#Crow Fair 2024

[thegreenleavesofspring]

Ian Munsick was at Crow Fair

And there wasn't even

A LIVESTREAM

This year

[skarsgod]

First look at Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs in ‘THE CROW’ reboot.

In theaters on June 7, 2024.

[felassan]

June 14th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for second Q&A (August 30th)] | [Link to video recording for second Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Corinne Busche, John Epler, Matt Rhodes and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

----

Katey: Hello!

John: Hello.

Katey: Beautiful, your mic sounds beautiful. How's everybody doing?

John: Excellent. I, just as a headsup, I have some folks doing some service, in the next room so, if I, if you hear background noise, that's what that is.

Katey: No worries at all. Well I hope that everybody who's been waiting in here is really excited, because I'm super excited. I'm Katey. I'm the Community Manager. If you don't already know, you can usually see my name at the top of this Discord server. But I'm joined here with some awesome guests that I'll let introduce themselves. Let's start with Corinne.

Corinne: Can you hear me okay?

John: Yep.

Katey: Yep, we can hear you beautifully.

Corinne: Great, perfect. I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

John: Awesome. I'm John Epler, Creative Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Corinne: John!

John: Hello.

Katey: And then we've also got Matt Rhodes, who may be struggling to find the unmute button which is at the bottom left.

Corinne: Our, our resident artist-poet, Matt Rhodes.

Katey: I could unmute him, actually, I don't know if I can unmute him, but if he needs help, he can message me on the side.

John: The joys of being a giant nerd is I spend a lot of time on Discord anyway, so.

Corinne: Well there you go, right?

Katey: Fair enough. Alright, well, we have a ton of questions to answer. We probably won't be able to get to all of them today. You all have sent in so many really really great answers, sorry, questions for us to answer. And if we don't get to them today, we're hoping to be able to do things like this in the future. So without further ado, I'll get started. First question's a bit of a soft ball, I feel. If you could belong to any of the main factions shown in the game, which would you choose?

Corinne: I mean, listen Katey, you say softball, but like, this is hard! I’m gonna cheat, and I’m gonna give you two. So for fashion, the Antivan Crows, all day long. Their threads, you’re gonna love it. For vibes, though, like the ones that capture my vibe, Mourn Watch. Gimme those necromancers.

John: Those are good answers. I have, I have one for fashion, and also for, just general faction I’d like to be a part of. Veil Jumpers. Who doesn’t like a nice walk in the forest, y’know? Even if that forest is filled with horrifying monsters and terrifying anomalies, but yeah.

Katey: I love that. I know that Matt has a few technical issues – oh, he’s unmuted. There we go. Or maybe not. That’s okay, I think we can move on.

John: The Fade has taken Matt.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right.

Katey: Yes. One quick thing, if you check your settings, the cog-wheel in the bottom left, make sure that your voice, like, your audio is all good. If you’re still hearing the music, feel free to maybe, force-quit Discord and rejoin by just joining the stage directly. And mute the music before you come in. Okay. I can move on to the next question for now. I’ve seen, so this question was from Acra. I’ve seen a lot of talk about only having two companions in your party instead of three for this game. What is the reasoning behind this and will we still get the same companion conversations and banter as seen in the previous Dragon Age games?

Corinne: Ooh, this is such a good question. Thankyou, whoever submitted this one. Yeah, I’ll guess I’ll start and then I’ll turn it over to John Epler. So, first of all, as you saw in the gameplay reveal, this is a much more intimate experience. We’ve pulled the camera in. For those that aren’t aware, the reason why is we want you to feel like you actually are in this world, right? Like, you’re walking these city streets of Minrathous, you’re looking up, seeing the buildings all around you, you’re a part of this place. So it’s much more intimate, and we believe as the narrative unfolds this creates a lot more immersion. Now, how that relates to companions is in doing this, we went back and forth on it a lot, but we actually found, with this perspective, having two companions, really allows them more visibility and presence. We’ve talked about the incredible depth and focus we’ve put on fleshing out these companions, they’re very fully-realized. So here, you really get to see them more clearly, you get to see them shine. When you see Lace Harding jump into the air and unleash a volley of arrows, you can only really get that because of that more intimate view. So I love the spotlight that’s been put on them. But, I think, in addition to the banter, one of the things that people are wondering about is, okay, but what about gameplay? So again, this has come about from our testing, working with the internal team, also our lovely Council of players. We just found that when you’re playing in the combat system, when you’re planning your strategies, two really felt like the right number to manage. So keep in mind, Rook has a lot of different types of actions, Abilities, individual attacks that are more fully fleshed-out than ever before. Timing and positioning matter a lot. So this really felt like the right balance to have. The number of inputs and actions we’re asking you as a player to take, including directing your companions, is higher than ever before. And I will also say, I engage with the companions, like I actively control what they’re doing more than I ever have before in any of the other three games. But John, I’ll toss it over to you for the banter. That’s kind of like the, we got a two-for-one there.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Corinne: I think that’s a, a great question.

John: So - it’s a great question, yeah. I mean honestly, I don’t think you could actually stop the writers from writing banter. I will say for myself, it’s, it’s one of the more light but fun things to do. You get to write little stories, little arcs between different characters. And I mean, The Veilguard is no different. Banter is still absolutely core part of it. You know, we’ve got global banter, you know, the general stuff that you get in all spaces, as well as mission-specific stuff. But, yeah, it’s definitely still a big thing. I think it’s, if anything it’s the most we’ve, we’ve ever done for pairings of companions. Beyond that we’ve also made sure, and I mean I’ve been on Dragon Age for a while, and I know there’s been issues, you know, things like, okay, well I don’t wanna miss this banter. So we’ve even added stuff like some interruptible and resumable banter as well, just to make sure that, because again, it’s a core part of the experience. Everyone loves hearing these companions talk to each other, everyone loves hearing these little stories and relationships develop over the course of the game and, as mentioned before, companions are the heart of this experience and banter is a big part of that, so, you still have it, it’s, if anything, like I said, you could not stop the writers from doing it even if we tried, so.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right. Well, John, you know, listening to you speak, one thing that comes to mind, maybe people are wondering, with two companions in the field do I get less interaction between, that, like do I get to see my companions interacting in a broader group more often.

John: Oh -

Corinne: And, the way you’ll gather them around the kitchen table, there’s just so many of those moments where they’re all interacting with each other.

John: Well, I think –

Corinne: Those are some of my favorite parts.

John: Yeah, and I think, yeah, and actually that’s a, a good call, because I think the other side of it is, we’re not talking too much about your home or anything, but, we also want to make sure that they feel like they have a relationships and a life outside of just, the times you take a certain pair of companions out on the field. So we made sure that, they have those interactions there as well.

Katey: Love that. Let’s see. Um, Matt, are we, are we all set, are we good? Yes? No? Okay. I can continue and we can come back to some of your questions. Alright. So that, I loved the answers to those. How customizable is the backstory of Rook? Will we get to determine their past in the Character Creator? And that was asked by Briar.

John: Yeah, so. Absolutely. So, one of, each, Rook has six different backgrounds that you can choose from. Each of them is tied to one of the major factions in The Veilguard and each one sets out who Rook was before they recruited, were recruited by Varric, and. Well that sets out the broad events. As you go through the game, as you’re gonna have conversations, either with members of your faction, other characters, you can define, not just what those events were, but what they meant to you, what was your motivation, what was the kind of person you are as you build up Rook, because again, we wanna make sure that roleplaying is at the heart of this experience. And taking Rook, giving them, again, giving them background to ground them in the world but then letting you decide what that means and what that says about you is also a big part of it, so. And again, there are six different factions in this game, two which, anyone who’s played Dragon Age for a while will remember. You’ve got the Grey Wardens. You’ve got the Antivan Crows. We also have, in addition to that, we have four new ones, because we’re in northern Thedas. We have the Veil Jumpers. We have the Mourn Watch. We have the Shadow Dragons, and we have the Lords of Fortune, so. Again, a lot of different options, a lot of different background, and a lot of opportunities to really define what your, who your Rook was, and who they are now, so.

Katey: Amazing. Will crafting return? If yes, has it been improved over the system in Inquisition? Asked by Some Dude.

Matt: Testing.

Katey: Oh hey Matt!

Corinne: “Some Dude”, is that, I’m gonna assume “Some Dude” is a username. Great question.

Katey: Yes.

Corinne: Welcome Matt, the lovely Matt Rhodes.

Matt: Testing, testing.

Corinne: Welcome, welcome, hello. Alright, so, will crafting return? You can absolutely improve and customize your gear, yes, that is a big part of RPG progression, so yes you can improve and customize it. I will say, though, it’s different this time around, and it does get into spoiler territory, so I, I’m gonna be a little bit cagey about it, but there might be a mysterious entity that assists you with that that’ll be an important part of the narrative.

Katey: So mysterious.

Corinne: Oooh!

Katey: Matt, I’m gonna actually go back to our first question so that you can answer, so everyone knows.

Matt: Thank you.

Katey: What faction, what faction you would choose if you could choose one for yourself?

Matt: Absolutely, oh, for me it’s definitely the Lords of Fortune. I’ve had a chance to try out a bunch of them, but I think I’ve finally settled on them. And it’s largely just because pirate-barbarian is just such a great combination of elements, so. Treasure-hunting plus beaches and palm trees and all that stuff, it’s a, it’s a really good mix, so that’s kinda my default.

Katey: I think I’m with you there, for sure. How about this one - this one was definitely asked probably amongst the most in Discord. Axolotl asks, can we kiss or romance Manfred the skeleton?

Matt: Uh, I, I would say, not that skeleton, but we’re not saying no skeletons.

Katey: I love that answer.

Corinne: This is my favorite answer so far.

Katey: Alright, so I’m gonna get back on track here. Alright. What, what were some of the development considerations that you had to take into account to ensure that this new game flows and functions with prior games, and Dragon Age Keep, if Keep is being utilized?

Corinne: Ooh, that’s a good one too. So, first of all, I would, I would point everyone to, we did an interview with IGN that goes into some of the details there, so, like, if you want a deeper dive on it, check out that article. But just to summarize, we have taken a different approach on how you import your decisions this time around. It’s now actually been fully-integrated into the Character Creator, and kinda serves a dual purpose, to be honest. I, I playfully, it’s not called this in-game, but I playfully think of it as ‘Last Time On Dragon Age’.

Katey: I love that.

Corinne: Right? Now, when I talk about its dual purpose, it’s been ten years since the last Dragon Age game released, so it serves as a refresher on critical events as well as allowing you to re-make those decisions that are critical to you. The thing I love about it is, it’s very highly visual, it uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic, so it’s actually really visual and playful experience as you go through it. It is very much important to us that it’s built into the client, though. You can play this game entirely offline. No connection. You don’t have to link to your EA accounts, like that’s been a really big request. So, the refresher plus make those decisions in-client, I think we’re all pretty happy about that. I don’t wanna spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, like, look, y’all don’t want the spoilers, but I will say, it’s been a really interesting creative intersection for us, because on the one hand, this is a whole new adventure. You’re in northern Thedas, these locations that you’ve literally never been to before. So that affects some of what will matter and what we’re not using this time around, as far as decisions. But obviously there’s some very, very clear connections to existing characters. It’s no secret that the Inquisitor, our dear Inky, is gonna show up, so, that’s, that’s a factor.

Katey: Peachy asks, will this next game be an open-world game, or is it just contained to Tevinter?

John: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you are in northern Thedas, but the game only begins in Minrathous, it doesn’t stay there. I’m, I think one of the most exciting things for me, honestly, and again, to Corinne’s earlier point about spoilers, I don’t wanna get into too much spoiler detail, but getting to go to, and work with the art team, work with the narrative, work with the design team to build out these locations that we’ve talked about. Places that characters have referred to as where they’ve come from, places that characters, obviously, in previous games, have hailed from, has been absolutely exciting. So, it’s, you do start in Tevinter, you do start in Minrathous, but again, that’s not the entire game by any stretch. So yeah.

Corinne: Yeah, and the first half of it is, is it an open-world game? We’ve gone back to what we believe delivers the best, most curated –

John: Mhm.

Corinne: - intense narratives. So, this is a hand-crafted experience, it’s mission-based. Now, these locations can open up. You can go back, solve mysteries, do some really great side-content. Not fetch-quests, not grind-quests, some really great side content.

John: Mhm.

Corinne: But, I wanna be clear. It’s, it’s a really curated, hand-crafted experience.

John: And just to, just to bounce off of that very quickly. The most important thing for us, to what Corinne was saying about hand-crafted, obviously we’ve talked about how, you know, narrative, story, characters, are the most, are critical to us, and this has allowed us to build these experiences in a way that emphasize that, extremely long, while still, again, tying into the story threads and the story beats, so.

Katey: Awesome. TastefulToxel wants to know - will the companions have unique specializations like Dragon Age II, or will it be the same ones we will have access to as the player in like DA: Origins, or Inquisition?

Corinne: Oh, cool. Hey TastefulToxel. Yeah, so, cool question. I think the best way for me to describe this is that, yes, our companions will have Abilities that are truly unique to them. But also, the companions do fall into the archetypes of mage, rogue, and warrior. Like, for instance, you might be surprised to hear, because she has a bow, but Bellara is, in fact, a mage, and I, I love that. So, some of the Abilities, the bulk of the Abilities of the companions are based on their own unique personality. Like, Neve is the only mage that is an Ice Mage, so you get distinct Abilities for her. But, because she’s a mage, she does have access to Abilities that all the mages share, like Time Slow. So we really like the balance there. It’s like a good mix of representing their archetype, their class, and also their distinct specialization or personality, whatever you wanna call it.

John: Yeah, actually, I would actually say the word ‘personality’ is a really great one because that’s, again, each of these characters exists, each of these characters have a history, have a story of how they became who they were, and part of that was finding that intersection between narrative and gameplay, and making sure that, again, we, we serve the needs of gameplay but also allow these characters to breathe and exist as their own people, not just in conversation, but out of conversations, as well.

Corinne: I would also say as part of that core mage kit, healing spells are there, so any of your mages, you wanna make ‘em a healer, do that.

Katey: Lunasoul Darkmoon asks, will The Veilguard have tactical combat still?

Corinne: Ooh, such a good one, such a good one. Okay. Yes! Combat gets quite tactical, like, obviously this is an evolution of the combat system, and I talked about immersion, wanting you, to put you in the world, like you’re actually living and existing in it, but it is very tactical. And, I will say, we have a robust difficulty system. The tactics are increasingly important the higher difficulty level you go. So like, look, if you’re showing up for a highly tactical experience, I would crank that difficulty level in particular. But I wanna make clear, I’m, super, I wanna make sure I’m super clear in my answer. You saw the gameplay reveal. Our pause-time tactical mode is not overhead. It stays close to Rook. It does allow you to cycle between targets, both in and out of combat, there’s a reason for that. As the game progresses, and you didn’t see this in that opening hour of the game, but it’ll display strategic information on the enemies, so like, what are their vulnerabilities, what are their elemental weaknesses, their enhancements, what are they resistant to? So your type of Abilities, learning into elemental gameplay, matters a lot. I’d also say, this is a long answer, it’s such a good question – tactical decision-making also takes the form, I would say this is front and center, of coordinating your Ability usage between Rook and your companions to create synergies, or really devastating – we call them – detonation combos. So, let me give you a couple of examples, because it can be a little hard to visualize, so hopefully this helps. So one of the tactics that I personally enjoy in my own builds, I just recently played as a Veil Ranger, I love it, it’s one of my favorites. If I’m fighting Fade-touched enemies in Arlathan, I like to use Bellara’s Galvanized Tear to pull enemies together, it’s like a gravity well. You then Slow Time with Neve and, Slow Time affects the world around you, but it does not affect you, so you clump them up, you Slow Time, and then with Rook, I come in and do, like a devastating AOE or damage over time spell or Ability, and it’s even better if it’s a lightning-based Ability, because the Fade-touched in Arlathan are vulnerable to that. So there’s so many layers of coordination and strategy and tactics. Now we did talk about the devastating, like, detonation combos, honestly, that’s probably one of my favorite features, because that’s when you’re really leaning into explicit teamwork between your companions and Rook, or, the companions together. So when I, when I build out my team and I’m going into a mission, I try to ensure that I have at least a couple of possible synergies, detonation combo synergies within my team. Might be between Harding and Neve, or it might be between Neve and me, or it might be both. So here, I would go into battle, I’d pause time, open the Ability Wheel, get information on the enemy, and the Wheel will actually tell me that there is a synergy combo, you might have seen a screenshot that says “combo available”. It will remind you of those synergies between companions. You can queue both of those Abilities up at the same time, go, close out of the pause-time menu, they’ll both execute, both Abilities will happen, then the detonation AOE happens, applies debuffs to all the enemies in a radius of it, it’s so satisfying, it’s so satisfying, I can’t wait for y’all to see it. But the interesting thing is that too is a tactical choice. I’m choosing to use my companions to do that, and that means, in that moment, I’m not using them to heal me, or to give me that defense bonus, or to knock an enemy off a ledge, so it’s about the opportunity cost. I, I could spend the rest of the session talking about this, I, apologies for being long-winded, but this is just one of my favorite parts of, of the game.

