#Dont diminish their rivalry

[ashboilol]

Why Naruto always lost rightfully to Sasuke

Tbh I know Naruto lost to Sasuke in the Valley of the End, but I don't think Sasuke wanted to kill Naruto either. Neither he, nor Naruto, wished to kill each other. Both still went all out against each other. Btw I'm talking about their first fight in the VOTE, not the second one.

So many people say Naruto should have won. No, Naruto rightfully lost that fight. Now, I know Naruto only attempted to hit Sasuke's headband, but if Sasuke used Chidori on Naruto's heart, Naruto would be dead, Sasuke may have unlocked the Mangekyo earlier.

Ofc, in Shippuden, Naruto's first fight with Sasuke was an utter 4v1 loss, but the main point is Sage Mode Naruto. First of all, Sage Mode Naruto cannot beat EMS Sasuke. EMS Sasuke was able to block so many of Juubito's attacks, whereas KCM1 Naruto and KCM Minato were unable to react in time, so EMS Sasuke blitzes Sage Naruto who is slower than KCM1 Naruto. Now, MS Sasuke is a more even match. Sage Naruto can stomp Taka Sasuke, who JUST awakened his Mangekyo (who the hell pits a dude with a newborn Mangekyo against a guy like Killer Bee, that made no sense and the Akatsuki was horribly dumb to do that), while Naruto now has more chakra. Kage Summit Sasuke, however, can defeat Sage Naruto. This Sasuke managed to hold his own against the Fourth Raikage, which puts him near the level of KCM1 Naruto (since he can't defeat that version of Naruto), and after that Sasuke managed a stalemate against Gaara who was at peak health. Ofc Gaara can't beat or even match KCM1 Naruto, but still Gaara is a powerful shinobi. So Kage Summit Sasuke beats Sage Naruto.

EMS Sasuke is also a lot stronger than KCM1 Naruto. EMS Sasuke managed to, as I stated before, be a tier of reaction speed even higher than Minato the Yellow Flash, in KCM no less. KCM2 and KCM2SM Naruto can beat EMS Sasuke, which is where it gets to Naruto's favor.

War Arc (Six Paths Naruto vs Rinnegan Sasuke): Now we know that these two fought, with Sasuke have all the tailed beasts under a Genjutsu (no he did not use their chakra), and Naruto having half of Kurama. Now, people say Naruto held back, but that is false. Going all out doesn't mean going for the kill. Did Naruto want to kill Neji in the Chunin Exams? No, but that never stopped him from going all out against Neji, so it cannot have stopped him against Sasuke who is far more dangerous. Plus, Sasuke, as I said before, never used the Tailed Beasts chakra, but he put them under a Genjutsu because he can't logically have let them be without them supplying chakra to Naruto, so it was Sasuke with a base Sharingan (he for some reason, maybe loss of chakra), and a Six Paths Rinnegan versus Naruto with SO6P + Kurama's chakra, so evenly matched. It ultimately ended in a tie, so they both are equally matched at this point. By the end of the series, they are equals.

The Last: Sasuke hands down. Sasuke was stated to be Kakashi's strongest student, so Naruto loses this, but not as easily as most of the main series.

Boruto: Equal, but Sasuke has the edge due to high amounts of time actually facing threats. Amenotejikara is also a good move against Naruto if dear Lord Seventh tries anything. After Naruto and Sasuke lose Kurama and Rinnegan, however, Naruto far surpasses Sasuke due to SO6P.

Ultimately, I think Naruto lost to Sasuke rightfully most of the time. Naruto and Sasuke are true rivals, atleast by the end of the series, and both acknowledge each other as equals. Don't ruin their rivalry and friendship by constant bickering over who is stronger. They acknowledge each other as rivals, so don't make it look like Naruto or Sasuke are far stronger than the other. Same with Madara, he did surpass Hashirama, he only used Hashirama cells to gain the Rinnegan.

Thanks for reading!

[selamat-linting]

if the guy in the mask is j*ck p*rry i will actually be one of those deranged fans who outright wish for aedub's downfall. okay thats hyperbole, i personally dont find anything special in him but he's not especially bad and he shouldnt get fired. but still, putting him in that angle? he doesn't have the charisma nor the name recognition to pull it off yet and tk is too shitty of a writer to make it a good moment. for a casual fan or newcomer who didnt follow the drama, theyre just gonna be confused that jp (if they even still remember him) who never really had a interesting rivalry w/ mjf would suddenly go all up and personal like that. they might still watch ofc because hey, its an interesting concept. but tk has shown no indication that he could write a good storyline with a proper pacing. the audience would grow bored. fans who prefer other promotions would find the whole thing kinda tasteless and just feel like a cheap way to generate notoriety by referencing backstage drama that shows how unprofessional everyone in the company is. nobody likes it when wwe referenced montreal screwjob so why would you reference a backstage altercation that humiliates literally everyone in the process? honestly, the worked shoot stuff is difficult to pull off properly and even when its well liked, the performers (looking at you punk) who do that kind of stuff had to carry a bad name and perception that fucked over their careers in the end. i think the only ones who would like jp to be the guy in the devil mask is people who are already hardcore company stans in the beginning who'd eat everything up. but even those ppl are diminishing.

[hedgehog-moss]

i absolutely loved your recent explanation of french to english and english to french translations! sometimes, i read a book translated into english and you can just tell with the way sentences are traslated that they were written in another language first e.g. 'praising the portentous architecture of the sky with trite formulas' from elena ferrante's book (trans from italian).

not diminishing native english writers but that sentence stood out to me as like "oh okay, i dont know if a native english writer would have written that but, from my understanding of italian, that's been directly translated", it was very interesting if you understand what i'm trying to say. thank you.

You my friend are a sourceist ! :) As we call people who enjoy “feeling” another language right underneath the surface of a translation.

There’s a whole rivalry between translators who favour “sourcières” vs. “ciblistes” translations (as we say in French). Literally it’s sourceist vs. targetist, but English prefers verbs so I think you’d call it foreignising vs. domesticating translations. Basically it’s whether you prioritise the source language (preserving as much of its specificities as possible, even if it means “foreignising” your own language a little, writing in a way that will feel a bit unnatural to your reader) or prioritise the target language (“domesticating” the original text to make it more familiar to your reader, like when American publishing houses re-publish British books and change “Mum” to “Mom”). It’s often simplified as, are you more loyal to the author you’re translating, or to the reader you’re translating for. Most translators will say you need to find the right balance between the two extremes (but most translators are secretly targetists) (that’s my impression anyway.)

Both methods can lead to awful translations when you go too far in one direction—I remember making a post a couple of years ago about a translated book I was reading that was set in Kazakhstan, in which a character (who was supposed to be speaking Kazakh in the context of the story) said “We can’t invite every Tom, Dick and Harry.” That’s domestication gone too far—it was so jarring and nonsensical in a setting where all the characters had names like Kazangap and Sabitzhan!

But foreignising can also go too far—it’s difficult to do it well because you need to make sure the foreign phrases, concepts or connotations you preserve don’t clash with your own language’s concepts or connotations (or writing style preferences). It happens infuriatingly often in French books translated from US English that the translator keeps the word “college” to mean “university”. I don’t know why this stupid mistake is so common, they’ve got to be doing it on purpose, do they think it makes the book feel more American? But it just confuses the reader because collège in France is middle school. The word already exists!!! and it brings to mind 11-14 year-old kids so it’s really jarring and takes you out of the story when you need to remember every time that the “collège” students here are older teenagers. There are times when calquing foreign words or phrases in your translation is a bold, interesting choice—but not when it removes something (meaning, clarity, connotations) from your language.

It does work when it adds something—novelty or poetry or a connotation that tells you something about another culture without clashing with your own. Like in your example, if you calque an interesting turn of phrase that feels natural in one language and less so in another (but more poetic, intriguing, etc), then your language gains something. I like when translators do this with terms of endearment, like preserving “my little lizard” or w/e instead of replacing it with kitten or your cultural equivalent—if I’m reading a book set in another culture, I’m delighted to learn what silly things people in that culture call their kids or SOs. But it doesn’t work if it removes something from your language—for example if a character in a French novel calls a boy a term of endearment that’s masculine in French but feminine in Spanish, better change it to something else so you don’t confuse the Spanish reader / make them wonder if the boy is being teased or what—you’re asking them to remove meaning / connotations from their language to replace them with something else and the clash just takes you out of the story.

