#I'm thinking of maybe posting few at a time this time instead of one at a time🤔

[esamastation]

fanciestgeckofella: desmond transmigrates into liu qingge

(This is not that, sorry, but I do have a snippet where Desmond transmigrated into Yue Qingyuan which I don't think I ever posted, so, have that one instead.)

-

First thing to go through Desmond's mind is something along the lines of, Oh fuck, here we go again. Next is complete and absolute bafflement. Because he's pretty sure he's supposed to be dead right now.

That alone is very confusing. Then there is… this thing.

[Welcome to the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way! This System is designed to guide you as you go about your existence in this world. Operating under the guiding principle, You Can You Up, No Can No BB, this System hopes to provide you with an pleasant user experience!]

Desmond blinks at the floating screen in front of him. It… doesn't exactly look like any kind of Animus screen he's ever seen - it actually kind of looks like it's from computer from pre-2000s or something, with blocky grey boarder like something he's seen in old TV shows. No Animus programmer would be caught dead using aesthetic like that. Right?

… Well, actually. He could totally see some retro-loving techie liking it. Not Rebecca, though, she's a futurist through and through, but if she'd been into the old style Window XP or something, it probably wouldn't have taken much effort for her to install some sort of theme - aaand that's completely beside the point.

It's an Animus. He's in the Animus again… somehow. Hm.

"Um," Desmond says out loud, and clears his throat. His voice is weird, different from how it should be. Not that unusual, in the Animus, that, but it feels… more than just having an ancestor transposed over himself. Man, they must've upgraded the Animus a lot while he was, uh… "I'm… aren't I supposed to be… dead?" he asks slowly and feels a bit silly doing it, because he's clearly still around, and yet…

[You have indeed died! Your consciousness has been transferred, and your role has been bound: Yue Qingyuan, the Sect Leader of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.]

… Okay, that's a bit different, but he can almost understand it. Consciousness transfer, role bound, that's probably new term for running around in your ancestor's skin. Yue Qingyuan, that's his ancestor this time around then. Cool. Sounds Chinese, which is interesting, Desmond didn't know they had any family there, but hey, Rebecca did say he had ridiculously low pedigree collapse, so that would mean his ancestry spread pretty far, right?

Ezio did have a Chinese student, Shao Jun, so, some pre-existing connections there. Maybe few generations down the line, they became bit closer. Rubbing a hand over his face and finding some of those familiar markers he shared with Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhake:ton - full lips, aquiline nose, high cheekbones… Desmond nods to himself. Yeah, yeah, seems about right.

And yet there's still something just a bit… off.

"Okay," he says, drawing a breath. "I'm still kind of stuck up on the being dead part. Did you reboot my DNA or something? How am I here being, like, a living - or at least a thinking - person?"

The System window seems to consider this for a moment before answering.

[Your consciousness was captured from your dead body and transferred into your new role.]

Oh.

Desmond squints. "Captured how?"

[Your consciousness was captured from your dead body and transferred into your new role.]

… helpful.

So it was the Grand Temple - the Grand Temple did something? He'd been digitised like Clay and Juno, maybe? Okay, yeah, cool, that makes sense. Not sure how well he likes it yet, but hey, he's around, he's thinking, maybe sorta-kinda living and breathing - it's a step above from not… doing those things. Yeah. He can do this. "Nice. And who's Yue Qi-qin - how do you say that name, again? Who is he?"

[Yue Qingyuan is the Sect Leader of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, also known as the Xuan Su sword.]

Desmond hums in understanding, eying the window, waiting for more. Nothing more comes, so he says slowly. "… Okay. And what am I supposed to do with him? I mean. What are we after here? Another piece of Eden, or… what?" he asks, folding his - folding Yue Qingyuan's - arms. "What is the mission status?"

[…]

That's all he gets. Literal ellipses, before the System window slowly flattens and disappear, leaving him blinking at empty air.

"… O-kay…?" Desmond mutters, making a face. "That was weird."

He'd never been left hanging in the Animus before. Not cool. The whole initialisation here process was a bit weird, really. Almost feels like they'd left him with an automated answering machine version of the Animus UI, or something. Was he even talking to an actual person there? What the heck. Why resurrect his consciousness at all, if they're not going to tell him what he's supposed to do here? Even Vidic didn't leave him completely in the dark…

Who resurrected him anyway? The Assassins or the Templars?

