#this is based off my many DA playthroughs

[bleeding-star-heart]

These tags on a reblog of my Anders analysis are another problem I have with DA:2's writing

#god i have so many feelings about this#cuz i romanced anders my first playthrough#and i hated that our relationship did a 180 as soon as I was like#“im not gonna let you gaslight me into doing war crimes”#was it OOC?#i don't know#I can't say#I haven't studied anders as a character or taken the time to contemplate him enough to speak on it#but i just know it was such a turn off that i started a new game entirely EDIT: I have removed the word "gaslighting" from this meta owing to the fact that technically, Anders isn't gaslighting, because gaslighting is something different. Gaslighting being trying to make someone doubt their perception of reality, among other things. What Anders ACTUALLY does falls under emotional manipulation. I would say to the OP that yes, indeed, this is VERY "out of character", so to speak. Most definitely for JUSTICE, the spirit inhabiting Anders's body. But also for Anders as well. Think about it: emotionally manipulating one's romantic partner is an inherently unjust thing to do. It is not something two people who respect and love each other do. Yet the spirit of Justice is completely silent when it happens. A being that supposedly embodies nothing but Justice simply...allows his host to guilt his lover into doing something they disagree with. He does not protest or try to stop Anders from engaging in a truly toxic form of emotional manipulation. If written properly, Justice should immediately have called Anders out on this. Which should prompt either an apology from Anders or a long, seemingly one-man argument between the two. But that doesn't happen. In fact, Justice only shows up if you, as Anders's rival, manage to turn him AGAINST blowing up the Chantry. And then, only to railroad Anders back into the role of terrorist. This, combined with Justice's general lack of reaction to any injustice or violation of rights that DOESN'T have to do with mages, causes him to become little more than a cheap plot device. Now as to why I don't believe a properly written Anders would do it, either. Anders at this point in the story is a revolutionary, yes. He is passionate about his cause. But he is also MORE than that. And part of that 'more'-and also WHY he's a revolutionary-is that he was a victim of a controlling, emotionally manipulative institution. One that bombards people like him with all kinds of unhealthy messaging. Messages like: the outside world is guaranteed to hate you, your (unchangeable) nature is inherently wrong and sinful. As well as: you can't trust yourself at all, you are one bad day from being a monster, you need to let us control you for your own good. Anders probably saw more than one person like Keili-that girl in the Mage Origin who actively believes she's evil and prays to 'not be a mage'. He probably encountered a lot of mages with varying degrees of religiously based self-loathing. He probably had some himself. And he lived in the Ferelden Circle. He's also a person who not only left a toxic institution, but actively sees and complains about how toxic the institution is. People who've suffered from toxic environments/relationships and RECOGNIZE how toxic those environments/relationships were, tend to value healthy relationships/environments. They try and work on themselves to remove any lingering psychological effects of that toxicity. It is highly likely that Anders would NOT want to repeat the kind of emotional manipulation he and others were subjected to. While he might not agree with Hawke about methods, Anders would not believe guilt to be a good tactic because guilt is one of the very tactics the Chantry used on him! Guilt about being a target for demonic possession, guilt about what the magisters did, guilt about being a mage in general.

Guilting his partner into agreeing with him, is, essentially, him doing what the Chantry did to him. And if the writers had put any thought into his character, they would have realized that too. And thus, if they were smart, or and simply give the player the option to permanently decline the quest with no negative consequences. The other option is to lean into that, and purposefully make it a character flaw, that he's too blinded by trauma to see that. But the writers did NOT have the time to be able to successfully pull that off. Thus, yeah. They make Anders, who suffered from religious based emotional manipulation...into someone who emotionally manipulates his partners. Which is yet another thing done in the name of a less-than-stellar ending and plot beat. EDIT: I have removed the word "gaslighting" from my part of this meta owing to the fact that technically, Anders isn't gaslighting Hawke, because gaslighting is something different. Gaslighting being trying to make someone doubt their perception of reality, among other things. What Anders ACTUALLY does falls under emotional manipulation. Which I still don't believe a properly written Anders OR Justice would do, for the reasons stated above.

#dragon age 2 #dragon age #anders #anders dragon age #dragon age meta #dragon age ii #da2 #anders da2

[graytrailcam]

Indie Xenofiction; Data Lion

"Data Lion is a short visual novel about a lion who gets a camera collar put on him by a group of scientists wanting to document his journey. It has choices, 2 love interests, and many alternate endings including bad ends (game overs)!

The idea was inspired by masterpieces like The Lion King and the manga/anime Kimba The White Lion."

Found this game while searching around on Itchio, the game is completely free to download and can be completed within just a few hours. It is described by the author as being unfinished in its current state, but I think it can be played through completely with a feeling of some satisfaction. Here is the link for those interested

More in depth review under the cut featuring spoilers. If you're looking to play I do recommend going in blind, it's fairly simple and the fun is really found in unlocking the CGs, which isn't too hard to do.

This is a short game that reminds me a lot of media I grew up with on dA back in the day, so it was very entertaining. I can definitely tell this takes a lot more inspiration from Kimba than it does TLK with a lot of its story concepts and overall character design. The game itself runs on a seven day cycle so it's fairly short.

I enjoyed the main character's design, he's an intersex, mostly maneless lion that you can name, though the default name that pops up is 'Lion McLionface' (your character was supposedly named via an Internet poll made by the scientists attaching your radio collar)

You're also able to choose your stats, as this game does have (extremely basic and limited) combat. For my playthrough I named the lion 'Lasaga' to be a bit silly and I dumped all my stats into strength.

I'm not really sure what the stats of Skill and Speed do for you. I completed the game by getting all the CGs and didn't encounter anything that was explicitly skill or speed required, perhaps it has a factor in combat that I'm unaware of.

You make a series of choices, some meaningful some not as most of them lead to the same exact events playing out. You can acquire the only pickable item, a thorn you can use in combat, in the game earlier on based on where you choose to make your home if you pick the Acacia Tree.

At some point a Safari Car will come by and observe you, if you make the right dialogue choices you can get some exposition on the setting you're in.

The animals in this particular section of Africa are apparently Bio-Engineered to have heightened, near human intelligence. The author of the game, Caveboy Tup has elaborated in a comment on the game's itchio page which I'll leave below;

This is definitely something that shows a lot of Kimba inspiration though it goes in a different direction that has some interesting implications. I would have been interested to see this explored in a more elaborate narrative.

The two love interests in this game are Jetsway and Rrred;

Their routes are very straight forward, I'd say you would have to really go out of your way to not pursue either of them, which makes it easy to pick and choose which one you 'romance', as it's also pretty bare bones in that regard too.

The one most advertised is definitely Rrred the lion who is featured more prominently on the game's page. He's not got a whole lot of depth, you have the choice to fight him or join up with him in a coalition immediately upon meeting him.

I do like the game's expression work, I find the animals emote in ways that are fun to look at and easy to read.

If you defeat him he will simply retreat and will show up again later to give some brief exposition on Jetsway's character.

Joining up with him starts his short route, which mostly consists of him scaring off crocodiles at the watering hole for you, which you are able to avoid without him regardless (The only time my character got a bad end was when I chose the wrong evasion option at this point in the story) The other portion is an encounter with a clan of hyenas that was pretty comedic, this got a good laugh out of me. It was the only time the game was particularly vulgar.

You escape the hyenas, as you are outnumbered no matter how high your strength stat is. The rest of the route is pretty uneventful, you travel together and it's implied there's some romantic interest between the two of you.

I will admit I found Rrred to be the less interesting of the two routes but I can see what appeal they were going for here.

The other route is Jetsway's which I found to have slightly more meat on its bones.

You meet Jetsway first in fact while looking for food but he only says that the radio collar you have on means you aren't one of his 'targets' before sprinting away.

Encountering him later finds him injured in the middle of the night after a fight.

There's more lore exposition with Jetsway regarding the largely left out bio-engineering aspect. He's some creature part of Glo's work that was created by them, it's specified he has some sort of Tech in his eye that isn't explained very much.

Poking around the dialogue options with him will give you the option of fighting him once he reveals he got these injuries fighting and killing lions, which explains why he specified you weren't a target earlier.

Upon defeating him, you can kill him here which I found interesting. But you can also choose to stay the night and nurse his wounds until he recovers.

You are given the option to walk him back home, and doing so will trigger an interaction between you two and Rrred, who calls Jetsway a murderer. Pushing Jetsway for more answers will only get you this in response.

There is no further elaboration on this plot point after this. I assume given the larger narrative that was mentioned by the creator that he's killing lions that are either human aggressive or resistant/unsuccessful in the Bio Engineering stuff. But that's only an educated guess.

Walking him home will after lead you to Utke town, where he says the humans will give him more medical treatment but that your character cannot stay.

You're able to stay the night, where you'll find Jetsway gone in the morning, but you are spotted by a Glo operative prior to this who takes this photo of you and Jetsway to 'share on the internet'.

After these two CG's, the final day is always the same. Your radio collar falls off on the seventh day and the scientists come to retrieve it. You have two options after this, to hide in wait to observe the humans at first, which will lead to you being tranquilized again while they retrieve your collar.

You can also attack the scientists, which will result in you ripping off the arm of one of them, the one named Saito.

They escape you after this, and leads to the final CG where Saito has been given a replacement prosthetic arm.

This concludes the game as currently published. I found it very charming to play and a nice way to spend part of an afternoon. It was definitely worth sharing since I haven't seen anyone discuss playing it or knowing it exists.

#data lion #visual novel #lions #xenofiction #video games #gray plays #gray plays data lion

[stillhavetodothat]

Replaying Nancy Drew without Cheating - Part 13: Danger by Design

Aahh, yes. One of the wackiest PC games ever to make it to the threshold of public consumption (only behind a few other upcoming ND games, but more on that later). I used to think this game came out in response to the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada, another story about a woman working for an unpleasant titan of the fashion industry, but I just googled it and TDWP came out 3 weeks before Danger by Design. Unless Her has the most efficient development team in history (spoiler: they do not. Just look at the past 8 years or so), this has nothing to do with the movie. And I know that it took longer than 3 weeks to come up with this tangled web of side plots and storylines...I could never have conceived of any of it even if I had 3 years.

The game starts with Nancy getting to Minette’s windmill studio and almost getting bonked in the head by a flying plant. She is there to investigate why Minette, a famous fashion designer, is acting so ~*strangely*~ and report back to the States, where Minette’s biggest investor is just waiting impatiently to pull the plug on the cash flow. Nancy is yelled at, has to hilariously brew a cup of tea based on what Minette’s favorite color is at the moment, and runs all over Paris on errands as part of her new job. She then learns that a French Resistance fighter, Noisette, used to live in the windmill, and proceeds to spend the rest of the game learning more about that instead. It IS a more intriguing mystery, so you can’t blame her. Ultimately, after swimming in the sewers under Paris and going on about her day like everything is fine, Nancy finds Noisette’s secret under the windmill, stumbles by chance upon Minette’s secret, and blocks a couple chops from Minette, who then proceeds to pass out from exhaustion (?????)

So many of the choices here were so interesting to me. I feel like this game is chaotic evil on the scale. I also feel like some of the puzzles here are hard! I was THE CLOSEST I’VE EVER COME TO CHEATING (in this round of playthroughs) at the end when I am locked in the bottom of the windmill, and there are about 100 steps needed to decode the way outta there. What child would ever be able to solve that on her own?? I had to come back to it over multiple days. I was literally thinking about this puzzle throughout the day, like on my commute to work, while eating dinner, while going for a run. It consumed me. Eventually it came to me, after I inspected in detail every item in my inventory. 

Anyways, back to my open questions.

1. First of all, why was there only one French suspect in this entire game? Were they having trouble finding voice actors willing to put on an extremely terrible and unpracticed French accent or what? Furthermore, why did everyone pronounce Minette as “Minn-et,’ even the Parisians? I guess Paris is probably a bit of a melting pot, especially in the fashion world, but I have always been bummed by the lack of French people in this game.

2. Also, why does Nancy struggle SO hard with the one French suspect’s name, when in other games she rattles off French so perfectly that you’d think it was her native tongue? Also, she needs to look up numbers and colors in a book, but at the end of the game she is able to translate a long letter written completely in French with ease? Something isn’t adding up here.

3. Why was Heather wearing that hideous brown tie? Surely that can’t be considered fashion?

4. I actually used to wonder why Minette’s designs are so absolutely absurd, but I think they are hilarious now. Feels like we are being trolled by HerInteractive by forcing us to put together THIS outfit for Prudence Rutherford’s cruise.

