The Problem with Trespasser

So there has been said a lot about the flaws of tresspasser as a finale to Inquisition, as it can basically be divided into two sections.

There is the lore, the character stuff with your companions, and the actual titular trespasser section of the story, which is generally liked.

Then there is the Exalted Council part of the Story which is generally greatly disliked for the way it portrays Arl Teagen as an ungrateful arse, who even though he's in the right that the Inquisition really does need to disband, is such a bitch about it that a player might feel the desire to keeping it intact just to spite him, despite all the reasons that is a terrible idea(Such an organization being doomed to become the templars 2.0 being the single biggest). Not to mention the way it makes Thedas's nations look like they have the memory capacity of a goldfish, given how instrumental the inquisition was in stopping the last massive threat and might be so again against the plenty of obvious threats on the horizon(and sure enough, the stop the Dragon breath terrorist attacks that would have happened with or without them being there).

However, looking at the big picture, i don't think the actual writing of Arl teagen was the problem here.

No the problem is that Arl Teagen and the rest of the world's reaction to the Inquistion is very, very clearly taken from an older draft of this story, where the Inquisitor was far less... An unambiguous force for good, lets say.

The concept art for inquistion tells a story that is very, very different than what we get in game, with a lot more emphasis is put on the inquisitor very obviously being a dick, that is not well liked by anyone around them.

There is also the way said inquisitor could be far, far more pragmatic and morally grey or dark, like here, where the Inquisitor could force the Venatori to serve after defeating them.

Way more emphasis is built on the idea that the Inquisitor is creating a cult of personality around you, personally.

Essentially a dark mirror to the Hero of Ferelden and Galahad's journeys to defeat their own crisis'.

The option of letting celine die was always gonna be a part of the game, but rather than a pragmatic, move of standing aside and let it happen, your companions would have very negative reactions to this choice, with you having to force Blackwall in particular to stand back as he curses you.

And of course, it would all cuminate in the logical endpoint for the herald of andraste, the living embodiment of the Andrastian reformation as you took your place on the sunburst throne, and usher in whatever changes you want.

This outcome... makes perfect sense. Frankly speaking, this is a much more narratively fitting ending for the inquistior, that has a clear climax from where they start.

Of course we all know this didn't actually end up happening. The Inquisitor ended up being the most passive of all the PC's by a wide margin(you could shape them into having a personality, but not one with a true backbone like Hawke and the Warden), and all these very morally dubious options was taken out of the game in favor of a much more morally simple story.

The most evil thing you can do in DAI is to choose the templars over the mages... and rather than being portrayed as the clear evil choice as it should have been(and still been a legitimate and pragmatic option for you to take) there is instead attempts at making it more nuanced.

Other than that, you don't have the kind of options that the Warden had, and even hawke did(like selling Fenris into slavery), to be a dick.

With all this in mind, it's blatently obvious why Teagen and the world is so damn afraid of the Inquisition.

Because this part of the story was written from before this change in the direction of the game, and was never updated to fit the final product.

If the original vision of the game had to to pass, Teagen's extreme reactions to the Inquistion would have been far, far more understandable, and in it's own way a way of calling the player out on their bullshit.

However, the final product just makes it appear he's way overreacting, rather than maybe questioning that maybe Teagen is right, maybe it is time to end this inquisition for the good of all.

Its one of the biggest problem with what is otherwise a very good epilogue to Dragon Age Inquisition.

“Inspired by a comment which said something along the lines of:

'Astarion walking into the dawn, the morning after Tav passes of old age'

kind of wanted to draw something like that, but decided on Astarion bringing dying Tav onto a balcony, so that they could watch a last dawn together ~”

I couldn’t not share this beautiful art by the incredible artist Hamrikaa on IG and Tiktok. Link to the original work below (therapy warning for Hozier song) 😭

hamrikaa on TikTok

Inspired by a comment which said something along the lines of: 'Astarion walking into the dawn, the morning after Tav passes of old age'  🥲

https://href.li/?https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8M67SSe/

trashboat

my friend told me last night that he gets girls to come back to his place by telling them “oh i can’t wait to go home and have some stew” and “i’m so hungry, good thing i have stew at home” and it’s worked every time

trashboat

bro the worst part is last night i went to his place and it’s 11pm and i’m sitting there eating fucking stew like god damn it worked on me too

so at this point everyone is accepting that rick and diane never had a healthy marriage right??

like i think what everyone assumed (including me) is that they retconned all the things about rick not believing in love in the first two seasons when they revealed rick's revenge quest in season 6. like i thought that because rick was doing all of that for diane and beth, that it was indicative of a healthy relationship. but i don't think that's the case anymore after looking into some old episodes. i truly believe it was the intentions of the writers to make him have a bad relationship w diane since the beginning.

so here's what i've been thinking right.