Uncertain, Desmond glances around for some sort of guidance or clue. The place is nice, and the graphic quality has gone through some incredible upgrades, like, damn. You'd almost mistake it for reality. But there is something seriously off about this. Not just the weird answering machine Animus, but… everything, really.

It doesn't feel like any Animus he's ever been in either. Usually when he starts out, it's as a passive viewer in his ancestor's memory - it takes a bit before he gets control and even then it's sorta not… not full control. Desmond is more used to being the passenger to his ancestor's actual driver. There's never not a moment where he doesn't feel like a second wheel on a unicycle.

Here, it's just him at the steering wheel, just him on the pedals. There's no other mind, no framework of another life - no shell of a person that once was. It's just him, in another body. Weird.

The terminology used was weird too - nothing like the lingo Rebecca or Shaun would've used. You can you up? No can no BB? What does that even mean?

Desmond rubs at his chin for a moment - baby smooth, not even a stubble - and then shrugs his shoulders and goes to get up. Might as well take a look around and try and figure out the limitations of this version of Animus. And it's not like he knew anything about Altaïr or the others either, not before getting the synchronisation up and running, so… better get started with that.

It's still a bit weird though. Usually he gets thrown into a cut scene first to get started with. Waking up in someone's - frankly rather fancy - bedroom is new. Ezio not counting.

Oh well.

-

And then he walks out under dressed and scandalises all the disciples on Qiong Ding Peak.

Alas that is as far as it got really, but the idea of Desmond as Yue Qingyuan is still weirdly dear to me.

[whotfareweidunno]

TFO ALTERED CYCLES AU - MAIN 4

Original Post

ELITA-1

- Eternally done with Orion Pax's BS

- Instead of being sent to "Waste Management" like in the movie she got sent straight to Sub-50

- She was actually the first to meet B-127 in this AU

- Still salty about being demoted

- Ready to punch Orion [and maybe D-16] whenever they do something stupid

- She's 21 ft tall in her fogless form and 28 ft tall with her cog

- She/Her

- Only follows along with the plan to find the Primes because she has no way to get out of Sub-50 otherwise

- Most serious of the group

- Was in Sub-50 for a few days before Pax and D actually got sent down there, so she had time to get used to B's oddities

- She only puts up with Orion and D-16 for B's sake, at least in the beginning

- Offput by what B had to do to survive and what he thinks is okay or not

- Ha some emergency tools like a repair kit, external radio, and emergency rations hidden on her person at all times

B-127

- Way shorter than in the movie [15 ft Cogless, 20 ft with a cog]

- Has been in Sub-50 for almost his whole life

- Constantly in low energy/conservation mode due to not finding a lot of energon in the heaps

- It/He

- Knows it's way through Sub-50's garbage heaps like no other

- Taught himself to read

- Collects a ton of Datapads, especially pre-war era which were thrown out by Sentinel's request

- Very energetic

- Has very little memory from before Sub-50

- Knows very little of what is socially normal

- Sensitive to light [and sound to a lesser degree]

- Hands on learner, makes its own things most of the time

- Lots of scars due to lack of medical care

- Has found dead cybertronians in the dump before

- If the bodies are in good shape it usually disassembles them for parts

- Has very little storage on its personal due to being so small so it made itself extra storage space using scrap metal and an old jet back

- He struggles to keep up with the others and reach things

ORION PAX

- Smart but in a stupid way if that makes sense

- Impulsive

- Got put in Sub-50 with D-16 a few days after Elita after competing in the Iacon 5000

- When he first saw B-127's Collection of Datapads he was shocked

- He read through them as fast as possible, and put the rest away for later reading

- He/They

- He always has extra energon on him as an emergency stash

- They're 23 ft without their cog, 32 with a cog

- He is slightly sensitive to noise due to his finials

- Kinda looked up to Elita-1 if I'm being honest

- Has a lot of impromptu ideas

- Has minimal emergency supplies outside of energon

- He finds he relates to B a lot [though he is definitely creeped out at the things he does]

- Always tries to find things related to Megatronous Prime for D-16

- Somehow finds a way to rope D-16 into things

- Wants Cogless Bots to be treated fairly

- Jumps into things without thinking

- Somehow both good with words and terrible with them at the same time

D-16

- Second most serious of the quartet

- He loves Orion, don't get him wrong, but he is SO done with him

- Idolizes all the Primes, especially Megatronous

- He got sent to Sub-50 with Orion after Iacon 5000, just a couple days later than in cannon

- Has drill on his person almost always

- Tries to be complacent and follow rules to the best of his abilities.