5. Why does a squirrel almost sabotage the entire game for you? Additionally, HOW in god’s name is anyone supposed to figure out how to deter the squirrel from messing up your work? I ONLY was able to get past this part because I vividly remember searching the forums back in the day to figure this out.

6. Who is buying the shitty paint-by-numbers of the Mona Lisa from the guy in Pont Nouf? For more than 15 Euros, presumably? Also, I think this is the first time I’ve ever messed up one of the paintings, because I DO NOT remember the vendor completely berating Nancy on her carelessness. This guy just screams scam artist to me.

7. Why did I find the catacombs so challenging as a child? I remember sitting at my computer, furiously clicking, SHRIEKING IN FEAR as I heard the footsteps of the French policia approaching, when really getting to the entrance to the sewers involves like 2 turns from the entrance to the catacombs. This isn’t really a question about the game, it’s more a question of my intellect as a young teenager.

8. What is the rhyme or reason for the timeline of this game? Is there a hidden in-game clock that is running all day, and let’s you know when it’s too late to be out by yourself? Or is it just completely random? Either way, it makes for some hilarious timing. Minette tells me to go to the park to pick up some stuff for her, and I just go straight to bed instead. Minette tells me to take the cockroaches and release them, and I just...take the cockroaches to bed with me?? JJ is called into Minette’s studio for a fitting, and she has to stay there all night long???

10. What is going on with some of these characters’ teeth? Strong Bruce the Shark vibes here.

11. Why are the plotlines completely disjointed? It wasn’t until I played the game through this time that I took the time to really think about the story, and realize that the two parts had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Noisette and Minette, apart from both residing in the same windmill at different points in history and both having French-y ‘ette names, have literally nothing in common?? Dieter and his family history were a complete red herring to what the actual mystery was? And when you actually find the stained glass under the windmill, and you breathe a sigh of relief because it truly feels like the end...it isn’t the end at all?? because you actually haven’t solved the mystery you came to Paris to solve?? A mystery which is actually far less interesting than Noisette’s??

12. The actual ending here, once you find your way out of the windmill’s basement (and that took me a MINUTE), is bonkers. The developers had to have been tired and just trying to wrap this up stat. Putting your hand up to block Minette’s slow-motion chops for 10 straight minutes feels like something someone came up with at 3am after their fifth cup of coffee, a cigarette pinched between two fingers. And yet, it somehow really fits into the feel of the game. It has certainly brought the ND community together, because I have never heard anyone who didn’t think this was a total WTF moment.

13. WAS Minette having an affair with Sonny Joon? I just heard this theory and I am running with it. What else would explain an alien face tattoo, and her just randomly dumping Dieter? I am choosing to believe that this is the case - otherwise, there is no explanation behind why she even got the tattoo in the first place, and having this be the reason for the mask feels a bit underwhelming.

Despite the insanity of this game...it’s a fun time. It certainly holds up on a replay, because the story is convoluted and there’s no way you’ll remember from the last time you played. Also, this is when Her really starts busting out the near impossible puzzles that no young child could ever solve on his or her own (I am already dreading the picture frame puzzle in SAW because HOW will I refrain from cheating then??)

Join me as I head off to Hawaii to sort bug poop and flirt with Big Daddy Mike. CRE is maybe one of the most lowly rated games in the entire series, so naturally I am stoked to replay!

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #nancy drew pc games #herinteractive #clue crew #gaming #pc gamer #danger by design

[middleschoolfursona]

i like your art style a lot–have you always drawn this way, or is it something u developed over time? do u have any tips for drawing in the general sparklecat/old internet art style or similar?

1. Thank uuuuu <3

2. Under cut ⬇️

It's a mix of both- my current sort of diary art/stress relief/ wholesome style is a replication of my elementary school art style! (Like 5th grade, not 2nd lol. I was still drawing stick guys blowing up zombies with tanks and crap back then)

Otherwise, my other styles are style emulations, essentally!

I'll break it down rq:

Mostly based off my own childhood art:

Natural progression of my art as I grew up:

Style "emulation" (le me making an amalgamation of liek 20000 old deviantart artists into one image)

Most of the sparklecat and scenedog art I draw like the above, is inspired by the works I stockpile from deviantart deep dives, and archive blogs. They're not emulations of one style, but multiple styles, taking parts I like or think are the most 'authentic'- essentially, I do what your young brain would have done without thinking, but I have to do it on purpose haha

My tip: while practicing, I'd say absolutely do studies of peoples entire DA galleries and figure out what works best for you.

Above all else I can't say anything else but like. Age regress lmao. If you can't do that, just do everything you can otherwise to put yourself in the headspace of the art you're emulating.

Put on old Amnesia playthroughs on YouTube, listen to Yaoi Nightcore playlists, edgy scourge AMVs, Naruto YTP, the whole Twilight movie- really whatever you listened to back in the day. Put that back on in the BG. Open current MsPaint or your preferred emulation of old MsPaint, or a free art software like medibang. (Don't download cool brushes. Work with Pen 1 and Airbrush or whatever.)

Use references of the era you want to emulate and use only those. Take all your current knowledge of art and BIN IT. The #1 problem in most emulation art even I have a really, really hard time with- is your stuff looking too modern because your art style is modern. Your tools are modern. Your mindset is modern. It will make your art look uncanny.

Don't try hard. It's really temping to draw the most rawrxd scenecore webcore hot topic revival 100 gecs whatever, I get that I guess- but it won't look like it's from the era. It's really hard to get x3randum ☆~ iTs rAinIng TACOOZZZZZZ ~☆ humor right, so don't try it for your first and submerge yourself in the era first. Tryhard sparkles are a real issue and you risk making your art look like it's snark.

Small canvases and or destroy your image quality. I don't do this as much as I should but it definitely adds to the look LULs

I will say, I have no idea otherwise because I come from a very privileged background when it comes to style emulation which is that I grew up planning to be an animator and thus, in my critical years, I was basically 100% drive on the ability to draw characters in many styles, on model. If you don't have this skill, it'll be a lot harder I'm sure.

Use your non dominant hand for especially young looking art. (If you have one. If not... uh... try your mouth?) (~that's what she said~)

(I mean. If you're *going for* the look of 'yes it's 2023 yes I'm bringing back this' go ahead, it just won't look genuine in the slightest and I am someone who's art journey is about doing all I can to emulate authenticity. Just adding this because I know a lot of people are! Go make that modern sparkledog eyeburner mary sue antisnark! It's just not my cup of tea. And I can't really give any pointers kthxbai)

#its kinda hard to say im always at least waist deep in the simulacrum #i basically run vista and play early xbox and playstation games while drinking mtn dew all day #ride my dirt bike. watch twilight and the hunger games on my #portable dvd player. play on one of my DS. #listen to scremo posthardcore crap on my ipod. epic fail on my skateboard (tfw no paved driveway) #for all intents and purposes i am a 20 year old adulthood dropout and professional teenager who dabbles in toddlerhood #when i draw idk... broseph. jesus takes the wheel #just stare at some black airbrush shaded firestar on deviantart for 300 hours and eventually itll click #wishing you the best of luck and please update me im always lewkin for ppl to colab wit and stuffs #but yea #go study the art of being a kid and im not joking #adulthood? poisoning my art? morelikely than u think... #but if you buy old rubber meme bracelets with grumpy cat or troll faces before me im PUNCHIN YR LIGHTS OUT #roflroflrofl

[animefreak1145]

The Brilliance of Break On Through

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Mission Break on Through—An Analysis

I have replayed the campaign of COD:BOCW numerous times—too many times truly. Did a whole playthrough where it was Hardened and soon I’m sure I shall do Veteran(something I have never done for any COD game. Not even Hardened.).

All missions have their own unique qualities—parts where the player gets a little rush of adrenaline depending on the kind of mission and how they choose to play it (Nowhere Left to Run just a plain shooting match while Brick in the Wall you can choose to remain stealthy like the good spy you are or go crazy like an eager homicidal maniac).

Even within the safehouse, there are plenty of little details to discover if you take the time to look around and observe everyone. Or, everything. (The radio if turned to a Russian station/correspondence, Adler changes it back immediately before Da Nang mission. Watching Park’s body language, as you talk to Adler and she periodically looks over to you two. Adler suspicious when you go to the Red Room or the locked room with the arcade. The T.V. being turned on in the Red Room)

But the amount of details, details, in the mission Break on Through is outstanding. I have played this mission more than any other due to me wishing to look at all the details. There’s so many, I think I may miss some. And I can’t show them off all to you cause I suck at creating gifs and don’t know how to transfer that from Xbox to my phone.

To lighten it up a bit, I won’t focus on the four different scenarios you go through—at least not each one. That would take too long and I do not have gifs/pics to show it off since Tumblr limits it to ten anyways.

I will, however, try to guide to what parts of the game you all can explore if you choose to do so. As well just how detailed they did this mission.

I am going to start with the different statements Adler says to you throughout all the Scenarios(17, 6, 11, 1). We only go through four in the actual game—but the fact it goes up to 17 or possibly more shows just how far they went in and messed with Bell’s mind.

Now, Adler seems to be a bit bipolar on how he talks to you whether or not you listen to him and all his directions. Either totally blasé and cold to giving you and pumping you up with more MK or meds, or actually a tad concerned and patient as he guides you through.

If You/Bell Stands Still/Does Nothing:

Example 1

“So you did nothing? What were you, in shock?”

He throws the words callously, mocking. As if Bell isn’t confused and lost at what is going on. He even sounds irritated that you might actually be in shock due to these memories that are just fake—not even real. Not like what he has.

Example 2

“What’s wrong with Bell?” -Adler

“I’m not sure. . .” -Park

“I guess we’ll just wait on you to proceed, Bell.”

The contrast is dizzying. He sounds concerned when he asks Park on what could be wrong with you. If he pushed you too far and now you’re just frozen. And, instead of rushing you due to how the fate of half of Europe is at stake, he decides to give you space. Just wait for you and you’ll come out of it soon enough.

He does these sort of reactions numerous times. Jumping from intimidating to the Adler we knew as the player, as Bell—kind and always in your corner that believes in you. He switches tactics based on what he believes will work really—or he just felt really on edge at times and threw the farce that you two were friends out the window.

Other examples include:

Scenario 11–Napalm Strike-in the lab in the room where you were brainwashed

“Christ, what’s happening with them?”-Adler

“A mild seizure. Sims, past me a benzodiazepine.” -Park

Again, concerned. Worried. Almost…at unease?

In the lab—tripped up on drugs. If you run through the tight shrinking hallway back and forth like so(I suck at making gifs, I’m sorry):

“Why is Bell repeating themselves?”

Or

“Bell, stop speaking in circles.”

Now, as others may have suspected, Bell is talking to everyone as they’re stuck in this horrible loop of mental torture. Most likely muttering, hands clenching and arms pulling against the straps of the gurney, moving their head back and forth depending on what they’re seeing. I always saw Bell as muttering quickly in Russian as they go through all of this—their mother tongue where it may comfort them as they’re panicking and speaking to Adler.

It’s just a nice detail showcasing how exactly Adler knows that Bell is on script—Bell saying what they’re seeing and doing and what’s going on. It shows also just how hard they put Bell through the ringer(badum tss. I’ll leave now).

All the details too when the game shows how the drugs they put in Bell affects you. Like so. The hallways appearing long. The lights looking yellow. You feel so fast—look how quick you can run. Run towards the Red Door that Adler so desperately wants and maybe this can stop. Ah, why is it running away from you? What’s going on?

I don’t know about you, but I was so lost and confused at what was going on my first playthrough. For the majority of this mission, the possibility of me being brainwashed didn’t reach the BACK of my mind till probably I actually saw the flashes of scenes about Vietnam and calling Bell a subject. So like right here.

I personally thought that I had a repressed memory or something due to me going through the Vietnam War. That whatever I saw with Perseus, I—or rather Bell—repressed it from our mind due to how violent or horrible what we saw or experienced was. And that Adler suspected and just really wanted to know about it.

I didn’t expect for the man to actually brainwash my character—us—Bell! The game made Adler your mentor, who always defended you from Hudson and believed in your skills very highly. How he and Bell were basically perfect partners when the two of you were together.

It’s amazing—cause I think that’s what the developers were going for. The absolute trust. The loyalty. The denial that ‘maybe Adler is being a little harsh but hey, this is to help Perseus so it’s okay?’ It’s perfect. Because I’m sure that is what Bell actually felt in real time.

Yet, if you go through the total rebellious choice of not listening to Adler, some thing’s make sense. The Rebellious Side shows you way more than if you just listen to Adler like a Dutiful Soldier.