Katey: That was a great answer. Can you choose Rook’s pronouns? If yes, being, is being non-binary an option? And also, how detailed is Character Creation?

Corinne: Hell yeah you can select your pronouns! Absolutely. You can actually select both your pronouns and your gender, because those are related concepts, but they’re not actually the exact same thing, so. It’s really cool. Yeah, you can be non-binary. We have they/them, she/her, he/him. Yes, emphatic yes. How detailed is the Character Creator? Oh my goodness, y’all. Like. Very! I don’t wanna give away too much just yet, but it’s very, very deep. It has been revealed, it’s out there in a couple of articles, about the focus on hair, the focus on skin-tones that are done respectfully, full-body customization, hell yeah, we love to see it. But we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna show you a lot more on Character Creator, but we wanna make sure we have the time and space to, to do that.

Katey: Will there be a Photo Mode in-game?

Corinne: So that is something we’re actively looking into. We know there’s a tonne of interest, so stay tuned on that one. But we are very much looking into it.

Matt: I can add to that, is a feature that is, that, we like, we like the idea of, and, and, it’s not just player-facing but internally, it’s a really helpful thing for us as we’re, as we’re building things out to have that so it’s, it’s, we’ll let ya know.

Corinne: Yes, yeah, absolutely. We, we are as geeked on that possibility as you all are.

Katey: A lot of people were asking about Abilities. This one is from Clemmy. Abilities, I don’t think I saw this answered yet, but are we going to be limited in how many Abilities we can pick from the Wheel?

Corinne: Ah! Yes, yes, yes. So, Ability Wheel does have a capacity. You have to choose which three Abilities you wanna bring for Rook, which three for one of your companions, and which three for another companion. And what I, what I like about this is there is, kind of, an emergent gameplay depending on who you and your companions are coming into the mission with. Now the reason for that is, it actually creates really interesting balance of strategizing, having to do that strategy about your kit, your combat kit, before the mission. And then the tactical decisions once you’re in the field in combat, deciding what to do. But, I do wanna clear one thing up, because, while there are three Ability slots for Rook, there’s so much more than that. Other actions that you can perform directly from the Wheel include, you’ll have an Ultimate Ability, associated with your class or your specialization, so there’s variance there. There’s a type of items that you’ll get that function like Abilities, they’re typically like buffs and enhancements in form of Runes. So you’ll control that for Rook and/or the team from the Wheel. You may have also seen that you can direct which targets your companions will focus on, but what you might not know is that a lot of the companion gear really synergizes with that directing your companions. When you issue those commands, that too will proc based on the gear they have equipped. Really interesting and strategic effects. They can be more Ability-like, more, like, procced effects, there’s just so much from the Wheel, that once you get in and see everything working together, becomes more and more apparent.

Katey: We have another question from TastefulToxel which is, will Fireball and Cone of Cold be back as skills, or as spells in Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Corinne: Ohh, I love, all these combat questions, really good. So Fireball and Cone of Cold aren’t specifically back, however, their successors are. Frost Nova and Meteor. So these serve the exact same combat role and function as those other Abilities. I would also say, it gives ‘em quite the glow-up, so. Meteor in particular, like, so satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed Meteor, it’s really wonderful.

Katey: What accessibility features are available? I would love to know if there’s an arachnophobia mode. Will there be mod support?

Corinne: Oh my goodness, arachnophobia. I am wicked afraid of spiders too, my partner always laughs at me. I’m just terrified of them. That said, that’s one we’re going to save for a little bit closer to launch before we’ll go into full details about accessibility features. But I do wanna assure you, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this topic so you can play the game in a way that really works for you. I’m, I’m excited to share that with you when the time is right.

Katey: So this one is from a username named Cookie. How long is the time-skip from Inquisition to The Veilguard? I know we’ll probably get more info on this, but I’m so curious.

John: Yeah, so, anyone who’s paid attention to Dragon Age, and I can say as somebody who’s been on Dragon Age since Origins, timelines are always a little iffy. They change, and they morph over development as we see how long events taking. But, for The Veilguard, we were actually pretty consistent from the start. It’s been about ten years since the events of Trespasser. As you may or may not have noticed, Varric’s become a little bit of a silver fox. I know, I’ve heard, seen, I’ve seen a lot of comments on that on social media, but, yeah, ten years. Solas’ ritual is taken time to set up and you’re kinda coming in at the end of that hunt, so.

Katey: Siddy is asking the hardest-hitting question which is, is Solas still bald?

Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you’ve watched the gameplay thing, we can all confirm, yes, Solas is still bald, Solas is still Solas. We’ve, we’ve, I really, I really like how Solas has turned out this time around. I will say, here’s a comment on this specific question that’s gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but, once you get a chance to play it a little bit more, maybe you’ll see it. In Thedas, ancient elves, they go bald when they’re like millennia old, so. Solas wasn’t always bald. So if you were to end up, end up seeing what Solas looked like in the past, things might be a little different. You’ll have –

John: - Now, now that said, I’m sure some of you are wondering what happened to Solas’ wig from Tevinter Nights. I’m sure he still has it somewhere, so.

Katey: He’s just taking care of it elsewhere.

John: He’s just taking care, it’s, it’s his most important possession.

Corinne: The Pride there, huh?

Katey: I have another one for Matt. This is, will we be able to, will we be able to change companions’ appearances and outfits, or are they fixed, similar to Dragon Age II?

Matt: Yeah we, Dragon Age II was, we loved how the followers turned out in that but it was, it was sad given, given our constraints that we had to keep them with just one, one basic outfit. So we really tried to make some space for them this time around. So they’re, they still have, kind’ve iconic color palettes and things like that, but they do have a wider range of appearances that you can, that you can find for them. Some, some are just cool, but then there are some that are tied directly to their, to their narrative and just kinda what’s happening in their life.

Katey: Another one for ya, which is, will we be seeing or visiting Kal-Sharok? It’s, and, Tyrant says that they’ve been obsessed with it forever.

Matt: Yeah, me too. I, I will say, what’s, what’s been really cool, so in previous games, we’ve kind’ve alluded to this before. It was a lot of fun to hint at the locations that were off the map, the mysterious places that you weren’t gonna go, you weren’t going. And so you could just bring in some props or some characters, a piece of art, things like that, and you know, even Tevinter was only vaguely hinted at and then we would just add drips and bits and pieces, so that stuff was really fun. In The Veilguard, we’re actually getting to visit, most, like a whole lot of those locations that had only been hinted at for real, so you actually do run around Tevinter and a bunch of the other locations that we’ve revealed. But this also means, like, we’re not completely filling out the map, and so that there are actually new things that we can start hinting at, that we can start drip-feeding, and so, it’s, it’s kind’ve fun. I’d say, yeah, for what we can show of Kal-Sharok, and, and other locations, it’s just, there’s, there’s more to do.

Katey: Awesome. MrFightmonster118 asks, will the dialogue wheel slash options be similar to Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda in the sense that it’s more tone-based?

John: Yeah, so, we have a number of different types of wheels in our game. All the dialogue wheels are based off the same principle. Anyone who’s played a Dragon Age game remembers what they look like. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard we have tone wheels which are, you know, again, roleplaying your character, picking consistent tone. We also have emotion wheels where you can pick specific emotional reactions. And choice wheels which are, I don’t have a strong emotional or tone tie here but I do want to make a choice based on what I do. Investigates obviously return as well, but. We do want players to understand as much as possible what it is they’re going to be picking, and understand, and again, choice and consequence is fun, we wanna make sure the choice is clear, even if, again, one of the best parts about consequence is making sure that’s not entirely clear, so.

Katey: How extensive are Rook’s decision trees for dialogue going to be with the companions and also with NPCs throughout the game?

John: Huge. I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure you have choices, we wanna make sure you can choose both your roleplaying but also choose outcomes of conversations, choose how events unfold, so, I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure that we also react to decisions you’ve made, so. For example, you may be talking to a follower who is an elf, and if you yourself are an elf, obviously you’re gonna have a different perspective on events than someone who’s not an elf. Sometimes that means different conversation options, sometimes that’s going to mean entirely deep dialogue trees, as well as based off decisions you’ve made throughout the game so, again, making sure that the game feels like it’s noticing what you’re doing is a huge part of how we’ve written out the dialogue wheel, or dialogue trees, in this game.

Corinne: Blueberry has a question for Corinne. It was mentioned that there will be, that we will be able to romance who we like. Does that mean that all companions are romanceable by all player characters regardless of race or gender, as it has been in the past?

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. So, we have talked about this in some of the interviews, I’ve seen a few articles about it, so I’d recommend everyone check out those articles. But let me just give you a quick overview. Each of the seven companions have full romance arcs and they are romanceable by all genders, absolutely. But something that’s really important to, to us on the team, so I wanna make sure that we clarify and just double-down on, that doesn’t mean playersexual. And if anyone’s unaware of what we mean by that, it doesn’t mean that they can form or twist their identities to who you the player are, like they, they won’t suddenly have a preference for men or women based on what you’re playing, right? Instead, they have their own fully fleshed-out identities, they are true and authentic to that. So in this game, they are all pansexual, with their own histories of romance. Sometimes you’ll hear about preferences, or things of that nature. And what I really love is, if you don’t pursue a romance with them, they’ll actually build their own romances with each other. So, in one of the interviews I talked about Lace Harding and Taash getting together. I give that example because honestly, it’s one of my favorites. I’m gonna put a question back to the community, though. I’ve heard we’re going with “Laash” for that ship-name? You tell me, like, what is that ship-name?

Katey: That one just rolls off the tongue, I feel like that works. This next question is from FallenArtesia. What are the markings on the faces of the elven Warden and Veil hopper?

Matt: So there’s a, quite a few, probably, I think, easily more than we’ve done before, tattoos from various, various cultures. We’re bringing the vallaslin back, of course. But there’s, yeah, ton of different options, especially when we’re, again, going into all these new regions. Each, each area has its own kind’ve visual language for that. But yeah, we are bringing the vallaslin back and then a couple of the characters have them, but we’ve kind’ve customized them a little bit, they’re a bit more specific to their personality.

Katey: And this is a question for all of you. What are you, what are you as a developer most proud of about the game, and what are you most excited for players to experience when it’s out?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question.

Corinne: Isn’t it?

John: Corinne, you wanna go first?

Corinne: Yeah, sure. Gosh. So I suspect for most of us, myself included, it is really gonna be the depth and authenticity of the companions, journeying along with them on their arcs, learning about their hardships, what they care about, being by their side, that, that authenticity is just so good. They all feel like my dear friends. But, I have to say, the closest runner-up for me, has to be the Character Creator, has to be. That Character Creator, the makeup options, the range of sliders. I’m a qunari fan, so even just the, the way you customize the horns and combine that with the really great-looking hair. Character Creator has to be my, my, like very close runner up.

Matt: Oh yeah. For me, I would say, as far as, what, what I can say I’m most proud of on this one, the, I can speak for the art team. We worked incredibly hard to make the story more visible than ever. Games are a visual medium, but, you know, it’s, sometimes it’s easier to do things in text format or written in a Codex somewhere or alluded to off-screen. But we really leaned in to trying to make sure that every design, prop, character, environment, the VFX we’re choosing, everything, all, all these choices, were putting the story on-screen so that you can really see it unfold. And I think, having worked on all of the Dragon Age games, I would say Veilguard represents one of the best attempts at that we’ve made yet.

John: I’m gonna cheat, because I’m going last and I get to do that when I go last, and kinda combine both Corinne’s and Matt’s answer. Honestly, the companions are, for me, the absolute highlight of, just, being able to work across all the disciplines, building characters who look and sound and behave in very specific and characterful ways. These are the deepest companion arcs we’ve ever done. Not just on Dragon Age, but at BioWare in general. Each, each companion has their own story arc, you can go through decisions you can make, they really do take center-stage, and I think, as you play through with them you see the care and love that the team has put into each and every one. I mean there’s, there’s moments in each arc that make you cry, make you angry, make you excited and, and the way that they integrate into the story as a whole is just, for me, something that’s been really fun. Finding ways to bring these characters together, finding ways to make this, this narrative, this story of, you know, you need to put together a team and stop the end of the world, it’s just been absolutely exciting and thrilling. And again, you see the team’s love in every single piece of it. As for what I’m most excited? For me, I’ve been, I mean Dragon Age has been part of my career, part of my life for literally the last decade and a half. I’ve worked on it since Origins and there’s something about The Veilguard that feels like a amazing mix of, novelty but also familiarity. It’s like coming home in a way that I think is going to be very exciting for people who are existing Dragon Age players, but there’s also so much here that’s just new and exciting for people, new players and old players alike. And going to parts of the word, seeing things we’ve never seen before, and just getting to take this amazing world, this amazing series and expand on it and build on it in ways that have just been, honestly, an absolute thrill, the best part of my career. And I’ve been in games for seventeen years now, this has been the absolute highlight for me, so. That’s what I’m excited about.

Corinne: John, that was, that was such a good answer, and I just, I just wanna “yes, and -” that. It, I so completely agree with you. There’ve been times in the companion arcs where even, knowing exactly what’s going to happen, we work on the game, with some of these decisions, I, I’ve had to set down the controller, let out a heavy sigh and go “oh my god, what am I gonna do here?” Yeah, the depth of them is wonderful. And, I do wanna say, I, I’d be, I wanna put this out there, when we talked about as a developer, what are we most proud of, can we just give a big shout-out to the dev team? I am so proud of them. This team has poured their heart and soul into this.

John: Absolutely.

Corinne: Anyone from BioWare who’s listening in, thank you so much, y’all are just the best.

John: Hear, hear.

Katey: I absolutely love that. I knew that question was going to have some of my best, some of my favorite answers, and it delivered, so thank you three. This one’s a fun one. Why does Varric have dark hair now? I feel like John mentioned this a little bit earlier, but.

John: Just for [inaudible].

Matt: He’s been, he’s been adventuring for a while now. His hair is, is more gray, but he’s been in very dark scenes so far, so. We’ll see him in some more contexts.

Katey: In this question, we actually took from Tumblr, because there were a few really good ones in our ask box. Will the Inquisitor be appearing in the flesh, or are we just choosing their major Dragon Age: Inquisition decisions?

Corinne: Alright! Yeah, yes! They will. The Inky does appear. We know how attached y’all are to the Inquisitor, I’ve seen the love for your OC. Yes, the Inquisitor shows up. Now, we, we’d already confirmed that in a few places, so, let me just say, you can also customize them, includes some of our new customization options, yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.

John: And I think, I think beyond that, I mean, the story of Solas and the story of the Inquisitor, obviously are tied, they’re tied together as much as any story, so. It would have been strange for us not to bring them in for this one. They have, they’re gonna be a part of the story, so.

Katey: Will there be any planned DLC? Just curious, as I always love the DLCs. Oh, and transmog armor. This one came from Lavell.

Corinne: Oh, heck yeah, good question. So, right now, our focus is entirely on the quality of the game. Like, it’s so important at this stage for us to be all-in, all attention on, just, finishing this game and delivering on the quality, the promise of it. So honestly, like, that’s all I can really say about it. We’re 100% focused on this being the most complete game we can make it. I will say, kind’ve related to that though, and I just wanna underscore this, I wanna emphasize it. There’s not gonna be any microtransactions, there’s not gonna be any battle passes, you don’t have to connect online, our focus is making this the most complete singleplayer game we possibly can. Now, this was kind’ve a two-for question, I love when we do that. Will there be transmog? Hell yeah. I’m the kind’ve player that, that believes fashion is the real end-game. Yeah, there’s a transmog system, absolutely, it’s sick.

Katey: And then this next question is from Scott. I was asking if any of the characters will be explicitly asexual, or on the ace spectrum?

Corinne: So good. Such a good question. So, look, I’m just, I’m gonna be really forthcoming with y’all and a little bit vulnerable here. I’m ace, I’m a gray-ace, I don’t mind sharing that, I’m kind’ve public with it. I will say though, that none of our companions this time around are explicitly ace. When we look at the characters, their motivations, who they are, we always assess, like is, is this the right time? This time it wasn’t. But what I will say for everyone on the ace spectrum out there, I would love to represent an ace relationship sometime in the future when it feels like the most authentic fit for a companion, when we can do it best. Oh, and I do see some questions, you know, some questions, what do we mean by ace? Asexuality. We often refer to it as the ace spectrum.

Katey: Can mage Rook do blood magic? Will blood magic be a skill tree separate from regular magic?