- He/Him

- Offput by B-127 as a whole, but he warms up to it soon enough

- Regularly gets caught up in Orion's Shenanigans

- Respects Elita-1

- Has a decent selection of Emergency supplies [usually used on Pax after he does something stupid]

- He is the protective one of the group

- 25 ft Cogless, 33 ft with a cog

- Was the least disturbed by what B-127 had to do to survive

- He is FURIOUS at learning what Sentinel did, but he is also more grounded by the others thanks to being around them for longer in this AU

[babeilovemonsters]

You know what? I'm so BORED of big monsters. Okay no, I absolutely love big monsters. Monsters that tower over you. But when I'm in a size kink mood, and I specifically want shorter monsters, absolutely zero content. So you know what? I'm making my own.

I can probably do a bigger post about different types eventually, but today, I want fae.

I want a short fae. A piskie, pixie if you're not Cornish like I am.

They stand at no taller than 1ft, usually only 13 inches, and live mostly in trees. Their skin feels more like scales, similar to the bumpy, rough texture of a bearded dragon, with tiny spikes, and often comes in green, orange, brown, and other such colours, and smoothed down their back is much softer than up towards their head. They have big, pointed ears on the sides of their heads, similar to a deer's in shape, with thin, jagged ends, mimicking that of a leaf. Their wings are also very reminiscent of leaves, but aren't for flying. While their bones are hollow like a bird's, they don't actually fly, but rather glide. That being said, they can hold their air time for quite a long while, travelling up to half a mile with the right height and wind strength. Their claws are sharp and perfect for climbing, and their feet are also similar to a lizard's, so they can still grab on. They have small, wirey thin tails, for keeping balance in the treetops, only reaching to their knees. Their eyes are big, and dark, perfect for spotting little details under the blanket of nighttime. Being omnivores, they have both sharp and flat teeth, similar to a dog's.

Some choose to wear clothing, fashioned out of leaves, ripped fabric, litter, and even wooden armour. But not all find dignity in covers, and so choose not to. This is a respected practice, so long as they keep their sexual deeds private.

Their genitalia is able to be concealed, hidden in their sheathes until horny enough to awaken and slide out on their own. The females are larger than males, and tend to be thicker in muscle mass. Males are smaller, thinner and faster, but not as strong. Thus, females are often the ones in charge. They aren't mammals, and ultimately lack breasts, laying eggs instead. During breeding process, the fucking is normal, until the eggs are fertilised. After the females are successfully bred, they'll wait a few weeks for the eggs to develop enough, before taking down some unfortunate mammal, usually a human. Y'know, cause these fae are cold blooded. They aren't warm enough for the eggs. All the currently pregnant females deposit their eggs via an organ reminiscent of a female hyena (if you know, you know), and keep this incubator nearby, before either letting them go or eating them when the job is done. Depends on how they feel.

Because of this, it's not uncommon for female fae to fall in love with the human. But it IS uncommon for the males to. The males don't really have a need for the human. But you know how it is. Maybe they just get curious, or have a human kink. They're not instinct driven animals, they're people too. They might just like humans. Hell, the human doesn't even have to be the incubator for a fae to fall in love! They might fall for someone who frequents the woods quite often. Maybe the human feeds the wildlife, or plants flowers in the trees. Maybe they bring their dog(s) every day, and the fae find it cute. Everyone has their individual reasoning.

Personally? I wouldn't wanna be an incubator. Sounds hot in concept, but realistically thinking, I wouldn't be very comfortable. But I'd love to feel a gaze on me in the woods. It starts very slightly, probably just a squirrel or bird, I think. But then I start getting that feeling more intensely. Sometimes the feeling follows me. Sometimes it starts the moment I enter the woods, like something was waiting for me in those trees. Sometimes I'd notice little flowers or berries put in specific patterns on the path ahead, always the same exact paths I take every day. I'd start leaving gifts in return, like little ribbons, or beads. I'd start noticing them delicately placed on the branches in decoration, and keep the collection going.