You go through this room if you choose the rebellious route, the T.V.’s automatically turning on the closer you get. Of Vietnam. And now, all those T.V.‘s that turned on by themselves(the Red Room, Lubyanka, Cuba) make sense. You were actually being brainwashed. Poor Bell probably can’t ever have a turned off/broken T.V. again. The trauma.

Said trauma being shown multiple times too. Not just the T.V.‘s. But the absolute terror that Bell felt, before they became Bell, with Adler.

Like do you see this? This terrified me when I saw it at the end of the hallway. I just saw a red shadow in the distance and I legit thought I was about to be chased. Call of Duty became a horror game(I also went through the door to the ground too my first playthrough, so before this I went through zombies and I think my heart was going to jump out my chest) I thought. I didn’t want to get closer. I had to, with each step I see that it’s not a shadow but a body. And than I see the familiar jacket, the sound of whirring in my ears and see it’s Adler’s head being twisted back and forth, side to side, up and down, in a speed that in inhumanely possible.

Makes one wonder if Bell themselves sees Adler as inhumane. Not human. Adler seeming to just be a god in their head. All the Adler shaped rocks/boulders you go through and see. Even one point the V.C. becoming Adler and you killing him over and over and dead bodies of Adler being everywhere.

The man has entered Bell’s head and won’t leave. Just like Adler won’t leave Bell alone.

Heck, there’s one point in my playthroughs of this mission I was by the bridge yet there were parts of the lab by it. I jumped towards it, noticing down below there were different floors of the lab that eventually reach the ground. I jumped to reach the next floor and missed and I died.

And Adler mocked Bell committing suicide.

That was the kicker really that Adler truly is indifferent towards Bell. Like complete disregard. I know it’s fake. We know it’s fake. Adler knows it’s fake—but to Bell, it felt real. That’s the crazy part. All of this—this whole sequence feels real to Bell so each time they die they actually feel it. It’s insane. It’s cruel.

But we all know that Adler isn’t known for his kindness. Still like his character though, he’s layered.

I don’t have the exact quote he said, didn’t wrote it down like the others. I was shook he said it at all.

Moving on to the final details I’m going to talk about.

When you go through the room, I believe this comes out for both rebellious and dutiful, really depends. You see it filled with post it notes, articles, plans, and newspapers. And you see once more just how Bell has been scarred.

I don’t know Russian or German, but I imagine the notes are similar to what the English one’s say. If I’m wrong, please point it out.

There’s also post it notes which I believe is in code as well due to all the numbers—I’m not sure what those could mean since I am no decoding expert.

Poor poor Bell. And with all these pictures and plans—of Adler included—it begs the question that Bell may have been warned about the famous America’s Monster beforehand. Had to have—since Adler is basically Perseus’s adversary due to how stubborn the American man could be. It just adds more to the story, despite Cold War having quite a short campaign, they made it up somewhat with all these details everywhere.

When you finally and actually reach the room.

As you grow closer to the table, to your chair in the conference room while everyone else seems to have their own spots, there’s something I noticed.

There’s glasses. As well as a hat. And it’s Bell’s. Or at least, it used to be. Why else is it on their side of the table? By their chair? I believe it might be reading glasses due to all the decryptions Bell does, whether on paper or through a computer, it’s hard on the eyes. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed this. For look at @second-vtoroy ‘s Bell)

I believe through the brainwashing, Bell might not need glasses anymore. After all, apparently they were a smoker like Adler before too but they took that out of you. What else they changed of Bell? It makes one wonder how far they truly went into molding a person.

Which just adds onto how mind boggling this mission is—this game is. This is my favorite COD game, despite how short it is. The details and choices and interactions with everyone and able to create your own character(albeit it’s very standard and not specific but it’s good enough for me) is AMAZING. I’ve always been a sucker for RPG’s and able to get that even a little in a COD game? Truly wonderful.

I couldn’t touch on everything because it would’ve gotten long, but the fun of the Break on Through mission never gets old. It’s genius multiple ways you can do it. All the details. The feelings you feel as a player as you go through it.

They truly did a unique job with this and I hope they continue with this type of game storytelling. Hopefully longer as well.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this rant basically!

Gifs made by me and used the video down below to help.

https://youtu.be/t6QkmkGGHSQ

#russell adler #call of duty #cod #black ops cold war #call of duty cold war #cod cold war #cod bell #cod analysis #cod:bocw #call of duty analysis #bell call of duty #Adler and Bell #Cold War

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 3

This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler continued playing DAO from where they had left off in Part 1 and Part 2. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, personal accessibility reasons, etc). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into other parts of the franchise. Some of it is info which is known having been put out there in the past, and some of it is new. There’s a bit of overlap or repetition with topics covered in Parts 1 and 2. This post leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.

The stream can currently be watched back here. Next week LE will be streaming a different DAO playthrough with commentary from another guest. Two weeks from now LE and DG will return to continue this playthrough for another stream session like this one.

(Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]

The Battle of Ostagar cutscene is one of the first big cutscenes that got made during production. When it was shown to the team for the first time, it was one of those moments where DG felt like “Awesome, this is a game!” Context: During the development of a game it feels more like doing a series of disconnected tasks and assets rather than working on a game, so seeing stuff come together at times like this is rad. The first time it was shown, it had temporary placeholder voiceacting.

Pathfinding is always a nightmare to do, especially in games which involve a party of NPCs. As soon as other characters are involved alongside the PC, it’s exponentially more difficult and takes up a lot more resources. The PC is the most complex thing going on visually on-screen, with so many moving pieces, and in party-based games you have four [etc] of them. So, some critique that’s made of the DA games in regards to this subject which compares it to games like The Witcher doesn’t really make sense, as The Witcher has a solo PC.

‘Weird mage hats’ didn’t really become a trademark ‘DA thing’ akin to their place of random pieces of cheese around the world until later games. For DAO, someone probably asked the artists to create “mage helmets”. Mage hats actually looked better in the concept art than they did in-game. What happened was that they were already modelled and then they didn’t have time to re-do them.

DAO was made for PC first. The plan from the get-go though was that it would be an all-platform release (PC/360/PS3). Games like these are always made for the “lowest common denominator” from among the various platforms that they’re being planned to release for. Games have to be made for the most stringent/basic of the platforms because this makes for less conversion rate. At the time of DAO’s development, the PS3 was getting weak graphically and getting old, and this was quite a limitation: “Why do we have to limit [crowds?] because of this one platform?” “Well, we just gotta”. The original models were a bit too detailed. Later on, the artists started making models that had lower polycounts that they could put in a bit more of. DA was never really focused on making environments realistic in an ambient manner (making environments less “gamey” and more lived in, like having crowded places). They could have put more emphasis there but this would have led to a resources issue. Ambience basically wasn’t a high priority. As a writer DG isn’t keen on this decision and naturally he wanted the world to look more realistic, but he noted that it’s easy for him to say this when this would be work that he didn’t have to do personally.

During DAO development, they might have just had a dev sphere originally that was called “tech design”. DG thinks this was later broken up into systems design, combat design and maybe level design. Level designers are the people that are the implementers of the plot. Narrative design is a branch of the level design spoke. System designers respond to requests from lead designers. Narrative designers and writers don’t interact with system designers much unless they have to. As an example of interaction here, system designers might come to writers and say, “Alright, so we’re doing combat, what are the sorts of things a mage can do in this world?” The writers would be like “Ok, these are the sorts of spells we imagined.” The system designers might then come back with “Ok, that fulfills 2 of the 10 things we need mages to be able to do in combat. Is it possible that mages could do [this]?” Sometimes it is, and other times it would be like “No, that’s really outside of the lore”. Still, sometimes said original-lore-breaking things would be added to the game a week later due to necessity and DG would be like “Oh ok”. This kind of stuff is an insight into how some aspects of the lore came to be or changed over time during development.

The system designers on DAO got a better idea of what could be done and what could not be done according to the lore as things went on. At first, DG had to keep telling them things like “It’s not that big a deal, but in the lore mages can’t teleport. Instant teleportation isn’t possible in the world”. The system designers needed a spell where someone could get from spot A to spot B really fast on the battlefield. DG said that that’s fine in itself, “have them turn into a cloud of bees or have a light that moves between the two places. We can use magic as a transition or as a speed thing, but what is against the lore is instant teleportation, to traverse distance like that”. At first the system designers weren’t on board with it, but they got on board with it later. 

This sort of thing doesn’t just depend on the system designers. It also depends on what the tech artists are willing to do. Sometimes a certain request made of them was too hard and they said they weren’t able to do it. Other times it was a matter of DG not communicating the request properly, or the tech artists had already done the work and so throwing out all their work to re-do it just because he didn’t communicate clearly wouldn’t have been cool. So sometimes the originally planned lore got contravened, and sometimes things other parts of the team implemented in the game became the new lore.

LE made an insightful observation at this point: You can’t think of game development as a cohesive series of decisions that everyone on the team is involved in. This simple isn’t how it works at all, especially on large complex projects. There are processes at some studios for decision-making, but most of the time, a bunch of decisions get made by system designers. Others get made by level designers, still others by narrative designers. Situations then arise where someone notices a certain decision and that that decision and another one contradict each other. This is where conflict arises and a solution has to be negotiated. This is why often in games we get elements in the end product that are dissonant, because it was discovered too late or by the time it was realized, it was too difficult to change. It’s actually a miracle that on a game of DAO’s depth and scope that all these things largely hold together. [My note: With this insight and the context below on documentation, it makes sense how BW sometimes appear to ‘forget aspects of their own lore’ or end up contradicting parts of the lore in different parts of the franchise]

Sometimes such things would be noticed in time and DG would go and say, “Can we not do that or do something else instead?” and the relevant parties would be totally accommodating and do it (depending on how much time they had or how much time it would take to remedy). Sometimes this worked out and sometimes it didn’t. For the most part, everyone wants to work together. DG couldn’t be involved in every aspect of systems design “like some kind of All-Watchful eye of lore”, so he had to rely on the people who were there knowing enough from the documentation. Not everybody reads every document however. There was so much documentation even back during DAO. DG can only imagine the sheer amount of world/lore documentation that now exists now in the run-up to DA4; he said he thinks that nobody at this point on the current team has read it all, as editor/lore-wrangler Ben Gelinas isn’t with BW anymore. Lots of legacy documentation accumulated very quickly. Sometimes, the old document would still be there. Over time it became harder for people to discern which was the most recent version of a particular document. Sometimes people didn’t update the relevant documentation after changing things. Lore documentation was particularly bad for this issue. BG wrangled all the documentation and created an internal reference wiki (essentially acting as a lorekeeper). He was constantly coming in and picking DG’s brain to clarify conflicting aspects or obtain the correct, in-date information etc (“Good on him”).

DAO was the first time DG was involved in voice-recording. Prior to that he was only on the receiving end, in that the recordings would come in and he’d review them as they did so. DAO is when BW set up their own VO department and where Caroline Livingstone came on. CL wanted DG and Mike Laidlaw to be more involved in the casting process. As a result, the writers then were to write casting scripts: like, ‘For Morrigan, can you write a 1 page script that goes through 3 big emotions? [like regular talking for a bit, then here’s a bit of heightened emotion such as anger, then here’s a part where they’re being funny if they were a comedic character] These scripts had to be kept short so that the recording that was made from it wouldn’t be more than 30-40 seconds in length.

For the initial VA sessions, DG and CL flew down to Technicolor studioin LA and they had all the major castmembers there (later on, recording sessions were done a lot more remotely; this became easier as BW’s setup got more sophisticated). The idea was that they would both be present live in-person for the first 2 or 3 sessions to help each VA find their ‘voice’, and for DG at the first session to sit down with each VA and walk them through who their character was, what DA was about, and help them figure out how their character should talk. Claudia Black was the first of these sessions and he was “a wreck” going into that one. It got easier after that however. CL gave directions into the soundproof booth and DG was present to give notes on things like pronunciation or the intentions behind some lines. He says he learned everything he now knows about VO direction from CL. The things and tricks CL can do to get a performance out of an actor are amazing. Sometimes an actor would get a bit fixated or stuck on a particular way of delivering a line. CL had atrick to help them past this; “I want you to clear your mind, and I want you to give me a version of this line that’s more yellow”. The idea is that they just had to break out of where they had been stuck in that mindset, and the thing was that it doesn’t matter what “yellow” meant, but what was important was what “yellow” meant to the actor. They could then take that new varied delivery and progress from there.

