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vaguely-concerned · 4 years

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I played Death of the Outsider finally and I have some Feelings about it

and most of them not very positive. nice stuff first tho!

THINGS I LIKED:

- billie is such a good character. still new to her old self and slightly tender from coming out of the protective shell of lies that was meagan foster, full of old scars and doubts and bitterness but trying for something better, something kinder even though she still doesn’t quite understand what she’s walking towards -- the genuine care and tenderness in her voice when she talks to daud or thinks about deidre. I love her.

all that and she effortlessly IS also the queer disabled woc the gamer bros refuse to believe could possibly exist. exquisite.

- the idea of ‘killing’ the outsider is compelling, but it’s the sort of idea that needs a full length game to support it and its implications. cool idea, completely wrong execution.

- saying that: I love that the injustice of the outsider’s creation being righted is only made possible by a long unbroken line of mercy and kindness. daud saved billie from the streets, corvo spared daud, daud saved emily and spared billie after her betrayal, billie tried to save aramis stilton and became entangled in the void, emily spared billie, billie took this job in the first place partly because she loves her dad daud and wants him to find peace. that idea is so beautiful that I wish the rest of the narrative was strong enough to hold it up lol.

there’s also something going on here with other people holding on to the important pieces of you -- that billie is ‘all that is left’ of daud after he’s dead. once he saved a child from true loneliness and gave her a purpose, made her feel seen again, gave her the closest thing she had to a home, and when he’s completely lost himself in the void... that kindness is still alive in billie, and she helps him find his way. again that is really touching and thoughtful and plays wonderfully into the chaos system in these games thematically! too bad about all the stilted dialogue and characterization messes and uh. everything else.

- most of all I love how clear it is that billie and daud love each other. it’s a quiet love that has nothing to prove anymore, it’s survived all the blood and the ugliness and everything they’ve done to each other and to the world, a love with no demands left. it’s not the sort of love you usually see, in all its unsentimentality, but it’s real. when daud tells her he’s proud of her and trusts her no matter what she chooses to do, you feel how much he means it. (making his insistence on trying to make her choice for her all the weirder -- see my long rant of lamentation about his characterization in doto below lol)

there’s something about daud’s undramatic yet complete acceptance of and respect for billie that... I didn’t know I needed this, but it was a nice gift nonetheless haha, thank you. (it’s similar to how good it feels in D2 when you realize corvo just likes emily a lot as a person, even aside from her being his daughter. a good series for father & daughter stories)

- this carries over from D2, but I think the journal/log entries are better written and more insightful than the stuff out in the world.

- it cannot be overstated how much the gameplay loop of these games is just... pure crack cocaine for my brain haha, very few things give me this specific kind of brain tingle. I love the sound of looting and I love the art style and ambiance and I love planning out a strategy after finding all the options and I love never being spotted or killing anyone and I love the puzzle elements they put into exploration sections and I love the feeling of how you move through the environment. it’s one of the few games where I routinely get so into it I end up with a crick in the neck because I’ve been so focused for so long and never noticed I’ve been sitting in a way that makes my entire spine hate me. I needed something to get me through the last few days and it did deliver that, at least. karnaca is pretty enough that I didn’t even mind that most of the levels were recycled from D2 either.

- I’m not quite sure whether I understood this right but there’s a woman standing behind daud in the void -- I wonder if that is actually his mother and he’s been so close this whole time? at first I thought maybe it was jessamine but god no I hope she’s finally at peace after All That Nonsense, she shouldn’t have to hang around there anymore. there’s also a figure near him I could swear was corvo with his mask on, but he’s not dead canonically so that would make very little sense. oh well I’ll take my feels where I can get them even if I have to make them up wholesale

- the bankheist was cool as fuuuuuck, that and the emotional impact of daud dying was sadly the height of this game for me, after that it all went mediocre real quick

- paul nakauchi as shan yun was, as I have said before, a blast. ‘ugh I cannot continue my throat is as raw as a plucked pheasant’ fsdkfhlsadjkhfas

- daud’s funeral is genuinely touching. she gave him the entirety of her old life for a sendoff, battered and worn and dear as they both were. someone hold me

