acealistair

[acealistair]

People always gloss over how mentally damaging it can be to work in retail. I fucking hate that whenever I say “I could never work in retail again” someone has to reply “You snowflake millennials can’t take a starter job because you have to INTERACT with other people” No. Fuck you. I’ve worked as a planetarium host. I’ve worked as a public speaker. I’ve worked as a tutor and as a student teacher. I can work with people. I can work with crowds. Retail was fucking different. Retail was being treated as a subhuman. Retail was being treated so poorly that you have anxiety attacks before work. Having to work retail was a factor in my last suicide attempt. If I hear you say one fucking word about retail workers playing the victim I will personally break every bone in your body. Fuck You.

[acealistair]

my DM went and made finch's love triangle members attracted to EACH OTHER as well as finch so now i have to consider polyamory as a potential outcome 😂

[acealistair]

finch is the most character ever. she's an elven tiefling. he's bigender. she looks like she spawned in a hot topic. he's both touch-averse and touch-starved. she once broke into a palace vault, stole a scroll of true polymorph, and got away scot-free. he catches on fire when he feels a particularly strong emotion. she'll pull pranks on you if she really hates you or really likes you (sometimes it's hard to tell which category you're in). he's gay. she is the equivalent of a personified feral kitten that needs socializing. he can't handle spicy food. she turned a party member's hostile backstory NPC into a child as an alternative to killing them. he has heterochromia. she shot an adult green dragon in the eye and is on its hit list now. he can't stand the sight of gore. she has three (3) love interests and is making 0 progress with any of them. he has a star-shaped tail tip. she'd rather die than talk about her feelings. he'd take a bullet for any of his party members. she's in at least two (2) world-changing prophecies. he has 7 strength and 10 constitution.

[acealistair]

(full datamined character descriptions)

[acealistair]

Hyped for part 2

[acealistair]

as an american i don’t like america and won’t defend it from its detractors unless they’re coming for free refills or garbage disposals in which case you sound jealous

[acealistair]

Pssst... something new is coming...

...this weekend!

Free, non-AI animal art references.

[acealistair]

i fuckign forgot to mention that he's a PRINCESS on top of it all. if u even care.

finch is the most character ever. she's an elven tiefling. he's bigender. she looks like she spawned in a hot topic. he's both touch-averse and touch-starved. she once broke into a palace vault, stole a scroll of true polymorph, and got away scot-free. he catches on fire when he feels a particularly strong emotion. she'll pull pranks on you if she really hates you or really likes you (sometimes it's hard to tell which category you're in). he's gay. she is the equivalent of a personified feral kitten that needs socializing. he can't handle spicy food. she turned a party member's hostile backstory NPC into a child as an alternative to killing them. he has heterochromia. she shot an adult green dragon in the eye and is on its hit list now. he can't stand the sight of gore. she has three (3) love interests and is making 0 progress with any of them. he has a star-shaped tail tip. she'd rather die than talk about her feelings. he'd take a bullet for any of his party members. she's in at least two (2) world-changing prophecies. he has 7 strength and 10 constitution.

[acealistair]

finch is the most character ever. she's an elven tiefling. he's bigender. she looks like she spawned in a hot topic. he's both touch-averse and touch-starved. she once broke into a palace vault, stole a scroll of true polymorph, and got away scot-free. he catches on fire when he feels a particularly strong emotion. she'll pull pranks on you if she really hates you or really likes you (sometimes it's hard to tell which category you're in). he's gay. she is the equivalent of a personified feral kitten that needs socializing. he can't handle spicy food. she turned a party member's hostile backstory NPC into a child as an alternative to killing them. he has heterochromia. she shot an adult green dragon in the eye and is on its hit list now. he can't stand the sight of gore. she has three (3) love interests and is making 0 progress with any of them. he has a star-shaped tail tip. she'd rather die than talk about her feelings. he'd take a bullet for any of his party members. she's in at least two (2) world-changing prophecies. he has 7 strength and 10 constitution.

[acealistair]

They made bodies from the earth. And the earth was afraid. It fought back. But they made it forget

[acealistair]

David Gaider on Kieran, under a cut for length:

"CHARACTERS - DAY TWO: Kieran (Technically this is an addendum to yesterday, but I make the rules here so nyah!) Heading into DAI, I had a bite-sized problem on my hands. I knew Morrigan would feature. I also knew we were importing previous choices. So now I had to contend with: the Old God Baby. Here's the thing about honouring previous game choices, from a design perspective: it's a sucker's game. What many fans picture, when you mention it, is divergent *plot* -- the story changes path based on those major choices. How exciting! But you will never be able to deliver divergent plot. You can deliver flavour differences (usually in the form of divergent dialogue), character swaps (character X appears instead of Y), and extra content (such as a side quest) -- but plot branching, particularly the critical path? It's a question of resources, and there's never enough to go around. "Here Lies the Abyss" in DAI was about as good as it gets, and even that was a far cry from how I originally pictured it (hello last-minute insert of Stroud when a DAO Warden import got cut). The Old God Baby was one of the main choices from DAO -- Morrigan has a baby? With the Archdemon's soul?! Most DAO players who flagged that choice surely expected *monumental* consequences. World-shaking consequences! And we talked about it. We did. There were, like, three different designs of the DAI ending where OGB Kieran could cause complete divergence: new path, cutscenes, the whole nine yards. But it wasn't going to happen. It was a decision from *two games ago* that only a small minority (hello telemetry) would even choose. To the rest, they probably neither knew about it nor cared... so how many resources could you invest? To do what? Set up an even bigger divergence for the NEXT game? The other writers acknowledged my anxiety with a grim nod every time it came up, but they had no solutions. Finally, I realized there WAS a solution, and that was changing how I thought about the choice: don't make it about Kieran. The players don't know him, never have. Make it about Morrigan. Thus began a feverish three days where I wrote probably the most complicated scene of my career: Morrigan's reckoning with Flemeth in DAI and the fallout after. Three different versions (OGB Kieran, non-OGB Kieran, and no Kieran), each with branching for other choices (like the Well of Sorrows). I did it all at once. There was no other way to wrap my head around the complexity of it. It was also a tough sell to the team, considering the amount of cinematics work, but they agreed we had to do *something*. And still it felt... underwhelming, insofar as divergence goes. But it was also good. I remember when I first spoke with Claudia, about how this was Morrigan's story. This was about how motherhood had changed her, how she'd grown up. Claudia got a bit teary-eyed. It was a journey she was familiar with, she said. Her first son, Odin, had been born in 2005 not long after DAO came out. And, man, she killed with that performance! Kate, too, but I'll get to her later. Claudia dug down, and that scene where Morrigan tells Flemeth she'll never be the mother Flemeth was to her? That came from someplace very raw. It was devastating to witness in the booth. There were tears all around. Not long after, Claudia called and asked if maybe - just maybe - Odin could play Kieran? He was a bit young (not yet 5, then), but it felt... right? We agreed. Claudia was in the booth, gently coaching him through his lines, and I think that was the first moment I felt I'd done the right thing."

[source thread]

User: "Do you find it an odd choice that Kieran hasn’t been mentioned at all in Veilguard?" David Gaider: "If there’s less reactivity in DATV, I’m unsurprised. Continuing choice from up to 3 games earlier is… unsupportable. Yet DA established the expectation they would so… damned if you do, damned if you don’t?" [source]

User: "EA is one of the biggest game companies ever. I don't think more complex diverging plots are impossible." David Gaider: "Well, if only more writing was all it took. Sadly, it's also cinematics. Art time for all those reappearing characters you probably want to look *just* right. And let's not forget we have to test all those permutations! So I don't disagree with you in spirit, but I don't think it's the answer here." [source]

User: "is there a possibility of future kieran appearances in a book or something similar outside of the games?" David Gaider: "I'd have no way of knowing that." [source]

User: "I’m actually shocked so little people chose the dark ritual. That was basically the main reason Flemeth sent Morrigan with the wardens, no?" David Gaider: "The impression you get of what "most" players do - in almost any game, not just DA - is very different if you're online a lot. Consider here that it's not just the % of DAO players who chose the Dark Ritual, it's the % of DAI players WHO PLAYED DAO and cared to import that choice 5 years later." [source]

User: "Is there anything you wish you had done differently, in hindsight?" David Gaider: "Probably just to not ever do importing choices between games in the first place." [source]

User: "Kieran only existed in my DAI state b/c Morrigan as a mother really appealed to me. I wasn't expecting to be devastated by those scenes 😭 I guess when we complain about lack of consequences from prev choices in DAV we must also ask how MUCH are we willing to pay for those branches to exist?" David Gaider: "That's indeed it. Content directed towards reactivity would have to come from somewhere else. So essentially a shorter game overall for the sake of those hardcore fans who'd import - who would, I imagine, REALLY enjoy that... but it's a tough cost/benefit analysis to make." [source]

User: "mr gaider im gonna keep it real with you if i had to choose between my hof and hawke i would've simply passed away" David Gaider: "Right? That was the ENTIRE idea! I was very excited, and for a while it seemed possible." [source]

User: "This has been a very interesting read but I have to ask why they decided to use Stroud instead of the HoF" David Gaider: "1) Complexity of providing means for a player to build a Warden (which they did in DATV for the Inquisitor). Also spoiled the surprise. 2) We’d have needed to give the Warden a voice. Add these to the cost and it was deemed not worth it." [source]

User: "Genuine question, not a critique - but what made the OGB decision one that couldn't be handwaved as canon no matter what was or wasn't chosen? Leliana and Flemeth being around no matter what come to mind. Was OGB simultaneously too major and too minor of a decision?" David Gaider: "Flemeth and Leliana being alive were easily explainable, and we knew we were doing it even back then. Circumventing the Dark Ritual… that would be too cheap. We did talk about it, but it just felt too dishonest. Too high a price for what we’d get in return." [source]

David Gaider: "If I’d known the Well of Sorrows would only see reactivity in the confrontation with Flemeth, I’d probably have made a much bigger deal of it." [source]

David Gaider: "We could maybe have gotten past the need to "reconstruct" the Warden, much like the Inquisitor was reconstructed in DATV (so I understand), but the need to give the Warden a voice was the final nail. Too potentially disappointing for the very people who'd be excited about it, aside from the cost." [source]

[acealistair]

had a genuine revelation in therapy that made me burst out laughing, been a while since I had one of those

[acealistair]

[acealistair]

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You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/