Alistair’s dialogue when the PC talks to Flemeth outside her hut was the first complex conversation DG wrote for DAO. It was the first one that had a lot of branching and fiddling to it. The hardest conversations to write are the ones with a lot of exposition, and when they do have exposition still making this interesting and natural. At this point in the game, the player has no agency, just reactivity. The devs talked a lot about this subject when they wrote the origin stories. Some of the stories allow the player to initially say no and refuse to join the Wardens, but you always end up being railroaded (the devs here ended up doing a form of the trope ‘But Thou Must!’). Do you give the player the option to say no? Is it important to allow them that option? At some point, writers have to accept that the player has some level of buy-in and is game to play. They discussed a lot where they sat on this and what is agency. “Maybe don’t worry about offering the player every possible choice, but about having reactivity.”

Loghain wasn’t okay with letting Cailan die. He didn’t sit and angst about it openly where the player could see, and once the decision had been made, it being Loghain, it was Made and Had To Be Done (he felt that it was something that had to happen). But he didn’t kill the son of the woman he’d once loved dearly as a random off-handed thing.

The Solas twist was planned from the beginning, from the DAO dev days. Such big things/broad strokes have stayed the same. However, some of the details have changed or been added along the way. They didn’t know for instance that Solas was going to be a companion; that was something they came up with when they were planning DAI. Flemeth’s true identity has never changed.

Zevran says Rinna was an elf, but WoT says she was a bastard child of a noble in line for the Antivan throne (the Antivan royal family being human). When asked if this was an oversight, DG said yes she was a bastard, but she may have been really far down the line of succession, i.e. technically in line, but would probably never have been allowed to take the throne in practise had that scenario ever actually arisen.

DA was maybe inspired a bit/some by ASOIAF. This was way before it was on TV of course. DG at the time had read the first book or so. He liked the fact that it was a fantasy setting but low-magic, and was about the people in the world and their politics rather than magic, prophecy and other high fantasy stuff.

It was only by DAI that the system designers decided that it was okay to think of banter as an “activity that players engaged in”. In previous games, the devs had inadvertently managed to ‘train’ players to immediately stop when companion banter fires so that they could hear it all (because if you do something else, it gets cut off). When the level designers put together the spaces, they accounted for what players would be doing i.e. how much time between combat. They didn’t however account for like “You’re travelling down this hall and there’s a banter for half of that space. This is an activity, so it’s okay not to put anything in there”. This is how the inadvertent training happened, when originally banters were supposed to be a thing that ran as you move around the world (as opposed to stopping and standing still). 

When asked if the Blight resulted from the creation of the Veil or pre-dates it: “I think you’ll probably have to wait on the game[s] for that answer, if it ever explains it”. He was also asked whether Arlathan is the Golden City. He won’t answer such questions naturally because they are “DeepLooooooore™~~ ♫”.

DG isn’t sure that he will play DA4 when it comes out. It’s not that PW and the team won’t do a good job, they will, it’s just that when DG plays RPGs he has an analytical mindset going on and finds it difficult to slip into the game and just enjoy. For DA4, as he was previously so involved in DA, there’ll naturally probably be an extra level of that with feeling like “What would I have done [for particular parts of the game’s design]?”. Alternatively he might instead feel like “Wow, this is awesome, here’s a game I would have made but didn’t have to do any work on!” DG stressed that it’s important to him to be fair about the work of his former colleagues - he wouldn’t want to come out and be like “I wouldn’t have made [this or that] choice”. He also noted that just because something might be a call he personally wouldn’t have implemented in the game, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad call. There are people out there where if DG intimated at all that there was an aspect of DA4 that he wasn’t keen on, he’s worried that they would pounce on it and use it as ammunition against the current team (who are his friends that he really cares about and wants to do well). He walked away from DA voluntarily and is happy his game will continue on. PW popped by in chat at this point and agreed that it’s definitely hard to play something that you used to work on.

Other assorted tidbits:

DG really opposed the part at the Battle of Ostagar where mabari are set to charge the darkspawn horde - “That’s not how you would use dogs [in war]”

There was supposed to be a cutscene where Flemeth rescues the HoF and Alistair from the top of the Tower of Ishal in her dragon-form. This was cut. DG remembered being angry about this like “nobody is gonna buy that you fall unconscious and then wake up in the hut totally rescued. [...] I guess I’m not always right”

When DG went to Beamdog there was a period where they thought about making a Baldur’s Gate 3. They put together a pitch and had a long series of discussions contemplating things like “What do we need from BG3? What do we expect it to have in order to have the BG name? What is needed and not needed to connect to from the previous games?”

DG isn’t sure who designed the DAO inventory system

PW in chat recalled a game writer from another company who was really ragging on DAI on the Christmas Day after release

Narrative designer and system designer are very different positions/roles with very different responsibilities

Simon Templeton as Loghain did all his voicework stuff in one take, which was very impressive

It would have been the marketing department that chose 30 Seconds To Mars for music. DA was really good at choosing up-and-coming acts for this that weren’t huge when they used their songs, but became huge afterwards

During work on Baldur’s Gate 2 was the most DG has ever crunched. He slept in the office a few times

“As soon as you get both Alistair and Morrigan in the party, that’s when it’s like ahh yes, this is a BioWare game”

Were Flemeth and Morrigan’s interactions with each other and the PC when Morrigan is being told to leave the Wilds and go with the Hero an act, considering that Morrigan did know about the OGB plan? No. That was The Plan, but said plan wasn’t like “Ok, she’s going to leave Right Now”

The elves and the inversion of the traditional elven trope are DG’s favorite part of the world/world-building

One of the original intentions for DAO was to make it so that the player wouldn’t need a healer in the party, or that there would be different kinds of healing, or that healing itself wouldn’t be a thing, but this just didn’t work out

The Imperial Highway used to be a really important part of the lore but it kind of got forgotten a bit

It’s kinda funny that after release some players expressed that Corinne Kempa’s accent as Leliana was “sooo fake”. It’s not fake, she’s actually a Brit that moved to France when she was young, so she has the exact type of accent that Leliana would have (Leliana was born in Orlais and is culturally Orlesian, but her mother was Fereldan and she considers herself as such)

They talked some about the need for documentation and how doing this can feel beurocratic and uncreative and how like you’re not working on a game or writing. PW in chat expressed that there was a year where they spent a lot of it working in PowerPoint and Excel, “so I feel this”

When they switched art directors to Matt Goldman, his first big complaint was about all the brown. He came to DG like “Is there a lore reason for or are you particularly in favor of the brown for story reasons?” DG was like “Uhh no” and Matt was then like “Ok good”

Console codes/commands aren’t usually stripped out of a game before release, they are usually still in the built, just disabled. The system itself is not removed but how to access said system is

BW doesn’t crunch as bad as we hear some companies do, and kind of prided itself on “not being terrible at crunch”. But BW’s “not terrible at crunch” is still crunch. We obviously don’t commend abusive family members for only abusing people on certain days of the week or whatever

Kate Mulgrew is American but she at times did the same thing a lot of the British VAs did, which was that the devs had a lot of struggle with getting them to say “darkspawn” correctly, with the emphasis in the right places. They’d say “dark SPAWN” as if it was two words with an adjective, and the stress put in the wrong place

Lack of children in DAI was a resources thing. They only had time to make a certain number of models. There was a series of meetings where they had to decide what things to cut. In the last meeting it was like ‘Here’s a bunch of things you don’t want to cut, we need to cut 4 of them’

They decided to put horned qunari back in DA2 because then they had the resources to do so. They then ended up having to explain why there were hornless qunari at the same time, and make this an in-world explanation as opposed to just ‘We didn’t have the resources, that was totally intentional’

Lots of players missed out on recruiting Leliana and/or Sten on their first playthrough and didn’t even know they existed/could be recruited. “Apparently we weren’t that great at pointing players in the right direction”

Tevinter is inspired by the Byzantine Empire (which wasn’t called that at the time incidentally, this is a name given by historians after the fact), what used to be the Roman Empire after the western part fell. This is the era Tevinter today is meant to encapsulate: decadent but clearly in decline, far away from the heyday and the heights of the former empire [source]

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #morrigan #queen of my heart #alistair theirin #fav warden #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #solas

[pinehutch]

Niche Interests

A little while ago, @mia-ugly tagged me to talk about 10 niche interests of mine. I don’t really know what counts as a niche so I’ve been making occasional notes about this over the last week. 

The hardest part of this for me is either that I’m not very interesting or more likely, that I’m a generalist. Like, I would give myself a solid B in many, many areas that could be considered “niche” - I love learning. 

But here are some things that I can and will reliably nerd out over if someone else brings them up!

1. Curly hair care. I’ve got naturally curly hair and didn’t really know how to look after it until my early twenties. Now I know many things about it, including where to get good curly hair products in Canada. Genuinely, if you have curly hair and want to chat about it you can always message me or send me an ask and I’m happy to try to help. (These days I am really loving Inahsi Naturals and Ecoslay;  yes I have drugstore and grocery store recs as well.) 

Also, more seriously: I would also encourage any white or other non-Black person who is frustrated with their own curly hair to also spend some time reading on natural hair movement to try to learn about the history and politics of Black hair in particular. If it’s within your means and you’re already buying specialised products for textured hair, I encourage you to to look into Black-owned businesses. 

2. Canadian Poetry in English, especially 1960-present. I could narrow this down further but c’mon, how many people genuinely want to hear me go on about those slim volumes that I accumulate? But like, I grew up on my mom’s hand-me-down volumes of Canadian poetry from Confederation to the 1980′s; at age 16 I was co-oping for a prof at the local university as part of building a collected works on a Canadian poet and painter, and clamouring to go to lit conferences; in university I showed up with a good chunk of the curriculum already read; etc. Total nerd. 

3.  Edible plants of Ontario. I don’t actually forage because I don’t have access to land where I think it’s appropriate for me to, but I grew up on ~80 acres of mixed forest in central Ontario, and my grandfather liked to show us what was safe to eat. I will never turn my nose up at ramps, and I think I may have remembered my dad’s secret morel spot he took us to as kids, to check out next spring. The list of what else is out there is long and still lodged in my brain. 

4. Fat acceptance, fat positivity, and a bit about plus-size fashion: in the early-to-mid 2000′s I discovered the fatshionista community on livejournal and it changed my life, which I say without hyperbole. I was looking for tips on finding “cute clothes,” and what I found was a pathway into learning about intersectionality. The people who ran and were highly vocal in that community did a lot of hard work in those years trying to dismantle not only internalized and external fatphobia, but also ableism, racism, and queerphobia. I’ve spent over fifteen years now consciously trying to dismantle fatphobia in myself and in the people around me, as a part of the work. (I’m not as well-grounded in the fashion side of things anymore, but I try sometimes.) 

5. History and development of the English language. I’m definitely just an armchair expert, but holy shit do I love this awful language, and how it came to be and continues to become. I minored in linguistics in university, and I used to be able construe Old English on the fly. I believe wholeheartedly in linguistic parity and I don’t mean that English is better than other languages; this is just the one I understand best. 

6. (This one is really boring I’m not even going to bold it)  public sector procurement law and practice in Canada. It’s not a field I’m in anymore, but I was for a while. How (literally, how, not just on what) do your governments spend your money? 

7. Ghost stories, yours and mine. Tell me your spookiest stories, please please please. My favourite thing to do in October is cram my eyeballs full of the entries in the Jezebel scary stories contest, in part because of the conceit that the stories are ‘true.’ I’ve always been interested in the unseen or barely-seen in general, including 20 years with an active interest in modern witchcraft (and a trailing one, still). 

Actually, that’s a good segue to

8. Divination, kind of. I’m not an expert or even any kind of practitioner, anymore, but I know a little bit about a lot of different methods and their histories and application. Enough that I could quickly find my way to good research if I wanted to incorporate some of these things in a work of fiction, and I am always keen to listen to other people talk about their experiences and practices. 

9. Okay, I didn’t want to admit it but: Dragon Age (all media types). I definitely did not intend to become someone with a high degree of fluency in a fantasy video game world but here’s how it happened: about seven years ago I started experiencing chronic fatigue, joint pain, and stiffness. By February 2014 there were days when I couldn’t walk. I was diagnosed (quite quickly) with rheumatoid arthritis and my immune system and I are still in a bit of a fight about it. On one of those days when I couldn’t leave home, I picked up Dragon Age: Origins and started a playthrough, and it turned out that gaming was exactly the right amount of distracting but not intensive that worked for me when I was in pain, most of the time. But I’ve played the games, read the books, own the encyclopedias and the TTRPG books, have read codices and wikis and reams of meta. My DA fervour is pretty low these days (it’s been six years since a new game came out, after all), but it may yet come back. (What I love about it is mostly to do with characters and setting: it rewards close reading and a historiographical lens.) 