THINGS I H A T E D:

- the stuff they did with daud’s characterization. I am so unreasonably angry over this haha, the more I think about it the more I hate it. I think there are paths you could go with his ACTUAL character to make this work, but this was not it. I’ve said this before, but his most iconic, most defining scene is him surrendering himself to corvo’s judgement without justifying himself or deflecting the blame for any of what he’s done. this isn’t even regression in his character, it’s just.. a different character altogether. they could have gone for the angle that delilah almost managed to end the world b/c daud showed mercy and that’s the reason he’s moved to action, I think that might be a more compelling motivation for him at least. OR have him be more conflicted about how to do things -- violence is still the only tool he knows how to use but it’s not what he wants to or even can be anymore and the conflict troubles him, ‘His hands do violence, but there is a different dream in his heart’. or even use a different character for the ‘kill kill kill’ angle, he didn’t need to be here for this dlc at all.

also, just on a purely practical level... for all his flaws and longstanding moral shortsightedness daud is not a stupid man. why the FCK would he be so sure that killing the outsider will fix anything? if I, dumbass extraordinaire, could within half a minute wonder if maybe something even worse would take the outsider’s place if you removed him... why does that never occur to the Knife of Dunwall tm, a man about Void for like half a century or whatever?? ugh fuck this, I’m having a hard time explaining exactly why it all feels weird and wrong to me, but know that it does and that I Do Not Like It lol. I feel cheated out of something important I thought I had.

- again, this should have been a full game. (I think it is sold as one already, but it just hm isn’t) there’s way too much shit of literal cosmic importance for the game’s universe being picked up here for something this short to cover. save this HUGE idea for a rainy day should you ever want to do another game in the series and do something else with the dlc, honestly.

- god but the outsider is insufferable in this. I don’t know what happened, but by the end I was like ‘*thoughtfully strokes chin* maybe daud has a point billie keep that knife handy’. he’s annoying and boring, which is wild to me because he was always a lot of fun in the other games.

for real tho I don’t know if this is just my atheist-but-still-angry-at-god-somehow??? talking, but daud HAS a point. people are responsible for their own actions, but the outsider didn’t have to do any of what he did either. he could have chosen to be bored through the centuries instead of seeing what people would do if you gave them such ~*morally neutral*~ abilities as y’know summoning a bunch of rats to eat other people. the game wants me to buy the ‘but really this black eyed boy is woobie tho uwu’ so badly and no I’m not buying that give me my refund I want my chaotic neutral bastard back pls. I’d probably be more inclined to want to help him like that. where’s his salt gone, arkane. if you didn’t want him to be edgy why did you make him look like that.

- this is the lamest possible version of the outsider’s backstory lol, it feels like the pearl clutching panic about satanic cults back in the day all over. listen if it’s this easy to make a god the thrill is sort of taken out of it, if these randos did it anyone could. also how the fuck are they just normal-ish people anyway? why do they follow modern fashions? haven’t they been hanging around for thousands of years, haven’t their culture changed in any meaningful way? (I realize these aren’t the same guys as back in the day but it’s just weird) why do they speak a language billie and the player can understand? why did anyone think ‘idk some cultists no one’s ever heard of before with no thematic significance whatsoever’ was the way to go world building wise? they’ve taken all the unknowable eldritchness out of the eldritch horror and we’re all poorer for it now haha

relatedly the last level is... just not very good. you come down from the awesome bank heist and then there’s... whatever the fuck this was.

