a genuine issue, along with how unbalanced it is depending on romance. I just feel sad at the lost potential to reflect and gain support from companions
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
The companions are lovely, but I can’t help wishing they were friends with me and not just each other. Or wanted to romance me and not just each other, as they begin to flirt before I can and have more banter comments than the player romance. At least if no one got me I know Davrin got me
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
But that’s part of a larger problem, that this is a “found family” but Rook is the outsider in it. Rook isn’t asked how they’re handling things or about who they are or what they want except by Solas. The team needs them to fix problems but has little interest in giving back
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Similarly, the romances in the “most romantic game yet” - paper thin throughout the game depending on your choice, with few chances to truly connect on an emotional level and have deep conversations in some routes. It’s not all about kissing but having the chance to say how you feel, or try to
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Vocal I get, but no codex? The Inquisitor, a person depersonalized into a symbol, signing off “Yrs. The Inquisitor” when we input their name in CC was a twist of the knife I didn’t expect. It’s like every time I lower my expectations to grant grace they need to be lowered yet again
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
When the choices are pared down to only do something meaningful with them and then that meaningful thing is a codex that had been so disdained? I do feel pretty let down. Especially when that codex isn’t even personalized. They never use Rook or the inquisitor’s first name in text once.
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
It hurts more than the slap in the face that was every cameo and past reference. If they wanted a soft reboot, why include them at all? Every time I saw or heard about a past character or event I felt hurt and angry and it actively harmed my experience of the game
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Everything that set DA apart from generic fantasy was flattened. All of the lore for the world that I had spent hours, days, years in and creating fanfic for became simple groups of good and bad, subjectivity replaced by objective truth. It’s not a world I want to unravel and explore anymore
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
And that’s setting aside the fact that all of the mystery and fantasy was removed from the setting by the end. The things that mattered before, the religious conflicts, the approaches to history? All false or meaningless now that we know absolute truth
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
But no. All factions in the game are black and white, good and evil, no moral complexity. The bad people want power and collect bad people who want power and only bad people do bad things. The antagonists I liked most were the ones with a motivation beyond simply power and they were few
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
“Surely if Mae is connected her intersectionality as a magister and altus and trans woman will come up - not what Tevinter expects, helping with change, but still privileged and upper class. Surely low class non mages and slaves would be leading the SD, not the powerful being benevolent”
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
“They wouldn’t put powerful mages in charge of the shadow dragons” I said. “Surely they will explore the nuance of Neve having the privilege of magic in a mageocracy even when she comes from a lower class beyond ‘everyone is welcome in the shadow dragons’”
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
“They’d never sanitize the Crows” I said before release. Assassins who walked the line between murderer and hero depending on perspective. But they give you absolute truth: they’re freedom fighters. Responsible government who, the mob is benevolent and that is never subverted
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
And let’s briefly comment on how an elf can comment that they weren’t raised dalish but adopted their tattoos. Their closed practice tattoos. Closed even to city elves unless they fully joined a clan. Removing cultural boundaries didn’t make them less problematic but created a new blind spot
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
And no, seeking out relics of Arlathan would not make up for the foundation of your society shattering and what that would mean to the dalish. Bellara being guilty that her gods are evil is not the takeaway I expected when I thought the dalish would explore that everything they believed was a lie
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
“Elves won’t follow the gods just because they’re elves” yes they would, in past lore. Perhaps not all but some. The game refuses to deal with belief in any meaningful way. Dalish religion is as much about cultural preservation as religion and it would be CRUSHING to lose your connection to the past
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Now, the worldbuilding is flattened. A mageocracy is fine, it’s only bad apples. Slavery is never addressed. City and dalish elves are basically the same but one lives in the forest. There’s no conflict about what’s best from each individuals’ perception, all groups are monoliths
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dela @rebelarchivist.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Thedas has always been special to me because it was a nuanced world. Different groups had different opinions based on their pasts. City elves and the dalish had divergent histories. Injustice against magic was common, but you could understand the justification for it even when you didn’t agree
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