The best part about all of this is that I’ve never really been arsed about dragons, as such. 

10. (This feels like cheating but) vegetarian food, and the role of meat and animal products in food cultures. (Also, like, the politics and culture of food in general.) First-off, I should say that I’m not a vegan or vegetarian unless you want me to select my entree for your wedding. I don’t eat meat most of the time, but I do eat dairy most days, eggs a few times each week, and eat fish or seafood semi-regularly. I’ve been meat-averse for most of my life, though there are times when I’ve craved it and continue to. As a result, I tend to plan and cook mostly veg meals; it’s just second nature now. I tend to keep a general awareness of how to Make Things From Plants because it’s also just useful knowledge to have - blender ice cream with coconut milk and peanut butter and cocoa powder is just more convenient when it’s 35C outside than cooking custard, you know? 

I do think that the plant-based eating movement has a huge, huge problem with classism, ableism, fatphobia, and racism, and so I try to keep my own interest in eating in veg-adjacent ways as an interest for me, not as a cause or goal. 

Tagging: @mareebrittenford @taksez @glowcrizzle @thisnewdevilry @19thcenturyfox @kungfulola @horse-badorties @fullcuntact and anyone else that is keen to talk about their niche interests. 

#upon reflection I am incredibly boring #also let's talk about music babey! #also modernist lit #also fanworks as a concept #also also also also also #you see my problem!

[ganbarimaster]

The Campaign of Liu Ji

I started a new playthrough of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 the other day, seeking to bring glory to the legacy of imperial ancestor Liu Yao which--given how early into the story he passes away--is really the story of his handsome son Liu Ji (who was in actuality an official under Sun Quan of some success and note). I’ve been trying to write Three Kingdoms AU stuff for a while (including this one Liu Qi story I started) and thought it might be interesting to try and make sense of what happens in my campaign narratively, as the game unfolds. For those interested in such things, the loose/rough bullet point narrative follows under the cut! It’s all big picture stuff for the most part. Heavily inspired by my currently watching the 2010 Three Kingdoms drama. There are some things I’m struggling to explain, such as what happens to Liu Bei and his brothers once they’re consumed by Cao Cao and have no means of escaping to Liu Biao. Open to hear alternative suggestions for how things might make sense!

Liu Yao has a dream, or meets a hermit with a warning about the imminent attack of Sun Ce? Some poem/dream about a tiger cub? He begins to mobilize in response, develops new ideas.

Begins with successful offensive against Yan Baihu commanded by Taishi Ci and by uniting with the resistance forces of local Ling Cao.

Now better prepared, Liu Yao defends successfully against Sun Ce, who recruited Zhou Yu along the way. The Sun family is subsequently driven from Qu’e due to fears that Sun Ce might attack again, and they return to Liujang with Sun Ce in defeat.

Yuan Shu is disappointed with Sun Ce having lost many of the 3000 troops granted, and in his inability to capture any territory, and refuses to return the Imperial Seal. Yuan Shu moves against Sun Ce who tries to defend himself from his position in Liujang, for the sake of his family and under the advice of Zhou Yu. 

Yuan Shu is busy dealing with Sun Ce so doesn’t get involved with Liu Bei/Lu Bu (who are embroiled in a conflict over Xu Province). Cao Cao takes this opportunity to press Yuan Shao while he is fighting Gongsun Zan. (around 195/196) A surprise attacks catches Yuan Shao off-guard—he is struck by an arrow and killed. While the Yuan children are in-fighting for leadership, Cao Cao and Gongsun Zan bring an end to his force before 200AD. Liu Bei joins up with Cao Cao to face imperial traitor Yuan Shu, leaving Xu Province to Lu Bu—which is then captured by Cao Cao. Ma Teng begins attacking Cao Cao from the rear at this time, taking Chang’an, troubling and distracting him for years to come. 

Motivated to expand his forces by the frightening strength of Sun Ce and the various forces expanding north of the river, Liu Yao moves on Wang Lang, who had been financing Yan Baihu, and had sent troops to support him. Wang Lang fled from Liu Yao’s approach, but was intercepted and surrendered—his life is spared upon introducing Liu Yao to Zhuge Jin.

Liu Yao passes away from illness. He commands his son Liu Ji to take over and asks the recently discovered Zhuge Jin to support him.

A large part of the remaining Sun forces, including Zhou Yu, crosses the river with Han Dang and takes Chaisang to try and secure a base away from Yuan Shu and re-take the southlands, but they are quickly surrounded by the forces of Liu Ji. Since the Sun forces are split between fighting Yuan Shu in the north and Liu Ji in the south, Zhou Yu suffers a terrible loss at the hands of Zhang Ying and Chen Heng, under the advisement of Zhuge Jin. Sun Ce’s wife Da Qiao (who is sent to Chaisang with ZY, as it was considered to be safer than Luijang, where the situation was dire) dies in a fire and Zhou Yu kills himself as a result. Hearing of her husband’s suicide, Xiao Qiao attempts to kill herself, but is prevented from doing so. Han Dang returns with their remaining forces to Luijang.

While Sun Ce is being set upon by Yuan Shu, Liu Ji (on the encouragement of Yuan Shu, who struggles to defeat Sun Ce) crosses the Yangtze and helps to remove Sun Ce from Liujang.  Sun Ce is killed fighting in a duel with Taishi Ci, Sun Quan flees north with his mother (also Lu Meng) and both are captured by a desperate Yuan Shu (who is at the time engaged with Cao Cao). Cheng Pu is also captured/killed by Yuan Shu?

Some of Sun Ce’s remaining forces (Huang Gai, Han Dang) join Liu Ji to take on Yuan Shu (with the imperial edict to defeat the false emperor as support) and to rescue Sun Quan. Lu Su also leaves Yuan Shu to join Liu Ji in his campaign. Zhang Zhao agrees to continue his civic duties in the Southlands.

A discussion takes place about the future of the Southlands. Some people talk about following Sun Quan, but his condition is very bad. Many key advisors make a case for continuing to support Liu Ji, as he is an imperial ancestor, and he is very bright, and has one of the only forces capable of taking on Cao Cao. A young Lu Xun joins Liu Ji’s forces and helps to defeat local bandits in the Southlands.

Whilst being pressed by (a distracted) Cao Cao as well as Liu Bei and his brothers, Liu Ji takes the opportunity to rush in and finish Yuan Shu. The situation is very chaotic. Sun Quan’s mother is injured and dies. Sun Quan himself becomes very sick, but Lu Meng is trying desperately to care for him. Liu Ji takes Sun Quan under his care, Lu Meng also joins their force. Yuan Shu kills himself once surrounded by Liu Ji’s forces.

Liu Ji receives an invitation to Jing to meet with fellow imperial ancestor Liu Biao. He travels there with Taishi Ci and is welcomed at first by Liu Qi, Liu Biao’s eldest son, who explains that Liu Biao has been very ill. The invitation was sent by Liu Qi and not his father. Liu Qi explains the situation with treacherous Cai family, their desire for Liu Cong to be their puppet leader of Jing, and asks Liu Ji to visit with his father. Liu Biao is in very bad condition. He invites Liu Ji and Ci to stay overnight. An attempt is made on Liu Ji’s life by Cai Mao’s men in the night, he flees in the night whilst Taishi defends against the assault.

Conflict between Liu Ji and Liu Biao (but really Cai Mao) commences!

That’s where we are now! I think we’re around 204AD? 205?

#rot3k #romance of the three kingdoms #rot3k 14 #romance of the three kingdoms 14 #koei #koei tecmo #three kingdoms #three kingdoms au #three kingdoms alternate history #alternate history #liu yao #liu ji #sun quan

[amusewithaview]

Certain Doom (DA Soulmate AU)

A/N: I am not even remotely sorry.

“So have you chosen a canon Inquisitor yet?”

Yes!  My first elf girl who romanced Cullen.

canon quiz?

“Whichever character you use to build the world state for your next game is the canon,” Lisbeth explained.  “Mine is an elf, too, and I romanced Cullen, too.  I’ll fight you for him, Ashley!”

u guys and your jocks i swear i only have the one playthrough and i’m romancing solas for the lols so idk my canon is unwritten undefined so we’ll see i guess?

We can share him, Liz.

Thunder rolled, rattling the windows and making Lisbeth jump.  “Oof!  It’s storming here so I might cut out,” she said apologetically.  “If that happens I’ll just restart the stream, no worries.”

Storming here too!  Ashley replied in the chat.

yeah same  Hayden agreed.  weird

“It’s not that weird.  Storms happen.  Speaking of, how should I upgrade Bethany, you guys?  Do I make her an ice mage, or...?”

One second, storm is picking up and I need to check my windows.

ICE ICE BABY

Back!  Is Force mage unlocked yet?  Been forever since I played DA2...

ICE ICE BABY!!!

OMG fine do ice or Hay will never let it go.

Let it gooooo, let it gooooo, can’t hold it back anymooooooore!

“Okay, ice it is,” Lizbeth said, smiling at her friends’ antics.

FUCK THAT WAS CLOSE SHIT SH

you ok Ash???

“Ash?”

o fuck ME

“Hay?” Lisbeth called, frowning at the chat log.  She waited a few seconds before calling their names again.  The number count on her stream hadn’t changed, so their systems were still logged on and watching her playthrough.  But... they weren’t answering.  The hairs on Lisbeth’s arms and the back of her neck stood on end all at once.  She shivered, looking to the windows where the constant flicker of lightning kept illuminating the driving rain.

It looked like the lightning was getting closer, maybe she should-

Her world dissolved into brilliant white.

Too late.

It took three blinks for Ashley to realize something was wrong.  That wasn’t her ceiling, this wasn’t her bed - what the hell?  She sat up and looked around.  To her left was a person, curled up with their back to her.  To her right, another person, curled up with their back to her.  She made out red hair to her left and dark brown to her right.  Ashley was the only conscious one, and while that remained true, she intended to find out as much as she could.

She stood up and dusted herself off, frowning when she realized that her clothes had been changed.  She’d been in pajamas, but now she wore a green coat over a simple gray tunic and pants.  There was a soft gray cloth wrapped loosely around her neck and when she felt behind her head she found a hood.  Hayden ran her fingers over her hair - wrapped in a complicated braid and significantly longer than she remembered it being - and froze when her fingers encountered delicate fleshy points.

Pointed ears.  Elf ears.  What?

“Oh.  Ow.”

Hayden turned and saw that the brunette was sitting up, one hand to her head.  Now that her hair had shifted, she could see that this person also had pointed ears.  “Hey...” Ashley said, awkwardly waving.

The brunette looked up, squinting and revealing large, luminous hazel eyes set in a delicately featured face that screamed Disney Princess™.  “Ashley?” she said, looking confused.  “You look...elfy.”

“Hayden?!”  Ashley dropped to her knees and immediately grabbed the smaller elf into a bear hug.  “Hate to break it to you, but you are also elfier than normal.  Wait, is there a normal amount of elfiness we should be shooting for?”

Hayden laughed and hugged her back.  “No clue.  Think that’s Lisbeth?”

They broke apart and turned to the last person, still unconscious on the ground.  “By process of elimination, probably?  But where are we, why are we elves, and what the hell happened?”

“Search me.”

There was a low groan from the third person, and then vicious grumbling in what Ashley recognized as German.  The body on the ground flopped over, revealing a thunderous expression made even more ominous by the thick brows overshadowing dark eyes that looked-

“Lisbeth?”

“Ja?  I mean, yes,” the redhead said, sitting up.  “What-?”

“It’s me, Ashley, and that’s Hayden.  I think...well, I think we might be in Dragon Age?  Somehow?”  She sat back on her heels and clenched her hands into fists on her thighs, trying not to freak out while she sorted her thoughts verbally.  “We’re all elves now?  And you look like that picture of your Inquisitor you showed me screenshots of, and Hayden looks like the Inquisitor she’s been streaming, so I-”

“You’re blonde, and very tall, and look sort of like a cat,” Lisbeth said bluntly.  “Actually, the eyes are kind of creepy in this light...”

“I think they look cool,” Hayden said, giving her an appraising look.

“Not important right now, guys!  We might be in Dragon Age!  Dragon Age!”

“Yes, but where?” Lisbeth asked.

“And when?” Hayden chimed in.

“Hell if I know, but we need to find out, fast.”