- while I do like billie finding daud in the void and him remembering her I hate that he goes out still full of self loathing and rage when you talk him into the nonlethal option, that he can’t forgive himself or find any sliver of hope or peace. I wish there had been a few more moments for the two of them to come to peace with themselves before he gave the outsider back his name, some real catharsis. as it is I was annoyed when the outsider ‘woke up’ or whatever b/c it felt like he was stealing attention from what I was actually emotionally invested in and not done with.

they had n o t built up billie’s or my sympathy for the outsider well enough either. again this is something I think they could have done if they’d structured things differently, if they’d been more deliberate in making you understand he was basically a child and letting you dwell on it. because there is a parallell there between him and billie, and billie and daud, but I, how do I put this, did not give a fuck

in short this was really similar to my experience with D2 in that there’s enough good there that it’s all the more painful when it fails to deliver on it again and again, and it ruined things I already liked about this story from the first game (daud’s arc and everything to do with the outsider, mostly). give me some months of denial and hard core headcanon work and I’ll probably be able to live with it

#*shows up to doto years late with enraged takes and starbucks*#dishonored #death of the outsider #meta #I am ranting but it really is because I do love these games and it hurts me when they let themselves down like this lol

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qorillas · 7 years

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tagged by @latinsimonez! this was really fun to do lmao thank u for taggin me

answer 30 questions + tag 10 people you’d like to know better

-nicknames: ......i hesitate to inform you all of this but my uncle started calling me ‘the squish’ when i was a baby because i was so fat and now everyone on my mom’s side of the family calls me that more than they call me by my actual name. also sometimes people call me ari but not that often and my dad’s side of the family calls me arielita

-star sign: sad pisces binch

-gender: i’m a girl but. idk i’ve kinda been very slightly questioning it a little just to make sure? i’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that yup i’m a girl tho so

-MBTI type: mainly infp, probably like 15% enfp because i get really excited when i’m around groups of people i love and Lose All Sense Of Boundaries. does that qualify me as enfp? i get tired being around most people tho so idk

-height: 5′5.5″ and yes the half inch COUNTS

-time: 10:41pm

-birthday: march 1. when i was little i couldn’t pronounce 1 correctly like i said “much fust” so everyone thought i was saying march 4 tho lmao

-favorite bands: there’s this band called gorillaz i really like idk if anyone following me has heard of it tho :/// also phoenix, vampire weekend, the lumineers, glass animals, purity ring, young the giant, maroon 5, the beatles. i would die for ezra koenig and one time he liked something i tweeted at him and i cried for 10 minutes and my roommate took a video and made fun of me

-favorite solo artists: stromae, damon albarn, shawn wasabi, ingrid michaelson, childish gambino, nicki minaj, sohn, kanye west, lil wayne. gorillaz should collaborate with stromae also like i think they’d be good together

-song stuck in my head: ......the mii channel song but where each pause is uncomfortably long. yes i hate myself

-last movie I watched: wonder woman like three months ago?? ? i like never go to the movies which is actually kind of a shame because going to the movies is one of my favorite things to do ever i know it’s like not that wild but i always get so excited wow i love movies

-last show I watched: rick and morty like the pickle rick episode. someone save morty and summer please i fucking hate beth

-other blogs: @ratqueenofficial is my main! also i have an art blog @ratqueenarts but i like never actually post there so. and i have multiple urls about antigone and about half mexican murdoc hoarded lmao

-when I created my blog: april 6 of this year but i made my main on new year’s eve because my friend came over so we could relaunch.......a semi-popular meme archiving blog whose name i’m not allowed to actually say because mods are a secret.........but anyway my old main had been around since 2013 and i wanted to start fresh so yeah

-what I post about: that son of a gun sure do love those gorillaz. also i post my own mediocre art and make shitposts and memes because i find myself hilarious and i write headcanons and am starting to do fics. but yeah it’s all centered around grillz, and sometimes like 1% damo but never hewll because. i don’t really like him lmao. i think my most common tag is murdoc and i know he sucks but i would fucking die for him in a heartbeat

-last thing I googled: ..........mii channel hip hop remix on youtube and i’ve had it on loop and my roommate hates me but. it’s a fucking bop okay don’t judge me

-following: 939

-followers: 1,233

-favorite color: yellow but like a Very Specific Yellow like strong golden yellow that one might be able to argue is actually orange but Bitch It Is Fucking Yellow (here it is) like half of everything i own is this color which was fun at first but one day i walked out of the house when it was raining and realized i was wearing yellow boots, a yellow raincoat, a yellow beanie, a yellow backpack and was holding a yellow umbrella and it was at that point that i realized that i had a Problem. my friends make fun of me for it rip