Corinne: Okay. Um, this gets a little spoilery, so let me just say, Rook has some pretty good reasons to avoid blood magic. Rook is not gonna want to be interested in that. But I will say, the mage skill tree is packed with all kinds of spells, traits and perks to give you a ton of flexibility in your magic. Gonna go off-script just a little bit, because –

John: Oh no.

Corinne: I’ve seen, like, can you tell us about the specializations for mage? I’m not gonna tell you the deets, but there is a necromancer one, there is an elemental one, and there is one that’s actually more of like a combat mage, it’s my favorite.

Katey: Can we name the griffon? We also have a griffon emoji now in this Discord server.

John: Excellent. So, someone on your, in your party, again, spoilers, may have already named the griffon, but, don’t worry, Assan is a very good boy, so.

Corinne: All these griffon emojis are, y’all are killing me.

Katey: Yeah, I love that, griffons in the chat. Let's see. Will we have a camp/home/headquarters that we’ll be able to customize?

Matt: Well this time around, in Inquisition you had Skyhold. In this case you have a headquarters called the Lighthouse. More to be seen on that. But, it’s, it, narratively it, it serves kind’ve a different purpose but also the same purpose. As far as customization goes, there are elements of it that change over time, and some things that you can adjust. I, I don’t know how much we’re really going into that at the moment.

Katey: This one is –

Matt: But yeah, I would say, it’s like, there’s some, it, one thing I like about it is it definitely does start to feel very much like a home over time.

Katey: Sorry for almost cutting you off there Matt. We have another very hard-hitting question, if I'm, if I do say so myself.

John: I love this one.

Katey: We need to - Same. We need to know, does pasta and noodles exist in Thedas? Thank you.

Matt: Well, and I’ll take it as a chance just to geek out about worldbuilding, because, again, we’re, The Veilguard for us is a really kinda dream opportunity to go to places that we’ve only ever heard reference to, or we’ve seen hints at. And so, in going through the worldbuilding process and trying to, trying to build these places out, not just as neat things from the IP but also as, you know, if you’ve, if you've read about this stuff, if you’ve been following along, you’ve got your own version of it in your head. You’ve imagined what it might be like, you’re, and probably hoping for something spectacular. And our brains are always far better at creating this stuff than any game developer, any artist, or anyone can really do justice to, so you really have to swing for the fences to make something very satisfying and exciting. You know, is, that can be everything as big as architecture and landscape and biomes and ecosystems, but it does get into things like art and culture, costume design, and also food, and this time around we did, you know, that was one of the many things that we, that we did, looking to, just to try to catch the character and the feel of a place to make it feel believable and lived in, so. That’s my really long answer for, yeah, I’m sure, I've, at least one place does have pasta.

Katey: I loved that. This next question is from Spectre Karro. Are we getting a mabari?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question. I will say, you’re spending most of the game in the north of Thedas. Mabari are not nearly as big of a thing up there, so. In this particular instance, no, you will not get a mabari, sadly.

Katey: Honestly, I should’ve pulled this one up to where we answered the first question about the griffon, but, can we pet the griffon?

Matt: You, I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you – nah, I’m kidding, yes you can. But it’s not even just petting the griffon. I’ve, this isn’t a spoiler, I think you can actually, I’ve actually hugged the griffon, so, that feels like, even there, a step up. Yeah.

John: There’s lots of opportunities to interact with the griffon.

Corinne: Can we see, can we see Assan in chat if we wanna see him in the Lighthouse hanging out?

Katey: Assan in chat everybody.

Corinne: Assan in chat, alright!

Katey: I love it.

Corinne: Okay, y’all this was so important to the team too. Like, this is the team’s like, just such huge support for this feature, so props to them.

Katey: This one is from Coriander. Will we get to see any of the Character Creator before the game releases?

Corinne: Yes, yes you will. We’ve got a, you’ve probably seen, we’re laying out a roadmap for, you know, what we’re gonna show and when we’re gonna talk about, so, yes you will see it as we get a little bit closer to launch.

Katey: And then we’ve got this question which is, will we be able to play as a qunari, dwarf, elf, or human?

Corinne: Hell yeah, hell yeah you will. All four, and all four have that full-body customization. I already talked a little bit about, I mean listen, I’ve always loved the qunari. I will say in Dragon Age: Inquisition it was hard to get a good-looking qunari hairstyle, so yes you can play as them, you can customize them, the horn options are rad, the hair options are rad. And also, I guess related to this, your lineage gives you a lot of really unique dialogue options, so that’s a really lovely aspect of choosing your lineage as well.

John: Yeah, I would, so to actually just to bounce off that, to an earlier question about backgrounds, each lineage, there, depending on the lineage you choose and the background you choose there are some specifics call-outs to, for example, if it’s the Mourn Watch, the Mourn Watch being a faction from Nevarra of mages, you play as a dwarf, obviously your experience in that faction is going to be different than, say, a human or an elf, so. There are also specific call-outs tailored to those combinations and, with again, giving, the intention of giving each lineage their own little flavor as to how they're, they fit into that faction as a whole.

Katey: Okay, John, I’ve got a question from someone named Joe for you. Where is Barkspawn and is he okay?

John: That’s a Great question. Barkspawn is safely gnawing on a bone next to a fireplace somewhere in Ferelden, don’t worry, he’s fine. You may question, ask yourself, but John, it’s been so long, in which I say, mabari live exactly as long as they need to.

Corinne: Getting into the deep-cut questions now.

John: Deep-cut questions, yeah.

Katey: Yeah. We are really speedin’ through these. Let’s see. Will Rook have a set of default name?

John: Yeah so, Rook’s last name is defined based on their faction, again, we wanted to tie that into your backstory, but also, there’s a, that’s a name generator that can give you a selection of first names. Obviously if you want to make your own first name, that’s definitely something we support as well. If you’re somebody who maybe has a little bit more difficulty coming up with a name, so for example you name every single character “Bob” because that’s the only name you can think of, we also give that opportunity for that generation, so.

Katey: I definitely always have trouble coming up with what I wanna name my characters, so that’s great. This next question is, when will the voice acting cast be announced?

John: So, we worked with a lot of very talented actors on this one. I am super excited to talk about the voice acting cast. We’ll be talking a bit more over the summer, we’re not quite ready to announce names yet.

Katey: And I think we have a similar answer to this next question, which was, will there be a Collector’s Edition? When can I pre-order?

John: Yeah, same answer, we have, we’ll talk more about the different editions of the game soon.

Katey: Are there any special musical guests writing the sound-track? Will tavern songs return.

Corinne: Oh my goodness, yeah. There are tavern songs. And huge credit to the audio team and performance teams because they’re pretty great. There’s one in a little tavern in Minrathous called The Swan, and the song you hear there might just, it might be, it’s up there, it might just be my favorite of the tavern songs.

Katey: Let’s see, are there any – ope, I have just asked that one. What are the required PC specs?

John: Much like the other two, we will have more information on required PC specs soon.

Katey: Saph from the Discord server noticed that two, Dragon Age II’s main theme from the soundtrack brought back much of the iconic thematic material of Origins’ main theme, but I heard less of it in Inquisition’s. Can we expect The Veilguard’s main theme to recall more or less of that original thematic material than Inquisition?

John: So we’re not, we’re not quite ready to talk about music yet in specifics, but in broad strokes I can say the process for us is always the same. Working with the composer, working, figuring out themes, figuring out what kinds of elements we want to keep, tying specific elements to, maybe specific characters. It’s a really in-depth process and a really collaborative process. We have some fantastic audio people on our team that have done an amazing work, amazing job, working with composers, and, with the team as a whole to make sure that, again, we said earlier about cohesiveness. Making sure that the music feels like a cohesive part of the experience.

Katey: And this one, I see is also for John, but I think anyone can answer this. When writing the overall story of this game, what themes did you want to have as the prominent focus?

John: I mean again, it’s interesting, so it’s interesting, because when we were writing these games, and this has been true on every Dragon Age I’ve been part of, what you start with and where you end up aren’t always necessarily the same. Sometimes you start writing out a theme, you realize actually it’s more interesting if we attack from this angle, or maybe if we twist it a little bit. I will say for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, from the beginning one of the biggest themes has been regret. How regret’s shaped peoples’ lives, how people deal with their regrets, how people maybe move past their regrets and, each of the characters, you know, the stories as a whole, have elements of this tied throughout. We really wanted to have that thematic, that cohesiveness to the game’s story and the game’s writing so.

Katey: And I know that, you know, we’ve, we've kind’ve already answered this a few times, but can we play as dwarves and does the world react to your race and backstory? Probably be good to just directly answer that one.

John: Yes you can play as a dwarf. Yes the world does react to your race and backstory. And, again, you’ll have unique dialogues or unique conversation options based on that, on that backstory and as well as that race.

Corinne: I’ll give you a little nugget here, because I saw it scrolling through real quickly. Do you have beards, like. So when I think about can I play as dwarves I think about, do we have glorious fantastic beards? Hell yeah, we do.

John: Yeah, I can say, as somebody who plays a lot of games with character creator, the beards on, I don’t know what magic the character art team did for the beards, but they feel like a beard should feel like, it’s great. They look awesome.

Corinne: Just saw somebody say “it’s beard time”, I love it. It’s beard time!

Katey: Will our heroes and companions leave us if we go against their wishes?

Corinne: Oh my good – do y’all just love pain? Do you want us to make you cry? If you go against their wishes, if you make decisions they don’t like, I will tell you, you can piss them off, you can, they might not agree with you and they, they will take some time away. That said, this is the biggest threat to Thedas we’ve ever seen, so they’re, they are always gonna be willing to show up to defend Thedas but, yeah, you can piss them off and they’ll leave for a minute. As it relates to them showing up to defend Thedas, well yeah, they will, unless…

John: No spoilers Corinne!

Corinne: Aughhh, I’ll leave it there, I’ll leave it there.

John: No spoilers.

Corinne: Okay, alright, alright. But they want it!

John: Yep.

Matt: Don’t try to stop me, Smee!

Katey: This one’s a fun one about some inspirations for the game. Dracanmo would like to know if any songs, books, movies or anything have had inspired any of the writing for the characters?

John: I mean, honestly, the thing about art is, art is always a synthesis of your own experiences both in the real world but also the art you consume, the art you pay attention to. I don’t think that any characters have what I would describe as, this character was a direct reference or direct inspiration but, I mean, yeah, they’re all inspired by the things that we do, the things, both, again, in the real world, and also in the media we consume. And you’re gonna see elements of characters that, yeah, the things that we’ve enjoyed, the things that’ve shaped us, show up in these characters. I think, for me, it’s, it comes down to, and I, I, writing is a deeply, can be a deeply personal experience, so even if you don’t intend for it to be the case, things, parts of you are going to show up in your character, I think that’s true for all the characters in The Veilguard. And, you know, sometimes it’s, exploring, exploring the, y’know, things that, about yourself that you may like or may not like, and it’s also about exploring things about characters that you like or don’t like, so. That’s kinda my long-winded way of saying yes, it’s impossible to not have that happen when you’re creating art. But I wouldn’t say that there’s one where you can say, oh this is this character, this is this character.

Katey: What was the thinking process behind making Harding a companion this time around? Was she always going to be one or did it evolve into one because she was such a lovable character?

John: Ohh, yeah. So Harding, I mean. When we released Inquisition, it was impossible not to see the love that people had for our murderous girl next door dwarf. She’s always been a fan favorite obviously, but I think beyond that, it’s something that there, that Harding’s writer wanted to explore. There was more of a story to tell there, more perspective, and beyond that, Harding obviously has a strong connection to Solas, and to the, to Varric, and to the events of the past ten years, so. I wouldn’t say it’s always been, but I’d say Harding’s probably one of the first ones we settled on as like, yes, this is a character we want and the writer had a story that they wanted to tell with her, so, it just made sense.

Matt: You know, I think actually, to piggyback on that, that’s something I hadn’t really even thought about that much, but, and it’s not a huge part of her character, but, she tends to be one of the people that have the most insight into he was.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly it, that’s exactly, and yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it too. It also provides you with a little bit of that, that perspective. For players who’ve been around, you know, who played with previous Dragon Age games, but also for new ones, who was Solas? What kind of character was, was he?

Matt: Yeah.

John: Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great, using characters to provide windows onto the world is honestly one of my favorite things.

Matt: And, and when I say was, I just mean, in Inquisition.

John: Yes, that’s, that’s exactly it, yes. Thank you for correcting that.

Matt: Yeah.

Katey: And what approach are you taking to quest and world design in The Veilguard?

John: I think for us it just comes down to relevance and narrative heft. We want to make sure that each quest provides either a perspective on the world or perspective on the characters, or feels immediately and obviously relevant to what you’re, what you’re doing here. You’re here to save the world and, again, at the end of the day, one of the things that we heard, we heard loud and clear, was some feedback about how relevant, or in this, in our case, not relevant, previous quests have felt, so for Veilguard, we really wanted to make sure that these quests felt like something that you, somebody faced with the end of the world would believe was necessary and important. So, again, there’s quests of all sorts and sizes, but all of them share that same feeling of, this is the kind of thing that The Veilguard would do. This is the kind’ve thing that my hero would do, especially faced with the end of the world.

Corinne: Yeah, that’s, that’s really good John. That’s so right. I would just, again, double-down on how hand-crafted all the quests are, and whether, whether you’re doing, like, the main story, or you’re journeying with your companions, or you’re out exploring and you encounter a mystery. Everything’s handcrafted, intentional. We spent a lot of time listening to what y’all said, and of course everyone has slightly different tastes, but, you know, you’re not gonna be gathering shards in the Hinterlands. Everything is built with intention, and, you know, a dev there lovingly handcrafting the experience.

Katey: Are there any locations in the game that can only be accessed by making specific story choices?

John: So I don’t wanna get too much into spoilers here because this does start getting into spoiler detail, but I will say that locations can fundamentally change based on decisions you make. Some of the parts of the world that you go to, you can have, the decision, the choices you make have an impact on how these spaces exist and develop, so, yeah, and again, don’t wanna too many into, into story spoilers, but, your decisions do impact how the world shows up.

Katey: And will we be able to control our companions in combat through tactical mode, or if the PC, or player character, gets KO’d, like in previous games?

Corinne: Right, so. If Rook gets KO’d, your player character gets knocked out, this time around it is time to re-load your save, or better yet, the companions have really interesting progression, you can spec them out to be able to revive you, but that’s, that’s if you’ve invested in their own progression and what they can do. And that said, I, I mentioned this earlier but I, I personally spend more time in the nature of this combat system when everything comes together, interacting and directing the companions than I have in any of the other games, so, like, like that, that interactivity between them, once you play it you’ll see how, just engaged the team is.

Katey: A user named It’s Sarah said, my real most important Dragon Age question is, will Solas still occasionally or dramatically speak in iambic pentameter?

John: You know, I was, I actually spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if I wanted to answer this question in iambic pentameter and then I very quickly gave up. Massive kudos to Patrick who, who always writes Solas so well. Again, Solas is a returning character, it’s the same Solas you know and love, or hate, depending on who you are. Same writer, so, I think, this has been, the answer is, well of, yeah, it’s Solas.

Katey: Will our decision of who in particular was left behind in the Fade be important?

John: So, while that decision does not show up, that – sorry, let me, restart. Not for The Veilguard. That decision doesn’t show up here. Now, that said, that doesn’t mean that’s that’s not a decision that will ever be important in the future, so. Again, not for this one, though.

Matt: I’m glad to hear you say that, John, because one of my favorite stories was Bob getting stuck in the web in reboot and it just feels like -

John: That’s a, that’s a deep cut!

Corinne: Very, that’s a deep cut.

John: Holy smokes.

Corinne: My goodness.

John: The sound of my childhood.

Katey: Will we have mounts again? If so, any hints to what types we’ll have?

Matt: So no, no, mounts, excuse me. Mounts were, they were, they addressed a need in Inquisition that we don’t have in Veilguard, and you’ll see why, when you get to play.

Katey: LightningStar asks, how is the side quest design? Will they be mostly story-based, or will there be a lot of radiant quests or resources or Power, like in Inquisition?

John: We talked about it a little bit earlier, but, no, they are all hand-crafted and story-focused. Again, narrative, the companions, not just the companions but the characters in the world as a whole are so much at the core of The Veilguard that, anything other than hand-crafted quests just felt like it would be a disservice to the game we were building.

Corinne: Yeah. And maybe, we can clarify as well, because, like Power was such a divisive mechanic in Inquisition. There’s no mechanic like that that blocks your progression until you fill a bar, right, like that’s just not a thing in this. You have the autonomy to engage in these, these quests as you like. There’s no, like, y'know, grind-out gates before you can progress.

John: That’s right, yeah. Again, we wanna make sure that, again, that doing this content feels as natural and part of the logical flow of the story as possible.