I just think it'd be nice. Having something wait for me every day.

However, piskies do tend to stay in 'packs'. I say packs lightly, as they are on the same wavelength as humans, probably moreso, and some aren't comfortable being compared to an animal. Sensitive topic. But point is, they stick together. You'd REALLY need to be someone special to have one leave it's family to accompany you, though definitely expect requests to visit.

Fae are smart. Incredibly smart. It'd find ways to get around, especially as small as they are. Maybe it'd hide in your bag? Or in the hood of a baggy jumper? Maybe it'd sneak alongside, hiding in the trees and bushes near the path, while keeping an ear out for your breathing and footsteps in order to navigate your location. In your house, perhaps it'd hide in the walls when company is around, giving nothing more than flash of mystery and wonder to your guests as they catch the slightest glimpse. It'd find ways to hide, while never really leaving your side. They are incredibly loyal, after all.

Most, but not all, piskies are asexual. They're not very sex focused. Of course, some are definitely kinkier than others, and they do get sexual pleasure, physically. Some are comfortable with the idea. Some are indifferent. Some are very much against it. But sex is rarely their first instinct. It's mostly food or games. This means you would probably have to initiate something. They'd do their absolute best, of course! But it can be difficult for something of their size to really do a good job. They weren't exactly built to satisfy monsterfuckers of other species. Maybe sex isn't their forte. You can definitely work with it! Some are wonders with their tongues, such long and agile muscles usually used for licking honey out of beehives, while others have more joy in using their hands and arms to reach in and drag their nails delicately across the insides.

But hey. If you can get a fae to love and trust you that much, you can do what you want with it. Cuddle, play, fuck... Just make sure your fae is comfy, and they'll never want to leave.

Hey, isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Damn, treetop piskies are pathetic, huh?

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[doodlingwren]

It's 2024 can we please stop saying it's normal to trace or copying an entire drawing and pretending it's 100% your work? Just bc you changed the character or added clothes on a base you found on pinterest it doesn't mean you created original art

[pandaspwnz]

Whoever decided it was a good idea to bake a pie on a fucking wednesday afternoon is a goddamn clown and should be dropkicked into the sun

[spotaus]

Scheming :)

[polygondotcomvideoproducer]

Uni lecture is making me think about my future for a minute and auuuggghhhh the agonies

[katimanki]

I guess I'll be doing it! Fairytale dresses 2.0 will be here this spring/summer💐🌸🌻

Feel free to send suggestions/requests of Stranger Things girlies and dresses✨️

Glee Fairytale Dresses 2021

I do have dresses picked out for the main ST girlies, most of them aren't set in stone until I start to draw them! I had trouble picking them so suggestions are very welcome🙏🏻 El, Max, Robin, Nancy and Erica take 5/9 dresses, and I forgot about most of the side characters so I don't think I have the right amount to do them all so please help??.

I thought about drawing Karen and Joyce, then Karen reminded me of Holly and that would be so cute but young children are hard to draw. I completely forgot about Chrissy, Vickie, Barb and Suzie, the only side character girlies I remebered were Heather and Angela💀. That's 9 characters that'd have to fight for 4 dresses so I don't know what I'm doing, who should be left out? Or do I just choose 5 more dressed to do all 14 girls?? Or is there more I'm forgetting about😭

[tightwadspoonies]

How to Shop at an Asian (or other ethnic) Grocery Store

Do you live in or near a city in the US?

Need to save some money on groceries?

Might I introduce you to... shopping at the local Asian grocery?

Asian grocery stores aimed at an Asian-American customer base almost always beat the prices of their western (or for-western) counterparts. Often by a significant amount, especially in categories like produce, meat, rice, and spices. Plus in addition to lower prices, you get the satisfaction of supporting a small, local business instead of a larger chain store.

(Note that a lot of this information applies to other ethnic grocery stores as well, but we're using Asian because they're common in many cities, and have particularly good prices on produce.)