-average hours of sleep: half of the week it’s like 4 and half of the week it’s like 14 because of the ol’ depresh so i’m not actually sure at all. probably like 7 if i absolutely had to pick a number

-lucky number: 3

-instruments: classical piano (and i guess keyboard by extension) but i can’t sightread for shit (i’m good at playing by ear tho!), general percussion like bells and xylophone and marimba, i did tenor drum in marching band for like one year but i’m pretty horrible at non-mallet percussion lmao. also i had a vuvuzela for like two years but my roommate confiscated it because “vuvuzelas are not to be played at 3 in the morning, ariel” and anyway i don’t think it really counts

-what I’m wearing: glasses, black skinny jeans, my black x men sweatshirt that has like pictures of the vintage comic panels on it and yes i got it from hot topic don’t judge me for that i was like 14, dark blue baseball cap that says “best dad ever” across the front but i’m wearing it backwards because i’m cool. i got it for father’s day so that i could match with my grandpa

-how many blankets i sleep with: generally like 2 or 3 but at this point they’re all crumpled up at the bottom of the bed anyway so mainly just the big comforter and a throw blanket over that if it’s really cold

-dream jobs: oh man uhh. i used to think i wanted to be like a genetics/evolutionary biology professor and do research on evolution or cancer or hiv/aids and teach at like ucsf or something. or like work for nasa as an astrobiologist, or maybe work as a vet for a zoo. but now i don’t think i wanna do that anymore? to be quite honest if i could be 100% guaranteed whatever job i wanted i think i’d want to be a showrunner for an animated show on cartoon network or adult swim, like not something just with storyboards or animation, but like actually involved in the writing of the show. i’d love to write for a tv show on cartoon network or something like the office or brooklyn 99 or even a story-based video game, or maybe like do something where i get to just joke around and be funny all the time like what the mcelroys or game grumps do but. i have No Idea how to go about doing that and honestly i think jobs like that just happen to people randomly so it’s not really like, a Secure Job Option To Pursue. but i really hope somehow i end up doing something like that. i just wanna do something where i can create something meaningful that i’m proud of and see people connecting with it and feeling happy and inspired and less alone because of it, and maybe liking it so much a fandom or something grows around it. i’d be so fucking happy if that happened.

-dream trip: i really want to go to new york with my jewish grandparents and see where they grew up and all the places they lived so i can finally experience all the places i’ve heard so many stories about? same thing with my abuelitos like i wanna go to mexicali with them or mérida in the yucatán and just see where they came from and where all their stories happened and meet all the relatives that they left behind when they came to the united states. also i think going to like, denmark or england or germany would be really cool? my friend studied abroad in england this summer and her snapchat story was full of dogs and random cows and those are some good things. i would very much like to softly caress a gentle english cow they have beautiful eyes

-favourite food: kbbq? ? ?? Bitch I Love KBBQ. fuck now i want kbbq. also mangoes, and deli sandwiches from the deli by my temple, and jazz apples, and sugary coffee, and sweet corn tamales, and high mountain milk tea with taro qq but sharetea stopped selling taro qq and i’m still salty because of that. and raw lemons because i’m an inhuman monster. can you tell i’m hungry rip

-nationality: american (specifically born and raised californian even though i know that’s not really a nationality but i love california so much you guys im so glad it’s my home) edit: apparently people are puttin in their ethnicities too on this?? ? i’m half american jewish which is. basically white lmao and half mexican idk i look super white tho im so pale rip

i tag @two-chi @drugstore-soulboy @murdoctrinated @murdochub @ephemeralprince @funeralshawls @astronomutual @maccamc @loboluchia @helloitsbees @grimdarkmatt @gorillahz @hewlll and i know that’s more than 10 but this is my house also like. if i tagged u and we Don’t Actually Talk it’s because i see u on my dash a lot and we’re mutuals and i think you’re Super Cool But I Am Too Shy To Actually Talk To You But Yeah I Think You’re Really Cool

#pipe down pipe down #this is super long i'm sorry i love talking about myself lmao

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