Katey: So, it looks like we only have time for three more questions, so I’m going to get through those. With this next one, is from someone named Jason. Will there be a similar system to the War Table missions?

Corinne: Ooh, interesting. So, we haven’t talked much about the player’s base, the Lighthouse. And we’re gonna save that for a beat, but what I will say is that the Lighthouse, your headquarters so to speak, it has its own unique purposes and functions this time. So that’s an area that we’ll, we’ll leave for you when we talk more about the Lighthouse, and then when you have a chance to hop in, you’ll be able to see what those unique purposes and functions are.

Katey: If there is dual-wield for warriors, will it rely on dexterity or strength?

Corinne: Ah, okay, yeah, yeah. So we did wanna bring dual-wielding back. It is part of the rogue kit this time. So warriors are really focused on mighty two-handed weapons, can’t wait til you see, when you swing and connect with those weapons, there’s, there’s a real heft to it. And then of course sword and shield, so. We’re leaving the dual-wielding to the rogues, but you, you can see just, the amount of hits you can get in in rapid succession dual-wielding as a rogue is really satisfying.

Katey: And the last question that we’re able to get to today, is, what have been some of the challenges and advantages of working on a single, on a single game for so many years? How did you sustain the work in yourselves and the process?

John: That is a fantastic question. I will say for myself, I’ve often joked, and I don’t know how much of a joke it actually is, that when this game is out and I suddenly don’t have to keep all these pieces of game and lore and story and everything straight in my head, I’m suddenly gonna be able to speak Latin or something because there’s gonna be a ton of brainpower freed up. But for me it’s just, you know, it's, the thing that keeps me sustained is just knowing the game that we’re building is the right one. Knowing that the beats are coming together, and knowing just how much people care about this franchise, care about these games, and how excited people are going to be when they get to see the fantastic work that the team has, has been doing. And that really is, I can say, I’ve been on this project since the start, and even today, I see things on a daily basis, I’m like holy – smokes, sorry, I almost swore, I can’t believe what the team is doing, I can’t believe the, how good this looks, I can’t believe. Because it’s a huge game. There’s pieces that I, I don’t see every piece of the game every day so, I get pleasantly surprised on a daily basis and that, I will say, you know, confession, sometimes if I’m having a particularly long day, I’ll spend about an hour late at night just watching cutscenes coming in, watching the work coming together and just, sitting back and being like, holy smokes, I cannot wait for someone who hasn’t seen this every day for so long as I have to experience this and just be blown away by the work, so.

Corinne: It's, it’s been very real, hasn’t it? And, and I will just say, speaking on behalf of the dev team, everyone’s working so hard, they’re putting so much passion, so much of themselves into it. Like this is a franchise they truly love, and seeing your support, cheering us on, it’s just meant a lot to them, so, let me just say thank you to all of you.

Katey: And I wanna say thank you to you three for taking the time to do this. I know that it matters a lot to the community to be able to, you know, get some time with you guys and, you know, make sure that some of their dying questions are, are answered, so thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this. For anyone who’s still listening I promise that I’m that I’m working on a way for these questions to be immortalized somewhere. Stay tuned for that so that you don’t have to worry about this, just, you know, disappearing into the ether. So, stay tuned, thank you all for your time. Anything else we wanna say before we jump off?

Matt: Thanks everyone.

John: Thank you. Yeah, I’m super excited to show more of this and, yeah, this is gonna be, hopefully this is the first of many of these opportunities to talk to you all directly. Again, it’s been a while, and getting to talk about this game has been absolutely exciting. I know for myself, as well for the rest of the team, so thank you all.

Corinne: Just thank you, it’s, the Dragon Age community, how much it means to you, how much it means to us, it’s just wonderful to see you all so invested and excited to come here and talk to us. Thank you again, truly.

Katey: We'll hopefully do something like this again soon. Okay, cool, have a great day everybody! Talk soon!

John: Bye y’all!

Matt: Bye.

[source: The dev BioWare Discord Q&A on June 14th]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

[robertreich]

No Labels Isn't What It Claims to Be

The “No Labels” Party is not what it pretends to be. It’s a front group for Donald Trump.

Now I understand, if you’re sick of the two major parties, you might be intrigued by a party that claims to be a “common sense” alternative that finds the middle ground.

But if you or anyone in your life is planning to vote for No Labels — or any third party — in 2024, please watch and share this video first.

Here are three things you need to know.

First, No Labels is a dark money group with secret far-right donors. Investigative reporting has revealed that they include many of the same Republican donors who have pumped huge sums of money into electing candidates like Trump and Ron DeSantis. They also include the rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow, who spent years secretly treating Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to a lifestyle of the rich and famous.

If the No Labels Party is backed by Trump donors, in an election where Trump is on the ballot, there’s actually a label we should give to “No Labels.” Clearly, they’re a pro-Trump group.

Second, the premise No Labels is based on — that Donald Trump and President Biden are at equally extreme ends of the political spectrum — is preposterous.

Trump has been impeached twice, found by a jury to have committed sexual assault, is facing 91 criminal charges in four separate cases — two of them in connection with an attempt to effectively end American democracy.

There is no “equally extreme” candidate as Trump!

Finally, the structure of the Electoral College means that as a practical matter, a third party only draws votes away from whichever major party candidate is closest to it. No third party candidate has ever won a presidential election.

And in this particular election, when one of the major parties is putting up a candidate who threatens democracy itself, we cannot take the risk.

Donald Trump has already tried to overturn one election and suggested suspending the Constitution to maintain power. It is no exaggeration to say that if he takes the White House again, there may not ever be another free and fair election.

Democracy won by a whisker in the last presidential election. Just 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin — less than one tenth of 1 percent of the total votes cast nationwide — were the difference between the Biden presidency and a tie in the Electoral College that would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives, and hence to Trump.

If candidates from No Labels— or any other third party, like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party —  peel off just a fraction of the anti-Trump vote from Biden, while Trump voters stay loyal to him, Trump could win the top five swing states comfortably and return to the Oval Office. And No Labels’ own polling shows they would do just that!

Let me be absolutely clear. Third-party groups like No Labels are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024, and should be treated as such.

The supposed “centrism” No Labels touts is nonsense. There is no middle ground between democracy and fascism.

Please share this video and spread the word.

[hinasho]

I'll tell you what people's problem with The Crow 2024 is — I'm a longtime fan by the way, I own the comics, I watched all the movies, so on.

The Crow 1994 managed to get the soul of the source material (comics). The Crow is a story about overcoming grief and acceptance of death — the author wrote Eric's story during his darkest periods of grief after his girlfriend was killed. So the story of Eric and Shelley have meaning, they are meaningful characters to a lot of people. Brandon's movie, while with some differences from the original story, still carried the same themes beautifully and the tragedy that happened during the filming made people (me included) turn protective over the memory of The Crow and it’s meaning.

There were three other movies after The Crow 1994 but they never dared to touch on Eric's character, instead they created new ones like Ashe Corven, Jimmy Cuervo and Alex Corvis. And those movies suck, don’t get me wrong, but people don’t have a problem with them because they didn't touch on Brandon's Lee legacy and di their best to stay on theme — grief and acceptance. They are their own thing, and that's that.

So did the comics. Eric story is the first main one, but no one took him and tried to continue it, he's pretty much untouchable, he has his beginning and his end. Instead, they created new Crows for their stories: Joshua, Iris Shaw, Mark Leung...There's a long list of existing Crows with their own stories.

The problem with 2024 The Crow is mostly that they called it a remake and took Eric's names to a character that doesn’t even resembles the original Eric — and I'm not saying in physical appearance, I'm saying his essence because the original Eric is a killer of bad guys, but he's also pretty charismatic; he loved life, he was gentle with the little girl Sarah he was friends with, he was kind, he was thoughtful, he even jokes around! Which, to many people, Bill's Eric does not resembles even a little bit of Eric's other than his name and neither does his story matches the themes and soul behind The Crow franchise.

The main gripe The Crow community has with the 2024 version is them taking Eric's and Shelley story, then changing it so much and losing it's soul when the easiest thing to avoid all this controversy and review bombing would've been just be like "Hey, we're making a new Crow movie, but we have created our own original protagonists for it!" just like people have been doing for years, because that's what 2024 Shelley and Eric feel like to people — original characters who just happen to share the names of the OG's.

Anyway, I watched the 2024 version and while Bill did a phenomenal job as always with what he was given and he looks so damn good, the story just...Didn't get me at all. There's not one bit of The Crow essence in there for me.

Hello, thank you for sharing your thoughts! 💞 I finally watched The Crow 1994 and City of Angels today (still need to watch Salvation & Wicked Prayer) so fortunately I now have a bit more context.

The problem with 2024 The Crow is mostly that they called it a remake

So to begin my breakdown: The 2024 isn't a remake of the 1994 movie. This seems to be a widespread misconception. But in all of the clips and trailers Lionsgate has released, they clarify that it's a "modern re-imagining of the original graphic novel". The movie never claims to be a remake of the 1994 film.

Now a fair debate could be how closely tied (or not) the '24 movie is to the graphic novel, which the two are remarkably different, but based on the reviews and comments I've seen, fans seem more inclined to keep comparing it to the 1994 adaptation despite Lionsgate never claiming they were trying to remake that specific film.

So basically, comparisons between '94 Eric and '24 Eric don't really hold up as valid criticisms in my opinion, because the director had no intention of adapting the '24 film from the '94 movie in the first place.

the original Eric is a killer of bad guys, but he's also pretty charismatic; he loved life, he was gentle with the little girl Sarah he was friends with, he was kind, he was thoughtful, he even jokes around! Which, to many people, Bill's Eric does not resembles even a little bit

'24 Eric is still a killer of killers. He only kills those that attack him first or had something to do with his and Shelly's deaths. He never kills needlessly.

In regards to him loving life, 2024 Eric does in droves! He actively hates having to kill so many people and takes no enjoyment out of it. The opera scene, while fantastic, wasn't a fun moment for him. Since her death, you can tangibly feel that all he wants to do is get back to his simple life with Shelly. He loves her and he loves the life they had.

As for him being charismatic, I can see your point there. In the graphic novels (from summaries I've read), GN Eric does have a morbid sense of humor and at times played around with his kills before finishing the job. His relationship with Sherri was brief but sweet and he gets a cute cat!! He continues to form relationships even after Shelly's death because of his charisma and kindness.

From a writing perspective, I believe all of these moments are intended to humanize Eric given the GN begins with him as The Crow pretty much immediately. We are introduced to him already in the throes of his grief and seeking vengeance.

In contrast, the '24 film paces the transition MUCH slower with the first act being about how Shelly and Eric meet, and the growth of their romance. I believe Director Rupert Sanders used those scenes to humanize the characters instead, which he accomplishes as both Eric and Shelly feel like they're just normal people dealt a shitty hand who only want to live their lives together. You can see the love they shared and how pure it was.

Basically, the core of the characters remain the same, just told in different ways throughout the story. In the graphic novel, James O'Barr humanizes Eric & adds levity in the midst of the carnage, while Rupert Sanders adds it before the carnage. Despite the timeline differences, both succeed in showing that Eric isn't a mindless murdering machine, and is just a regular guy who's been driven to the point of madness.

(It still would've been a nice touch for '24 Eric to adopt a cat for Shelly in the movie though.)

Bill's Eric does not resembles even a little bit of Eric's other than his name and neither does his story matches the themes and soul behind The Crow franchise.

From my understanding, the main themes behind the franchise are grief, the difficulty to move past it, and divine justice.

All three Erics suffer from visions of Shelly, who's memory plays on a feedback loop as they go about their spree. Something both the '94 and '24 films don't do, however, is touch on GN Eric's self harm tendencies. Which isn't a criticism! I'm merely discussing the different ways they show Eric's state of mourning.

The inability to move on is also still prevalent in the '24 movie. It's an active choice Eric makes when Kronos gives him the option to get his life back, and instead Eric submerges deeper and signs away his soul. He steps into it with his eyes wide open knowing he's damning himself forever.

Meanwhile in the graphic novel, Eric is already submerged. He is already a walking corpse, the embodiment of a heart so broken the only way to put himself back together is to weaponize the shards of his loss. I believe this is who '24 Eric develops into after the second act when he signs away his soul.

In the first act, he is human. In the second act, he is transitioning, and in the third act, he has truly become The Crow. Too deep in grief to escape it. The main difference between the '24 version and the GN version is that we see '24 Eric's journey to reach that final stage. It's the difference between character-focused narratives vs parable-like storytelling. Neither is inherently better than the other, just different.

And when it comes to divine justice, hmmm.....

In the GN, Eric and Shelly are killed and brutalized due to a completely random act of evil. The gang that killed them and assaulted Shelly had zero connections to the couple and were just some cruel, awful randos off the street. Based on what I've read, Eric nearly kills all of them without difficulty. Most of his hardship comes from his own bouts of depression and misery.

(By the way, by having the villains all be mediocre average goons, and majority of Eric's troubles be psychological, the GN focuses more on the danger of all-consuming grief, highly likely because of the trauma James O'Barr was experiencing when he wrote it. Meanwhile both the '94 and '24 films have Eric struggle a lot more during his fight scenes, elevating the danger of his physical opponents. But this is a tangent, back to what I was talking about!)

By all of them being average goons, the story gets across that: yes normal everyday people can and are capable of atrocious acts of evil, and yes they deserve to face the brunt of their crimes and divine punishment.

However in both the '94 and '24 movies, Eric and Shelly's deaths are not random and are planned crimes to silence Shelly. And both come up with a "big bad" for Eric to face off against. In the '94 movie, it was Top Dollar, a criminal kingpin, and in the '24 movie it's Vincent Roeg, a rich executive who's also a crimelord.

BUT what the '24 film does differently is that Roeg is also a supernatural being himself, who's made a pact with the devil to trade innocent souls for immortality.

This is probably the only area in which I agree with OG fans on that a central theme was changed. Because by making the main antagonist "unnatural", it's no longer about everyday, normal people committing horrible evils. It's about a supernatural entity on par with The Crow.

I think Rupert Sanders wanted to focus more on the supernatural aspect of The Crow universe. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing and definitely made for a fun movie, but I do agree with OG fans that the "grounded" nature of casual human cruelty was lost in that regard.

By implementing this change, the weight of Eric's vengeance is also changed. Because now it's no longer just personal. As the character of Kronos says in the movie, they need Eric to kill Roeg because he and all the deaths he's caused are unnatural and they essentially need Eric to tip the scales back into balance. While Eric's primary motive is still about doing right by Shelly, there's now an element of saving the world from an unnaturally superpowered tyrant, rather than the everyday cruelties of man.

So in this aspect, I do agree that a core theme was changed between the graphic novel and the 2024 movie. This still doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad story, just that Rupert Sanders had different intentions.

Because this still connects to the previous theme, the inability to move on and cope with death. Except now it's portrayed in the antagonist as well. His power is completely about his refusal to accept his own mortality. However, this does, like I said, detract from the normality of evil theme. So it's basically a gain and a loss 😅

(Plus, as I was writing this, I thought about how Eric's motivation is changed as well. In the '24 movie, Eric's goal is still to do right by Shelly, but it's to save her. Because if he succeeds, Shelly will be resurrected. This adds a noble spin to his killing spree, whereas the GN and the '94 film are solely about overwhelming rage at the loss of a loved one. There is no resurrecting Shelly. It's about enacting divine justice against their killers before traveling to the afterlife together. They're already dead and there's nothing GN Eric can do to change that, unlike 2024 Eric.

On the flip side, while this "nobler" take may feel like a negative change, I think it's countered by the fact that Eric succeeds in saving her, but is still dissatisfied because he's unable to actually be with her. GN and '94 Eric were able to find peace and reunite with their loves. '24 Eric only gets about 5 minutes before she's resurrected and he's stuck in purgatory forever.

At the end of the '24 film, both Eric and Shelly are dissatisfied as they can no longer be together. It's a bittersweet ending that feels more bitter than sweet. So while there is a "nobler" cause behind Eric's actions, the tone of the story is still very grim.

This is also why I believe the way the 2024 movie ended was with the intentions of a sequel where Eric does achieve his own peace. But that's a different conversation!)

...the easiest thing to avoid all this controversy and review bombing would've been just be like "Hey, we're making a new Crow movie, but we have created our own original protagonists for it!" just like people have been doing for years, because that's what 2024 Shelley and Eric feel like to people — original characters who just happen to share the names of the OG's.

Sure! I don't disagree. Well, I don't really think anything deserves to be review bombed unless it's content that's actively harmful. But I don't disagree with the original protagonists angle. Changing the names couldn't have hurt.

That said though, and I say this as gently as I can, Eric's character existed before '94 Eric and does not need to end with the '94 movie. I think it'd be one thing if the 1994 movie created the story of The Crow and that was the first iteration of Eric's character. But... it's not.