So it’s always a balancing act between your love and respect for the original language / culture / author’s writing style, and your duty to the reader, who needs something familiar enough to be intelligible and pleasant to read. (But at a certain point domesticating your translation too much suggests a lack of respect for your reader’s ability to handle unfamiliar concepts and their curiosity about other cultures.)

I remember reading an article by a translator of, I think, Uyghur, who wanted to keep the phrase “like a third-day moon” to describe a finely curved eyebrow. That's a foreignising translation if your culture isn’t familiar with the lunar calendar and the typical reader is clueless about what the moon looks like on the third day of the lunar month—but if they can guess from context that it’s a delicate eyebrow, it’s not the jarring sort of foreignising that takes you out of the story because you can’t figure out the connotation or it makes no sense in your language; it’s the kind that makes you go “oh, interesting phrasing” and might teach you something (but in a subtle way!) about the kind of culture that would use it. It’s one of the joys of reading translated literature, to discover details of another culture almost without noticing, without having them explained to you in so many words. You’re just absorbing them by osmosis by being immersed in a story in which the translator managed to preserve the right kind & the right amount of surprising little turns of phrase.

[fanmoose12]

can you write a prompt based on anon ask what if lololol. When Zeke and Levi were in the forest. "You're not popular with women, are you?" after that. "I find her attractive". I can't think other line but you know Zeke finds hange attractive and trying to Levi get jealous????. Wattt soryy i hope you understand what I mean. Like rivalry?

uhm i know this is weird idea. it keeps playing on my mind. Levi found that Zeke really attacted to Hange. He really admire her personality and being smart. Same as Zeke know that Levi have feelings for her. Hange dont have any idea what are they actually fighting. lololo sorry my grammar sucks I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Hahahaa thanks I really like your works!

"you're a very lucky man, levi," zeke noted, looking at him over the book.

"no shit," levi snorted. "i'm not an ugly bastard like you."

"physical attractiveness is purely subjective," zeke easily retorted. "some people like beards, you know. maybe, your commander does too," not breaking eye contact with levi, he lifted his chin and scratched his beard. "too bad you can't grow one, eh?"

"but that's not what i meant when i spoke about your luckiness," zeke said, while levi was too busy deciding the best and cleanest way to dismember him. "what i meant is your close relationship with commander hange. you're always together, always side by side... there are many people, who envy you, i'm sure."

"what the fuck are you blubbering about?" levi crossed hands on his chest, his face turning even more sour than before.

"ah, you know," zeke waved his hand with an easy smile on his lips. "commander hange is very... attractive, for the lack of better word. her intelligence and charisma... it's hard not to fall under her charm, right? she managed to sway even man as stoic and apathetic as you, after all."

"you think hange is attractive?" levi murmured, his eyes wide. he stared at zeke, waiting for a sign of sarcasm on his face. there was none.

"who wouldn't?" zeke asked. "a seasoned warrior and a great leader, she's the type of every soldier."

"don't get your hopes up. you most definitely aren't her type," levi said with a fierce scowl. "i doubt hange likes men who murdered her friends and comrades."

"maybe, you're right," zeke sighed theatrically. "i guess she likes tiny angry captains more."

levi glared at the annoying shifter. he could have easily shut him up. use a throwaway threat or insult. he could have ignored him completely too. but he didn't want to. there was something in zeke's eyes, something that told levi - he was actually telling the truth. maybe, he did have a crush on hange. and even if he didn't, he obviously respected her.

and levi was looking after the hideous fucker for almost a month. he couldn't even punch him. he needed some release. he wanted to feel satisfaction.

so he looked zeke in the eyes and let a proud smirk grace his features.

"hange does like men like that," he agreed, savoring the look of astonishment on zeke's face. "she likes men like that a lot."

god, it felt almost as good as kicking the bastard.

levi left zeke's company shortly after that, but his contentment didn't diminish.

although, there was only one thing that quelled his triumph a bit - hange wasn't there to share it with him.

[sulietsexual]

Its been a while since I asked you meta related things so I just had a random idea - top 5 characters which you just dont understand, top 5 ch which are well writen but you cant connect or like, top 5 ch storylines you would like to alter, top 5 traits of your disliked chracters that you like, top 5 traits of your loved characters you dislike, top 5 ways your disliked characters contributed to the main storyline that youre fine with. For males and females separately so theres room for thought :)

Top 5 Characters I Don’t Understand

Male

Wesley Wyndam Pryce - okay, so this is only from mid-Season 3 onward, but I cannot fathom Wesley’s actions in stealing Connor, consulting with Holtz and doubting/not believing in Angel to the point where he didn’t realise that Angel would do everything in his power to protect Connor. Then his self-righteous attitude post-kidnap is appalling, the fact that he acts like the wronged party and refuses to acknowledge his own wrongdoings and never apologises for his actions all drive me crazy. Just can’t.

Luke Danes, I mean, buddy, pull it together. You say you want Lorelai, yet never make a move and then bitch about her boyfriends and act like a jerk. You say you’re “all in” and then you run at the first sign of trouble and make Lorelai feel like she did something wrong. You tell Lorelai you want her to be honest with you and then you hide your daughter from her for two freakin’ months. You say you want to spend your life with her, yet you shut her out of it. Like, wtf??

Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III, omg, why is he such an abusive asshole? Why does he treat every woman he’s with like crap? Why does he treat Mellie as if she’s insignificant and stupid? Why does he act entitled to everyone’s time and affections? Why does he continually try to give up the most powerful position in America? Why doesn’t he have any ambition? Why does he resent anyone who does??? I don’t understand.

John Winchester. Dude’s always going on about how he “did the best that he could”. Nope. The best he could would have been to raise his boys in a stable freakin’ environment, not push adult responsibility onto his eldest, not treat his youngest like an outcast/freak for wanting a better life and actually being an adult and being there for his boys. How does he justify the way he treated his sons? Don’t get it.

Finn Collins. Dude, you cheat on your girlfriend, neglect to tell the girl you’re cheating with that you even have a girlfriend, don’t tell your girlfriend you cheated on her and expect both girls to still want you? Plus the whole massacring eighteen unarmed people and then ignoring their bodies as the girl you want walks in horrified and look at her as if she’ll love you for your actions? Yikes.

Female

Lorelai Gilmore, she constantly puts her mother down for her privilege and sense of entitlement, yet displays the exact same behaviour. She rejected Chris, then bitches about how he “wasn’t ready”. She thinks all her behaviour is cute but it’s actually really annoying. And she honestly seems to believe that her parents were the absolute worst parents in the world, when it reality they were really good to her and always try to be a part of her life. Pull it together, woman!

Octavia Blake, why does she blame her brother for everything? Why is her solution always violence? Why does she proudly cannibalize people? Why does she think she knows more about a culture she’s been a part of for two seconds than the people actually raised in said culture? 

Nancy Wheeler. Why does she want Jonathan so badly? Why does she screw over Steve? What makes her neglect her brother and run off with the guy she just banged? Why doesn’t she think through the consequences of her actions? Why did she offer her brother zero comfort when his friend “died”? What made her think it was okay to chase down Jonathan while he was picking out a coffin for his brother’s funeral to talk about Barb? Girl drives me bonkers.

Joey Potter, so many of her actions make no sense. She pines after Dawson for years and then breaks up with him for literally no reason. She blames him for telling her the truth about her father, after repeatedly saying they need to be honest with one another. She can’t decide between two guys for years. She constantly rejects Pacey yet picks him in the end. She believes she’s entitled to be a bitch to people just because she’s had a tough life.

Aria Montgomery, if your creepy-ass relationship really so important to you that you would lie to your friends and family, threaten your parents, risk your partner going to jail, threaten to walk out on your family and basically cease to exist outside of your boyfriend? Yikes.

Going to put the rest under the cut, otherwise we’re going to end up with a post a mile long.

Top 5 Characters Who Are Well-writen But I Can’t Connect To or Like

Male

John Locke, a great-written character who drives me up the wall with his over-zealousness and delusions of grandeur.

Spike, he really does have a great character arc and characterisation but his over-exposure and the fandom’s adulation of him drive me crazy, plus I hate how his narrative overtakes Buffy’s.

Jack Shepherd, such a great arc, such an amazing journey but his douchey behaviour and the way he treats certain characters means I just can’t like him.

Perry Cox, I find him amusing and do occasionally like him but his lack of self-awareness and overall mean attitude and sexism bugs me.

Dean Winchester, so well-written with a great arc but also abusive, violent, self-righteous, sexist and overall annoying as hell.

