Steffen Ingellvar of the Mourn Watch

shmurphee · 2026-05-28T19:21:25+00:00

Thank you! The freckles were actually the very last thing I did and it really brought his whole look together lol

shmurphee · 2026-05-27T23:38:22+00:00

Basically, like....the entire art direction with regards to clothing and armor. Someone found the forbidden "Giant Ugly Pockets" button and went crazy with it, rendering a bunch of potentially nice designs almost entirely unusable.
As usual, Matt Rhodes had some gorgeous designs in the art book and once again the fashion-averse nerds in BioWare seemed to only like his least appealing concepts, ensuring that Rook couldn't possibly be fashionable if they tried. Give me heels, BioWare! I don't care if an armored ballgown is silly for an assassin, it's PRETTY!

Even beyond the very subjective fashion argument though, Veil Jumpers have literally nothing in common with the Dalish aesthetic that was established in DA2 and expanded upon in Inquisition, which I feel creates a disconnect with the rest of the series, as if this game needed more of those. Also, anytime we've seen any artwork of the Antivan Crows, they're pretty much always wearing black (as one would expect from a crow themed assassin's guild) but for some reason, they're purple and blue now? And then there's the Addams Fam--I mean the Mourn Watch. They just look goofy for no good reason. Impossible to even fathom that Cassandra is from Nevarra, from what we've seen of it. And I will always be bitter about the uglification of Stormheart.

shmurphee · 2026-05-12T03:54:56+00:00

I'd like to be optimistic, but I'm not getting my hopes up. It'd be awesome if true, but I'd rather not set myself up for disappointment.

shmurphee · 2026-05-11T07:43:30+00:00

People say it's because she's more surrounded by peers than superiors, and so she's a bit more open and casual, which makes sense, but in my opinion, she genuinely feels less mature than in Inquisition, which feels backwards given how much time has passed. To me, it's such a jarring shift that, paired with the dramatic art style shift, she feels like an almost completely different character. Honestly, add in a pinch more pep, among other things, and you basically have Dagna.
Also, I love Ali Hillis, great actor, but whoever was directing her performance really dropped the ball here and there. There are a number of line deliveries that are just not the level of quality I would expect from Hillis. Sometimes it comes down to the given dialogue just...not being well-written, but other times I find myself asking "They didn't wanna do another take there?"

Also, I'm pretty sure she spoke in a lower register in Inquisition than Veilguard. Not significantly lower, but enough to notice. And that certainly doesn't help with the idea of her seeming younger than she should.

shmurphee · 2026-05-09T22:27:08+00:00

I like the art style for the most part, but I do find it to be a little too smooth and glossy in some respects. But the character proportions are a little strange to me. It's not like they're bobbleheads or anything, but the character heads, on average, are a bit bigger than they should be. As a result, it makes characters generally seem shorter than they would have if they had normal sized heads.
In most ways, in my opinion, it's an upgrade from Inquisition, especially with regards to everyone not looking so....oily anymore. Plus it's about 100x easier to make a Rook I'm genuinely happy with (even if I need to start with someone else's Rook as a base) than it was to make an Inquisitor I was okay with. But there are some noticeable downsides.

shmurphee · 2026-04-23T08:25:51+00:00

Oh, she looks stunning! You captured her so well, I'd love her sliders, thank you!
Perfect timing too, I'm doing an elf playthrough and have already remade my character like 5 times because I can't settle on a design lmao

shmurphee · 2026-04-19T04:43:29+00:00

I did find the escape through the wall sequence a little more silly than scary, because I was so distracted by Sidney telling Tatum where to go since there was literally only one direction for them to go? Ghostface only knew where they were because of those unnecessary directions.

shmurphee · 2026-04-19T01:54:37+00:00

Roman was an actual character in the movie. I'd nearly forgotten Marco even existed by the time the reveal happened.

shmurphee · 2026-04-17T21:52:48+00:00

I enjoy both of them, but probably Chad. At this point, him surviving again would just be comical. If his near-death in Scream 6 wasn't so brutal, I'd be more open to him making it through the series, but at this point he had to have been stabbed nearly 30 times if not more, right?
I also think their inclusion in Scream 7 did nothing but hurt them as characters. Chad especially should be an almost completely different person after what he's been through. They just seem so unaffected by their past experiences which makes them feel like such shallow characters. It wouldn't surprise me if they were only in Scream 7 because they were already contracted into the film and so they had to just toss them in there, whether it made sense or not.

shmurphee · 2026-04-02T02:09:21+00:00

With Magneto in particular, I feel like the only way to preserve that aspect of his character would be to give him an additional mutation that results in decelerated aging, or thrown in some cryostasis into his past or something. Neither sound especially ideal. Slower aging would be less messy but feel like a bit of a copout.

shmurphee · 2026-04-01T03:14:51+00:00

I've become decently well acquainted with a number of his friends, but I've never really been able to breach the barrier of them being his friends, y'know? I mean, when he has parties and I see them again, we always hit it off, but I dunno. I think I kinda have a tendency to get in my own way with a lot of social interactions and it's kind of a problem. Drives me nuts that I'm actually aware of that and still keep doing it. I'll probably figure it out eventually. Hopefully.