"listen morty, what people call love is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. it hits hard, morty, and then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. i did it. your parents are gonna do it. break the cycle, morty. rise above. focus on science." (rick potion #9, ep 106)

the situation he describes is so specific. he describes "failing marriages" and compared his marriage to that of beth and jerry's which is infamously codependent and toxic.

"i couldn't make [marriage] work and i can turn a black hole into a sun, so..." (the wedding squanchers, ep 210)

he talks about how little he trusts in marriage. because despite his intelligence, he couldn't be happy in his own.

so these are the two hints we get about rick's marriage before diane even actually shows onscreen. both of these quotes demonstrate rather clearly that their relationship was dysfunctional in some capacity. that it was "failing".

so if we're call caught up let's move onto the season 3 premiere.

"why don't i go grab beth and we can go out for ice cream?" (the rickshank redemption, 301)

that's all she has to say after rick says he's giving up on science - his passion. which is rather odd because it was clearly something he was working on for some time and he just says he's giving it all up immediately. which is odd, right? this well seeming remark could be far more insidious than it seems.

i'm not the only one to point this out but that's it. she dismisses his feelings. she invites him out to a place with their daughter (where, with her present, they would be incapable of having an adult conversation which would put more distance between them) and in this regard, beth acts as a physical barrier between them both.

i'm not saying that diane is in the wrong here. i'm not saying rick is perfect. but that's one instance of their relationship where something pretty major had just happened. and it's immediately brushed off.

(abcs of beth, 309)

there are plenty of hints that rick was indeed an absentee father, even when he was still living with his daughter. take the abcs of beth, where rick talks about all the toys that child beth had to play with. beth insists that she asked him to make those because she wanted to spend time with him. let me repeat, beth explains that she wanted to spend time with her father so bad that she asked him to make lethal weapons for her to play with. plus the whole froopyland thing - an environment designed to be safe so he wouldn't have to keep an eye on her. it's obvious she channeled her neglect in a destructive way - aka in a way that she got from her father. but i digress.

the point is, rick has always been absent from his family in some capacity. whether it was emotionally as we see with diane or physically as we see with beth.

there are also some hints at infidelity on rick's end. take mr nimbus, who is confirmed to have known diane.

then when diane and beth die, he absolutely crumbled. and this scene does break my heart watching it bc we know it's not just a part of a fake memory now. it was all real. the pain he experienced in that moment - the hope he had of living a normal life and making everything up to his family - just got ripped away from him.

so even though on the surface, rick appears to have a healthy relationship w diane when she shows up in the show, that doesn't mean that's all there is. it's very unlikely based on all of the information presented in the earlier seasons that these two were stable together and i think that the presentation of diane as a perfect loving caring wife is intentional. it either represents how rick remembers her - as someone kind - or is only a small part of the equation.

oh and let's not forget the ghost ai that rick made for his dead wife. he designed her to berate him, to wear him down. to never let him move on from what happened. like that's something super messed up wow. maybe

in conclusion, rick has never had a stable family or home life. that thing didn't appeal or satisfy him. it caused him to neglect his daughter and continues to impact the relationship he has with his adult family members. by no means is this an excuse and that's hardly my point. i feel it's important that we know the reality of ricks marriage to understand how that impacts him in the show we're watching.

ofc this is just my take on what little we have seen from the two of them. i rlly want to see more so i can maybe make a better assessment. but yeah. whatever went on there? not healthy. no way in hell.

liluglydudefromdetroit

So play like a noob? got it

filipfatalattractionrblog

You’re joking, but it actually is a popular theory in chess that a complete noob potentially can beat a master by confusing them - as the noob doesn’t know what they’re doing the master is unable to recognize which of valid strategies they’re pursuing and cannot deploy proper counterstrategy.

direwolf-distributor

Chessmasters when their opponent doesn’t make one of the five approved optimal opening moves:

queerscout

#used to do shit like this when we fenced#for real tho a newbie is way more of an issue than a master because WHAT are you doing???

I’m currently a fencing coach for a high school club and my least disciplined fencer routinely beats kids who have been fencing for 5-6 years because he’s just so unpredictable and messy that his opponents have no idea what to do.

cephalopodvictorious

I know what a master is doing, I just may not be faster than them. I know I’m faster than a newbie but hey what the fuck is happening?

princecharmingtobe

I have, on rare occasions, won pokemon battles like this. I have no idea what the meta is, and just slap things together that sound cool. It’s fun when you win by taking someone completely off guard because “Who would run that?!” Idk man, the noob that just kicked your ass. I’m not smart enough for all these mind games that go into serious competitive pokemon, but I do know big laser go pew.

chaointe

The Newbie Flail™ is the most terrifying attack imaginable.