Female

Regina Mills, her redemption arc is sloppy but her characterisation was always strong and she’s a fantastic villain, which is why I love to hate her.

Robin Scherbatsky, very well-written with a great arc (until the finale) but I just cannot like her, probably due to her arrogance and meanness.

Rachel Green, now, I don’t hate Rachel or anything but she’s one of my least-favourite Friends characters and I’ve never been able to connect with her.

Katniss Everdeen, a great-written character whose personality I find very hard to reconcile and who I just cannot connect with.

Kate Austin, great arc, great characterisation, full of traits I can’t stand and makes choices that make me want to throttle her.

Top 5 Characters Storylines I Would Like To Alter

Male

Neal Cassidy, he was done so dirty by that damn show!

August Booth, another one screwed over by OUAT and there was so much left to explore with his character!

Dean Forrester, I really hate how much Gilmore Girls dumbled down and assassinated his character.

Boyd Langton, Dollhouse’s weird out-of-nowhere reveal that he was the bad guy completely changed his character and he didn’t deserve that.

Jake Ballard, he deserves better than being second-choice for Olivia Pope.

Female

Laurel Lance, who deserved the fucking world and got nothing, I would change so much about her storyline and eventual fate.

Mellie Grant who, like Laurel, deserved so much and got shit.

Emma Swan, who was character assassinated in order to box her into a toxic ship which decimated everything about her.

Juliet Burke, who should have lived and had a happy life and finally made it off that damn Island!

Effy Stonem, who deserved better than to be sandwiched between two guys who treated her like a prize and blamed her for their rivalry, not to mention the shitty “friends” who used her as their scapegoat.

Top 5 Traits Of My Disliked Characters That I Like (I’m not going to pick my absolute most disliked characters for this, but just 5 characters I dislike in general. Also, probably can’t come up with five for each, so I’ll go with as many as I can list).

Male

Going with Wesley again - love his intelligence, his surprising confidence when he allows himself to show it, his thirst for knowledge and his goofiness.

Spike - I like his bravado, his confidence and his loyalty.

Dean Winchester - similarly to Spike, his bravado, his loyalty and his confidence, as well as his humour and love of fun.

Luke Danes - I like that he’s good at the big gestures, I like his snark and his homebody nature.

Jess Mariano - I like intelligence, his snark and the fact that he sorts himself out later on in life.

Female

Anya Jenkins - love her work ethic and the fact that she handles money well and knows how to budget, save and invest.

Betty Cooper - she’s got gumption, I’ll give her that and she is intelligent and hardworking.

Felicity Smoak - like Betty, she’s intelligent and has gumption.

Cassie from the Animorphs series - she’s compassionate and does try to understand people, which I like.She also has a lot of empathy.

Alison DiLaurentis - she is ruthless and strategic and highly intelligent, all of which I admire, even if her actions are truly sociopathic.

Top 5 Traits Of My Loved Characters I Dislike (again, this may not reach five but I’ll do my best)

Male

Angel - his tendency to make decisions for others, his jealousy, the way he can completely cut off those he cares about.

James Ford - the way he lets his self-hatred affect others, his self-centredness, the way he can be deliberately cruel at times.

August Booth - he lies way too much, his self-hatred, his selfishness.

Neal Cassidy ………….. nope, I love Neal too much, can’t think of any traits I dislike.

Charles Gunn - the way he diminishes himself for others.

Female

Prue Halliwell - that damn pride, her self-righteousness, her judgmental streak.

Juliet Burke ……………. nope, as with Neal, love her way too much to dislike anything about her.

Lana Lang - her Mary Sue traits (this lies more on the writing of her character than her), her tendency to project her own feelings onto others.

Lilah Morgan - well, she’s an evil bitch, but you’re supposed to hate her for that, so I more hate her actions than her herself, such as when she gives Cordy the visions which almost kill her or when she sends people to drill into Lorn’s head.

Jo March - her lack of propriety at times, her judgemental streak, her refusal to adhere to convention (at times)

Top 5 Ways My Disliked Characters Contributed To The Main Storyline That I’m Fine With (I am running out of steam and not sure if I can come up with 5 males and 5 females, so gonna combine them for this last one and again might not make it to Top 5)

Alison DiLaurentis - I like her as a villain, her murder kicks off the whole series which worked well, and I liked that she works as a foil for all the girls, in particular Hanna and Mona.

Spike - love him as a villain in Season 2, love that he works as a foil for Angel in AtS Season 5, liked him stirring things up in Lovers Walk in Season 3.

Regina Mills - love her as a villain, love her as the Curse Caster, liked her dynamic with Emma, liked her as a foil for Snow and Emma.

……. I actually might be out, as usually when I hate a character it’s because of the way in which they negatively impact the storyline.

Whew, I’m knackered. Hope you enjoy my answers, even if they’re not 100% what you asked for!

[sage-nebula]

honestly i love hearing ur headcanons and tidbits about champion alan and how he goes about his duties with the other champs n stuff. since he's such a reserved guy how do you reckon he bonds with the other champions when they're all together doing work n stuff? like he already is on good terms with steven and ash, yes, but what about the others. i like trying to imagine these dynamics dont mind me

I, too, love imagining these dynamics, so I will absolutely mind you in the sense that I will happily engage in this discussion, thank you for asking. :D

Anyway, as you said, Alan is already on good terms with Ash and Steven from the get-go, even before he becomes Champion. Honestly, Ash is probably his best human friend; I know some people might want to protest about Manon, but Manon is his little sister, not his best friend—there’s a difference in the type of relationship dynamic there. The bond between Alan and Ash was pretty much immediate from the time they met, and Ash is the only human whose company we’ve seen Alan seek out just because he knew that spending time (and battling) with Ash would make him happy (and it did, to the point where Manon herself thinks “I’ve never seen Alan smile like that” when she sees how he smiles at Ash during their battle, and to the point where Alan thanks Ash three separate times during that battle for letting him feel such happiness). With that being the case, I feel confident in saying that Ash is his best human friend.

With that said, yeah, Alan is closest to Ash out of all the other Champions, and probably closest to Steven after that. As such, whenever it comes to fun (but important!) partnerships and things that happen between the regions, Alan usually partners with one of them first. For instance, in that Champion Messenger post, Alan brings up a tournament agreement to Steven. That tournament is a tournament that is going to be held between Kalos and Hoenn, League-style. It’s not an official League—the winners don’t get Champion challenges—but anyone can participate so long as they qualify for at least one of the regional Leagues, and the tournament ends in a double battle against Steven and Alan both. (RIP to whoever faces them, tbh.) The idea is to foster more unity between Kalos and Hoenn, and the other Champions are carrying it out between their regions as well. Ash and Iris are doing one for Kanto and Unova, Hau and Casey are doing one for Alola and Johto, and so on and so forth. (The next ones will be Steven and Cynthia for Hoenn and Sinnoh, Ash and Alan for Kanto and Kalos, Casey and Iris for Johto and Unova, and on like that until all the regions team up at some point.) 

But even though that’s the case, he’s still on good terms with all the others! Part of it might be due to the fact that Ash already knew everyone else and thus could introduce Alan if necessary, and part of it might also be due to any big international meetings between the Champions (and one of their most trusted Elite) that take place. However, I think those meetings are probably rarer; they typically only need all of them to come together in the event of an international crisis, which I would hope wouldn’t happen too frequently. (Though I have a story idea for one that does, but that’s another story for another time. ;D) So what really helps, I think, is that Champion Messenger that Steven develops so that they all have a fast and (most importantly) secure way to communicate in case they need to. It is supposed to be for work; the idea is that it’s a private messenger that only they (not even their Elite!) know about and have access to, which means that it’s a much, much more secure method than e-mail or phone calls to pass information between them. Additionally, it’s instant and accessible via whatever mobile device they have, which means that they don’t have to worry about massive time delays, either. So it honestly was developed for responsible, serious reasons, and it was supposed to be for work … but, as that post shows, a lot of shenanigans happen as well. And the thing is, when you’re in a messenger room with six other people, it’s rather easy to get to know and bond with them in a way that doesn’t infringe on your own personal comfort or boundaries or anything like that. Provided it’s just shenanigans, Alan can always just sign out of the messenger for a while and go do something else if he wants. It’s perfect for an introvert like him. So with that in mind, even setting aside official business, the messenger has really helped foster his relationships with the rest of the Champions as well. I like to imagine that they really are a #squad.

So with that said, a bit more in-depth?