But it can be a little bit of a learning curve when you first start to shop at them. This post will give you the information you need to navigate them.

So how do you find a good Asian grocery store?

First, go on google maps and search "grocery".

Note that you are NOT googling "Asian Grocery" or "Cheap Grocery". If you search "Asian Grocery" you will get results for Asian stores marketing toward a western audience, and because of this, will be neat, shiny, and very pricey. If you search "Cheap Grocery" you will get stores marketing themselves as cheap, which generally are only slightly less expensive than their "expensive" counterparts (think Aldi). Okay in a pinch, but you can do better.

Second, look at the pictures of all the stores you can easily get to.

Here's what you want: not a lot of printed ads, pictures of hand-written signs (especially in languages other than English), food in cardboard bins, and you want it to look kind of "junky". Bonus points if you can see prices listed in the pictures or the people shopping there are mostly older, ethnic women.

Third, If you couldn't find anything like this, go on your city's subreddit.

Search "cheap", "cheap grocery" and "expensive grocery". Why "expensive grocery"? Because you want to find people complaining about grocery prices, and you want to see the advice they get. Many times, that advice is Asian or ethnic grocery stores.

If you're still not getting anything, google "[city name] cheap grocery" and "[city name] expensive grocery" (see above). Scroll until you get to FORUMS discussing groceries in your city. You DO NOT want blogs or articles. Again, you're looking at the advice people are given when they complain about grocery prices.

One of the first questions people ask upon walking into an Asian grocery store of the type discussed in this post is:

"Is the food I'm getting here safe to eat?"

The answer is just as safe as anywhere else you might shop.

You're probably used to very clean, pretty, well-lit, well-organized stores. This will probably not be that, but it will be regulated by the same health department that regulates those stores. They are held to the same standards.

It's a lot of work to keep a store looking like a western consumer expects. It's a lot less work (and thus less money) to keep a store looking like an ethnic career housewife or grandmother expects. That is largely where the savings comes from.

What's a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Produce. You're probably used to things like onions and carrots being the cheapest per pound. Here it's going to be greens, apples, pears, radish, cabbage and maybe squash and sweet potatoes. Check unit prices and prepare to try some new things. Also a pound of greens is a LOT of greens. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that you might see a few pieces of produce that are bruised or have mold on them. That's okay. Just don't buy those pieces. The rest of the batch is probably fine. Wash produce when you get home if you're concerned, though you should be doing that anyway.

Rice and dry beans. If you like to buy in bulk, you're in luck. Don't expect to walk away with a pound or two of these. They come in 40lb packages. But if you tailor most of your meals around them, those meals will be cheap af. There are also lots of different types of specialty rice if you want to make your own sushi or mochi. Learn how to soak and sprout beans.

Tofu. Tofu is expensive when you buy it at a health food store. It is not when you buy it at an Asian grocery. It probably won't be in pretty packages, but again, cheap is not going to be super pretty.

Meat and fish. Meat is generally going to be cheaper here, though maybe not by as much as the produce is. Pork will probably be your cheapest option. You may also see cuts you don't normally see, like tongue, intestine, liver, kidneys, blood, etc... "Weird," however, does not automatically mean cheap in this context. Check unit prices and prepare to be adventurous. If you don't know what else to do with them, dried fish and animal organs make fantastic stock when boiled.

Spices. Again with the extremely large quantities here. But very inexpensive compared with their western counterparts.

Candy. This makes a great inexpensive gift if you need one, since the candy sold at these stores is fairly exotic for a western audience.

What isn't a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Dairy. This includes fresh milk, butter, cheese, etc... If they have it, it will be very expensive. Consider buying elsewhere.

Eggs. Again, this will probably be as expensive or more than the eggs you could get at a western supermarket.

Snacks. Pre-made items will be expensive in general, even though they may be tempting because they are different from what you are used to and you don't need to learn to cook a new thing. Do your best to avoid these and make your own if you can. If you can't, frozen pork or vegetable dumplings are probably your best bet for a quick meal.

Bread. It's pricey. A lot of Asian cuisines use rice, noodles, or buns for their starch instead of western-style bread. So if you can find it it will often be a novelty item.

What else do I need to know?