It took mere minutes for them to sort out what they could, because it wasn’t much.  They confirmed that yes, all of them had been morphed into their canon Inquisitors (only Inquisitor, in Hayden’s case), but with a few small changes.  Hayden’s hair was significantly darker, almost black in the dim light of the tunnel they’d found themselves in.  Lisbeth’s eyes were purple, which made her mutter about Mary Sues and bad fanfiction.  Ashley’s eyes had been green in her Inquisitor’s canon, but the switch to amber-gold didn’t bother her, since it added to the, as Lisbeth put it, ‘creepy cat’ aesthetic.

None of them had the vallaslin they remembered choosing.

They were all wearing what looked like a facsimile of the Inquisitor’s gear in the game’s opening, minus most of the armor.  Each of them identically outfited in green, gray, and brown.  They had no weapons, and only thirty copper coins between them.

“We’re fucked,” Lisbeth said.

“Don’t be so negative,” Hayden chided.

“We’re fucked!” Lisbeth repeated, this time in a faux-happy chirp.

“We’re Schroedinger’s Fucked,” Ashley said.  “Our state of fuckery is yet to be determined because we still don’t know where or when we are.  Lets follow the tunnel and see where it leads.”  She looked down the tunnel.  She could only make out another fifteen feet before it took a sharp turn out of sight.

“You going anytime soon?��� Hayden asked.

She shifted on her feet.  “Yes, just-”

“Let’s go!”

Lisbeth and Ashley exchanged grim looks before following Hayden down the tunnel.  It took another ten minutes of walking before they saw signs of habitation.  There was an offshoot to their tunnel that led to a door.  Since the door had three obvious traps and probably at least twice as many ones they couldn’t see, they kept going.

Eventually, after several more nerve-wracking minutes, they emerged into a larger area, lit with torches.  There were a few people waiting outside of what looked like a house, built up against a curve in the cavern’s wall.  There was a sign by the door of the house, and the sight of it made Lisbeth grab both of her companions and yank them to a halt.

“We’re in Kirkwall!”

“Fuck,” Hayden sighed.  “I haven’t played this one yet.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been several years since I played this one,” Ashley muttered.

They both turned and raised their eyebrows at Lisbeth.

“I haven’t played it in two years!  I was in the prologue!”

“Do you remember what you chose?  Odds are, we’re in your worldstate...” Ashley pointed out.

“Um... I was playing a Rogue Hawke, male because-” she paused and smirked at Ashley.

“Shut up,” Ashley hissed.  She could feel her ears twitching as she glared.  She swept her hands up and clamped them down over the pointed ends.  “Shit, this is going to take some getting used to.”

“You’re one to talk,” Lisbeth muttered.  “At least your ears are normal sized.”  She reached up and poked at one of her own ears, easily the largest of the three of them.  They’d all gone for wildly different looks when designing their Inquisitors.  Aside from being elves, they couldn’t have looked more different from each other if they’d tried.

“Guys!  Focus!” Hayden said, scowling at them.

“Okay, so we’re in Kirkwall.  Great, not ideal but it could probably be worse.  Now, when are we?” Ashley said.

“Well, if the clinic is there, then Anders will be there,” Lisbeth pointed out.

“Great!  Let’s go, then,” Hayden said, turning on her heel and heading for the building.  The other two scrambled after her, reluctant to enter but utterly unwilling to be left behind.

The clinic was large, and appeared to be in the process of expanding.

“Act Two!” Lisbeth murmured.  “Must be!”

“Maybe not,” Ashley replied.  “Look, there’s-”

“Can I help you?”

The voice had all three of them turning to face the speaker.  There was a tall human male with reddish hair pulled back into a half-tail striding towards them.  He had a thick coating of stubble lining his jaw and looked tired.

“Oh!” Hayden cried out, curling over and falling sideways into Ashley.

“Is your friend ill?” Anders asked, speeding up.

Lisbeth raised her hands as if to ward him off: “She’s fine, thank you, we’ll just go now, we don’t want to be any-”

Ashley bodily picked up the smallest elf, backing away from the mage.

Too late, a wash of cool blue magic swept over the trio as Anders’ eyes lit from within.  “Wait, you-” he froze in place, eyes raking over each elf in turn.  “What have you-” he shook his head and swayed in place, eyes screwing tightly shut.  Suddenly, little wisps of light started to emanate from behind his closed eyelids.

Lisbeth shoved Ashley towards the door, “Now would be a good time to-”

“Run?”

“Yes!”

They booked it, ignoring the strange echoing cry that called for them to halt.

“What was that?” Ashley asked, poking Hayden in the forehead.

They’d sprinted till they’d found sunlight and what was probably the docks, based on the water, boats, and people bustling around.  They were seated on some barrels in an out of the way corner, catching their breath.

“Ouch!  Don’t Itachi me, you weirdo.”

“Well, stop Sasuke-style brooding, then.”

Hayden scowled, rubbing her hand over her heart.  “I don’t know, I felt...something.  Like a pull?  I don’t know how to describe it.  It got worse when I saw him, though.”

“That was Anders,” Lisbeth said, sounding shellshocked.  “Anders.”

“We’re in Kirkwall, yes, Anders is here,” Ashley said.

“We have to stay away from Anders,” Lisbeth said firmly.

Hayden grimaced, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, Liz - have you always had that tattoo?”

Ashley’s words had her frowning: “Tattoo?  I don’t have-”

“Your hand, look at it.”

Lisbeth looked down at her hands, ignoring the way they’d gotten longer and skinnier since her transmigration into an elvhen body.  There was nothing on the backs of her hands, but on the palm of her right hand she found three symbols that looked like a cross between hieroglyphs and cuneiform.  The symbols were a vivid and sparkly pink.

“What the fuck?” she breathed.  “What the fuck!  What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fucking FUCK.”

“Shit, I think you broke Liz.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Ashley cried.

“What is this shit?” Lisbeth exclaimed before switching to German and going into a tirade neither of the other two could understand.  She paced back and forth in front of them, kicking out at the barrels and walls as she passed them.  Finally she stopped, fisted her hands at her sides, and yelled at the sky.

One of the barrels abruptly caught on fire.

“Hey, Liz?” Hayden called.

“WHAT.”

“I know this isn’t the best time, but I think you might be a mage, too.”

“FUUUUUUUUU-”

#amuse writes stuff #certain doom au #dragon age fanfiction #soulmate au #dragon age au #so many headcanons here dear god #cousland warden in a poly relationship with leliana and alistair #purple rogue male hawke #future adaar inquisitor #ashley's soulmates are hawke and varric and fenris and aveline and dorian #hayden's soulmates are isabella and anders and cassandra and morrigan and josephine #lisbeth's soulmates are cullen and zevran and leliana and sera and iron bull #anders is played by tom mison in this au because he's perfect

[farvn]

Interview with novajam of Studio NoGood

With the upcoming Visual Novel “Nekodeito” which is about a catgirl living with you, I am glad that novajam of NoGood has taken the time to answer some questions for both NoGood and Nekodeito!

1. When did you start Studio NoGood and what was your motivation to do so?  “ It was late 2018 when I started fronting publicly as NoGooD. I'd been writing scripts for VNs as early as September that year, a lot of which got trashed or shelved but it was December before I registered a domain or anything like that. The motivation was to keep my VN game development activity under a separate banner from my online handle, but I integrated my handle into the company name so I don't know how well that worked. Ahaha”

2.  As an indie studio, what are your top priorities for both your games and your fans? “ I think quality is the first priority for both. Fans want good games and good stories so straight away it's in my interest to set the bar high. The very close second is communication though. Independent projects will live or die by the goodwill they can cultivate with an audience and I feel I've been very blessed to have such good reception already. It's a sort of symbiotic relationship. Provide what the fans want, what they're looking for, and they'll support you in return.”

3. Is Nekodeito your first game? “Yes. No!! Oh god haha no actually! I made a very budget looking version of Geometry Wars in University with Gamemaker ahaha. That's probably everyone's first game project, some kind of twin stick shooter or platformer. Before that I'd played with mod tools for other games, The Elder Scrolls Construction Set and such if you'd count that.” Sure, that does help in devwork so why not. Any other games I should know about?  “I just remembered making this platforming engine in Gamemaker Studio 2. It might look okay here but it was very buggy and the project it was intended for quickly became overwhelming so that's abandoned now.” 

4.  Who came up with the look/ personality of Nekodeito's Machiko? “ I came up with the look, and most of the personality but other experts in the field of catgirl engineering were consulted though, mainly my friend TMMTO. Parts of the personality changed over time and little traits here and there have been crowdsourced here and there from fans.  I made this collage and sent it to my character artist, critterpunk, as a reference when she was doing character and outfit designs for me.

It think it stayed mostly intact. The sizes are off and I think I made her a more responsible big sister type character than a lazy one in the end.” I can see her big melons stayed intact! “Big tunas” Speaking of big tunas!  For Nekodeito, would there be any features like headpats, tail fluffing, tickling, etc? “Of course of course! Nekodeito has a sort of dating sim style system where you pick what order to progress through story segments, and in between segments her sprite is interactive. I hope people will enjoy booping her on the nose.”

6.  As Nekodeito is developing over time, what is the hardest obstacle you have encountered? “Distraction. It's very easy to get sidetracked on Youtube or Twitter which is very annoying, but games too have been a problem. My productivity improved a lot once I slowed playing mobile games so much.” 

7.  Did you have any inspirations that helped you make Nekodeito? “Ha, dumbly enough, mobile games. Well you know about this, but for people who don't really play them, when you log in to Girls Frontline or Azur Lane or something you have a secretary character that greets you. I set mine in Girls Frontline to Mk23 and the greeting pulled my heartstrings a little. I really like the idea of being able to come home to someone who's happy to see you no matter what, so that's what the game is about. That kind of romance is what I want for the game, one that's very cozy.”

8.  When did your love of catgirls start? “Oh jeez. I don't think I have an exact date. But who really is incapable of loving catgirls? Spice and Wolf probably played a formative role, even though that's not about a catgirl.” I don’t blame you, floofy girls all the way!

9.  As a developer what goes through your mind for when you release it? Do you have any concerns? “Will people like the game? Will people even find it and engage with it? Will it be able to recoup it's costs? Will I even be able to make another after this Will there be some kind of problem with the software I'm incapable of fixing? Will I be able to deliver all I've promised in the first place? There are many worries. On the other side of that there's a good fanbase already and a fair amount of risk is already mitigated but the worries are always there nonetheless.”

10. Which types of Nekodeito merch are planned?  “Hell yeah! Alright so, we have a voice actress for Machiko, and we're going to go to crowdfunding to try and get the game fully voice acted by them. Merch rewards will be sticker packs and keychains, we're trying to get some of those "ergonomic" mousepads made too. We're seeing if you can get your own TUNA shirt too, just like Machi wears in game. Digitally, you'll be able to get an art and commentary book and the original soundtrack for the game.”

All them goodies! Let’s say the crowdfund went too well, like ultra succeeded, would you consider a limited edition figure of Machiko?                                                 “If I did that I think it would probably be an extremely limited run, and probably like a trading figure or nendo sized thing rather than a 1/7 scale, but hell yeah I'd love a little Machi fig on my desk! More realistically if crowdfunding exceeded expectations then we just expand the game, offer a free DLC down the line of an after-story or add extra CGs and scenes to the base game.”                                  DA CATGIRL FAMILY!                                                                                            “Oh god I gave Machiko ten sisters. That's so many sprites to get done...” 

11. To your current fans and future ones, what would you like to say to them in prep for Nekodeito?                                                                                 “Thank you all for your support, for telling all your own friends and groups about it and spreading the word. Thank you for all the fan art and nice messages, and most of all thank you for your patience and thank you for appreciating cute Machiko! I hope to have a demo ready in June for the public to try, so please hold on a bit more.”

Would you like to add anything else? “Additional thanks to everyone who's worked with me to create Nekodeito, all the artists (chlorophill, Rialyn KV, critterpunk, ds sans, Cheschorv) my editor (Cipher), my composer (Igneus) voice director (Sandra MJ) and soon to be debuting voice actress, Wolf and Alch at Team Watercress for lots of help starting out, reps from Degica for assistance with the engine (andre and Archeia). So many people! NoGooD is officially just a one-man show, but without all these people I'd have nothing to put my game together with. This is turning into the credits section!” 

A big thank you to novajam for taking the time to answer my questions! I really appreciate the game’s progress and I hope to see more!