Ash: 

As I said, Ash is Alan’s best human friend. He’s someone that we’ve seen in canon that Alan feels comfortable confiding in, someone he feels comfortable relying on, someone who has helped Alan in the darkest times in his life. And you can trust me when I say that this bond does not diminish as they grow older. Rather, it grows stronger. Not only are Alan and Ash always more than ready to help each other out, team up, and rely on each other in times of crisis, but they enjoy spending time with and talking to each other as well. I like to think that they began exchanging letters pretty regularly after Ash left Kalos to return to Kanto (and then went on to Unova), and once Ash finally upgrades his life and gets a mobile device, they exchange numbers to keep in touch through calls and text messages as well (and of course the Champion Messenger, but that has everyone in it). They do eventually cash in on their promise to battle again someday years later at the Charicific Valley, but Ash immediately makes Alan promise to battle him again at a later date. (Alan’s doing much better by that point, and Ash can tell, and that’s why he allowed the battle to happen—but still. Better safe than sorry.) 

There’s not too much more to say here that isn’t immediately obvious, but the last thing I’ll add is that while it’s obvious that Ash is Alan’s best human friend, rest assured that Alan is one of Ash’s best human friends as well. I mean, to be honest, Ash has about six thousand people he’d call his best friend (well, not that many, but it’s a lot considering all the traveling companions and now classmates he has had in his life), but the special bond they have is definitely felt on Ash’s side as well. (I imagine that Alan meets Gary at some point and the two hit it off, and this makes Ash feel some kind of way, because even though his relationship with Gary improves drastically over the course of the OS, as we see in DP he can still get rather fired up over Gary sometimes, because old rivalries die hard. He starts feeling jealous over Alan because of a bit of insecurity he has over the fact that Alan and Gary can talk about scientific research things / bond over growing up homes that are half house, half lab, and that’s not a thing he can really share with Alan, and … well. Just trust me when I say that this best friendship goes both ways. They’re both immensely important to each other.)

Casey:

Casey is probably the fellow Champion that … well, one of the fellow Champions that Alan has the weakest bond with (there are two), simply because they don’t have very much in common. He likes Casey all right; their personalities aren’t incompatible or anything, particularly since there are times when Casey reminds him of both Ash and Manon are equal measure. But their interests are at very opposite ends of the scale, generally. Casey’s primary interest outside of battling is baseball (and specifically the Electabuzz team), and Alan just … doesn’t care about baseball, honestly, haha. He has pretty much no interest in that whatsoever. Casey doesn’t see how this is possible—how could someone not realize how amazing baseball (and especially the Electabuzz, despite how Ash’s horrible (in Casey’s opinion) taste in teams makes him blaspheme and say otherwise) is?! But Alan’s just not very interested, and likewise Casey doesn’t tend to be very interested in the books or research that captures Alan’s interest. As such, they don’t often have too many shared interests to talk about, even though they still get along well enough in the Messenger / when they’re working on official business.

(“This is what happens when a jock meets a nerd,” says Iris.)

All of that said, for her birthday one year Alan gives her Beedrillite so that she can mega evolve her beedrill. To say that she’s thrilled is an understatement.

Steven:

Like with Ash, we already know a lot about Alan’s relationship with Steven. To be honest, the two bicker-banter back and forth at least half the time, given how snarky and sassy they can both be—but it’s all in good humor, never serious. It’s just how they communicate / have fun with each other. Their relationship, as we know, was forged in the midst of TSME, when Steven witnessed firsthand what Lysandre was doing to Alan and then almost immediately tattled on Lysandre to Alan’s father. We see throughout TSME just how much Steven cares about him (and how gleeful he is to enact vengeance for him once the Flare arc hits—Steven went to the Fleur-De-Lis labs to attack people and he had such a good time), and that is part of what motivates Steven to encourage Alan to take the Champion challenge in the first place (despite how Steven truly likes Diantha a whole lot as well—they become good friends in my headcanon, #fashion buddies). I say “part” because Steven does earnestly believe everything he says. He genuinely believes that Alan would be an excellent Champion. But he also cares about Alan and wants him to do well and be okay, and in the Champion Messenger post I made, his little press of “just fine?” was actually his way of checking on Alan, versus continuing to rib him as he had before (“Not now, we’re discussing the merits of malasada cannibalism”). There’s a lot of care under all the teasing, just as Alan truly does care about and appreciate Steven under all the snark he tosses right back.

(That said, they do sometimes have escalating prank wars, which are usually instigated by Steven, and most often by Alan being teased about the big ol’ crush Steven has on Sycamore. Like, Steven is in a happy monogamous relationship with Wallace, and he knows that Sycamore is with Meyer, and so obviously it’s not going anywhere, but I felt some chemistry between them in the anime, and in my brain that translated into Steven thinking Sycamore is damn fine. So Steven will see fit to troll Alan about this sometimes, by asking him if Sycamore is single yet or mentioning about how Sycamore is a DILF (and how he wouldn’t mind being Alan’s stepdad, it’s not like they can’t both still work together as Champions et cetera), and of course Alan isn’t going to just take that lying down, so he finds some other way to strike back at him. Like, for instance, playing a game of telephone with Manon and her friends, which ends in Manon presenting Steven with a nice stone as a going-away present, at which point she announces to the entire airport that it’s because she heard about how much pleasure his rock fetish brings him and though that he’d be even more pleased than usual if he had a new rock for his fetish. This happens when Manon is still ten, and so honestly she has no idea what a fetish is, particularly since she heard about this from Bonnie, who heard about it from Serena, who heard about it from Shauna, who heard about it from Tierno and Trevor, who heard about it from Ash, who came up with the interpretation that “fetish” is just “cool thing I like a lot” because although he heard about this from Alan, Alan didn’t explain to him what that word meant. So then Steven has to stand there, kind of mortified, with Diantha, Sycamore, Bonnie, Manon, and a smirking Alan all watching him, and all he knows is that even though Manon says that she and Bonnie came up with the idea (and that Bonnie says it was Serena and Shauna that helped them), Alan has to be behind this somehow and Steven will get him back.

So sometimes they have escalating prank wars like that. It’s all in good fun, though. ;) )

Cynthia:

Once Alan and Cynthia hit it off, they end up getting along very well. To begin with, Cynthia kind of has a Cool Big Sis thing going on; she’s a very, sincerely nice person who cares about those around her, and likes to guide and offer advice to those around her when the situation arises. This is particularly true with those she can see a bit of herself in, and I think she would with Alan. In the anime, Cynthia mentions at one point that she always aimed to be the strongest when she was younger, and in the games, Cynthia’s entire team has perfect IVs and significant EV training. Cynthia takes training quite seriously and loves battling, and these are two things that she absolutely has in common with Alan. So I think that Cynthia would pick up on that, and would be interested and talking more with him, particularly when she learns that he was raised by Professor Sycamore and is a scholar like her …

… and that’s when they’d hit it off, because they’re both massive nerds. 

While Alan’s research into mega evolution tends to seem more scientific, it’s important to remember that his search for Key Stones and Mega Stones took him to a ton of ruins, and that he and Sycamore also spend a lot of time poring over ancient tablets and examining ancient scripts, et cetera. Meanwhile, Cynthia’s secondary job is as a researcher / archaeologist / myth/legend hunter. She, too, spends so much time spelunking in ruins, going over ancient texts, writing books about the various myths and legends about the world. There’s no way their research wouldn’t overlap at times, to the point where I’m sure there have been multiple times in the Champion Messenger where one of them brings up a new discovery and the two of them end up dominating the messenger nerding out about it until someone complains. So really, they have a ton in common and have a good relationship. They’re both Cool Older Sibling types to those around them (Cool Big Bro, Cool Big Sis), they’re both nerds with similar nerdy interests, and they both love battling and take training very seriously. The only additional thing to note about their dynamic is that Cynthia is decently older than Alan (I’d say she’s in her mid-to-late 20s), so she ends up being like a Cool Big Sis to him, at least from time to time. It’s a good relationship.