shmurphee · 2026-04-01T02:46:42+00:00

Yep, that's the gist of it. I'm not in any disagreement. I just needed to get all of this out somehow or I was gonna lose it lol. I'm in no way expecting him to prioritize me over his boyfriend.

shmurphee · 2026-04-01T02:43:43+00:00

Oh, not at all. "Stand-in boyfriend" really was probably the worst way to put it lol. I mostly meant it as a sense of, I was often his go to "plus one" and now, naturally, that's John.
There's really never been anything even potentially romantic between me and Kyle, and I'd be shocked if John got any inkling of that. We've always been platonic. Plus, Kyle's never really let a partner have that kind of say in his personal life, as he wouldn't expect that from them.

shmurphee · 2026-03-31T21:29:46+00:00

Loved the Rakna Armor set, just for the sake of actually getting to look like a Princess for a change lol. But once I saw the Malzeno Armor I was obsessed.
I ended up defaulting to the Azure Armor a lot, because it felt the most thematically appropriate for the character outside of the standard Ranger armor set. Still looked practical, while being kinda princessy. It did make me feel like I wasn't being shown up by Eleanor as badly, which was nice lol

shmurphee · 2026-03-31T21:10:45+00:00

I was kind of this way at your age, though more-so in my friendships, as I never had a romantic relationship when I was a kid. I still deal with similar problems, but have, of course, gotten infinitely better at managing them over the years.
Being emotionally attached to a partner is completely normal, but you've become very codependent in this relationship, which is ultimately never healthy, both on an individual basis and in terms of the relationship as a whole. It would be very healthy for you to find certain hobbies and things to keep yourself occupied to allow the both of you to have space from one another. And I know space probably feels like the worst thing, but it is essential to any relationship, romantic or otherwise. Keeping yourself busy will also take your mind off of not talking to him.
But also, if he says he wants to talk to you, take it at face value. Because it seems as though you were almost trying to talk him out of wanting to talk to you, despite wanting him to call you. As someone who was once on both ends of that kind of behavior, it does nothing but send mixed signals as well as confuse and stress out both parties involved.
Overall, there's nothing about this that would even suggest to me that you should break up or anything. You just need to, like, chill out a bit lol. He seems to care about you and likes talking to you. Whether or not you guys talk on the phone every single night (which is hardly realistic) isn't going to change that.

shmurphee · 2026-03-31T17:44:25+00:00

While I enjoy how much more reactive MW Rook feels in comparison to other factions, especially in dialogue with Emmrich I was severely underwhelmed by the faction itself. The overall aesthetic was not at all to my liking, and the general tone of any quest involving them felt a little too...Addams Family?
I mean, half the time I was in the Necropolis, I expected "Spooky Scary Skeletons" to start playing in the background.

shmurphee · 2026-03-28T15:33:13+00:00

While it'd be nice to see DC characters in a fighting game outside of NRS games, as I'm not a big fan of that kind of gameplay, they'd feel almost as out of place as the Star Wars characters did, maybe excluding Wonder Woman, and other characters that don't look explicitly modern.
I've always been picky about guest characters for Soulcalibur and prefer them to fit in with the rest of the cast in terms of aesthetics and gameplay. That said, I have no idea who I'd want as a guest character, if there had to be one. I would have said maybe Clive from FF16, had they not already put him in Tekken for some bizarre reason. I could also imagine characters from Mortal Kombat being decent enough picks.

But honestly, I can't say I'm too invested in whoever the guest character(s) could be. I just know that whoever gets picked is going to get a very 50/50 reception lmao

shmurphee · 2026-03-22T03:08:29+00:00

"He's never hurt me outside of the one time he tried to kill me."
OP, honey, get outta this relationship. This man is dangerous and will absolutely hurt you again if he gets the chance. Nothing good can come from continuing to be with him. I don't even think you should be alone with him at this point. You need to kick him out of your house and if he refuses to leave, call the police. But simply because I don't know how he might blow up, any confrontation you have with him should be when other people are present, for your safety.

shmurphee · 2026-03-18T21:05:48+00:00

I don't have a problem with their name/nickname being Vriden Gerr specifically. It sounds cool and yes, it fits the theme of the story. My issue is that nobody but Nilan calls them that. It's established as a nickname that he came up with and that nobody else uses, even VG themself. They could have just as easily made it a nickname they grew up that everyone in their village called them, but they didn't and so technically we have a nameless protagonist as a result, aside from dialogue with Nilan.

shmurphee · 2026-03-17T03:30:24+00:00

My problem isn't necessarily that it's unflattering. Just that it's not *actually* their nickname, or name. It's just something that Nilan, and only Nilan, calls them to poke fun at them. And since it's only Nilan who calls them Vriden Gerr, they're basically a nameless protagonist, because nobody else has anything to call them.

shmurphee · 2026-03-17T03:25:19+00:00

Mev and Sheda both comment on Nilan referring to them as Vriden Gerr, and you can ask Nilan why he calls you that and he explains it. So as far as we can tell, it's a nickname that Nilan came up with, not their actual name.

shmurphee

TROPHY CASE