Multiple re-imaginings and adaptations of books / comics have been around since forever. The show Smallville and Man of Steel both adapt Superman in wildly different ways. Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew has had five different adaptations, and yet no one shits on 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) or Deliver Us From Eva (2003) for being modern re-imaginings. Awhile ago, me and my friend were discussing our favorite adaptations of the Little Women novel. Her favorite is the 1994 film while my favorite is the 2022 modern Kdrama!

I bring up all of these examples to say that there is REALLY nothing wrong with doing modern re-imaginings of older works, and tweaking characters and plotlines to reflect the changed style of the story and time period.

What's most important is that the heart of the story is kept. At the end of the day, The Crow is about an innocent man who enacts divine justice against he and his lover's murderers, while struggling to cope with her loss. Based on the graphic novel and what I've seen of the 1994 movie and the City of Angels sequel, the world of The Crow says that life can be fair and that no matter how high, or low, or cruel, or spineless, someone is, that karma is a bitch and it IS possible for them to reap what they sow.

I truly think the 2024 adaptation captured that feeling, even if it may look different than what people might be used to or expected.

Instead of being upset about how unexpected it is, try going in with an open mind and seeing the story Rupert, Bill, and FKA Twigs wanted to tell. I've read and seen a few interviews by now, and these three were genuinely passionate about the characters & story, and you can feel that in the movie.

And even if you still have no interest, the other parts of the franchise you do enjoy aren't going anywhere. The 2024 adaptation doesn't effect them in any capacity. The stories you love still exist and the new addition can't harm or take them away from you.

[chaosgremlinmunson]

STWG 04/04/2024

Prompt: abandon

Let's make it 🌶️spicy🌶️

Minors dni, 18+ only

"I swear to all the gods Eddie if you don't get back here and blow my fucking back out I'll get my own toy to play with!" Stevie is whining from the bedroom as Eddie is frantically searching for the keys to the cage he'd been forced to wear all day.

"Stevie! I need to release the kraken to blow your back out! Now where are the keys?!"

Eddie hears telltale signs of the lube opening and the deep groan of Stevie when she's being filled. He rushed into the room, eyes huge as he watched his wife lower herself onto the purple dragon cock they'd bought.

"All's fair in orgasms Eddie, you abandoned me in my time of- uh, fuck yes - need." She bounced on the toy staring up at Eddie, her eyes heavy lidded, "the keys are in my jeans" she rolled her hips down again harder as she watched Eddie dribble pitifully onto the carpet.

“Fuuuck, baby, you're killing me.” Eddie stumbled over to Stevie's clothes frantically searching the pockets of her light wash Levis and came away crowing in victory. He hurriedly unlocked the hot pink cage and stroked himself into hardness watching Stevie raise herself and drop back onto the monster cock he'd designed specifically for her to celebrate her new book. He squeezed the base of his dick as he got closer to where she was panting, a slick sheen of sweat on her full ample breasts as she shook in exertion. He reached out trailing a hand up her chest tweaking a nipple as she mewled out, her hips rabbiting down onto the thick length inside her. Her hand reached out pulling him closer to her, gripping his hair she crushed their lips together sucking his tongue into his mouth.

“You get to watch me cum, and then if you're a good boy maybe I'll ride you next.” She whispered, her smokey sweet voice ghosting over his spit slick lips. She picked up her pace, her hand finding her clit circling it fast and hard as she screamed just for Eddie's ears, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, still leaking steadily.

Stevie looked up at him, her brows furrowed as she slowly slipped the dildo out of her dripping cunt. She stood shakily and crooked her finger to Eddie to come closer, her fingers grazing the swollen purple head of his weeping cock as he kissed, desperately trying to stay still.

“You've been a good boy, waiting for me when you were desperate. It looks painful baby boy, do you need a Princess to make it better?” She reached further down cupping his balls as he whined, leaning into her touch.

“Please Princess Stevie, I need you.” He whimpered, “Wanna be so good for you. Fill you, mate you, love you.” Stevie smiled, he was playing into her fantasy of Dragon shifters perfectly, she caressed his cheek and pushed him down onto the bed as she climbed up onto his lap.

“And in turn you'll serve me as my king always?” She rubbed her slick folds over him, he bucked up into her heat his mouth dropped open.

“Anything you wish, anything. Just love me, own me.” She reached up to the collar she'd been ignoring. He'd insisted on it when they planned this scene, and she hooked her fingers into the ring tugging him up to plunge her tongue into his mouth. Their tongues danced together as she guided his thick length into her, he gasped into her mouth his fingers into her hips. “Fuck Stevie, the things you do to me” he growled into this kiss.

Stevie rode him with abandon, his breath getting rougher and rougher until blinding white surrounded his vision as he came deep inside of her, he couldn't tell where he ended and she began, but he felt her fluttering around him, her hips stuttering as she came down from her own orgasm.

“Gods, I fucking love you.” He pulled her down to his chest running his fingers up and down her sun kissed skin. She sank into his embrace, and slowly they drifted off together as he went soft still nestled inside of her until they'd wake later and pick up for round two.

[primusfortuna]

Major Update

Yumekuro will be ending service on November 19, 2024 at 12:00 JST.

Below is some information on Yumekuro Offline, a version of the game that can be accessed even after the servers close. Please let me know if I missed anything important.

Yumekuro Offline

Yumekuro Offline is a static copy of your user data. You will be able to preserve and view all progress you personally have made in the game, but you cannot build your account or obtain new cards.

To download your data, click this button in the lower right of your home screen. The file size will depend on how much content is in your account.

The download option is available from now until November 19, 2024.

After completing the download, if you obtain any new data (ie. new cards or story chapters), they will not carry over to your version of Yumekuro Offline by default. You must redownload your data to preserve any new content you acquire. You can redownload as many times as needed.

IMPORTANT: You will not be able to regain access if you delete or try to reinstall the app after November 19. Some devices have a setting that automatically offloads apps or puts them into "deep sleep" mode. Please make sure to turn this setting off if you're worried about losing access.

What Carries Over to Yumekuro Offline?

Many features will be disabled in Yumekuro Offline. Below is a list of what you can still access.

▪ Home Screen Remains mostly unchanged. You can still set characters, backgrounds, and time-specific voice lines. You can now view player's birthday messages from your owned characters any day of the year.

▪ Stories The following will be made fully accessible, even if you haven't unlocked them yourself:

Main story*

All event stories (including collabs)

Misc stories (ie. login stories, Black Summer, Grand Finale)

*The current Prologue & Chapter 0 of Main Story will be slightly rewritten to omit the battle and gacha features.

All other stories will only be available if you've already unlocked them. This includes:

Meister and fairy cards

Affection stories

Voice dramas

"His perspective" stories

Past stories

Guild stories

Other stories (past exploration, hunting, stadium, fairy events)

EXCEPTION: These card stories will be available to read even if you don't have them unlocked: ・ Crow, Itsuki, Grandflair (Beginning of a Dream) ・ Evan, Navi, Himmel (Beginning of a Bond)

This only includes the card chapters, not their affection stories or outing lines.

Keep in mind that you cannot upgrade cards in Yumekuro Offline, so you MUST unlock all the chapters you want to preserve before completing your data download.

▪ Guild Life All Guild Home features remain intact, limited to the cards you own. You can now view player and meisters' birthday dialogues regardless of the day. Keeper's Board messages will still be available, but you can't obtain new ones.

▪ Library All information in here will remain viewable. The glossary can still be updated if you unlock new terms.

▪ Collection You can view badges and boards you already own.

▪ Alarm You can still use the alarm function.

▪ Player Profile Able to edit your profile like before.

New Additions

Some new features will be exclusive to Yumekuro Offline. As usual, access to these features is limited to the cards you own.

You'll now be able to access meisters' outing invites and thank-you messages under the "Memories" (思い出) section of the Keeper's Board.

A LOT of voice lines will be added to the Library:

Outings - Max skinship

Outings - Give a present

Login bonus - Daily

Login bonus - Total

Shop lines

Past exploration - Start exploration

Past exploration - During exploration

Past exploration - End exploration

Outings - Max presents

Various battle lines

★ Some unreleased voice lines will also be available:

Seasonal voice lines - Date on a cold day (all meisters)

Seasonal voice lines - Things to do at the harvest fair (all fairies)

Meister birthday lines for years 2-3

Player birthday lines for years 2-3 (from meisters & fairies)

Disabled Features

All quests/battles

Building characters/cards

Campaigns

Data restoration

Data transfer

Events

Event reruns

Friend feature

Gacha

Guild orders

Hunting

Increasing affection level

Increasing guild level

Increasing player level

Login bonuses

Meister birthdays (you can still access the voice lines in the Library)

Minigames

Missions

Obtaining and using items

Outings

Past exploration

Presents

Push notifications

Set support characters

Shop

Stadium

[todaysjewishholiday]

12 Menachem Av 5784 (15-16 August 2024)

Throughout the Middle Ages, one of the recurring strategies of the Catholic Church to place pressure on Jews to convert were formal debates between champions of Christianity and Jewish communal leaders. These debates were not voluntary for their Jewish participants, and the goal was not a fair and effective discussion of differing views. Catholic leaders were convinced that theirs was the one true faith and that Judaism by contrast was fundamentally false and misguided, and since they were generally the debate judges, there was little chance of a fair hearing for the Jewish participants. The goal of the disputations was the humiliation of Jewish religious leaders, and they were often accompanied by burnings of the Talmud and other Jewish holy texts. And when, as often happened, Jews argued well enough to instead embarrass their overconfident Christian opponents, that too was dangerous. Christian leaders did not take embarrassment well.

The 12th of Av 5023 was the beginning of one such debate, known as the Disputation of Barcelona. Paulo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christianity, insisted that he could prove the truth of Catholicism from the Talmud and Tanakh, much to the excitement of Christian leaders. They clamored for the king to force the Jews to debate Christiani so that he could demonstrate the superiority of the Catholic religion. Nachmanides, already in his 70s and well known throughout the Sephardi community, was given orders to appear at the royal court to act as the defender of Judaism. Knowing that the disputations were often made unequal by well founded Jewish fears of punishment for speaking negatively of Christianity and limits imposed in debate rules on Jewish participants, Nachmanides agreed to participate on the condition that the king clearly state in advance that both participants would have full freedom of speech and would not be punished for any of their statements during the debate. The king, seeing the fairness of this request, granted the condition.

Nachmanides and Christiani debated over the course of four days in front of the king and his court. While Christiani’s arguments might have been accepted by a Christian audience without familiarity with rabbinical writings, Nachmanides was easily able to demonstrate their logical inconsistencies.

At the end of the disputation, the king announced Christianity to be the winner, but awarded Nachmanides 300 gold coins for his arguments, calling it the best defense of a bad cause he had ever heard. Going even further, the king attended synagogue services on the Shabbat following the dispute and addressed his Jewish subjects directly.

The Dominican Order, of which Christiani was a member, crowed eagerly about their victory in the debate. Nachmanides, in response, published a transcript to allow the public to consider the matter for themselves. The Dominicans were outraged. They pressured the king to punish Nachmanides, insisting that while he had been permitted by royal decree to speak freely before the court, that freedom did not extend to publication. Nachmanides was exiled from his homeland. Success in defending Judaism was punished harshly. Nachmanides was never able to return home. Centuries later, the same antisemitic views that had motivated the forced disputation and his exile were being behind the expulsion of all Jews from the newly united realms of Aragon and Castile.

Today is also Erev Shabbat. Shabbat HaMalka will descend to comfort us. Her peace is a great consolation in a world full of strife and hardship.

[ray-does-witchcraft]

2024 Attic Calendar - January

Currently working on my own version of the adapted Attic calendar! So far I only have January, but February is almost done as well. Fair warning, this goes in depth about what the festivals/celebrations are and how to commemorate, so this post is gigantic. Attention: This is for the SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE!

⛧ [10/01/24] [Hekatombion 40th] - Hekate Deipnon

WHAT IS IT & WAYS TO CELEBRATE: It takes place at the end of the Lunar month. Hekate means "bringer of light", so at the darkest part of the month, we prepare our homes for the transition to a new month and offer her a meal. Think of it as a mini new year; clean/cleanse your house (especially altars), get rid of things you don't want to bring into next month (physical, spiritual, etc), and leave Hekate an offering at sundown (preferably a meal, but if you can't afford to waste food, just give her something else. Maybe bury or burn it if you can). Here's a list of good offerings (best left outside or at her altar, if you have one for her):

Bread

Cake (especially lit with candles)

Pomegranate

Wine

Honey

Cinnamon

Milk

Chocolate

Roses

Lavender

Poppy seeds

Dandelions

Incense (Frankincense, Lavender, Jasmine, Citrus, Dragons blood, Rosemary, or anything you have at hand)

Keys

Candles

Tea lights

Bones

Fire/Bonfire

Oil lamps

Crow/Raven/Own feathers

Poetry, Literature, Music, Hymns, etc

⛧ [11/01/24] [Metageitnion 1st] - Noumenia

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: The Noumenia is the first day of the visible New Moon and is held in honor of the household Gods. The Noumenia is a celebration of the start of a new Hellenic month and seeks blessings for the household. Honestly? You can just kick back and relax if you want or can, to invite calm energies into the upcoming month. But, if you (like me) want to be a little extra, here's some ways to celebrate:

Start a new personal project or hobby, or just pick back on things you've been putting off.

Set intentions for the coming month, and make plans for any of the month’s upcoming festivals, or for any of your personal upcoming plans.

Leave offerings for your deities.

Moon/stargaze, maybe meditate under the Moon.

Do a reading with your preferred divination method with the Theoi, asking what you should focus on in the coming month.

⛧ [12/01/24] [Metageitnion 2nd] - Agathos Daimon

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: One of my favorites! Daimons are household spirits that look after you and your family, so this is a day to honor Him! Pour a libation (especially wine, but mine likes milk better to be honest), make an offering, light a candle, maybe even make Him a lil altar! He's heavily associated with snakes, but aside from that you can offer (or put in His altar) anything you correlate with abundance, good luck, protection, etc. These guys are so overlooked and I love them. Here's a more in-depth post about Him and the holiday.

⛧ [13, 14, 16, 17, 18/01/24] [Metageitnion 3th, 4th, 6th, 7th & 8th] - Athena, Aphrodite/Hermes/Eros, Artemis, Apollo, Poseidon

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: Not exactly festivals, that's why I compiled them into one section, but these Lunar days are sacred to these deities in that order. Maybe leave them an offering or light them a candle, maybe even just devotional acts! Here's a good list of offerings for each:

ATHENA

Owl feathers/imagery

Pottery

Books

Toy weapons, athames, etc

Roses

Bread

Olive

Honey

Milk

Olive oil

Olive tree branches/leaves (real or not)

Clear crystals

Silver jewelry

Incense (Frankincense, Dragon's Blood, Cedarwood)

APHRODITE

Apples

Chocolate

Honey

Milk

Olive oil

Baked goods

Anything vanilla scented/flavored

Golden jewelry

Flowers (especially roses and anemones)

Sea stuff (sand, seashells, water, etc)

Perfume

Self care products

Rose quartz

Incense (Frankincense, Rose, Myrrh, Jasmine, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Cypress)

HERMES

Currency (real or not) (especially foreign)

Strawberries

Lemons

Dice

Playing cards

Travel tickets

Honey

Milk

Olive oil

Clovers

Cool rocks

Hematite

Incense (Frankincense, Myrrh, Safron, Dragon's Blood)

EROS

Honey cake

Chocolate

Fruit

Sweets (he likes candy a lot)

Milk

Honey

Olive oil

Rose quartz

Feathers

Flowers (real or not)

Heart-shaped objects

Arrows

Jewelry

Incense (Frankincense, Myrrh, Rose)

ARTEMIS

Animal related stuff (Imagery, bones, teeth, etc)

Moon related stuff

Moonstone

Clear quartz

Amethyst

Bows & Arrows

Leaves

Wild flowers

Acorns

Pine cones

Milk

Honey

Olive oil

Water

Silver jewelry

Incense (Frankincense, Cypress, anything woodsy)

APOLLO

Sun related stuff

Arts and crafts

Clear quartz

Citrine

Sunstone

Bows & arrows

Dandelions

Sunflowers

Poetry

Music

Honey

Milk

Olive oil

Water

Honeyed chamomile tea (he loves it)

Golden objects/jewelry

Divination items

Incense (Frankincense, Myrrh, Cypress, Clove, Cinnamon, Bay)

POSEIDON

Saltwater/Seawater

Seashells

Fish

Sand

Toy horses/horse imagery

Photos of the sea

Olive oil

Milk

Honey

Salt

Aquamarine

Sapphire

Incense (Frankincence, Myrrh, Pine)

⛧ [25-27/01/24] [Metageitnion 15-17th] - Eleusinia

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: The Eleusinia was a thanksgiving festival held to honor Demeter for the gift of grain. A modern way to celebrate is to have a big dinner (maybe include some breads and baking) and give thanks to Lady Demeter through it! Thank her for grain and the agricultural processes that we benefit from!

