Worm Arc 18 thoughts:
Well that sure just happened
I'm fine
Noelle ate my daughter. But I'm fine. It's fine.
Her girlfriends are gonna save her!
I'm fiiiiine
Anyway, that's like, the end of the arc so there's a lot of other stuff that happens!
Taylor casually drops that she's mostly blind in conversation and Brian kinda freaks out. Understandably.
She got eye drops that she is supposed to be doing but never mentions doing them. I'm very disappointed in her. I'm also worried her eyes aren't going to ever get better.
I do love that the moment Dinah says she only has a 58% chance of going home and Taylor realizes it's because of her, she forces the situation by taking Dinah home right away. She is far from perfect, but she does have her moments.
RACHEL LET DINAH PET HER DOG!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! LOOK AT THE GROWTH!!
One of my favorite lines, when Taylor asks Dinah the chance of trouble before they go into the medical clinic "When there's trouble, it's you. Eighty percent of the time." Just, kinda embodies the spirit of Worm I think.
I'm still fine.
Taylor sure thinks about Rachel as Rachel a lot now, instead of mostly as Bitch. GAAAAAY.
I really want to know what's on those papers Dinah left for Taylor. Triumph saw them but didn't seem to react. One might have been a message for him, since Dinah would know he would see it. Something that will come into play later maybe.
I love Parian making a giant wiener dog for everyone to ride on. Like, it is a definite upgrade in transportation from "door with glass stuck in it dragged down the street" but it doesn't have much of a supervillain vibe to it.
Noelle just starts it off with grabbing possibly the strongest cape available in Brockton Bay. At a minimum, one of the most versatile to clone. No big deal. Not like even just normal Vista could become very dangerous if she wanted to be evil.
Freaking PRT all "this is a Class A instead of a Class S cause Eidolon is a big man baby and needs to punch something all on his own to prove he's strong". Sure are helping people Alexandria. Good job. What a hero.
I think Eidolon is Bargain Bin Scion. Scion Lite. Blue Light Special Scion. A shitty version of Scion created by Cauldron basically.
Clockblocker is so fucking fascinated with Skitter it's amazing.
Tattletale made Eidolon maaaaaad! I love her.
I'm perfectly fine.
The scene with meeting the Chicago Wards, oh god I loved it so much! Skitter tells Bitch to clear the plywood out of a window and she just instantly fucking kicks it open, then a giant swarm comes in and swirls around everyone and covers Skitter, making her hair move and trailing bugs behind her like a gown, and then starts speaking with the swarm. And Tattletale waits until the perfect moment before asking the Wards their names and powers, very clearly backing Skitter up as her 2nd. Just such a "ok I was playing nice but now I need you to know who you are working with!" power move. Fucking amazing. Also it was Skitter being assisted by Bitch and Tattletale! GAAAAAAAAAAAY!! LESBIAN SUPERVILLAIN POWER POLYCULE!
I think Grace has neat powers but could have been more creative with her name. I fucking love Tecton though, assume tinker. Dude has got to love fights like this, where he is allowed to do all the property damage he wants. He'd make a good villain.
The other two are kinda neat too but they didn't last very long.
Every time they are going anywhere Bitch specifically offers Skitter a ride. GAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
I love seeing the range of power adjustments the clone Vistas get. Some are pretty basic - can do stuff from farther away or not be slowed down if a lot of people are around - but then we get ones like Paper Mario Vista and Imagine Dragons Vista, with much more wild powers.
Everyone stand back while Eidolon goes and shows us all how strong he is! God.
I'm 100% FINE.
Side effect of being blinded probably, but it is neat how good Taylor is getting at listening, and sometimes even seeing, through her bugs! Just listening in on Eidolon and Noelle from blocks away.
Imp almost gets crushed to death by Eidolon's gravity power cause she ignores warnings from Skitter to run. Sounds about right.
Noelle making rat clones and bug clones (that Skitter can't control) is fun.
Fucking projectile vomit attack suddenly! Did Noelle absorb the girl from the Exorcist??