Iris:

Iris and Alan also get along pretty well! While Iris can be pretty energetic sometimes, she can also be pretty savvy and knows when to tone it down a notch (I mean, remember, she was the one always teasing Cilan about being a pain because of how Extra™ he is), so I don’t think that would cause many problems. Aside from that, once again, I think that Iris and Alan would find some pretty good common ground between them. They both love and have an affinity for dragons (Iris’ face when Alan tells her that charizard, in addition to being a dragon by species, can be a dragon-type when it mega evolves into its X form, after the brief Discourse™ she had with Ash about that very typing in BW); they were both orphaned at a young age and originally come from a far out village in the woods (though Iris’ time in the Dragon Village was far better than Alan’s time in Isolé); they’re both happily adopted, even if unofficially for a time (or at least Iris is in the games—I think Drayden also looks after her to an extent in the anime?); they both have a tendency to be rather blunt and honest (even if Iris actually voices her thoughts more than Alan does); they’ve both had difficulties socializing in the past (though they’re getting better!), and so on and so forth. (They’re also both unjustly despised by the vast majority of the fandom, but hEY …)

 I actually like to imagine that these two meet prior to either of them becoming Champions of their respective regions, and I really want to write this fic at some point. My thought is, well, the PokéAni writers denied Iris her cameo in Kalos, so what if I write one for her post-series? I’m still deciding on things, but my basic idea is that she ends up traveling to Kalos after her time in Hoenn, and runs into Alan in Lumiose City. They get to talking for some reason or another—it’s possible that Iris sees Lizardon and gets super excited over how cute he is (and let’s be honest, he’s adorable), or maybe Alan is out with both Lizardon and Gabrielle and, well, Iris can’t resist saying hi to even one dragon, much less two. So they get to talking, Alan tells Iris about how charizard can be dragon-types whey they mega evolve with Charizardite X (and Iris is all, “ooh, that kid! I should have known he didn’t have all the facts!!” though she means it all in good fun—she’s still going to write Ash a letter in short order to give him a teasing what-for, though), and it’s a good time.

But then some conflict happens (as it always does in these specials), and these two have to solve it together. At some point Alan offers to give her a ride on Lizardon, but Iris is just like, “Nah, I’ve got this” and calls out her dragonite, which Alan is quite impressed by, and they go and kick ass together, and that’s a good time, too.

By the end of it, Alan has seen that Iris has a bagon, because she caught a shelgon while in Hoenn (because remember, she went there chasing Rayquaza—and when Iris goes on about how she chased Rayquaza there, but yet lost track of it and thus missed the huge event that happened off Rustboro Bay and she’s super disappointed about it, Alan gets real quiet and his eyes go distant and she wonders at what’s wrong, but he won’t tell her … only for her to remember later that waIT, HE WAS THAT GUY ON TV, WASN’T HE?? and that’s a whole thing). Back at the lab he has used the machine Sycamore has to deduce that one of the Mega Stones he has is Salamencite, and so he gives that to her, and their bond is forged #forever.

(And honestly, I really waffled over this, because Mega Salamence is Zinnia’s signature ‘mon, and I really do not like to double-up on signatures like that. However, Iris has to have a dragon to mega evolve, she has a salamence as Champion in the games, and while she does have a gible in the anime, Mega Garchomp is already shared between Sycamore and Cynthia. Garchomp needs a rest, we don’t need another Mega Garchomp. That said, I did debate on giving Iris Mega Altaria, but aside from that also doubling up in my mind (with an OC, but still), I feel that salamence fits her better, especially since she has one in the games. So Mega Salamence will be shared between Iris and Zinnia, and no one else, just as Sycamore and Cynthia are the only two with Mega Garchomp. It is Law™.)

But while that’s their first meeting, of course they get along really well as Champions, too. There’s also the possibility that Iris could end up dating Manon at some point, so hey—maybe Iris eventually becomes Alan’s sister-in-law. It could happen.

Hau:

Hau is the other Champion (along with Casey as mentioned before) that Alan has the weakest relationship with, although they do still get along all right. Just like with Casey, Alan doesn’t have very much in common with Hau. Their attitudes toward training are markedly different (Hau is skilled enough to be Champion, but even then, a lot of the muscle work is left to Elite Four member Gladion, to be entirely honest, due to how lackadasical Hau can be about training), and they don’t have a lot of shared interests in common. So while they can get along well enough in conversation, if it’s just the two of them the conversation is going to die off into silence pretty quickly. And that’s fine by Alan, he doesn’t mind silence, but it tends to make Hau feel a bit awkward, particularly since Alan is really hard to read for him. (A problem that neither Ash nor Iris experience, since Ash has been able to see straight through to Alan’s heart from day one, and, well … Iris is the girl who knows the hearts of dragons, so. ;D) That said, again, their relationship is far from bad, especially when Hau wants to make sure that Alan doesn’t dislike him and so he makes him sweet malasadas as a “peace offering” (Gladion thinks that Hau should not waste his time baking anything for Alan, because even if To Devour the Sun isn’t canon in the prime universe I still cannot fucking help but imagining Alan’s and Gladion’s relationship as it is in that fic, which means that Gladion is always tsuntsun toward Alan in the extreme), and Alan, given his massive sweet tooth, appreciates this immensely even though it really wasn’t necessary to begin with. So there is that, at least, even if the two still aren’t very close.

(I do imagine that a conversation like this happens in the messenger at one point, though:

HAU: “btw alan gladion told me to tell u to tell manon to stop hitting on lillie”

CASEY: “don’t U want manon to stop hitting on lillie? aren’t u 2 dating or engaged or smth?”

HAU: “ya but i dont mind, lillie-bean would never cheat on me lol”

IRIS: “‘Lillie-bean’???”

ALAN: “Tell Gladion he can tell Manon himself. I’m not involved.”

CASEY: “omfg”

ALAN: “She doesn’t listen when I tell her not to do things anyway, so it isn’t like it’d do any good.”

HAU: “ok will do lol”

IRIS: “u gave up easily”

HAU: “like i said, i dont care either way”

HAU: “besides, alan is going to be the one getting all the angry messages from gladion lol so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

CASEY: “srsly????”

ALAN: “Yeah. I’m used to it by now. I have a filter on his messages anyway, so I don’t even see them until I specifically go check, whenever I remember to.”

HAU: “LOL”

Note: Gladion does not know about the messenger, but he finds out that Hau is contact with Alan in some way (he figures e-mail) and that’s when / why he tells Hau to pass the message along.)

General:

As a few more notes about dynamics and interactions and such:

Alan, Ash, and Iris all end up going to that tournament in Oblivia that Ash mentioned in the Champion Messenger post together. Originally Hau was going to go with them, but something came up and he couldn’t. Regardless, Alan, Ash, and Iris all travel there together and have a fantastic time. In general, whenever the three travel / do something together, it’s generally a really good time. The fact that they’re all such good friends and get along so well certainly helps.

Alan has invited Cynthia to the lab in order to go over research things. Despite the fact that Alan is an older teenager, Cynthia is an adult, and they were going over ancient stone tablets and other research, this still (from an outsider’s perspective) does end up looking very much like a playdate. Sycamore joins them, and really it’s just a nice day / night of nerdy fun.

They also go spelunking in ancient ruins together sometimes.

Steven, on Diantha’s request, was the one who picked out what Alan wore to his Champion inauguration / induction ceremony. There is going to be a short fic about this.

I just realized that Hau and Alan do have something sort of in common, which is baking. Alan picks up baking as a hobby after the Flare arc, and at the very least Hau likes to bake malasadas. So on top of Hau baking Alan sweet malasadas, Hau ends up giving Alan the recipe and they can bond a little over that.

Alan does end up giving Ash a Key Stone and Charizardite Y (oh, and he obviously gave Key Stones to Casey and Iris as well). He’s just hooking everyone up with mega evolution, what a good mega evolutionist he is.

Alan likes to share pictures of Lizardon in the messenger. Iris loves this (CUTE DRAGON♥), and sometimes she’ll share pictures of her haxorus. So then Alan will show a picture of Lizardon and Gabrielle together, and Iris will share a picture of some of her other dragons, and they end up embarking on a Dragon Spam™ that only meets a combo breaker when Ash inserts a picture of Pikachu in the middle of it all.

Sometimes Alan asks Casey about the various ruins and such around Johto, but she honestly doesn’t know because history doesn’t interest her, and while he is disappointed at that, she’s disappointed that he doesn’t see what’s so great about the brand new baseball stadium that the Electabuzz got after they finally won a World Series—ALAN: “Why is it called the World Series if teams from Kanto and Johto are the only ones participating?”ASH: “ya ive always wondered that 2 lol”CASEY: “bc baseball is tHE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD”ASH: “not more important than catching pkmn :/”CASEY: “WAT IS WRONG W/ U 2?!?!?!”

Sometimes they all get together to have friendly battles (something Cynthia actually references in one of the games). They usually also turn these informal little tournaments into potlucks and it’s a good time (and yeah, their Elite—or at least certain members of their Elite—are of course invited).