⛧ [28/01/24 ?] [Metageitnion 18th ?] - Adonia

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: A festival mourning the death of Adonis, one of Aphrodite's human lovers. Traditionally, it was celebrated only by women (as a trans guy, I personally don't give a fuck and celebrate it anyway). Also, there's no source for an exact date, so this is an educated guess at best (most sources just refers to it as taking place "midsummer"). For a way to celebrate, I found this amazing hymn/poem. Remember to honor Aphrodite on this day as well.

⛧ [30/01/24] [Metageitnion 20th] - Hera Telkhinia

WHAT IS IT & HOW TO CELEBRATE: A minor sacrifice for Hera, taking place in the suburbs of Athens. Again, not a lot of info, but if you worship or have a connection to her, maybe read her a hymn, pour a libation honor her on this day! Here's a Orphic hymn to her:

Hera, incense aromatic herbs and spices. You are seated in a cerulean cavern, having the form of air,    Íra queen of all, happy one who shares the bed of Zefs, You provide gentle breezes which sustain the soul. Mother indeed of storms, attendant of the winds, all-begetting. Apart from you life and generation cannot be found;    Mingled with the majestic air you partake of everything. You alone hold sovereignty, ruling over all. You are the stream which flutters down through the rushing winds. And now you, happy Goddess, many named, queen of all, Come with a countenance of kindness and joy. 

[karespocketboyfriends]

𝙿𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 2024 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚂𝚒𝚡

Sylus X Evie (OC)

Warnings -> 18+ NSFW (Punishment kink, oral male receiving, penetration via fingers, gentle throat fucking, light spanking, brat taming, use of ‘sir/kitten/sweetie’) situationship dynamic

An original fan-fiction for Love and Deepspace. I appreciate reblogs but reposting to Tumblr or any other site is not okay with me.

Oh, this sounds fun.

I can’t help but think such a thing as I flip the page of my latest smutty novel. This particular story has a very mild plot, but the spice is written so well, it more than makes up for it. The main characters can’t keep their hands off each other, and the scene right now…

Well, it has me crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together, has ideas circling in my head. They say not to replicate what you read in books, but that’s a hard rule to follow when there’s a trusted partner at your disposal.

“Hey, Sylus?” I call, not looking up from the sinful things unfolding before me in ink.

From the corner of my vision, I see Sylus look up from the book in his hand. One that’s undoubtedly more tame than mine. It’s probably non-fiction. Boring. “What is it, Evie?”

I take my time placing my bookmark between the pages. Slowly close the book and set it on the small table next to the leather chair I’m sitting on. “Are you up for a game?”

He takes a minute to respond, and that tells me all I need to know. I’ve caught his attention. Though I’m always ready for a ‘game’, I’m rarely the one to initiate them. “Do you want to play right now, kitten?”

“I do.”

His calm, quiet demeanour shifts into something dominant. He, too, closes his book and sets it aside, placing his reading glasses on top of it. Sylus settles back in his chair and lifts a finger, the locks on the doors clicking shut. The only ones allowed in his private wing of the base are the twins and myself, and although Luke and Kieran are out taking care of some errands right now, those two goons have a bad habit of popping up unannounced.

“Tell me your safe-”

“Crow.” I cut him off while picking up my teacup.

Sylus chuckles. “Eager, are we?” Slowly, he rolls up the cuffs of his sleeves. “Come here, sweetie.”

I blow on the tea to cool it before taking a sip, trying my damn hardest to keep from smiling and giggling. He seems to be in a giving mood. It’s a shame that I’m about to ruin it. “No.”

One thick brow rises. “No?”

“No.” I place the cup back on its saucer. “If you want me so bad, you can come to me.”

We stare each other down for what feels like a millennia. Then, finally, someone cracks.

“Let’s try that again.” Sylus pushes to his feet, sticks his hands into the pockets of his slacks and strolls about halfway to me, stopping in front of the long couch. He curls his finger. “Come here, Evie.”

This time, I don’t bother to hide my smile. “No.”

One corner of his lips curl. Then, I’m being lifted off the couch and carried to him by red and black mist. It drops me on my feet in front of him, and suddenly, I don’t feel so powerful.

Am I going to give up? No. Absolutely not. I chose to play the part of a brat, and now I’m going to see it through.

“Really?” I eye him up and down. “The big, strong boss of Onychinus has to use his Evol to get me out of a chair?”

One of his ridiculously large hands wrap around my throat. He holds me in place while massaging my pulse points with his thumb on one side and his index finger on the other. It’s a possessive hold, one that adds fuel to the fire burning beneath my skin.

“I could have manhandled you out of that chair easily, sweetie.” Sylus leans in closer to my ear, the tickle of his breath making my toes curl in my shoes. “But seeing as this is the game you’ve decided on for the night, it’s only fair that I play along.”

I don’t even try to stop the moan that spills from me. “I’m feeling a little feisty. Are you sure you’ll be able to handle me?”

Sylus chuckles and, very, very gently, gives my neck the lightest of squeezes, nothing remotely close to cutting off my airway. It opens the floodgates, has me gasping against his lips as lowers his mouth to hover just above mine. “Feisty? More like disobedient.”

Already, it’s too much.

It’s not enough.

“Please.” I whimper, wrapping a hand around his wrist. Not to pull it away, but to keep it in place.

“Already changed your tune? That was fast.” He pulls me closer, the contact of his body making something in the pit of my stomach throb. Still, he doesn’t kiss me. “Now, how should I punish you for that show of disobedience earlier?”

Oh, fuck.

I should just roll with this, should be happy with dipping my toe in the water, but a little devil on my shoulder whispers to make it worse.

I listen to it. “I’m not apologizing.”

“You aren’t?” His nose skims his cheekbone as I shake my head in defiance. “Isn’t that a shame.”

A cry rips from my vocal cords as his other hand suddenly cups me between my thighs, the heel of his palm applying pressure. Even with my jeans as a barrier, it still feels incredible.

Just as quickly as his hand appeared, it disappears. I whine and rock against nothing, the tease only making my need spike higher.

Sylus chuckles the way only a man who’s in full control and knows it can. “I don’t think you’ve earned that.”

I huff and attempt to glare at him. It goes poorly. Very poorly, given how heavy my eyelids feel. “Considering all the work I do for you, Sir, I’ve more than earned it.”

“So we’re mixing business with pleasure now? You’ve always drawn the line at that, kitten.” He blows on my ear, making my entire body shiver. “By your standards, then, it doesn’t count.”

Damn him, but there are other strings I can pull, other buttons I can mash. “Don’t you owe me a punishment? Don’t tell me you’re going soft now.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re confusing punishments with rewards.” Sylus’ eyes narrow. He isn’t bantering anymore. He’s moving this thing along. “Get comfortable on your knees, Evie. You’ll be on them for a while.”

This command, I decide to obey. With a lick of my lips, I sink to the floor and practically glue my hands to the tops of my thighs.

“That’s better.” Sylus hums, working to unbuckle his belt. “Are you going to be good for me now?”

“Maybe.” I tease with an innocent smile. “If I feel like it.”

Pulling himself free, he runs the tip over my lips. “Open.”

I do, swallowing him down as deeply as my throat will allow. It burns at first, it always does, but memory has my muscles relaxing, my breath altering, all to be able to focus on pleasing him.

“That’s it.” Sylus praises, slowly and carefully sliding against my tongue, thrusting into my mouth. Despite all the threats of a punishment, he is being heartbreakingly gentle about this. Even more so as he gathers all my hair, holding it out of my face. “There’s my good girl.”

I moan around him, and it must feel good, because his fist tightens in my hair. It feels so filthy, the way his head bumps into the back of my throat, the wet sounds that follow every push and pull of his hips, the way my saliva coats his skin to make the glide easier.

A blizzard of flames swirls in my core, my arousal so heavy I can feel it trickling down the insides of my thighs. I love when he uses me, and when his breaths turn to pants and he’s openly enjoying himself, I love it even more.

The devil on my shoulder is still present. It whispers to me again.

I know he’s not going to like it, but I part my thighs a little and slide a hand between them. The tips of my fingers just ghost over my clit before my wrist is seized and pulled away by a familiar force. His damn Evol. Again.

Sylus pulls out of my mouth, still hard and standing at attention. He taps the side of my jaw before pinching my chin between his fingers and turning my head up to look at him. He doesn’t look happy, and if I should be ashamed of the things that look does to me, I’m not. “Did I give you permission to touch yourself?”

I shake my head, too busy gasping for air to answer with words.

He clicks his tongue. “Stand up.”

I do, and don’t move a muscle as he strips me bare, don’t resist as he spins my body and pushes me onto the couch. The cushions dip beneath my knees, the backrest sturdy enough to grab onto. Sylus pushes on my back until it arches, then glides his hands down my spine until they’re on my ass.

I moan at the feel of his rough hands on my soft skin, experience a new set of tingles at the bottom of my spine when grabs and lets go, over and over as if he were massaging them.

Or asking for permission.

“Please.” I whisper, arching a little more for him.

He takes one hand off my backside and runs it through my hair, gently gripping the roots. He turns my head just enough for me to be able to see him out of the corner of my eye. “Are you sure?”

I bite my lip and nod.

Still Sylus hesitates, gives me time to change my mind. When I don’t, the palm of his free hand connects with the right side of my ass.

I lurch forward with a long, drawled out moan. The sting is noticeable but far from painful, especially when he immediately soothes it with a firm caress. He does the same to the other side before driving his hand between my legs, groaning at how wet I am. “You’re a glutton for punishment, kitten.”

Sylus pulls me up until my back is pressed against his chest, knees still digging into the couch. He wraps a hand around my throat while the other returns to the space between my thighs. I gasp wildly as his fingers dip inside of me, the heel of his palm applying raw pressure to my clit.

“Oh, fuck!” I cry, grinding against his hand. “Fuck, please!”

“Give me one good reason,” Sylus growls into my ear, completely ignoring the way I writhe against him. “Why I should let you come?”

I bite my bottom lip so hard, I’m surprised no blood is drawn. “I-I’ll be good. I-I’ll be your good girl again, Sir.”

He laughs and presses a featherlight kiss to my neck. It’s torture. “I think it’s a little too late for that, sweetie.”

I scream in despair as his hand disappears, once again abruptly snapping the rope of my pleasure. “I’m sorry!”

Sylus shushes me, brushes my bangs from my forehead. “I know.” He puts me back on the previous position. “I’ll make sure of it.”

SFW Masterlist || NSFW Masterlist || Kinktober

[hypnotherapy-blog-blog]

The Black Bag - Part 1.

The Black Bag.

Rob Hadley

Introduction.

When I wrote The Black Bag I had it in mind that many of the people likely to read it would already have a knowledge of Tarot. However, that’s proved to have been a miscalculation. I have been pleased to see many readers have a curiosity about Tarot, but not much familiarity with it.  As a result, I often suggest readers step into this journey with a Tarot deck at hand.  It will help you see the cards mentioned, and to participate in a manner that gives you a deeper connection to the story.  Each reader, does after all, have their own relationship to the cards. Indeed each card relates to each reader differently. As you make your way through these pages, perhaps you will have insights that will make the story unique for you.

My intent is for you to enjoy these pages, and maybe pick up a few ideas along the way. I don’t propose for an instant that any given card has set or established meanings. My own view is that context is everything. The cards tend to match up with your own particular situation and can have very different meanings at different times. I hope you’ll enjoy this journey. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know your own experiences.

My best wishes as you embark on this journey,

Rob Hadley

Vanbc1963@yahoo.com

The Black Bag

By Rob Hadley

C.2024

It is fair to say that the one person you least expect to see following your mother’s funeral is your mother. Yet, as Grahame Bickerton stepped out of the small chapel and into the daylight and looked across the well tended gardens he was shocked to find himself staring at a figure in the distance that bore an unmistakeable resemblance to the very person he had just witnessed being extended that last of human dignities.

The coffin had slid silently away behind the curtain in the funeral home, and he’d been shocked to find himself craning to see the final glimpse as it moved irresistibly into the cremation chamber. And yet here, across this beautifully laid out garden there seemed to be someone that could be his very own mother sitting in mournful contemplation by one of the gravestones, their back to him.

Grahame felt a hand on his sleeve and turned.  It was the only other person that had been at the service. An elderly woman with a cane, bent almost double, the result of some form of spinal deformity.  The woman spoke to him gently, her eyes moist with tears.

“I will miss you mother,” she said. “I feel your loss.”

“You’re very kind,” said Grahame trying not to be too dismissive but wanting to pull away and see the woman in the distance more clearly. She’d got up and was walking away.

“I used to work with her you know, at the college. Geography,” she said. “She spoke of you regularly.”

“Geography?” replied Grahame, completely lost.

“I teach Geography at the college. We used to have tea together often,” she continued.

Grahame didn’t wish to be rude and turned and tried to catch sight of the person in the garden, but she was hurrying away.

“If I can help,” she said, “you can find me at the college.”

Grahame pulled away and started walking across the gardens leaving the old woman staring after him as he strode away.

“Poor man,” she said to herself leaning on her cane. “He’s obviously terribly upset.”

Grahame hurried across the lawns in the direction of the woman he had seen. Soon he stopped. The crows were rising from some trees by the seat the woman had been sitting on but was gone from view now. It was almost as if she’d never been there. He walked on, but after a few moments realised it was no good. He couldn’t see which way she’d gone.

“Christ,” he muttered, then thinking more clearly calmed himself.

“I have to get a grip,” he said to himself. “This is ridiculous, I’m a bloody engineer, dammit.”

With that Grahame dismissed the notion that anything out of the norm had happened. He was obviously overreacting.

+++

It was mid morning several weeks later when Grahame received the call from the car dealership. The fall sunlight cast the city in a flat light that lacked the warmth of the summer so recently ended. He stood looking out of his meagre office at the glass towers of the downtown core and the cranes that perched beside every spare inch of buildable space.

How very different those offices were from his own. From the office beside his he could hear his boss shouting down the phone at one of the project planners. The congestion on the road today was holding things up for everybody. He was well aware that they were pouring concrete on several projects today, and with those cement trucks stranded in the unexpected traffic chaos caused by this morning’s power outage there was sure to be hell to pay. As luck would have it none of his teams were pumping today, so while the atmosphere in the office would be toxic, it didn’t directly affect any of his people.

He’d been lucky, pacing himself lately. The recent death of his mother had forced him to scale back some of his work commitments. As the executor of the will there were assets to be disposed of, taxes to pay, and all the administrative chaos that accompanies the end of life. And that brought him back to the phone call. It had been the dealership he’d taken his mother’s old Town Car to.  She’d loved that vehicle, but it had no business being on the road with gas prices the way they are today. Getting rid of it had been the only thing to do, and yet in spite of his having thoroughly cleaned the vehicle before leaving it at the second hand car lot, the manager had called and informed him that they’d found some old playing cards and some journals when the car was made ready for sale.

“We didn’t want to toss them out,” said the manager. “They may be something you want.”

The manager had sounded awkward. He was aware the car had been Grahame’s mother’s vehicle, being acquainted with old lady. He’d been servicing the car since he’d joined the dealership over a decade previously.

A phone slammed down in the cubicle beside his and Grahame winced. Did the workplace have to be so toxic, he wondered. Looking at his diary he could see he didn’t need to be here at present, and if he were to walk the dozen blocks to the car lot he could get away early and then slip home to work the rest of the day from there.

He placed a file into his brief case and made for the door. His boss was already on the phone to the next project manager, wringing his hands and looking intently at the screen of his laptop and chewing his lip, a nervous habit he’d nursed every day since Grahame had joined the company. He nodded as he made his way out of the building but went by unnoticed. As he walked out across the car park he felt the sun on his face and a sense of relief in his heart. It was good to be out of the cramped office space.

He loved the city, and being part of the construction trade he was enjoying the fruits of a building boom, but it wasn’t lost on him that he worked for a small consultancy firm, and the glass palaces of downtown were far from his reality. The firm he worked for may be part of the construction team, but he was under no illusions about the work. Twice in the last year his boss had been forced to ask his staff to wait a week for their wages, and if his suspicions were correct, it would happen again. In the hierarchy of the building trade, the company he was working for was not what anyone would describe as a highflyer.

He walked smartly across town, the sound of horns blaring a fitting backdrop to the stationary traffic. Another set of lights up ahead had blown out and a crew was struggling to get their vehicle to somewhere they could work on the switchgear.

Grahame tuned out the sound of the city. He thought of his mother, and that he’d only seen her three times in the year prior to her death. They’d had dinner back in April, and then he had driven out to the cottage in mid summer, and then Rose had told him she was going in for some tests. She seemed unworried about it at the time, and he hadn’t really thought much of it.