It's okay to be overwhelmed by new ingredients. Look up some YouTube videos on how to cook certain ingredients if you're not familiar with them.

These are not supermarkets. They sell food and sometimes the kitchenware (steamers, woks, chopsticks, etc...) needed to cook it. You will probably need to get your soap and household items somewhere else.

Pay in cash if you can. Most of these are very small businesses and paying them cash makes it so they don't need to pay credit card fees. At the very least, make the minimum purchase before paying with a card.

[thelostconsultant]

Not a gold digger

pairing: Max Verstappen x reader

summary: Fans think you only want Max's money. But as it turns out, you were wealthy before he came into your life--you just don't make it obvious.

warnings: No smut, but there's a part that makes me say MDNI.

note: So... I'm kinda back? Idk, I'll see if I'll stick around.

The toxicity of the fandom was becoming quite entertaining, really. It was the third time since you and Max had made your relationship public half a year ago that someone started an anti gold digger campaign to protect your boyfriend. They truly believed they were doing this for a greater good, and they all begged Max for his attention.

It always began after they sniffed out he had given you something expensive as a gift or took you shopping to a luxury boutique. While there were some people who tried to protect you by pointing out that maybe he enjoyed showering you with gifts, the rest didn't care about that. 

You lived in a small apartment back home, you were driving a five years old Renault SUV, and no one knew what you did for a living. This was enough to enrage them and make them believe all you wanted was Max's money at the end of the day. Just think about the way she's looking at him, one of them wrote about two months ago, she's so clearly not in love with him. Poor Max, someone please save him. 

Ridiculous.

“Is everything okay?” he asked when he got home and kissed the top of your head. 

You were sitting in his sim rig, using the time while it was free to practice, because you wanted to play with him when you weren't here together, and he was more than happy to show you the basics. “Someone started another campaign to cancel me,” you replied casually as you got out with his help. 

Even when you were standing in front of him, he didn't let go of your hand, instead he raised it to his lips to place a soft kiss on its back. “Gold digging?” You nodded with a sad look on your face, but less than five seconds later you were both laughing. “Look, I know you're having way too much fun with this, but–”

Without waiting for him to finish, you raised your hand to make him stop. “I'm not stepping out of the shadows, Max. I've been hiding for years, even fucking Forbes doesn't know my real name or face,” you told him.

Back in the old days, when Bitcoin appeared, your geeky uncle had gotten into mining and trading it. He knew the potential, so he put most of his savings into buying them, then he held onto them, and by the time he got sick years later, he knew they were valuable and would be worth a lot more in the upcoming years. In his will, he left his savings and his wallet to you, giving you the chance to use them as you wished since you had learned everything about crypto from him.

So now you had Bitcoin as well as old fashioned investments, and you had used your money to help out an up-and-coming tech company for a forty percent share, and it was later sold to a tech giant for a lot of money. But despite your wealth, you chose to stay under the radar, because you loved your small apartment, and you weren't about to trade it for some fancy penthouse. 

You had met Max the year before in Las Vegas. F1 was a sport you watched with your uncle while he was still alive, and you were hell-bent on getting a VIP pass for the weekend. If you asked your boyfriend, he would say it was love at first sight, but in reality he was just annoyed by you. For a solid ten seconds, he would correct you every time you talked about it.

You agreed that you would hide in Max's apartment until this latest campaign died down, which gave you some time to spend together in peace. Every now and then you checked the tags to see how things were going, and after the silence of the past few days, today your name was trending again. Ready to have a good laugh, you opened the tag, but the most popular post gave you a minor stroke.

“Oh, fuck me,” you yelled as you launched your phone into the couch.

Max pulled the headset down to his neck as he looked over at you. “Is everything okay?” You raised your finger to your lips as if you wanted him to stay quiet, but luckily he got the message. “I'm muted. So?”

You grabbed your phone and went over to him. “They know. One of those idiots from the company I helped back in the day posted a tweet to protect me, saying that if it wasn't for me being an angel investor, they wouldn't be millionaires now,” you summarized as you gave him the device.