You see my icon? So at one point that was Alan’s pic in the Champion Messenger, and Ash had a matching one where he, too, was wearing sunglasses. (The pictures might have even been taken on the same day, tbh—like maybe they were together when that happened.) Hau and Casey saw these pics, though they looked awesome, and took sunglasses selfies themselves to join in. Iris (good-naturedly!) teased a bit about this at first, but then joined in herself after some cajoling from Ash and Hau. Cynthia thought it all looked like good fun and so she joined in as well, and that just left Steven, who was convinced to join so he wouldn’t be the only one left out. And that was how they all ended up wearing sunglasses in their pics in the Champion Messenger for a time. Shenanigans. 

After Ash finally gets his growth spurt, he and Alan end up pretty close in height. This does lead to them swapping clothes (or at least Ash borrowing Alan’s clothes) as a battle strategy in the midst of a crisis at least once. (Because if Ash is wearing Alan’s clothes, and he’s flying on his charizard, then with his dark hair, who could tell the difference between them from way down on the ground? No one, that’s who. The enemy would be completely bamboozled.) 

But yeah, really, I just imagine them as a real #squad. They’re all good friends with each other (even if some bonds aren’t as strong as others), they’ve got each other’s backs, et cetera. They’re a real solid squad and even if the messenger is often filled with shenanigans, it does come in handy for serious business stuff as well.

Anyway, this might have been ten books longer than what you were hoping for, but! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I liked writing it! ♥

[userwithnoname]

ive played skyrim before and liked it an a friend recommended dragon age but i dont know which one i should pick

Hm… this is still a little bit complicated, so I’m going to put another cut here just because it gets a little long.

tl;dr Your friend was probably talking about Inquisition, and while I recommend you start with Origins, Inquisition’s not a bad game to jump in with.

If Skyrim is your only basis for comparison, then I think your friend was recommending for you Dragon Age: Inquisition. I was in a very similar place when I started playing Dragon Age: had just beat Skyrim for the thousandth time, was getting bored and didn’t know how to mod my game, so I started looking at Steam recommendations. However, I had a bit of a buffer. Steam recommended me Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which is a pretty good game, but not quite what I was looking for.

What Skyrim lacked to me was character involvement. That isn’t to say there aren’t good characters, but they are limited and of the companions you’re given, they have little to do with the actual story and almost no involvement other than one quest here or there. Kingdoms of Amalur is similar to Skyrim in terms of story and gameplay, and if you liked Skyrim’s open-world and hack’n’slash combat, you’ll like Kingdoms.

To that end, Dragon Age is a pretty logical leap from either of those. But I can see where it would get confusing. The games are both reliant upon each other, yet can contradict each other horribly. When most people talk about Dragon Age. they’re referring to Inquisition because it’s the newest game to come out in the series. But as I mentioned, there are three games in total, not counting Awakening or Heroes of Dragon Age.

There’s no easy way to do this, so I’ll do a brief description then a (personal) pros and cons to each game before talking about the flaws the series has on a whole.

(Disclaimer: I am not a games reviewer or expert in any sense, these are personal opinions so take them with a grain of salt.)

(Also: SPOILERS)

Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O):

The first game in the series, DA:O focuses on the Warden or Hero of Ferelden. Without getting too much into the story, it heavily focuses on the arc of your character and the story that unfolds, allowing you a range of choices and quests that help keep replaying the game from getting boring.

   Pros:

Personalized character backstory.

Character creation is interesting.

Pretty backgrounds (for the time).

Pausing combat doesn’t interrupt the flow of combat too much.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward and intuitive (at least on PC).

A lot of dialogue options.

Just enough side quests to pad out the story without distracting from the main quests.

Quest timing options.

Gifts to fix things if you mess up the dialogue options and can’t reload a save (they have diminishing returns, so be wary).

Companion options–don’t like someone? Kick them out of the party!

Weapon and armor options–spell casting doesn’t work well for this, but most weapons and armor aren’t class restricted.

DOG. PUPPY. WHO NEEDS ROMANCE, I HAVE A DOG.

   Cons:

Main character has no voice acting.

Clunky animations. Like… mages in particular just stand there and point a staff in the air and sometimes wave their hand.

Sometimes confusing leveling mechanics.

Too much Codex stuff too fast.

Focuses a little too much on Alistair romance (even if I love him) and not much on the other characters.

Dialogue options can be hard to understand–this was before Bioware got their choice menu properly sorted out.

Will probably never see the Warden/Hero ever again no matter what they accomplish.

No armor modifications, only giving runes to some weapons.

Repetitive environments.

Limited romance options.

Hats.

Dragon Age II (DA II):

As the name implies it is second in the series, focusing on Hawke, the eventual Champion of Kirkwall, and has only a little to do with Origins. Not a direct sequel, DA II is very disputed across the fandom, and could have been handled better in general. Bioware changed their story-telling rhythm in this, instead breaking it up into 3 acts rather than major quests you can pick and choose the order of.

   Pros:

New main quest each Act that focuses on Hawke as a person.

Varric.

Combat animation feels involved and fluid–you’ve upgraded from a person standing to actual fighting.

Hide hats option in menu.

Main character is voice acted now–yay!

Fixed the dialogue options so it’s not as confusing.

Dog is no longer a party member, so you have a back up you can summon if shit hits the fan.

Gives you a junk slot in your inventory so you know what you can sell.

Rival and Friendship system make it so you can hate someone you need and still keep them in your party.

Rival and Friendship system make it so you can romance someone even if you don’t particularly like them.

   Cons:

Rival and Friendship system also, unfortunately, can lead to weird things happening in the story unless you go all out one way or another.

Cannot have a set team you use all the time unless you’re willing to possibly lose a few companions *coughs*Isabela*coughs*. Characters must be rotated out on quests if you want to get Friendship/Rivalry where it needs to be.

Specific, limited gifts that are easy to miss.

Confusing leveling mechanics.

The fuck did they do to the elves in this one?

Almost no interaction from anything in DA:O.

The screen layout got worse.

Facial animations (specifically eyebrows and mouth) are sometimes horrifying.

Character relationships are harder to manage.

Spend more time thinking about who you want on what quest than you probably should.

Romances are weirdly broken up in this one.

Armor picked up can only be worn by Hawke.

Please. Just let me romance Varric.

Combat animations are a little over the top and unrealistic.

Story makes it feel like your actions only effect Kirkwall, but actually end up effecting the whole world.

Race options–it forces you to play as a human.

Very repetitive environments.

Background is glanced over and explained away with no interaction.

Sibling death.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (DA:I):

The baby of the series, the most recent game and prettiest overall. DA:I has way more options in just about everything in comparison to the previous two games. You play as the Herald of Andraste, eventually becoming Inquisitor.

   Pros:

That character creation tho.

Armor and weapon creation and customization.

Fixed elves appearances–no longer aliens.

Races now have different body types.

Fixed the combat ratio of fluidity to excessive.

Open world.

Actually get a horse/hart/dracolisk/freakishly large nug to ride this time.

Voice options (only two, but that’s one more than DA II and two more than DA:O).

Way more companion options.

Can play as a qunari.

Interesting cameos from companions in DA:O and DA II.

Cool search mechanic.

Cole.

HUGE map.

More romance options.

DRAGON MASTER.

Don’t have to play Origins or II to get the story-type you want, just log in to Dragon’s Keep and fill out some stuff.

Screw attributes completely.

   Cons:

The hair. For everyone, but mostly qunari.

Undermines other choices in previous games.

Ooh… you might wanna get that hand looked at, buddy.

Hardens companion from DA:O regardless of actual choices in game.

Cut scene animation is a little weird sometimes.

Save files corrupt so quickly.

Sudden retconning of Dalish facts and changes the way mages are handled by the Dalish.

Main character disappearances.

Needs DLC in order to get the “real” ending.

Does not mod easily.

Bugs with animation and placement.

WHERE IS MY DOG, BIOWARE??????

THE MOUNT IS NOT A REPLACEMENT, IT CANNOT FIGHT OR FOLLOW YOU.

Doesn’t feel like a solid story ending, regardless of DLC.

You know those helpful numbers and bars we had to measure friendship in DA II and DA:O? Fuck ‘em. Don’t need ‘em. Oh, but likability is still being measured by the game, just not visibly.

Fuck gifts, too.

No more healing spells.

Oh, and let’s limit the number of healing items you can carry at once.

And we can’t make it too easy to make money, either.

Random loot is incredibly buggy.

Weapons/armor now class coded.

Gameplay takes some getting used to on the PC.