Deconstructing things later Grahame realised that Rose had suffered in silence for some time before having these tests run. Indeed by the time pancreatic cancer was diagnosed it was already far advanced. She had suffered briefly, and Grahame had visited, but soon after that last time she had succumbed, slid into a coma and within two weeks had died leaving a great chasm in Graham’s life. A chasm he promptly filled with his own guilt for not being a better son, and more available to his mother.

He was being too hard on himself, but that was nothing new.

+++

At the car dealership the manager had placed the collection of journals and other bits and pieces in a large envelope for Grahame to collect.  He walked into reception and the young lady on the desk reached beneath her desk and passed it to him, recognising him from previous visits. Grahame thanked her and took the package, then decided he’d walk home through the park.

There was little point returning to the office today. He didn’t feel up to working, and the traffic chaos of the morning would soon be merging with the afternoon rush hour, as people tried to leave work early to beat the rush.

Taking a moment to sit in the sunshine he stopped at a park bench and opened the package. It contained three journals, all closely handwritten in his mothers handwriting, and one small black bag. He drew this out and inspected it. Inside he found some cards, but not the playing cards you’d expect an old lady to have should she find herself compelled to get into a game of gin rummy. These were altogether more colorful, and well used.

He inspected them and realised that these were tarot cards. He had no idea his mother had an interest in tarot. While not something he had any knowledge of, Grahame recognised some of the symbols on the cards as he rifled through them. He found the cards strangely puzzling, feeling rather like he’d discovered something secret. He slid the blag bag back into the envelope continued his journey home. They were a mystery he would examine further at a later date.

As he walked he lamented the fact that he had few of his mothers belongings, even though he was her sole heir. The reality was that his small modern apartment was hardly a suitable venue for an ancient armoire, or dining table for eight people.

When he emerged out of the far side of the park he was only a couple of blocks from his apartment. Walking to work today had been a good choice, even here the traffic was log jammed.

+++

The loss of his sole surviving parent had forced something of a pause in Graham’s life.  It was a moment in which he was compelled to take stock and look at where he was.

He had recently ended a fruitless relationship of eighteen months. It had been a perfunctory affair, neither very passionate nor disastrous, but lacking in so many of the things he felt his life needed.

They’d found each other online, were both ‘self actualised professionals looking to share all life has to offer,’ according to their dating profiles, but were neither very self actualised (he still wasn’t sure what that meant) nor very willing to share very much. He’d decided he didn’t really trust the person he was dating, and realised she didn’t trust him either. They’d decided to ‘have a two week break’ two months ago and he hadn’t heard from her since.

Surprisingly he didn’t miss the woman either. It was as if the relationship had not really happened at all. And he felt no compulsion to reconnect.

If he were quite honest with himself it was much the same with his job.  He’d been working as a project manager for several years, and it paid reasonably well. While his job didn’t excite him, it provided security enough for him to live in the city, pay a disturbingly high proportion of his income in rent, and to own a car that he could drive at barely 20 miles an hour anywhere he chose. And then pay a fortune for parking. Like the relationship, his job didn’t fill him with passion either.

Grahame was gradually coming to the conclusion that there were patterns emerging in his life that didn’t fill him with joyful expectation. In his mid thirties he had expected something more of life. Was this really it?

These were Grahame’s thoughts as he walked alongside the stationary traffic and glanced at the frustrated drivers in their little tin boxes. Just a few blocks from home Grahame watched an episode play out before him.

A driver in a Jeep was blowing his horn at a car in front. The yellow haired woman sat in a little pale blue convertible, studiously ignoring the increasingly insistent honking. Judging by the body language the young lady had not had a good day, sitting arms crossed and lips pursed determined to ignore the blaring of the horn behind.

“Hey lady,” came the voice. A tee shirt clad young man, physically toned and cocksure, leaned from his car window and called to her.

Finally having had enough, the young woman, her hair tightly curled up in a bun, turned in her seat and shouted back at the man, “For god’s sake! I have a boyfriend!”

She then turned and sat, arms folded defiantly in the stationary traffic, red faced and flustered now with her eyes locked on the licence plate before her. At that instant a gap opened in the lane beside her and the jeep bucked forward and pulled alongside her for a moment as vehicles shifted in the Tetris game of traffic flow.

“Lady, I just wanted to tell you,” said the man, a little more gently now, “You have a flat tire.”

Taken aback, the young woman checked behind her to see that the traffic was not moving, and then stepped out of her car to take a closer look. She wore a smart pencil skirt and lemon blouse, the picture of propriety. She came back a moment later and sat behind the wheel looking perplexed.

She seemed nonplussed for a moment, and then composing herself turned and politely addressed the man in the jeep.

“Can you help me fix it?” she called across the traffic lane.

The young man lit up a cigarette in a slow languid style, and then said, “Like you said, lady. You’ve got a boyfriend.”

The traffic shifted and the Jeep advanced progressing up the line of cars.

Grahame, abreast of the little convertible looked at the woman, and saw the tears welling up in her eyes. He guessed she’d maybe not fixed a tire before. And with so many cars around she would be stuck blocking traffic before long as the tire deflated. He knew that on any other day he would have gone with his old habits and just not got involved, but today was just a little different.

“Would you like a hand?” he asked softly.

“That would be so kind,” said the woman, relief spreading across her face. Suddenly she didn’t seem quite so prickly.

“Just pull in to one of the spaces up here,” said Graham. “I live a block up the road, I’ll help you change the tire. Just let me go up to my apartment and change out of my office clothes. I won’t be more than five minutes.”

“That’s so kind of you,” said the young woman. “You’re like a real knight in shining armour.”

“Well, not really. But I can change a tire.  Give me five minutes and I’ll be back.”

With that he left her and hurried toward his apartment.

+++

Grahame hurried along the street, the sound of construction crowding in on him after the quiet of the park.  That poor woman, he thought. Some men really could be thoughtless.

He hurried into his apartment, tossed the envelope carelessly onto the coffee table, as if by reflex turned on the kettle to boil water for a cup of tea and went to his bedroom. A moment later he’d got out of his work suit and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater.

He turned and was about to hurry down to the street to help the woman change her tire, when he noticed the envelope had spilled its contents across the surface of the coffee table.

Not wanting to keep the woman downstairs waiting, he casually glanced at the table. Cards were slewed across the flat surface in an arc. It looked almost artistic. One card lay face up.

Grahame glanced at it, and then retrieved his keys and made for the door. As he stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, the front door of the building opened and his neighbour, old Mrs. Willoughby entered the vestibule.

At that moment there was a terrible crashing sound from outside. Mrs. Willoughby turned and looked out at the street, a startled look of shock on her face.

Grahame rushed to the door and stared out to see what on earth had happened. Cars were stopped now, honking and people climbing from them and rushing back down the road. It took only a moment for Grahame to realise the sound had come from the building site on the next block, just by where he could see the woman’s car pulled over.

He hurried toward the car, and as he got closer realised this was the centre of the commotion. The woman was standing back, leaning against the siding at the edge of the construction site. He hurried to her side.

The little blue convertible was wrecked. It lay smashed beneath a series of scaffolding poles, looking as though it had been speared in some ghastly hunt.

White faced and shocked the woman stood back, shocked but unharmed, against the siding.

“Good god, what happened?” he said to her after he’d pushed his way through the crowd.

People were looking up, staring at a crane’s hook and some chain suspended seventy feet above the road. A man with a hard hat came barrelling out of the building site and rushed to the car. By-standers were already photographing the wrecked car, and posting them to social media on their phones.

“Was anyone hurt?” the workman was asking in panic, looking around wildly.

“Are you ok?” Grahame said, steadying the woman with a kindly hand.

“I’m ok,” she said rapidly. “I’m ok!”

She was white faced and shaking. Grahame turned to the assembled crowd and said, “Does anyone have some water?”

A bottle was developed and passed to the woman.

Grahame turned to the crowd and asked, “Who saw what happened?”

Several voices piped up. Grahame looked at the man in the hardhat and said, “Are you the foreman?”

He nodded nervously.

“Thank god no one was hurt,” he replied. “You’d better get these people’s statements. The police will be along soon. It’s going to make things a lot better if people are able to describe it.”

The foreman nodded and corralled the witnesses while Grahame turned back to the woman.

“You’re going to need a cup of tea, aren’t you,” he said gently. “Let’s get you out of here and calm things down.”

Grahame handed his card to the foreman, and one of the witnesses.

“When the cops show up can you let them know she’s at my place up the road,” said Grahame.

There was sympathetic nod and Grahame and the woman pressed their way through the crowd and made their way down the block to his apartment building.

+++

Grahame made the tea as his frightened guest sat in the open plan living room.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” said Graham, wanting to keep the woman talking.

“I’m Sunshine,” she said. “And that’s my mother’s car.”

“Oh, dear,” he said. “It’s a very nice little car. Well, it was. How did you come to be unharmed? I mean, it looks like a hell of a mess.”

Grahame poured the tea and placed a cup and saucer before Sunshine.

“I stepped out of the car to look at the tire, and that’s when it happened,” she said. “There was just this rush of air, and a terrible sound. Like bells ringing, and then those scaffolding poles all around me.”

“What a thing to happen,” Grahame said.

“I guess,” she replied beginning to calm down. “I could have been killed.”

She sipped the tea, her hand still trembling. That was when Sunshine started sobbing.

+++

The statement to the police, a visit from the foreman and an exchange of documents all took time and Sunshine seemed to go through the process in a daze. She was glad to be somewhere quiet and safe, and Grahame remained largely quiet in the background as the questions were asked and answered. It was a terribly unfortunate accident, but as the police officer pointed out, no one was hurt. The insurance companies would sort out the wrecked car which was now safely off the road. The construction company manager said the company would be up to their necks in investigations, but seemed co-operative, almost as upset by the whole situation as Sunshine was herself.

“That could have been my own daughter,” said the manager as Grahame had shown him out. It happened that he knew Grahame from the local planning department meetings that he’d sometimes have to attend for his company.

“Terrible thing,” he’d said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Those clamps don’t just fail.”

“Thank heavens no one was hurt,” echoed Graham.

+++

At length the police officer left, and they found themselves alone in the quiet apartment. Noticing the journals and the tarot cards on the table, Sunshine asked, “What’s this?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.  Just some things of my mother’s,” replied Graham.

“Don’t you see it?” said Sunshine, looking at the upturned card.

“What do you mean,” said Graham.

“You don’t think it looks like all those scaffolding poles that fell on my car?” said Sunshine as she picked up the card.

Grahame stared at the card. The Eight of Wands.  He wondered what it meant.

“I suppose,” said Graham.  “It’s really not my thing,” he added and then as an afterthought said, “I’m an engineer.”

Sunshine looked at the card once more, and then at Grahame trying to find the link between not being able to see the visual connection and being an engineer. She failed.

“I wonder what made you turn over this particular card then,” she said. “Probably something subconscious.”

“I didn’t pick that card.  I mean, I just left some things on the table, they just fell like that, and then I came down to help you.”

“And that was before you heard the crash,” asked Sunshine with newly sparked curiosity.

“Yes,” replied Graham, noticing for the first time how the image in the card did look a little like the scaffolding poles.

“That’s quite the coincidence,” murmured Sunshine.

“Oh, I doubt it,” said Graham. “There’s probably no end of these cards look like falling scaffolding.”

His voice trailed off as he realised how he sounded. Sunshine picked up the cards and started shuffling them.

“So, your mother’s into tarot?” asked Sunshine.

“No. Well, yes,” stammered Graham.

“I see,” said Sunshine.

“I mean she died,” said Graham. “And these were among her things. I should sort them out.  I don’t really know anything about the cards.”

Sunshine looked at the journals, and then asked, “Were you close?”

“Not as close as I wish we had been,” replied Graham.

“So, you never knew she was interested in Tarot?”

“Never had a clue,” confessed Graham.

Sunshine turned the cards over in her hands and then said, “You’re lucky then.  This gives you a chance to get to know her through the cards.”

The words hung in the air. 

“What do you mean,” asked Graham.

“Look at these cards,” she said. “You can see they’ve been well used.  These are quite old. Well used. Your mother must have been adept at the cards. Can’t you see it? There’s a lot of her in these particular cards.”

An awkward silence fell between them as Grahame thought about this. It was true, the journals and these cards were like a voice reaching out across the abyss of death. They were a connection.

The silence was broken by the chirp of Sunshine’s cell phone.

She looked at the display and then said, “Mother. This might be a little awkward.”

___________________________________________

If you've enjoyed Part 1 of The Black Bag I ask that you follow my Tumblr and reblog it. To read Part 2 simply go to my Patreon HERE.

Many Thanks

RH

[instruth]

A DAILY EXODUS

Daily self imprisonment

By thy inner government

Two camps in thy temple

The proud and the humble

Inheritance by way of greed

Self interest a genetic breed

Ignore the poor and let them bleed

Support the rulers that feed thy need

Fiery tongues speaking a twisted truth

The rooster will crow, from another roof

Pluck out thine eyes in a dark kingdom

Selling thy soul and trade thy freedom

Get out! Move out before it is too late

These are the signs to thy deathly fate

Raven left a black feather at thy front gate

The mud of slavery stiffens thine knees

And the wine of desire drowns thy pleas

Running the tracks of the burning sands

Hot wind pursues, dry up thy fair plains

Hark! The shouts of offsprings in pain

Fatherless ambition breeding distress

Chaos and confusion add on to stress

Crowns are gained by thy tricky feeds

What good men have earned by deeds

Forty years to struggle for all thy greeds

Gather thy families, march the long road

Away from the treachery of a kingly load

Cross the river of sins to freedom land

Fear not the threats by a heavy hand

For thou art created, be humbler yet

Dismantle all thou did wittingly beget

Upon holy ground, remove thy shoes

Penitence reigns only by rightful issues

A promise of inheritance for generations

Put on sack clothes, grieve in lamentation

Johnny J P Lee

16 July 2024

A Gogyoshiren Poem (35)

Photos Credit, J P Lee

[fandonnavyce]

Danny Phantom Side Hoes Week 2024

March 7: Dani Phantom, self defense

Down by the Beach AO3 Link Danny Phantom x The Owl House

“That’s an amazing sandcastle.”

Collector whirled round, stunned to find that someone had managed to sneak up on him. It was a white haired girl who felt as human as much as she felt of death and power.

“Do you wanna play hide and go seek with me? I bet we’d have so much fun!” Collector blurted out starry eyed.

Fortunately, the white haired girl didn’t look fazed at all at the sudden fervent invitation.

“Yeah sure, you’re it!” she grinned widely. “Don’t forget to count to 100!” Then she zipped away, soaring into the air, her legs now a ghostly tail trailing behind her. The Collector blinked before giggling. He closed his eyes and started counting.

“98, 99, 100! Ready or not, here I come!” The Collector opened his eyes. Of course the beach was empty when Collector gave a quick scan of the immediate area. Then he levitated into the air to get that sweet bird’s eye view. He couldn’t find anything in the Electromagnetic Spectrum for miles around. He switched over to heat vision and then x-ray. But still nada.

“Oh, she is good!” the Collector praised as he soared through the sky on his flying starboard. 

“I FOUND YOU!”

“But now you gotta tag me”

…

“No fair, the ocean is so cold!”

“Oh you think this is cold? I’ll show you cold.”

…

“I call hacks!”

“What for?”

“Animating your sandcastle into a walking fortress is totally unfair.”

“I don’t want to hear that after you froze the ocean. With ME INSIDE IT!”

...

“Listen, you can hear the ocean's roar inside,” frog crouching down next to a tide pool, Dani cupped a beautiful exotic conch shell to her ear. Hovering cross-legged beside her, Collector mimed turning a hand crank; amplifying the echoing sound so that he could hear it too. 

“I’m gonna add this to my collection,” Dani declared whilst admiring the shell, it glimmered a fierce red and spooky silver.

“You have a Collection?” the Collector asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, I‘ve got all kinds of cool rocks and souvenirs from all over the realms. Do you want to see it?”

“Yeah, totally, of course.”

“I mean it’s back at my place, but you can come over.”

“I can?” the Collector’s voice cracked.

“Obvsi,” Dani teased in a ‘duh’ voice, “we’re friends”

“AWESOME!” the Collector yelled giddily into the bright blue sky. This was the first time in his entire existence he had been invited over to a friend’s home. “Whatcha doin’?”

Dani was currently holding some kind of hand device. It looked really funny. It was slab with buttons and a screen.

“I’m calling for a portal pickup” Dani explained.

“With that?! But what is it?”

Dani blinked in surprise, “It’s a long distance communication device called a mobile phone.”

“What, like a crow phone?” Collector cocked his head in curiosity.

Dani squints, “Maybe?” she draws out, “what’s a crow phone?”

“It’s a long distance communication device but it’s shaped like crow”

Dani shrugs, “then probably”, she looks back at her phone. “Hmm a portal should appear any second now.”