NoGood Twitter:  https://twitter.com/StudioNoGooD NoGood site:  https://www.nogood.games/games.html   Nekodeito itch.io:  https://studionogood.itch.io/nekodeito Nekodeito Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1072790/Nekodeito/

Novajam [NoGood, Nekodeito] Interview May 29, 2019                                                                                                          Far2close - Visual Novel Playthroughs https://www.youtube.com/c/Far2close https://twitter.com/xFar2closex https://www.facebook.com/Far2close/

#nekodeito #visual novel #anime catgirl #dating sim #NoGood #Far2close Interviews

[rosykims]

DRAGON AGE QUESTIONS

tagged by: @nordxz​ thanks so much !!! *heart emoji* 

favourite game of the series?

origins! although inquisition is very close as well.  inquisition was my favourite for a very time, but like midway through last year i replayed origins and it just felt.....so good. i really struggled with enjoying dao because of the clunky fighting system but an amazing mutual introduced me to a mod that lets u skip fights basically lol, so i was just able to focus on the story/characters/exploration of the game, which just....made me realize how immensely beautiful the game actually is, and i fell in love all over again aaaaa

how did you discover dragon age?

i was a huge mass effect fan ! mass effect was the game that motivated me to make this blog, actually, and obviously through following people i saw a lot of posts from the da community as well. so i bought origins and inquisition (i had NO idea there was a da2 until half way through awakening lmao) and tried to play origins but HATED it gtrhutgrhugtr and then eventually gave it another try like a month later and completely loved it and now here we are

how many times you’ve played the games?

not as many times as some people on here have - i would say origins maybe four times, da2 maybe twice, inquisition three times. but that also doesnt count all the timesw ive created new games and then abandoned them lol bc theres too many to count 

favourite race to play as?

love me some elf booty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

favourite class?

at first it was rogue dual wielder ! i played as a rogue in every single first-time playthrough and idk i felt that class has always been the easiest/most op. but in the last maybe 2 years it’s changed to mage. ive always been super intimidated by magic classes in every game i play but i LOVE inquisition’s mage classes/specializations and i can never go back now

do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

im so so so bad and i usually end up making very similar choices, but usually bc i just......replay the same characters every time hgtuhgtruhgtrui. i REALLY need to make more da ocs to explore more choices but....i dont want to lol i already have to many. i still havent sided with the templars in a playthrough like i just cant do it 

go-to adventuring group?

i always bring my characters love interest with them no matter what, just bc its cute, but usually i try to evenly cycle the other characters around that. i always try to have a warrior/rogue/mage in every party. but sometimes i’ll go warrior/warrior/mage/mage especially if i need to focus on straight damage and a LOT of healing lol

my favourite parties would probably be:

dao - alistair + zevran + wynne (wholesome and also funny)

da2 - anders + fenris + merrill (SO much chaotic energy)

dai - solas + cassandra + cole (i just love them ok)

which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

ashara lavellan, my canon inquisitor who was never supposed to be canon tghtgurhtrg. my original canon inq was a trevelyan rogue, who was super nice and good. i made ashara so that i could actually play as an evil/mean character without feeling bad lol, oh and i also wanted to see what the deal with solas was bc i had heard his romance was good ;;;;) anyway that backfired and i ended up completely falling in love with her, and i STILL couldnt make the tough choices with her so i was like ok maybe she isnt THAT evil and now shes just..... the way she is now i guess lmao

favourite romance?

trhhtruih okay u guys KNOW its solas. u know. i dont even have to say anythiing about it bc...u fucking know

(alistair’s is very close tho)

have you read any of the comics/books?

i havent :(((( im such a bad fan but i cannot deal with ordering online and thats the only place ive been able to find them. im planning on reading asunder and the masked empire as soon as i get the chance (and the money) tho !!

if you read them, which was your favourite book?

nope

favourite DLCs?

trespasser ! its pretty simple and very plot-driven like u didnt have to worry about side missions as much as u would with other dlcs so idk that was... refreshing. but obviously i loved it just bc it was so beautiful and intense and sad (since my chara romanced solas obviously) and that music score????? unbelievable i’ll never be over it

things that annoy you.

can i say the fandom trghuitgrhutrhui

mostly the thing that pisses me off the most is the grey morality. writers trying to make everything deep and Thought Provoking like..... no jerry, slavery IS bad theres no alternative viewpoint lol??????? also the fucking whitewashing makes me see red. 

orlais or ferelden?

ferelden!!!!! (*blows a kiss* for highever)

templars or mages?

mages <3 

if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

i only have like 3 protag da characters and they’re all canon, although emeraude is an au. so ella is my canon warden and ashara is my canon inquisitor, but emeraude does exist in that universe, bc i hc she befriended the warden and alistair when they visited the alienage, and she was very outspokenly angry and didn’t really give a shit that alistair was going to be heir. which alistair really,,, appreciated i guess? so emeraude is made his official elven adviser after his coronation but she also kinda helps out as a royal protector because she’s one of the only people in court they both trust completely lol. also she is....stronk. 

and the only other characters i have for da are obviously side characters who are related to my canon protags so. they’re all canon as well lol

what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

ella named her dog ser bark gthutgrhutghruihtr she thought it was cute ok

emeraude just went with barkspawn since alistair came up with the idea as a joke but she thought the joke was so bad she made them keep it as punishment vjhuightui

i dont really have a hawke oc but.....he named his dog shepard in my playthrough ! like from mass effect ;;;;)))

have you installed any mods?

origins is modded to hell and back and i genuinely couldn’t play the game without mods at this point. inquisition is slightly modded but im in the process of removing them all, and only keeping a few because my game runs pretty terribly with them installed 

did your warden want to become a grey warden?

ella did ! but it was kind of,, a naive childhood dream, she had a really romanticized view of the wardens and she wanted a life of excitement and bravery and adventure, not really taking into consider all the bad things about it (and obviously not knowing the full truth about what it means to be a warden)

emeraude did NOT want to be a warden. she basically had to be dragged out of the alienage because she wanted to stay and protect her community. she never really enjoyed being a warden, although her friendship with alistair was its one redeeming quality 

hawke’s personality?

uh i cant remember the colour/personality thing but he was a combo of funny/ethical. mostly there for memes tho. 

did you make matching armor for your companions in inquisition?

for origins i do ! i always make sure alistair and ella wear the grey warden armour, as well as every warden in awakening. thats like, all theyre allowed to wear lmao.

if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

ella would obviously change her family’s murder lol, and emeraude would at least try and change what happened at her wedding, to prevent shianni and the others from being hurt. 

ashara would change romancing solas :((( she was so angry at herself after discovering who he was, and she felt weak and foolish which she HATES more than any other feeling, so she definitely wishes she had never met him for a long time. after she kind of processes it though, and learns to deal with her anger, her answer would be that she wishes she had saved the chargers. it’s the one move she made that actually keeps her up at night sometimes. 

do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

ghuitrhuigtrhugtr so many. canon? dont know her. 

the biggest example would be that i hc king!alistair was at the winter palace during the wicked hearts level. because uh..... celene and the fereldan monarchs had been corrosponding for over 10 years, trying to build up rapport, of COURSE the king would be there to see who the potential ruler/s of orlais would be and whether or not he ought to be worried. like. im sorry but alistair was there lol you can’t change my mind. i also hc he helps ashara with information about the grey wardens during this chapter, because ???? it just makes sense??? im so angry i wish this was canon

are any of your characters based on someone?

ok it was unintentional but ashara reminds me of an english teacher i had in highschool who was very scary but also....really cool and i loved her. it was an accident but,, still counts. 

who did you leave in the fade?

gtiturghtugh okay at the risk of pissing off EVERYBODY who reads this, i left hawke in the fade, even though it was a toss up between hawke and stroud. it was ashara’s fault tho !!! she would have 100% prioritzed an alliance with the grey wardens over like,, some guy. it broke my heart but yeah That happened. 

favourite mount?

i like all the elk mounts mostly ! but i never use them bc they sound ugly af

tagging : @trvelyans​ @f3nharel​ @allisondraste​ @ensevens​ @tethraas​ @talizorah​ @fereldun​ if u are up to it <3 and whoever else wants to do this ! 

#/ long post #sorry this is so long i got carried away oops #dai #dao #da2 #personal

[curiousartemis]

Dragon Age questions

This is gonna be so super fun and EXACTLY what I should be doing while I’m at work! Tagged by @morlanwen

01) favorite game of the series? DA:I -- with mods, of course!!! The Solas romance KILLED me, but lately I’m gravitating back towards the Cullen romance (need some happiness in my life). If only Blackwall had been an option! He’s the true bae. But he calls the protagonist “my lady” far too much for me to try out his mod, sigh. Also I love that I can be a male elf; I feel most comfortable and happy playing as male elf, and in DA:O, you are silent, so I like having a voice.

02) how did you discover Dragon Age? My brother-in-law bought DA2 and invited me over to play it with him! This was before I had a gaming PC or console of my own. Dragon Age is the reason I bought my xbox and became a gamer again as an adult. Thanks, BioWare!

03) how many times you’ve played the games? DA:O -- 2 complete playthroughs, a few abandoned starts DA2: -- 15-20 completed playthroughs DA:I -- 3 completed playthroughs, I think? Several that have made it almost to the end

04) favorite race to play as? ELF!!!! If I can’t be an elf in a game I’m generally kind of depressed. Human males are often too buff and I don’t want to look like that. I like to be androgynous in a game (because I am a genderless person), but playing as female, however androgynous, is often still painfully dysmorphic for me.  

05) favorite class? ROUGE!!!!! Usually archer first, then daggers. But I also like playing scholarly mage type characters ♡  

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time. It depends. In DA:I, for example, I will choose mages or templars based on my character. A mage character will always choose mages, while Auren Lavellan, my Cullenmancer, trusted Cullen’s judgment on this. However, I always free them, whether mages or templars, and I always ask the Wardens to join us. I’m too nice!

I never play “bad” characters; it just would not be enjoyable for me.

07) go-to adventuring group? DAO: Alistair, Wynne, Zevran; Zevran is my sweetheart, Alistair is my best friend and fellow Warden, and Wynne heals!

DA2: Anders, Fenris, Isabela ... but I played the game so much, I switched it up ALL the time.

DA:I: My lover and ... whomever. I constantly change in DA:I. But never Bull and Dorian together because I don’t like Adoribull.

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into? A tie between Alin Lavellan and Auren Lavellan. No... it’s Auren. I’d been planning Auren for YEARS before DA:I came out. I planned to romance Cullen, so that was a massive disappointment. I tried to play him with Bull canonically, but wow, no way, no thanks. But yes, Auren. I know him very well.

09) favorite romance? Solas with male Lavellan and Isabela with female Hawke ♡ The latter is so romantic and makes my heart sing, and the former rips it to pieces. Blackwall, if he were available, would definitely be my overall favorite though... so handsome...

10) have you read any of the comics/books? I’ve read Asunder and ... the Orlesian one, forget what it’s called. They’re all right. Gaider’s writing is a bit simplistic, and Weekes couldn’t make me sympathize with ANY of his characters; they were all awful people.

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book? I guess I enjoyed Asunder a little more. I had to force myself to finish the other one.

12) favorite DLCs? Trespasser and Legacy. 

13) things that annoy you? Well, obviously the mlm romance options. The wlw ones were not great for me, either, but I’m far pickier for those. For my male character, I would just like a boyfriend/husband who is handsome and strong and ... like, basically what the straight and bi women always get. A handsome knight in shining armor. It would also be nice if for once I could romance a plot relevant character.

14) Orlais or Ferelden? I didn’t know this was a thing? Both countries are fine, I guess. Orlais is a clear rip-off of 17th/18th century France, though. But DA in general is extremely derivative. 

15) Templars or Mages? Mages. I can’t support locking people up because of how they were born... real world parallels too painful...

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? They are in separate universes, so far as I know. I did try to start a story where Auren was Alin’s older brother, but it never took off; I wasn’t getting many responses to my stories back then. It was disheartening, so I quite writing in the DA fandom. If you don’t write canonical mlm fiction, it doesn’t get comments in this fandom.

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) I don’t remember; I never used the dog... I probably just left it default as “Dog.” I’m not a big dog person, and that type of dog is my least favorite, the mastiff type... they are scary and always want to bite me!!!

18) have you installed any mods? I cannot play the game without mods!!! Besides romance mods, I always have complexion and hair mods, so my Lavellan can be a true cutie!!! Body mods so his shoulders and arms aren’t broken, and he has a nice slender but fit form (not pot belly). A few others, but those are the “must haves.” (I want to be cute in my wish-fulfillment game, okay?!)  

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden? Ren Tabris did; he was desperately trying to get out of that forced straight marriage, and he also had a lust for adventure (his mother was a great adventurer). 