Screw attributes completely.

And that’s not including Awakening and Heroes of Dragon Age, which I am not discussing in this post.

Now, despite what you might think after that, I love these games.

They just… have their issues.

They pull a “Supernatural” on us, if you will. Each game, the enemy somehow gets bigger and badder. In the first one, you’re trying to stop the Blight and save your home, which is already a big feat. In the second one, you end up causing a civil war across multiple countries (even if it doesn’t feel so big at the time). In Inquisition, you have to save at least three countries at once, and in the fourth it looks like you’re going to have to save the world.

Each game focuses on a new protagonist, which is great in that it means a fresh new take on each challenge and new characters, but it really, really sucks in that it feels like you’re leaving a story unfinished. I mentioned we’ll probably never see the Warden in-game again and it’s been confirmed by Patrick Weekes, the lead writer for DA (I’d put a link here, but I can’t find it right now). This is mainly because the story has moved on from the Warden, but also because importing a Warden from DA:O to any new DA game would be almost impossible from a technical standpoint. While this is sad, it’s understandable from a story standpoint. But this method wasn’t what fans were expecting when DA II came out.

Which is probably the biggest reason for all the hatred towards DA II. It was marketed as a sequel to DA:O, and people kind of automatically thought of it as a direct sequel, mostly because the only other RPG series Bioware had running was Mass Effect and that’s what happened there. But it didn’t happen with DA II. Instead, we were given a new hero with new goals, no familiar companions and in a place DA:O didn’t even mention. Other than a few cameos, a couple characters, and a mention every now and then, there was nothing from DA:O in DA II.

And that’s really Dragon Age’s biggest problem. Playing DA II, it makes it feel like all those choices you made in Origins were insignificant (which on a scale they were). And Inquisition didn’t fix this. In fact, in some ways, it made it worse. It gave Hawke and the Warden more stories, which isn’t a bad thing, but it took your characters and tried to generalize your Warden and your Hawke into The Warden and The Hawke. Imagine you’d been given a choose-your-own-adventure book and the first two chapters are about one character, and then the next two about another, and so on and so forth. But in each of these chapters, you get glimpses of the previous characters doing other things in the same world. No interaction, no conclusiveness, just your character doing things that your character might not do. You have no control of the character whose choices are supposed to be yours after those two chapters are done.

Basically: for the story, with the way they’ve set it up, it forces you to bond to a character that you create but only briefly glimpse into their lives before someone else takes over. Yet instead of divorcing entirely from said character, the shorter timeline forces the heroes to interact in some capacity that we’ll never get to see. Varric is the perfect example of this. DA II is set up in a way that you know Varric will have to be involved in Inquisition. But after people started really liking him and the general backlash of DA II, Bioware couldn’t kill him off and couldn’t send him away. So they gave him a minor role in Inquisition and then retired him.

They do this again with the Inquisitor. The way DA:I ends left many fans to believe DA4 had to continue as the Inquisitor; after all it didn’t feel like the Inquisitor’s story was finished and the next Big Bad had been hinted at being kind-of their fault. But we’ve already been told that DA4 will not star the Inquisitor–instead, their story is supposedly done and the only chance we have of their involvement is probably a letter, a cameo, or as an advisor. That’s if Bioware doesn’t kill them.

Once again, they put away another character when it feels like they should still be involved, thus reducing the choices made in the previous games by an even smaller margin. Bioware takes a character you made, tells you their story is over when it feel like it’s just starting, then takes control of them.

The solution?

The Elder Scrolls series actually does a pretty good job at doing the same thing–by spreading the events out. I get that the whole name of the series is focused on a hundred year margin, but that’s still a hundred years for you to spread events out. Over the course of three games, only about 10-20 years have passed. DA:O takes place over the course of 1-2 years, maximum. DA II takes place over 7. And DA:I is about 2-5 (depending on if you count Trespasser), with a short gap between II and Inquisition.. That’s a lot of shit to happen over such a short time.

Give the games space. Let them breathe. Let the actions of the Warden fade as time passes, not lie ignored by NPCs just because it’s hard to account for all the choices. Let the stories have their own weight before you stack the other on, and maybe don’t rely to much on rapid storytelling.

And that really went off on a tangent, sorry.

Simply put, the games have their own flaws. If you have the money and prefer a newer-looking game and have the system to handle it, I recommend Dragon Age: Inquisition to start off. Being able to control the world through your choices in Dragon’s Keep gives you a good idea of previous stories without having to play them, while still preserving the themes from the series.

(But oh my god save frequently. Save every few minutes. And stagger save, too, don’t just save over old files because that shit corrupts EASY.)

[meet-me-at-kingsmeet]

Wedding Sabotage au Feat. Laurent and Nik teaming up

This is an outline of like????,,, one scene and yep lemme kno if u actaully would want this bc lmaoo......*wears sunglasses to hide the tears*

Auguste and Damen grew up together as friends and had brought the families together after a long time of low-key petty rivalry. Laurent grew up with Damen but was much younger than both Damen and Auguste. Damen had all the qualities of a hero from his books (that and he was *que 11 year old blushing smaurent* “super pretty”). Well this crush never went away, to Laurent’s dismay, because he knew Damen would always see him as a little kid.

Laurent was 19, turning 20, and finally going to try and tell Damen his feelings. To which gets stopped dead in his tracks when he comes home and Damen is there, sweetly tipsy with a beautiful blonde on his arm.

Laurent is very bitter, and after two years he is, how do you say, extremely bitter.

Laurent is at the engagement party for Damen and Jokaste.

He is standing next to Auguste, in a circle of party goers who are all celebrating and congratulating Damen

Laurent is in a particularly foul mood

Nikandros who is also in this small circle of “assholes” (as he would put it) he is also a very bitter best friend

Anyways Damen leaves to go find Jokaste (she walked away to talk to other guests or something) and he kisses Laurent on the cheek before leaving and drags Auguste with him

Laurent’s mood worsens,,,, he gotta fight w someone and Nik is the closest victim

Ahh Nik and Laurent what a relationship they have had

Nik has always been Damen’s like,, bff, and Laurent was more of a nuisance than anything

He was rude, uncaring of Nik, and would steal Damen away if given the opportunity. Nik knew he was a smart kid, but he was a snake

Laurent starts picking fights with Nik “Has Damen decided best man? I bet he has. It’s not you, his wedding needs to maintain sophistication and not have some poor, bankrupt businessman’s son represent the esteemed Theomedes name” or some rude bullshit like that

“Well I’ll just have to make sure you sit in the back Laurent, wouldn’t want a jealous, insecure child interrupting such an esteemed wedding”

A verbal (and very cruel) fight ensues

Laurent’s uncle comes up placing his hand on Laurent’s shoulder as is like “Laurent don’t make such a scene. These actions are why forming relationships with you is so difficult.” ((fuck the regent 5ever))

Laurent needs to breathe and heads to the restroom that’s in a separate hallway of Damen’s luxurious mansion

At the bathrooms he hears Jokaste and Kastor speaking in hushed tones so he creeps up to listen in and theyre standing very close

Staying stuff like “I know you’re upset, calm down, baby I’m handling this okay? This will work out if we stick with the plan and I marry Damen-” u kno crap like that and Laurent is like ‘this bitch wtf tryna fuck w my man aw hell nah’ but in a more laurent way

He’s actually really upset for Damen

He heads back to the party and is walking through the crowd, trying to find Damen

He gets turned around and is back where he came out that hallway and makes eye contact with Jokaste who was walking out with Kastor

His eyes narrow and Jokaste tries to keep her best poker face and goes over to talk to Laurent who is stiff

It’s one thing to fight with Nik, Damen knew they didn’t get along and he more saw it as harmless bickering, it was another to fight with Jokaste, and while Laurent had the tongue of a viper, Jokaste had the tongue of Laurent, but a mind similar to his Uncle’s (in the sense of control and manipulation) and she has six years of street smarts.

(I see Damen/Jokaste/Nik as all very street smart while Laurent is booksmart, which to me makes sense bc Laurent didn’t have a lot of social interaction when he was a teenager, besides manipulation and abuse)

But Damen appears out of nowhere, and Laurent can feel his heart hurt bc he spent 10 minutes looking for him, but when Jokaste appeared he was there, instantly, and Laurent couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to have someone like Damen love him. Being greeted with smiles and eyes full of love.