LET’S TALK ABOUT DAGNA FOR A MINUTE 

YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY FUCKING BOTHERS ME? How literally everyone (including the Inquisitor for fuck’s sakes) treats her like she’s wasting their time when she’s explaining something. “Get to the point, Dagna” seems to be how everyone interrupts her when she’s in the middle of talking.

Can people stop treating Dagna like she’s bugging them when she’s actually doing REMARKABLE, FASCINATING STUFF (her lyrium experiments, her rune work, her theories on the Fade that sound suspiciously like early Quantum Theory, the fact she’s the first dwarven student in the Circle for literally ages)????

Dagna is a genius. Literally a genius. Probably one of the greatest minds in Thedas. Sit your punk ass down and listen when she talks, bitch.

mindfulwrath

panic really does turn you into a complete fucking moron huh

mindfulwrath

to be clear, this is about timed missions in video games

joey-mazzello

Me: knows full well where each button on the control is, can press x without even looking for which one is it.

Quick time event: “PRESS THE X BUTTON”

Me: “OH GOD OH FUCK, THE WHAT??”

angstandhappiness

LMAO SAME

Gale origin playthru act 1 doodles + tara best girl

Halsin has gone through multiple, lasting traumas:

• Has been kidnapped and held as a sex slave for three years, quite possibly as a teenager based on some comments ("takes me back to my youth" to the Drow twins; referring to himself as a "young Druid" when he was taken), which are psychologically formative years
• He gets made archdruid at a young age, with no experience nor preparation, in the middle of a battle where most others besides him died, including the previous archdruid
• His first (possibly only depending on how dark your reading is) childhood friend was a boy who was the spirit of the forest/nature itself; said childhood friend is later cursed, and when Halsin goes to find him, his Grove falls into the hands of an extremist, which depending on player choice can also lead to a child's death, and on top of that, he gets kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured in wildshape

And that's to say nothing of what can happen to him in branching storylines (I.E. if Orin kidnaps him, or if the player decimates the Emerald Grove, or if they fail to end the Shadow Curse)

And his responses to those traumas?

• A hedonistic approach to sex
• A tendency towards indulgence in many other aspects, though he admits he doesn't do it meaninglessly in terms of food
• An intensely giving personality that also doesn't allow for reciprocation (dominance, but of the gentle variety, during sex, with no indication he would ever bottom; enthusiastically doing oral for the player character without the player returning the favor), which suggests there's an element of making up for lost control here
• Immense guilt over the events that happen during and before the story, even when they were decidedly not his fault
• Intense protectiveness over the defenseless- children, animals, and nature itself, as well as refugees

So... in other words, Halsin is reacting to his traumas, which involve themes of imprisonment, loss of control/agency, and being forced into impossible conditions where the blame falls on him even when it's undeserved, by indulging in the few pleasures he can find, and by taking control in the ways he can- sex and protecting those he can, and by blaming himself. (Paradoxically, blaming oneself is a form of taking control back; if it was your fault, that means you could have changed it.)

And, lastly, Halsin copes by... downplaying everything. Refusing to admit his pain. This, too, is a form of control-taking.

I don't think I've had a character's rape trauma/recovery storyline resonate this strongly with me since Katherine Howard from Six the musical.

googledocsdyke

remember when you were 10 and you would hang out with your friends in order to Look At The Computer together like you went to their house and experienced the information superhighway together. and then leave

mostlybats-partiallyrats

How fucking old are you people?

googledocsdyke

normal amount

My druid, starry eyed casting "Speak with Animals" daily in order to shower compliments on every cat in this game while everyone else waits impatiently behind her tapping their foot

mindofjson

TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR!!??

UGHH!!

notsosecretsolasobsession

AND THEN SOLAS KILLS HER AND TRIES TO DESTROY THE WORLD SHE CREATED

cool-kink-bro

Hang on, empathy?? She’s in it for the vengeance. She helps if it helps or amuses her.

phantomrose96

Someone has been arguing back and forth in the comment section of one of my BNHA fics for almost a year now. The world is full of people.

phantomrose96

I got it wrong. Someone has been arguing back and forth in the comment section of one of my BNHA fics for almost two years now. The world is full of people.

phantomrose96

This is true! But if I did that, I would stop waking up to emails like this

I think the idea that polyamory is inherently less committed stems partially from the idea of romantic superiority in relationships.

Like, it seems that a lot of people have this idea that you have one (1) romantic partner, and that this is THE relationship in your life, with all friendships etc being secondary. That must be the case, otherwise I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to fathom commitment in polyamory.

This is part of why aromantic people and polyamorous people have so many fights in common. If people didn't sort relationships into hierarchies, if they didn't think the bonds between a friendgroup were inherently weaker than those between romantic partners, then they would likely not have as much trouble understanding people who choose to have several, or no, partners.

"isn't a polycule just a glorified friendgroup?" Well, Susan, first of all, no, second off, friendgroups are already glorious?!