Taylor > Recent Status Updates

An Akhal-Teke? Horse girl mode activated.

Opti did Chernobyl?!

Personally, I’d take “you have the personality of an armadillo” as a compliment.

“People were the sum of their memories, and apparently hers were whatever Jack told her.”

that’s actually horrifying

“How can I prove my value if you keep changing the rules?”

That’s the neat part, Peri. You don’t.

I KNEW IT!! I KNEW IT WAS NOT TODD!!!

I don’t trust Pamela

I am kicking myself for not realizing “Gwynn” was a reference to “Gwynn ap Nudd.”

“Death is quick. Regret is not.”

Dayummm Gabriel is cold.

Is Patrick Gabriel’s dad?

Is it the Wild Hunt? With horses, hounds, and the cŵn annwn?

Is he Arawan perhaps?

“James Morgan is a wonderful catch…for someone else.”

Rose, the woman that you are! Don’t need second sight to see he’s second rate.

“The Tevinter mage brought slaves with him, and we thought nothing of it.”

They glossed over this Nevarran mentality by DATV.

The fact that the assassins/intelligencers of the slave-holding Imperium are called the Siccari.

The historic Sicarii was a Jewish group of assassins possibly affiliated with the Zealots. I feel I really shouldn’t have to spell out why naming the branch of the pseudo-Roman Imperium after them is a faux pas.

I. Miss. Charter.

Half Up Front

• Epler had such a habit of inserting very modern phrased (“hell”) and sentence structures that it takes me right out of the story. Really presages the writing issues with DATV.

• Honestly, this story just feels like a reminder of all the dropped plot threads.

RIP to the elves joining the Dread Wolf plot point

RIP to the elves joining the Dread Wolf plot point

“Would’ve been weird, otherwise, and a little too Recounted on my part to ignore the class dynamics in play.”

Sometimes Epler writes like he just got out of a college seminar.

Eight Little Talons

• This is my favorite story bar none. The Agatha Christie of it all, learning more about the history of Antiva, the ruthlessness of the Crows, the tension between Teia and Viago, the strong character work.

“Sharp claws of metal rose ands fell until each Crow got their pound of flesh” is such a fucking poetic line.

Most horse girl thing is naming your horse after an Archdemon

I wish we had Viago and his dapper cane in game.

An Old Crow’s Old Tricks

• Now, I am a Crow simp, but this is one of my favorite stories.

• I really, really wish we could have had Lessef and Tainsley in DATV, especially because in the absence of Flemeth, we were really hurting for kick-ass old lady representstion

• Also Bicklius is such a unique take on both magisters and arcane warriors

Hey, remember when people were prejudiced against elves in noted dark fantasy franchise Dragon Age?

Herold Had the Plan

• It was nice to see the ramifications of the Antaam’s war and the desecration of the north. It really helps to emphasize how bloody and brutal Thedas is.

• I also found it interesting that Bharv ultimately did not tell Elim what the amulet did. It helps sell the moral ambiguity of the Lords that DATV tried to skirt around.

Freaking Bharv

Genitivi Dies at the End

• It ws so good until that last blurb. Leaving the reveal of Brother Genitivi as the Dowager was enough of a postmodern deconstruction.

Rasaan should have been a part of DATV, especially the Antiva arc.