Now he was just pissed (both at Jokaste for ruining a good thing and at himself for having a dumb thought that anyone would love him even a fraction of what Damen felt for Jokaste)

Nik was at the lavish bar and his drink (a straight shot of Vodka) was set down, only to be lifted up and thrown back by Laurent who sat down

Que Nik’s super offended and annoyed with Laurent face (yes Laurent has earned his very own countenance on Nikandros’ face) (he’s almost proud)

“ You can’t hold your liquor, Laurent” “you can’t hold a relationship but I don’t say anything”

Anyways they start talking and slowly they both realize they don’t want Damen to marry Jokaste

“We break them up”

“You can’t be serious, Laurent”

“She isn’t good for him and we both know she’s fucking Kastor.”

“and Damen would never listen to us.”

Laurent nods and this “And he would never listen to us. Too blinded by loyalty and love. A dog won’t listen when you tell him to bite their owner even if their owner beats them.”

“Too loyal.” Laurent nods again at this and they’ve both relaxed together, probably for the first time forever. “I don’t want to hurt Damen. I just...want to protect him”

“Jokaste will hurt him.”

“So we’re forced to choose what kind of hurt he feels?”

“Not forced. We’re in the trolley dilemma. Let one person get hit or five?”

“Who does Damen represent? The one or the five?”

Laurent doesn’t have an answer for this. What he does know is that he needs to stop the wedding and end the engagement. But, he can’t do it alone, without Nikandros. (He could but the risk of failure or getting caught diminishes with Nikandros)

Laurent orders two shots, him and Nik hold them up to each other. A serious countenance on both their faces “To Damen,” Laurent says.

“To Damen,” and they hit their glasses together and throw back the vodka

Wedding Sabotage au---engagement party part 2ish??

Damen comes over, drunk and happy at the engagement party and drapes himself over Nik, making kissy faces, trying to kiss him because “c’mere Nikky I love you so much”

“Damen hi” Nikandros is tense and Laurent gives him the look, u kno the one that’s like ‘if you dont relax i’ll make u and it won’t be pleasant’

“I saw you guys throw some cheers and drink,” Damen is only slightly slurring, swaying, and doesn’t seem to want to go away anytime soon. “How could you without me?”

“We through cheers to you kiddo”

“To me?” Damen lets out a giggle along with a dopey grin. “You guys are,” Damen presses his face into Nik’s ((I have Nik and Damen headcanoned as affectionate in the same way that girls traditionally are)) “the greatest.”

Damen takes a breath and stares at Laurent while resting his face against Nikandros, who is holding him up and patting his shoulder

Laurent: “What, Damen?” his words are tense

“Nothing. I enjoy the feeling I get when I look at you”

Laurent’s brain is like: skjkdsfgjdfshbgdjvhdj,hbd

Sorry no, its more like: SJKSGDJHGHGJHGHFDHDJGDGHKDSJH

So he just doesn’t reply and turns away and Damen is just like “remember when you were a kid? Like seven, and you would beg for me to pick you up but once you were up you refused to be put back down?”

And laurent is like ‘oh my god are you really going to do this now??’ but he just looks back over at damen with furrowed eyebrows damen is just like

“You’re gonna find someone whose gonna want to pick you up and never put you down. Just like Auguste and I.”

And Laurent is now very done with life and getting hit w a bus doesnt seem all too bad so he goes to leave

But laurent is petty and lives for drama

So of course b4 he goes

He gracefully strides up to Nik and Damen, Damen smiles

Laurent grabs Nikandros’ face with one hand (Nik is wide eyed but cant do nothing cause his hands are full) and says seductively “My place at eight, tomorrow” and strides out of the mansion

As soon as he exits though he feels sick and hurt and wants to puke so he texts Auguste who comes out immediately “do you want me to stay home with you?” “No just drive me home and go back to the party. I need to be alone”

MEANWHILE lmao Damen is like “hahahaha thats *eye twitch* interesting ummm Nik???? That Laurent would say thay hahaa r u going on a date or soemthing?????”

And Nik is like “uuuuhhh maybe?” bc he is like ‘is this part of the plan or????’

Damen is NOT jealous

Except that he is and is no longer in the mood for cuddles

Damen “im not jealous but ummm, excuse me sweetie :) u cant date laurent”

Nik is just ????????

wants to go home he can’t handle these children and is very tired

[louisvillevsalabama-blog]

Louisville vs Alabama

Without noting the real question mark on the list the quarterback rivalry Alabama has discharged an underlying profundity graph heading into the 2018 season opener against Louisville vs Alabama.While there are many slices also called ORs on the profundity diagram in any event Scratch Sabans program has given us something to investigate here heading into the primary amusement seven day stretch of the season. While little is thought about any group or unit at the unfolding of another season there are some relative surenesses that go before Alabamas opening coordinate with Bobby Petrinos Louisville Cardinals.One of those is that the Cards will handle an offense stacked with playmakers that should keep on thriving despite the fact that previous Heisman victor Lamar Jackson is presently playing in the NFL. Louisville vs Alabama Live Louisville vs Alabama Live Stream Louisville vs Alabama Live Free Watch Louisville vs Alabama Alabama Louisville Alabama Louisville Live Similarly as certain in any case is the way that the Card guard will bear another troublesome year of battles against restricting offenses and the initial step down that fatigued street will start with the Dark red Tide.The Cardinals are supplanting a horrendous parcel of ability on a guarded unit that wasnt that great (read: appalling) in 2017 in any case.Such a turnover in staff under that condition could be a gift or a revile.The front seven is to a great extent green with just two linebackers who contributed last season back set up for 2018.The auxiliary is in like manner to a great extent untested which could be a deadly weight point against a dangerous Tide passing assault. Alabama vs Louisville Alabama vs Louisville Live Alabama vs Louisville Live Stream Alabama vs Louisville Live Free Watch Alabama vs Louisville Alabama vs Louisville Game Alabama vs Louisville 2018 Alabama will absolutely have one of the countrys driving offenses this year even with firstyear Tide OC Mike Locksley taking control in Tuscaloosa.Bamas hostile list is stacked with hazardous ability driven by any semblance of 1000yard rusher Damien Harris and National Title Diversion here Tua Tagovailoa at QB.Include a stable of backs a prepared very touted hostile line a trio of electric wide beneficiaries and several tight finishes who will give adversaries inconvenience and Alabama appears to have the potential for memorable hostile numbers. Louisville vs Alabama Game Louisville vs Alabama 2018 Alabama v Louisville Alabama v Louisville Live Louisville v Alabama Louisville v Alabama Live Louisville Alabama Louisville Alabama Live To exacerbate the situation Petrino rearranged through another facilitator in the previous year bringing oftburnt protective apprentice Brian VanGorder on board to help settle the Cards cautious discharge.That is a risky prospect best case scenario as VanGorder has had unremarkable keeps running at places like Georgia Reddish Notre Woman and with the Atlanta Birds of prey of the NFL.He didnt separate himself in any of those past stops and with a diminished cautious ability base its not likely that Louisville will be the activity that vaults him to world class status.All things considered he is a positive redesign from past facilitator Diminish Sirmon so VanGorder will be accused of giving no less than a speck of change to the battling Card D. Alabama Crimson Tide Louisville Cardinals Alabama Crimson Tide vs Louisville Cardinals Alabama Crimson Tide vs Louisville Cardinals Live Alabama Crimson Tide vs Louisville Cardinals Live Stream The Louisville guard has its work cut out when it faces what might be a truly decent Alabama offense this Saturday.They dont have the ability level profundity plan or guarded instructing to stop what Alabama will endeavor to do upsettingly. The SportsLine Projection Show mimics each FBS school football game 10000 times and the individuals who have tailed it have seen huge returns.Amid the previous three years this restrictive PC demonstrate has created a stunning $4210 benefit for $100 bettors.It additionally shut keep going dish season on an impeccable 70 run. Louisville Cardinals Alabama Crimson Tide Louisville Cardinals vs Alabama Crimson Tide Louisville Cardinals vs Alabama Crimson Tide Live Louisville Cardinals vs Alabama Crimson Tide Live Stream Presently it has reproduced each and every play of the principal entire seven day stretch of school football and you can see every one of the outcomes over at SportsLine.One pick well give away: Shielding champion Alabama opens the season with a victory triumph over Louisville that will cover the 24.5point spread in an impartial site fight in Orlando. The model is calling for both proclaimed Dark red Tide quarterbacks to see the field for Alabama yet it is Tua Tagovailoa who drives the path with 190 yards passing.The show has likewise decided on the immense Best 15 fight between Notre Woman and Michigan and is anticipating a national title contender to get stunned by an underdog.