He scrolled through a series of tweets, and found a post from a journalist of Forbes in which he promised a proper investigative piece based on this info. He handed you the phone, then wrapped an arm around your waist. “It's okay, schatje. I know that's not what you wanted, but maybe they'll stop with the recurring hate campaign now,” he tried. “And if you’re worried about the article… Don’t be. There is nothing compromising about you. Yes, you inherited the money, but you have proven you know what to do with it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” you admitted with a sigh. 

“I’m usually right. C’mere,” he said as he reached out to pull you closer, but you glanced over at the camera. Rolling his eyes, he quickly turned it off, then gave you an expectant look. “Will you hug me now? And I want a kiss too.”

With a laugh, you leaned down to wrap your arms around his neck and gave him a soft kiss. But he wanted more, his hand slowly sneaked under your shorts, his fingers running over your clothed cunt before he decided to pull your panties aside and dip a finger between your folds. You moaned into the kiss, but he pulled away a second later to lick his finger clean. 

Shaking your head with a chuckle, you patted his shoulder and walked back to the couch. You could feel Max’s eyes on you the whole time, and when you looked at him again, he flashed a devilish smile at you. “I should quit the stream. Now that I had a taste, I want more,” he told you. 

“I’m not going anywhere, just try to be patient.”

He looked back at the screen, then put the headset back on his head and unmuted his mic. “Sorry, I have to go. See you next time,” he told the others, then logged out. You couldn’t remember the last time he left the sim rig this fast, and only a few seconds later he was kneeling in front of you, eagerly reaching up to pull your shorts off you.

liked by user1, user2 and 947,896 others

f1gossips: Breaking news! Turns out Max Verstappen's girlfriend isn't a gold digger after all as she has her own fortune according to the investigative article published by Forbes. Will the fans apologize?

view all comments

user2: And here I was, thinking she's just a greedy airhead...

user3: Easy to be wealthy with your uncle's money.

↳ user4: Have you read the whole thing? She invested the money and helped out several startups--that later became pretty successful--as an angel investor. Yes, maybe she inherited a lot of money, but she knows what to do with it.

↳ user5: May I remind you how many F1 drivers started their careers with their families's money?

user6: Told you she wasn't a gold digger. Suck it, haters.

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 1,577,353 others

maxverstappen1: If you don't buy your girlfriend gifts every once in a while, you're a bad boyfriend. I love to spoil her, it's not a crime. I love her, I'm proud of her, and you can send us as much hate as you want, it will only make us stronger.

tagged: yourusername

view all comments

yourusername: I'd be perfectly fine without the gifts, I already told you.

↳ maxverstappen1: I don't care.

landonorris: You're absolutely right!

↳ maxverstappen1: You're single, how would you know?

↳ landonorris: Just FYI, I've been in relationships before.

danielricciardo: You're so disgustingly smitten with her. (I love you both.)

[ms-demeanor]

Hello,Do you have any tips for recovering from internet brain rot? It's like my patience has dried up and if there's a huge amount of text (even about topics I'm very interested in) that I have to read, I get annoyed and just don't interact with the material at all.

I have multiple tips!

TL;DR (Because of course I generated a wall of text): Take a break from the internet, create a schedule for getting yourself used to reading longer texts, take breaks while reading, and perhaps reconsider how you interact with The Internet and the world in general.

Here are the basic "to reduce the brain rot just don't interact" tips:

Take a break. Give yourself time off from The Internet (for these purposes The Internet is the social media industrial complex; clickbait news, recommended videos, social media sites, etc. You don't have to totally check out of email or your local news site, just get away from the huge time sucks). I'd say to take at least one day a week where you're online for less than an hour a day, and to maybe work up to doing a week-long break from whatever the main agents of rot are.

Once you've identified the main agents of rot, give yourself a time limit or set up rules for yourself. I don't let myself look at social media in bed, for instance; no staying up late on my phone, no scrolling before I get up and start my day. I don't give myself a strict time limit anymore, but for a while there I was very firm about "you only get to go online 4 hours a day" with myself.

Don't comment (or at least only share the things you really want to share). If you feel the need to argue, or if you feel pressured into sharing something, don't. Step back, maybe even open the post in a new tab or send it to yourself, and come back later. If you've been thinking about it and have decided it IS something you care enough to talk about, share it. If you look at the tab and feel stressed out or still feel reactive, close the tab and walk away.