Texas Wards kinda getting their ass kicked. (Also what the hell is going on in Texas that the whole state apparently just has the one Wards team, vs most places have a Ward team per city?)
Fight is going kinda poorly. Travelers show up to help! And then Trickster betrays everyone to feed my daughter to Noelle! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm fine.
The Most Powerful Man in the World Interlude thoughts:
Scion just really is empty in there isn't he?
Not a person, just a construct of the entities in 3 dimensional space. Sphere moving through Flatland and being seen as a circle style. No mind, just does what this guy tells him.
Duke is a very good dog.
Kevin talking about Scion 100% sounds like someone talking about a lover that has been lots of trouble for them but that they just can't quite.
Lisette is having a weird day.
I really wonder how the next Endbringer attack is going to go now that Scion has been told to kill them. Wonder if it'll be different.
Crusader Interlude thoughts:
Shockingly, it turns out that the Nazi is an asshole. News at 11.
Night and Fog were basically constructed by this Gesellschaft group. Seems like a branch of Cauldron pretending to be Nazis for more control over things. Or maybe not directly a branch of Cauldron, but they get powers from Cauldron. Maybe not related, but they make weapons, which is very much what Cauldron can do, and we haven't seen anyone else yet reliably make powers with control over the outcome.
This poor TA is having a bad day.
Taylor triggered 2 or more times in that locker. I was 100% positive of that the second the TA said "You can’t really distinguish a single trigger event from having two in quick succession." I probably should have realized this earlier.
Really curious where Theo and Aster's stories are going. I could see one or both of them being a major part of the end of the world (based on stuff from Trickster's visions on stuff from Noelle's interlude I'm thinking a 3rd or 4th generation cape might play a part in it), but I could also see them being red herrings.
Theo is upset but realistically getting abandoned and left with the PRT is the best option that could have happened to him.
Jessica Yamada Interlude thoughts:
This poor woman
Faultline Interlude thoughts:
OH MY GOD Gregor and Shamrock are super fucking cute together!!!!
Faultline is amazing and very organized and detail oriented and an assertive leader who wears a dress shirt with slacks and cowboy boots and threatens to get a bullwhip and I would really like her to tell me what to do k thx.
Not positive I would trust the minor precog abilities of Shamrock to make me Simurgh proof, but it's better than nothing.
The quarantine zone of the city of Madison is doing great!
Wasn't expecting to get to see Matroyshka again, that's neat! She should probably stop eating people but otherwise she's fun.
Faultline just not being able to stand Tattletale is wonderful. I hope they bother each other for years to come.
I like this crew, so I was not happy that they got really fucked up by Contessa. But I also want to like Contessa (as much as I can like someone who works for Cauldron) and this did make her seem really badass.
Noelle Interlude thoughts:
I'm fine.
Regent keeping up the jokes under pressure, good for him.
Finally got some good descriptions of Noelle's powers doing stuff which was very good.
I'm fine.
Also fun to see various clones and their powers.
AND THE VISION! OH MY GOD THE VISION! So much good info from that. It helped me get a much better idea of things and confirmed a lot of things I already thought. (Like Cauldron has basically hijacked an entity, more or less. Not the details on how though.)
I'm fine.
The fact that Noelle can let the god dandruff take control is interesting. Like her connection never got fully closed compared to other people. Which is what I assumed only taking half a vial did. Really curious to see if we ever get more info on Oliver.
Her Earth Bet self is like, 15 years younger. But still has the same name. Kinda wild.
I'm fine.
Also her Earth Bet dad gave her the name Echidna, which like, I get it's the mother of monsters or whatever, but I can only think of the cute adorable little creature!
I'm fine.
I obviously wish Eidolon had been able to defeat Noelle and save my daughter but him having a big sad about it not being fair that he can't get stronger is pretty funny too. I do not like the guy.
I'm fine.
I'm sure Tattletale has a plan and everything will work out.
I'm fine.
I'm 100% absolutely fine.
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This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.
I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.
For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.
I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.
Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.
If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.
That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"
Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.
For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.
The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.
At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.
The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?
Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.
Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-
But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.
Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.
To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.
"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.
"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."
And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.
What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.
I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.
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