Just as she said that, Collector felt his ears pop as reality suddenly burst, like a pin in a helium balloon. Suddenly, a green swirly portal formed in front of him.

“That’s actually really cool,” Collector admits.

“Yeah c’mon,” Dani led the way through the portal.

Collector eyes widened at the Palace of Death, Ice, and Celestial Beauty floating before him, imposing and haunting against a backdrop of abyssal Cosmic Space.

“You live here?! Are you a princess? Where’s your tiara?” Collector asked, rapid fire.

“I’m not wearing it, yes I am, yes I do.”

The Collector looked around, his head on a swivel. “This place is so cool!”

Dani looked over at the Collector’s star themed outfit, “Yeah I had feeling you might like it,” she smiled. She flew up to her bedroom’s window, up in her tower, with the Collector following behind her as they entered in.

Taking up one entire wall, were shelves of her collections and souvenirs from her travels across the realms and Dani gleefully showed it off.

BANG!

The door to Dani’s bedroom slammed open and Dan was standing there in all his asshole glory. Dan looked down with all his stupid height at the two little kids in the room who looked back up at him.

Dani glared up at her brother’s intrusion. W̴̡̛͍͚̳͊͌H̶̦͑A̸͎̩͇͂̓T̷̞̻͖̜͑̾̉͝?̶͚̩̍̆͊!̸̳̱̐̓ ̷̞͙̀ (leave-get-out-get-out) (anger- confusion-disdain) she silently scowled in ghost-speak.

BANG!

Gone, Dan slammed the door behind him. There was a moment of confusion and surprise. Then heard hollered throughout the Palace,

“DANI HAS A BOY IN HER BEDROOM!!!”

Dani’s face was aghast. The Collector’s was bewildered. They could hear the building thunder of a stampeding herd of wildebeests.

BANG!

“Oh look, Dani brought her first friend over,” cooed Jazz.

Danny firmly denied the sight in front of him. “No! No! You’re too young to be bringing boys over!”

“Oooh who gets to do the shovel talk?” Dan cackled.

“Sam” “Sam” “Me” Tucker, Jazz, and Sam said together.

“What about me?! I’m the Ghost King! I’m her Father!”

“Yeah,” Tucker acknowledges, “but Sam’s the scariest.”

“Excuse you, I’m right here,” Dan protested.

Sam rolled her eyes, “Yeah but you’re not gonna bother.”

“... nah you’re right,” Dan shrugged.

“No wait, hang on, I can too be scary. I can be very scary.”

“Danny, you have multiple times needed either Sam or I to correct your order when you receive the wrong one,” Jazz pointed out.

“OK!” Danny blustered. “This and that are two different things!”

“Sorry bro, just take the L. You’ve been outvoted.” Tucker rested a commiserating hand on Danny’s morose shoulder.

“Anyway” Jazz cheered, “it’s very nice to meet you…”

“The Collector” the boy introduced himself feeling shy all of sudden.

“It’s very nice to meet you, the Collector. Nevermind the noise, you’ll always be welcome here.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Collector sheepishly replied.

“ALRIGHT,” Dani started yelling, “OUT, OUT”, she shouted as she pushed her family out of her bedroom. “I’m so sorry,” Dani apologised to the bemused-looking Collector, “my family is so embarrassing,”

“You better keep the door open!”

“DANNY!”

@lexosaurus

[kybercrystals94]

The Hostage

(Part 1)

Read here on Ao3!

Master Post here!

Febuwhump 2024 | Day 17 | Prompt 17: Hostage Situation

Rated: T | Words: 899 | Summary: Omega is taken hostage. [Character Focus: Omega, Hunter, Tech, Echo, Wrecker]

“Wait here, Omega,” Hunter says, catching Omega’s shoulder as she starts to follow her brothers through the doorway. Omega opens her mouth to protest, but Hunter shakes his head. “This isn’t up for debate. You’re staying out here.”

Omega pouts, crossing her arms. “This isn’t fair, Hunter!”

“I didn’t say it was, but it is safer this way. You’re on lookout.”

Lookout. Another way of saying left out. But Omega knows that arguing the point won’t change Hunter’s mind. Instead, she marches over to the wall and falls back against it, adding a hefty sigh for good measure.

Hunter gives her an unimpressed look. “You done?” he asks wryly.

Omega looks away and shrugs.

“We’ll be out soon. Don’t leave that spot. Got it?”

Silence.

“Omega.”

“Yes, sir,” Omega bites out.

“Good. Comm if you need us.”

Omega waits until Hunter is safely through the doorway before she rolls her eyes. She’s been with the Batch for months, has been involved in much more dangerous missions, and has even single-handedly gotten her brothers out of scrapes that they got themselves into. And yet, Hunter doesn’t trust that she can handle herself during a simple negotiation. It’s stupid. She’s not a tubie. In fact, she remembers when her brothers were in their tubes, when they were literally helpless.

She is so busy fuming over the absurdity of it all that she doesn’t notice the cloaked man until he is standing only a few meters away.

“You all by yourself, kid?” he asks her, voice low.

Omega scrambles to stand up straight. “No,” she replies, scowling up at the stranger, channeling all the heat over her situation into her tone. “My brothers are here.”

“They inside?”

“What’s it to you?” Omega shoots back.

The man smiles a wretched, rotting smile. He takes a step forward. Omega takes a step back, but she’s already against the wall. She reaches up to grab her bow, but bare, dirty fingers latch around her wrist, yanking her forward with shocking ferocity. She opens her mouth to scream, but another hand claps over the whole bottom half of her face, blocking her mouth and nose. Panicked, Omega realizes she can’t even breathe. She thrashes in her captor’s arms, kicking her legs wildly.

“Hold still,” the stranger growls, an unspoken threat in his inflection; however, Omega knows better than to listen. She struggles with all her strength, the bow on her back giving her some distance from the stranger’s chest, some room to twist and writhe in his grasp.

The hand on her wrist releases, and she uses both her hands to pull at the hand blocking her airways. Black splotches dance across her vision, her lungs scream for air. She tries to dig her teeth into the stranger’s palm; however, his hand is so big, it cups under her chin, holding her jaw shut.

Lack of oxygen weakens her movements. Omega’s eyes dart along the empty alley, searching for help, someone who might see something, might step in. But it is as barren as when they arrived, except for the stranger that suddenly appeared.

Her only hope is that her brothers come out…

The world around her is bled of color, turning a dull gray as her vision fades. Her last thought is that maybe Hunter was right.

Omega can’t handle herself after all.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

The negotiation goes almost as poorly as the Batch had anticipated: hands hovering restlessly over holstered blasters, veiled and outright threats, unfair offers of payment followed by more threats. Hunter is glad he made Omega wait outside.

“That could have gone better,” Echo mutters irritably as they make their way up the narrow steps to the door.

“Could have gone much worse,” Tech quips, not even glancing up from the mission parameters that have been sent to his data pad.

“Least we��re getting paid,” Wrecker crows from the back of the group, “I get to tell ‘Mega what happened.”

“Nothing happened, thank the force,” Hunter says, pausing at the top of the steps to let the door slide open. He blinks rapidly against the stark daylight before turning to the spot he left Omega in her agitated mood.

She’s gone.

“Omega?” he calls out, glancing around the alley, sure that her curiosity had enticed her to wander.

Wrecker turns in a circle. “Where’d she go? Omega!”

Tech taps several commands on his data pad. “Her comm’s beacon shows that she’s just around the corner.”

“Of course she is,” Hunter grumbles.

Tech leads the group down the alleyway and into the busier main street, weaving them through the vendor stalls. Hunter’s eyes search for the familiar face of his sister, an uneasy feeling taking root. She isn’t here.

Tech stops at a vendor selling a myriad of electronics. “Her comm says she should be here,” he says, his matter of fact tone stilted by an edge of concern.

“Excuse me,” Echo says to the Rodian behind the booth, “have you seen a girl around here? About this tall? Blond?”

The Rodian eyes the group warily. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Why would there be trouble?” Hunter asks, trying to keep his tone level. “We’re just looking for our sister.”

“He said to give you this,” the Rodian says, “That he’d be in touch. I had nothing to do with it, I swear.” He brings an energy bow and communicator from under the counter.

MASTER POST || NEXT PART

✨Let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist! ✨

Taglist: @followthepurrgil @isthereanechoinhere96 @amorfista @arctrooper69 @proteatook @mooncommlink @nagyanna424 @merkitty49 @groguandthebadbatch

[nocturnalghoul]

Mushy May 2024

Day 2- Lake Night Snacks

Rating: G

Pairing: Cumulus & Rain

Words: 591

Thank you to @forlorn-crows for organizing the event once again ♡

Divider by @ghuleh-recs

There’s a high chance the loud noises and faint smell of bacon coming from the kitchen is purposefully trying to tempt somebody out, but Cumulus has been tossing and turning so long that she really doesn’t care. It only takes about 20 seconds before she’s throwing on a robe and slippers and setting down the hall in search of a distraction.

There’s a faint discontent noise from down the hall that she immediately clocks as belonging to Rain, bringing a soft smile to her face. It is so rare that she gets time alone with the water ghoul, the two of them often getting snagged by somebody else. This chance for the two of them to hang out alone is beyond overdue.

Before heading to bed she had noticed how beautiful the moon was shining on the lake, streaks of captivating pale blue light rippling with the shifting surface of the water. It had almost convinced her to head down, so it makes sense that Rain ended up there. Odds are he got carried away and only wandered back in.

As she rounds the corner to the kitchen, she can’t help but take a moment to appreciate the darling look of concentration on Rain’s face as he carefully pours batter onto a griddle in slow deliberate shapes.

“3am seems a bit early for breakfast” she teases, hopping up to sit on the counter opposite the griddle.

“It’s not so much early for breakfast, but late for dinner really. Got caught up at the bottom of the lake enjoying the moonlight, when I realized I was starving. Nobody else was up, but I had a feeling the extras wouldn’t go to waste” he yawns out in response, flipping a pancake onto the empty plate next to Cumulus.

“Hmmm you have always been perfect tempting, and I am here now so it’s a fair assumption.”

Cumulus smiles at the heart shaped pancake before picking it up, ripping it and handing one half to the water ghoul. She takes a quick moment to reunite the heart in a cheers motion and pops the treat into her mouth.

“Mmmm, it might be the late hour but that’s beyond amazing”

“Sunny and I have been working on incorporating fruit puree into the batter” Rain beams, sighing contently as he eats his own half.

“Mmm I love that y’all found an excuse to do something together that doesn’t end in tracking water everywhere”

Rain attempts to fake looking hurt at the insinuation that Sunshine and him are anything but well behaved, but it only lasts about 3 seconds before he dissolves into giggles.

“Yeah alright, well maybe you and I will have to scheme up some trouble to make up for it.” he lilts, following the air ghoulettes eyeline to the bacon beside him and handing her a piece.

The two go back and forth trading jokes and enjoying the alone time as Rain finishes up cooking. Eventually they hear a telltale groan of Mountain stretching as he shambles down the hallway to start his early day and make sure to leave the plates of food where he will see them.

They quietly scamper off to the patio to leave him to his routine, and make plans to meet up for some less elaborate late night snack and overall shenanigans on a semi-regular basis.

The next time the moon gets that particular irresistible shine to it Cumulus knows she’ll get alone time with her favorite water ghoul once again. This time she doesn’t even attempt to sleep, knowing the anticipation would keep her up anyways.

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of lawn care

10:30pm, sunday, may 26, 2024

cut the grass today, and then went and spent two hours lolling around outside, sitting on a blanket that even now smells perfectly of summer

reading just finished kj charles' the henchmen of zenda (thank you @yogurtforever for mentioning it to me! please overlook the fact that i'm about to go off) and i have to say, surprisingly, this was a rare kj charles miss, for me! i still finished it, i still think i'm glad i read it, but from an author who i've adored all of her other work, it's odd to realize i didn't have as much fun here as i would have liked. two reasons for this, possibly, one that i think it was an early work for her [edit: nope came out in 2018] and two that i actually had read the source material of which this is an au, and i found it continually grating that this book's whole tone and style is set up to be cynical about the original prisoner of zenda novel. if you want the critique to really, actually matter, don't change so much! don't make your case by actually rewriting the entire personalities of the king and player-king, who in this turn into strawmen because they've literally been restructured to prove monarchy is awful. the other option, b), would be to step further away from the source material, in which case you need to stop quoting the original book and integrating so much of the original language. bah. this leaves us open for one of my most irritating little meaningless quibbles, which is that a character gets very self-righteous about what the original novel's narrator meant by using the term 'well-bred', to the point that i think ends up actually being ahistorical and weakening the overall critique we're trying to produce here.

charles is also trying to introduce more time and personality for the female characters (moderate success) and insert some revolutionary, 'hey wait a minute the best answer here is not a continuation of the monarchical system where everyone sucks' sentiment (middling to poor success). i just...found i really hated the idea that every character was Worse, Actually than in the original novel, although in fairness it is believable that the pov character here would think that, i guess. you chose a narrator who's going to take a cynical view of everything, and are trying to show how he allows himself to trust and/or like certain very few people, and it didn't make for a great reading experience.

the same, however, can't be said for the other two books here, although arguably they are also dealing with a narrator who is a) damaged and grieving b) gay. katherine addison's the goblin emperor was a christmas/birthday gift for me in...2022 and was such a gem, a gift in multiple senses, and this spring i have finally indulged in the two companion (?) novels, which i read voraciously on Eclipse Day and the weeks following, and then have turned around and listened to in audiobook almost immediately. the world of amalo is no less full of horror, death and injustice and corrupt or infuriating structures of power are a big part of the inciting action, but the time we spend seeing the people who are kind makes these so much more. pleasurable to read. plus the details of the city, the public transit, the tea houses, the opera, the belle epoque prague vibes. there's comparatively more death, more 'true crime' style mystery solving, more small vignettes of crime (reminding me that she does like writing cases like this, and making her her sherlock holmes au angel of the crows, pictured in ilcb 05/12/24 but not discussed, fit into place in a new way), but the lack of cynicism matters.

listening a lot of podcasts lately. had reason to try and sum up my podcast habit recently, and realized that i am really almost constantly listening to one, of some variety. i go through different moods and will switch between shows to find the right vibe rather than try to finish one all the way through. that being said, the list i tell people when asked 'oh what do you listen to?' is, like, 99% invisible (genuinely really enjoying the robert caro the power broker read-along, despite not reading the book-- it's fascinating) and articles of interest and ologies, whereas this week i think it was primarily no such thing as a fish, followed by normal gossip, followed by i hate it but i love it followed by some npr and crooked media pods (god help me, i do still check in on their election takes and will probably continue to do so out of morbid curiosity). the maxfun shows i listen to? are like family to me, and may be just as overlooked-- but you can bet that's where i'm turning first when stuck on a long subway ride.

watching had reason, last week, to sit down and watch the entire new season of gamechanger start to finish. y'all heard about this shit? gamechanger? anyone? yes? i bought dropout for myself and a few friends last year, and it has been the best possible investment. i love feeling the, like, increase in energy and stakes and creative chaotic potential in each new episode, each new show that gets added to the roster, but i love gamechanger til death do us part. hard to pick a favorite bit for cast psychic damage and resulting peak performances (second place?? bingo?? the timeloop??? sam says????) so let me here give a shout-out to the lesser memed episodes this season, the drawfee collab and the newlyweb game (scream) and beat the buzzer, all of which were so fun while featuring people i knew less or not at all. the little sam reich matryoshkas absolutely killed me. can we hear it for the motherfucking ART DEPARTMENT.

playing having beaten one of the colosseum of fools tournaments in hollow knight, i've gone back for round two and am now emotionally trapped until i can win this second one. since i need the pale ore from it in order to upgrade and do anything more challenging. so it goes. this has also meant that i turned back to other games, after not wanting to continue to die so very much. chants of sennaar was there waiting for me so politely, and i got through the third language and felt pretty accomplished after puzzling slash brute-forcing it i had to do to make things work. was not expecting the uh. the jumpscare, as it were, at the end of the bards' level. but look how gorgeous.

making made a pretty passable banana bread today. the ratio of banana to other ingredients was a little off, so it's largely just 'bread' and isn't too sweet, but it's more than edible.

working on ignoring my email inbox, ignoring my article revisions, ignoring my chapter edits--forgot to send out the email with discussion questions for our panel discussion which we meant to send out this friday, fuck! trying to make progress on paid tasks and stay on top of those hours before i leave, trying to also organize my trip which has meant, like it or not, getting back to some of those emails. also i found an article in welsh which i had been unaware of which will be Extremely Good to have read, even if it doesn't tell me anything too new, just so that i can prove i did. my footnotes always feel so anemic. hopefully this helps, and hopefully i speed up--currently reading about two pages an hour if i'm lucky.