Theron Mahariel, no. He was grieving Tamlen’s loss (they were in love), and he hated humans. He didn’t wish to leave his clan.

20) Hawke’s personality? Eirik Hawke: purple with hints of red if you piss him off. Anya Hawke: red all the way; she will fuck you up!!!!

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition? lmao Nope!

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? I feel like that’s too cruel a question to ask Alin (Solas’s lover)...

Auren would admit his feelings to Cullen earlier.

Eirik wouldn’t have taken his sister with him to the Deep Roads.

Mahariel would have convince Tamlen not to touch that mirror.

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? Yeah, mine are also all against canon.

Auren’s relationship is not canon, plus he and Cullen to get together until after the events of the game have ended.

Alin’s relationship is not canon, and Trespasser never occurs.

Eirik and Fenris moved to the countryside and live there together with a few adopted kids. Fenris will never have to set foot in Tevinter again.

Anya and Isabela are sailing the high seas together ♡ 

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone? Guess they’re all based on me, somewhat.

I wrote/played Alin when I was dealing with grief and depression, so a lot of that influenced him. 

Auren is forthright and doesn’t pull his punches, though he’s generally a kind person. I’m probably the most like Auren.

25) who did you leave in the Fade? Stroud lmao Wow, such a hard decisions!!!! (Not)

26) favorite mount? I never use horses; banter’s bugged enough as it is, why would I want to make my companions disappear completely...?

I AM TAGGING EVERYONE WHO HAS PLAYED DRAGON AGE!!!!!!!!

#auren lavellan #alin lavellan #dragon age

[irhinoceri]

An Annotated List of Mine Own Fic - Dragon Age Edition

All stat counts accurate as of 9/24/2020.

Lonesome Dreams - Words: 130,169 Chapters: 15/? Comments: 52 Kudos: 46 Bookmarks: 6 Hits: 1544

My baby, my nightmare, the DA fic that haunts my dreams and makes me question all my life choices.

I originally meant this to be a short story, just exploring the headspace of the Warden in making key decisions as I roleplayed her while going through my first Origins playthrough. I’ve ended up entangled in a post-canon plot with an OC daughter, which is why it’s 130k and Still Not Finished.

I was initially inspired by trying to reconcile the Warden as I thought of her, with BioWare’s decision to send the Warden off the map regardless of player choice. It irked me. I envisioned my Cousland ruling Ferelden as Alistair’s Queen, and the idea that she’d under any circumstances fuck off to the ass end of nowhere for years and miss out on everything that happened during Inquisition did not mesh with the character I had imagined. Particularly because she promised Alistair straight up that she’d help him rule Ferelden and wasn’t just gonna stick him on the throne and abandon him. WHOOPS. But it turned out that my irritation with BioWare made for fertile fanfic material and the Cousland I had roleplayed as confident and certain of her choices (I had FUN, y’all) turned into an angsty mess of a human being, burdened by heroism, filled with insecurity and regret, haunted by her many manipulations, ashamed of that super high coercion stat. Just Imposter Syndrome, the person, all around.

Also, she’s a certified tortured bisexual(tm) who ends up in a polyamorous triad with Alistair and Morrigan, since I was like “I should be able to romance Morrigan as a female warden” and instead of writing a separate fic for that, I grafted it onto my Cousland/Alistair playthrough, Frankensteinesque. I’m also a dirty Alistair/Morrigan shipper even though I know many people find that ship distasteful and problematic, since they’re so awful to each other in the game. Look, I know the “they pretend to hate each other because they secretly like each other” trope is overdone and painful. The fic gets very meta in that regard as Cousland is always going “Please get along I know you secretly love each other” and Alistair and Morrigan are constantly going, “We will never admit that to you or to each other but we will have sex and talk about how much we love our son just please shut up about it already will you.” So, uh, me to me:

Anyway all this messiness has resulted in my ONLY Explicit rated fanfic as it depicts the Dark Ritual as a threesome and let me tell you how much I hate writing sex scenes, I hate it so much, that I wrote several more even more explicit than the last. It’s still all pretty tame by Ao3 standards and only accounts for a tiny fraction of the overall wordcount, but it’s the smuttiest smut I’ll ever write and I hate every word of it.

Above All Else.... this is Lord Huron songfic. My muse is every song off their Lonesome Dreams album as well as some of their EPs and that one song off the A Walk In The Woods soundtrack...... a’yep. I’m an incurable songfic’er and I cannot lie.

The Torture of Small Talk (with someone you used to love) - Words: 12,590 Chapters: 3/3 Kudos: 3 Hits: 30

No one will ever read this fic and it’s probably just as well. I wrote it in a feverish state while listening to Fall Out Boy, hence the title. I don’t know what’s more embarrassing, writing FOB songfic, or, looking back over the last 4 years of fic writing, and knowing that I could easily say “I’m sorry every fic is about you” to my ex but let’s stop there.

This is my angsty post-breakup Alistair/Amell fic based on player-choices I would never actually make in game. I would never chose the option that results in Alistair abandoning the Warden and becoming a bitter drunk in Kirkwall and I’d never sacrifice a Good Friend Purple Hawke to the Fade but here we are, this terrible fic exists, thanks to watching YouTube videos depicting terrible worldstates I hate. Also has the distinction of being the only fic on Ao3 with a friendship tag for Alistair and Bethany. Their friendship is implied and exists off screen but still, it exists, and I imagine being buddies with the guy who cruelly broke your cousin’s heart is awkward for Bethany. Fuck, I’m Facebook friends with someone who cruelly broke my cousin’s heart and it’s awkward. Social media was a mistake.

With Lindiranae Fell the Dales - Words: 2,859 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 2 Kudos: 11 Hits: 49

Angsty Dalish Inquisitor fanfic with the lightest touch of Solavellan written as a precursor to a Solavellan hellfic that I may or may not write depending on if I actually play Trespasser before I die. Inspired directly by the fact that I said “Fuck The Chantry” out loud periodically while grinding my way through Exalted Plains fetch quests on my way to do Solas’ personal quest. That area really hits differently when you’re playing Lavellan.

Fucked Up in Firewater Garden - Words: 680 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 2 Kudos: 2 Hits: 29

A comedy one shot? Can it be? Who wrote this? (Me.)

Extremely meta take on one part of the Emerald Graves map, and my inability to stealth my way around giants while being a crazed completionist who needs to throw a flag down on every landmark even if I have to endure several total party kills to do it.

The Ballad of Loyal Betyar - Words: 732 Chapters: 1/1 Kudos: 5 Hits: 32

Does it ever make you sad that you don’t have a mabari companion in DAI? Or that when you visit the Hissing Wastes you find a dog abandoned by its master, doomed to endlessly fight off giant spiders? Yes? Me too, hence this fic.

#my fic #writing #dragon age

[nilesdaughter]

OC Romances - Mass Effect

Following once more in @savvylittleminx‘s footsteps, here’s a little post about my Mass Effect romances. This post will be shorter, since I don’t have nearly as many playthroughs, but I’ll still post everything under a cut just in case I start rambling or something.

I still haven’t finished ME3 (although I have only have to complete “Priorty: Earth”), nor have I been able to play MEA yet. So please no spoilers for those parts. However, there are definite spoilers about ME2 under the cut if you haven’t played the games yet.

Original Triology: Ashlyn Shepard & Kaiden Alenko -> Ashlyn Shepard & Garrus Vakarian & Tali’zorah vas Normandy

Okay, so this one is a bit of a mess in terms of how it came about lol

Going into the series, I knew that I was probably going to romance Garrus; even if I like to make my own decisions about who I’ll romance in-game, I am partial to whomever seems to be the fan favorite. I also knew that I had to wait until ME2 to actually have him as a romance option, and since fem!Shep only has two options to choose from in ME1, I thought it would be easy to not trigger a romance. Little did I know, Kaiden is a ninjamancer. One minute, I’m making friends with him, and then the next thing I know Shep and the LT are in bed together.

Since I felt bad about actively thinking about breaking the romance in ME2 in favor of Garrus, I decided to see the Kaiden romance through the end and start a new Shepard for Garrus.

That is, until I got to Horizon. While in retrospect his mistrust was entirely warranted, I, as a player was absolutely livid with his attitude. My Shepard, at least, was hurt and taken aback. Since, at that point, Garrus was the only person from my original team that hadn’t made a big deal about Shep being alive, I was more and more drawn to the temptation to cheat on Kaiden, especially after Horizon.

Once I locked in Garrus’ romance, I fell in love with the whole dynamic of Shakarian. They’re so sweet together, and I love that it’s a romance based off of friendship first. It felt a lot more natural.

Tali got thrown in there in my first-ever attempt at shipping an OT3 because I was so mad she’s not a romance option for fem!Shep. Besides that, I have watched videos for Tali’s romance, and one cutscene in ME2 is practically the same for a romanced male!Shep and a friendly fem!Shep except for a few tweaks to dialogue. If it can’t be gay canonically, I will make it gay in my fanwork.

Mass Effect: Andromeda: Selena Ryder & ???

I bought MEA while Origin was having a Black Friday sale, but my laptop doesn’t have a graphics processor that can keep up with it ;w; So, I’m slowly planning out my Ryder appearance-wise, but that’s about all I have, because I’ll be going into the game about 99% blind.

Without really knowing much of the characters, these are the ones that I’m leaning towards: Liam, Reyes, Jaal, or Vetra. Liam and Reyes have the appeal of being some of the few MOC romance options, because I need more colored people actually being seen as love interests. Vetra is definitely a possibility because I am weak for Turians, and I am especially weak for idea of a lesbian Turian. And Jaal seems to be the fan favorite, and I am very curious about the angaran.

Future Playthroughs

I wasn’t initially planning to do more than one playthrough of the OT, mostly because it wouldn’t be like DA, where you can pick a different race for a new game; you play Shepard throughout all three games. I then reasoned that if I have multiple playthroughs of DA2, that shouldn’t stop me from having multiple playthroughs of Mass Effect.

I don’t have any solid ideas yet (I want to finish my first playthrough first), but here’s what I do have.

Shepard & Kaiden - After learning he mellows out about the whole Cerberus thing in ME3, I subsequently felt bad about getting emotional and causing relationship drama. (I am too attached to video game characters, okay? I always feel bad when I hurt someone’s feelings.) So, I feel like I have to do another playthrough to make it up to him. But, since he is ultimately bi, I don’t know if I’m going to do f!Shep or m!Shep to do this romance.

Shepard & Thane - My voice kink won’t let me rest until I romance the drell at some point or another xD

Shepard & Tali - This is still up in the air, because I’m fairly content with my headcanon for the OT3 mentioned above. I may still make a m!Shep just to play through the full romance without resorting to watching YouTube videos.

While I love a lot of the other characters that are available for romancing, I prefer them more as squadmates then I do LIs, so this is all I have in mind for future playthroughs of the OT. Multiple playthroughs of MEA may also be necessary, but I’ll have to actually get a chance to play it before I decide.

#oc chatter #mass effect #mass effect lis #mass effect companions #Tia speaks #long post

[monochromatic--stains]

by the way

i feel like i should say this since i’m in a better mood and i don’t want to alienate anyone

I don’t automatically hate anyone who’s an Alistair fan, and I don’t automatically hate anyone who executes Loghain in their canon playthrough.

It’s just the endless sea of “those” Alistair fans that hate anyone who opposes him that’s ruined him for me. But I do know a few reasonable Alistair fans that actually respect the fact that I always spare Loghain.

I’m not a Loghain apologist. I’m very aware that he’s the villain for most of the game, and he does a lot of shitty things that I don’t approve of. But I don’t think his actions at Ostagar were a betrayal. 

I know there are good reasons for wanting to execute him, just as their are good reasons for wanting to spare him. If you’re a city elf and he approved of selling your fucking family, yeah, you have a good reason to kill him. (although in my planned Tabris playthrough, she’ll spare him because “it’s a fate worse than death”) But there are so many people who only kill him because of Alistair. They base a lot of their decisions around Alistair, because it’s actually pretty easy to get disapproval from him. And those are usually the people that attack Loghain fans just for being Loghain fans.

I want to be better than those people, and sometimes I feel like I’m not. I always say “oh, that person’s an Alistair fan, of course they’re judging Loghain”. I’ve just had so many bad experiences with Alistair fans, including being gaslighted and being driven off the DA subreddit, that it’s just really hard for me to trust them.

And I always defend Loghain because he’s honestly my favorite character. He’s far from a perfect human being, but that’s what makes him so interesting. And he has such a good redemption arc. Even in Origins, he shows so much regret at what he’s done.

#loghain mac tir #dragon age #meta #that got super long sorry