Hi fam! You may have noticed I’ve been pretty absent the past few months. I had a lot of plans for this year, but then quickly approached burnout and had to take a break. I was going to have YouTube focus on game reviews and my 100 book reading challenge. I was going to collaborate with friends on Twitch, start a Storyteller Saturday series, and continue my canon DA run with my favorite game in the series – Dragon Age 2. Instead I dropped off the internet to focus on getting through a pretty hectic work schedule while still dealing with health stuff.
You may also be aware that here in the U S of A we’re facing some pretty dark times. I was originally going to break my hiatus for Pride, but I’m coming back early to do some fundraising relevant to the pending Supreme Court ruling. I’m also going to try to bring back Monday Musings, and even try to not make every one of them be about politics. I wanna focus on the good in an otherwise dreary timeline.
So here’s the plan: the Dragon Age VODs I still owe you are getting edited and thrown on YouTube (one is all ready and releasing tomorrow), and I’m starting streaming again Wednesday. I had a poll going with two options and a third that said “why not both?”. Of course the chaos gremlins who follow me voted for that, so we will be splitting our time with an old classic – Civ V – and a new game to the lineup: Dorfromantik. That’s gonna start at 4pm my time. And I’ll be aiming to stream at least once a week, although not always the same day.
The only way we survive is together. I’ll see you around the internet.
This week will see the end of campaign 2 of Critical Role, so I wanted to take a look back at the Mighty Nein and their journey. There will be many spoilers for all of campaign 2 and some for campaign 1. You have been warned.
When the campaign first started I will admit that I had a hard time connecting to these characters. Campaign 1 meant a lot to me, but I’ve seen them play one shots and loved those too. I think the problem was that they spend a very long time keeping secrets and not trusting each other. When Molly died there were tears, sure, but I didn’t feel as deeply upset as when Percy or Vex died in C1 (and those characters were able to be revived). Over time I did start becoming more attached and invested, but it took a long time. I think right before when the peace negotiations were underway is when I started really getting into things, followed by Traveler Con to the end. Basically Laura Bailey won d&d with a cupcake, and Jester won my heart.
After that there are so many great moments. Caleb gave a great speech to Essek which I wrote a whole piece on because it was THAT GOOD. (I posted it on twitter but never here. Maybe that can be a bonus post later this week.) We got to see who the Traveler really was and meet Keyleth’s mom. Two great ships sailed that I was hoping for (Fjord/Jester and Yasha/Beau). And then there was Lucien.
When Lucien first rose from Molly’s grave the entire fandom got excited at the idea of Molly coming back. Personally I loved the idea of them having to fight Lucien and come to terms with the fact Molly was gone, and worried the fandom would react poorly to this storyline. Last week was the Boss Battle with Lucien, and a failed attempt at a resurrection seemed to have the story end with Molly at peace. I could have been happy with that, but then Talisien had to pull a Hail Mary and get the second divine intervention from the Wildmother. Part of me feels like this is an appropriate ending, as the Mighty Nein now officially have nine members. Part of me feels sad for Molly going back to being an empty vessel. I hope this week we see him gain some memories of his friends and get to live his life the way he always wanted to – leaving the world a little better. We could all use that feeling of hope and accomplishment right now.
I’ve been spending the past few months working my way through my first playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy, and I finally finished it last weekend. I figured that would be the perfect first edition of Monday Musings. First, let me introduce you to my character.
Jane Shepherd was an infiltrator, spacer, sole survivor. She didn’t sign up to be a hero, but she’d step up when no one else would. Her best friend was Garrus, and her boyfriend was Kaidan. She stayed loyal to him even when his faith in her wavered. I think I can safely say I will never love a Shep as much as I loved her, but I do plan on replaying the series to try a few different choices I didn’t in my first run. When I was playing ME2 I decided I would likely want to replay with my save for 1 but try romancing someone instead of waiting for Kaidan. Because of multiple things involving ME3, however, I think I need to give the game some time and space before I do that. It might feel backwards, but I want to look at some of those things first then go back and review the series as a whole. The reasons for this is, I’d like to end on a positive note, and ME3 is a game that tears your heart out through your throat.
I mentioned wanting to revisit ME2 and romance someone rather than stay loyal to Kaidan. The someone I wish I had romanced was Thane…. so you can imagine how much it hurt watching him die in ME3. He cared so much about us as a friend, I can’t imagine how much more painful it is saying goodbye as a former lover. As soon as it happened, I turned to my partner and asked, “we get to stab Leng in the face, right?” (It may have not been in the face, but I did get to stab him and it was very satisfying).
Despite the emotional rollercoaster, I was still prepared to immediately replay the second and third games, until I got to the ending. I gather the ending is controversial among the fandom. I know my partner has voiced his disappointment, but usually I find it very hard to truly hate anything. I went in fully prepared to make my own judgements on how things wrapped up. I do not usually hate things, but I hated the ending of this series. There are a few problems I have with it. 1) it feels extremely convoluted. I found myself having to try to break it down to my partner and make sure I understood what was happening. 2) It made me feel like most, if not all, of my choices came down to a multiple choice problem where Shep is left to decide the fate of the universe. 3) I was fully prepared for Shep to die for the cause. The way it happens feels incredibly unsatisfying, at least to me. I’m all for the hero sacrificing themself so the rest of the universe can continue existing. ME is full of decisions like that to agonize over. Every one of those choices made me feel like while there was no “right” answer, there were positive outcomes to be had amongst the awful. None of the options at the end gave me that feeling, only a sense of “this feels less awful than the other options”.
Having said that, I overall would still give the game a positive review and would replay the series again. I still want to try all the romances and see how making different choices changes the story. I love that things you do in one game will influence events in another one. I want to focus on all those positives and not let the ending ruin it for me. The characters are great, the story is mostly fantastic, and the world is fascinating to explore. Dragon Age will always be my preference in the BioWare roster, but I consider myself a Mass Effect fan now, and look forward to discussing these games with friends for years to come. And who knows, maybe there was no satisfying ending for what this series built itself to be. But I got to share a fascinating game with my partner and my friends, and those memories will always have value. The Legendary Editiion comes out in about a month, and I’m very much looking forward to watching many hours of gameplay as half my Twitch follow list revisits the series (and others get to experience it for the first time).
Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the series. Who were your favorite characters? What was your favorite romance? Are you looking forward to the remaster? Next week I’ll dive into my favorite series and why I will replay it till the day I die – Dragon Age!
