Taffer [they/she]

Even more boring than I’d have you believe.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 29th, 2023

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  • I am nonbinary, I haven’t played a Dragon Age game before Veilguard, I haven’t yet gotten to this one scene that’s apparently damned the entire franchise, nor have I even met Taash(?) yet. Here’s my off the cuff rambling thoughts:

    I’ve just now watched the scene devoid of context, and if that’s where the misgendering conversation started and stopped, I think everyone is wildly overreacting. The first minute is fine, a weird older lady apologizes for screwing up in her own way, I’ve had people react in much stranger ways than that, and in it’s own way “Whoops I fucked up, lemme do some push ups to show I feel bad” is kinda sweet. I’ll concede that the explanation after was heavy handed, but you could definitely include the gist of it somewhere else easily. “Don’t be weird, just say sorry and move on” is the correct advice to give to someone who doesn’t know how to interact with trans people but wants to be supportive. If that last minute of the conversation happened somewhere else in the game, it’d have been fine.

    The game overall has been mediocre so far, a solid 6 out of 10, nothing to write home about, but certainly not deserving of the flak it’s been getting. This is one of the first games I’ve played where I feel like I’m represented, I think it might be the first major game where you can make a custom character who’s explicitly transgender, and that counts for something in my book.

    From where I’m standing, it really feels like a lot of the outrage DA:V is drawing comes from some discomfort(conscious or no) with having the queer experience very out in the open for everyone to see, which is what I would expect from a series that (as far as I can tell) has always had tons of explicitly queer characters. I’m sure that’s not universally the case, but I simply don’t buy this narrative of “I’m fine with trans people, but the way it’s written is so clunky.” because I’ve had almost the polar opposite experience. I can think of few other games that talk about transness in the way that actual trans people talk about it.







  • Here’s a few slightly lesser known creators that I’m a big fan of:

    • Aliensrock, let’s player who mainly focuses on puzzle games. He gives good commentary on his though process and there’s just something comfy and satisfying about watching a smart person solve puzzles.

    • Atrocity Guide, makes long form documentaries on unusual people and groups, etc. She always dives down some absolutely bizarre and fascinating rabbit holes. Personal favorites are her videos on Ullillillia and Nasubi.

    • Bloodrunsclear, stitches together clips of movies and TV shows to create fake movie trailers.

    • Britanick, legendary sketch comedy duo, every one of their videos has had me in tears laughing. They stopped uploading as much after becoming professional movie and TV writers, but have come back with a patreon in light of the writers strike.

    • Monstergarden, this guy who’s been designing a strange and fascinating twist on the traditional fantasy setting via artwork, in universe writing, and even a short animation or two.

    • The Exploring Series, an SCP youtuber who goes into very in depth explanations of various SCP articles, as well as occasionally talking about other franchises like 40k or reading Lovecraft stories. Pretty much my only connection to SCP stuff anymore, I mainly like his voice and use his videos to go to sleep.

    • Venjent, a drum n bass artist that started blowing up on tiktok after he made a dnb track out of a creaky door. Extremely cheesy, but he’s so sincere and friendly that the cheesiness is charming, it helps that the songs are all bangers too.

    • Night Mind, explores and discusses various pieces of internet horror and “unfiction”. As someone that grew up on ARGs and creepypasta, Night Mind is singlehandedly keeping my love of internet horror content alive.