#but i now i'm just headcanoning him as he/she nb or genderfuid i'm not sure yet

[akstune]

i have BRAINROT and i don't want to do homework so here's my ramblings about the jomsvikings in ac valhalla uhh some spoilers for characters you can recruit from ledecestrescire, grantebridge, east anglia, essexe and snottinghamscire but no story spoilers

also i kept talking and now i have opinions on how there should be more long-term romance options in the game because variety is the spice of life so! that's also in this post now!

first of all?? mannequins down by the docks 2/10

in all seriousness, once you recruit characters you literally can't interact with them at all beyond ship stories and that's.. kinda lame? you know how when coelbert is staying in ravensthorpe you can have little conversations with him? something like that for the jomsvikings would already do so much to make them feel more alive. it honestly doesn't even have to be anything fancy, just a few conversations similar to the ship stories, or about how they're getting along with the other residents of ravensthorpe or possibly referencing some story events from their own arcs or others you've completed (vili and his father know the ragnarssons and this is basically never brought up except for halfdan sending a gift during the snottinghamscire arc - WHY is this never brought up i want to know what ivarr and vili thought of each other).

Each character seems to have around 5 ship stories so give them the about same number of conversations, set them on repeat for each time you return to ravensthorpe and they'll already feel much more alive than the soullesss husks lurking on the pier. it wouldn't be for every character, the 4 recruitable characters + bragi and maybe the lieutenant (just give them the save male/female voice and some generic conversations - it can't be worse than they are now they literally do NOTHING)

in an ideal world i'd also swap romance around a little bit. i should probably mention that i'm aroace and usually play that way in my first playthrough but i'm on my second playthrough rn and that includes playing eivor as a character rather than as 'me' if that makes sense. all this is to say on this playthough i am romancing people and since i don't experience attraction i usually go for characters that give me gender envy hence why i've not romanced any women so keep in mind i might be a little biased about who i would have as romance options.

randvi's a great character and i like her a lot but i don't want to romance her - it's kind of weird that there's 3 romancable characters in ravensthorpe but only one you can have an actual relationship with, it's even weirder since there's only one quest to hang out with randvi (as far as i know) but tarben and petra get two each that i won't spoil here. i think making petra + tarben into actual romances like randvi instead of fwb would the player some choice between gender because as it is there's no male romance beyond flings.

perhaps a bit more daring but i'd also make hytham or vili a romance option - probably vili since he's already a 'romance' option + it'd fit well with the trend of eivor having one man and woman they know from norway (vili + randvi) they can romance as well as one man and one woman (tarben + petra) that they met after arriving in england. i'm not ususally a big fan of romance in games so maybe this is just the part of me that really likes tarben and vili speaking but i don't think it could hurt in any way

so. maybe i'm weird for being so focused on the characters in ac games esp since i'm a dude because best i can tell there seems to be a pretty clear split between men and women in terms of focus on gameplay/characters (i have seen very few nb ac fans so i can't speak on that) and wow my favourite part of a game is giving me gender dysphoria now this might be the dumbest thing to ever cause it

anyway i really like most of the ac valhalla characters and i wanna be able to interact with them more

thats my assassins creed rambling done for the week maybe i'll post some art in a bit we'll see

#i'm playing as m!eivor #and he keeps getting called she and at first it was kinda annoying #because cmon ubi at least commit to having choice over the character's gender #but i now i'm just headcanoning him as he/she nb or genderfuid i'm not sure yet #now it's fun because hey funky diversity i made up in my brain NOT shitty game design isn't that wild #watch as this slowwwly becomes an ac blog but i never actually post any of the drawings i do for ac valhalla #ac: valhalla #ac valhalla #acvalhalla #assassinscreedvalhalla #assassins creed