Go out and interact with the real world in a non-work capacity for a few hours a week; take walks or go shopping or go out and take pictures of insects. Touch grass so that The Internet is not the only thing you're doing with your downtime.

Here are the "work on reading longer texts specifically" tips:

Set a reading goal for yourself. Maybe you want to read one New Yorker article a week, maybe you want to read all the way through news articles, maybe you want to read novels like you used to in high school. Figure out what your actual goal is and articulate that goal to yourself.

Set up a practice schedule and gradually increase the amount of time you're reading. Don't go from short tumblr posts to a novella, go from short tumblr posts to slightly longer news articles, then to slightly longer essays, then to a novella. You can do this in literal paragraphs if you want to - maybe your goal for your first day is to read five paragraphs in a row, and the second day is seven, and the third day is ten, etc, until you are comfortably reading for longer amounts of time without counting paragraphs. (Try this with books from gutenberg.org; read a classic you haven't read a few paragraphs at a time and if you find yourself going over your paragraph count, let yourself run with it. If you finish a book, good for you, find another one and start again.)

Set up a maintenance schedule. If your goal is to read longer news pieces, try to read a longer piece every week and try to read to the end of every news article you open. If your goal is to read novels or longer nonfiction, try to read a book a month (maybe setting aside dedicated time each week to read, maybe Thursday evenings are book time now). If you find yourself falling back into old habits, take a break from The Internet and do some more rigorous practice for a while.

If you find yourself getting frustrated while you are reading you can also take a break! Read until you get frustrated and then *instead of switching to a different page or closing the article* close your eyes or look out the window or away from the screen for thirty seconds (count 'em! count out the time in your head) and then continue reading. You can also take a longer pause and sit and think about why you're getting frustrated. Is it the subject matter? Is it just looking at this text for longer than a couple minutes (if you are experiencing FOMO because you're reading for another few minutes instead of scrolling, the harder tips at the bottom are going to be important to you)? Are you comfortable? Are you reading this text to procrastinate from something and the procrastination is making you nervous? Are you trying to read to the bottom of your dash and reading a long post is taking up more time than you want while scrolling? Are you bored? Genuinely and very seriously: are your eyes straining and does your head hurt (if this is the case when is the last time you had your eyes checked or your glasses prescription updated)?

Here are the much harder "examine yourself and reassess your reactions to things" tips:

Work on re-training your attention span.

Identify something that you enjoy and find deeply engaging, and schedule some dedicated time for that thing. Set a literal timer (it can be a short amount of time at first) and sit down and do the thing without switching to a different website or opening up an app on your phone. This can be re-reading or watching a couple episodes of a show you like or listening to your favorite album while you sit down and draw. What's important is to spend a longer time focusing on doing something you DO like before attempting to spend a longer time focusing on something you DON'T like.

When you're starting on things you DON'T like, start with things you mildly don't like, or that feel tedious but aren't actually unpleasant. One way I do this is by transcribing poetry; I look up poems that I connect to and I transcribe them into a notebook that I have for that purpose. I enjoy having the finished product, but I don't enjoy the process, so it takes some effort to stick with it. Maybe there is a boring book you have been trying to get through, maybe you need to detail your car, maybe you've been trying to take up embroidery - these are good things to make yourself pay attention to (having music or a podcast on can help, but avoid watching videos or opening social apps)

When you're okay at that kind of thing (doing something not actively unpleasant) work on your attention span for things you ACTIVELY don't like. I don't think you should be a masochist about this, but you should work on being okay with doing unpleasant things for a sustained period of time. All of us have to do unpleasant stuff sometimes, and it's better to be able to pay attention to it for an hour at a time than it is to put it off forever.

This leads into the next Big Tip which is:

Work on being less reactive

Find something that you dislike; I'm going to use conservative talk radio as my example.

Expose yourself to the disliked thing for short periods of time (under ten minutes, maybe under five minutes).

Work on moderating your emotions during the time spent exposed to the disliked thing. If it makes you angry, work on intellectualizing the anger without becoming agitated by it. If it makes you sad, work on accepting that sadness without letting it drag down your mood. This isn't precisely about becoming numb to stimuli, but it is about being more in control of how your emotional reactions impact you.

Analyze the disliked thing. Why does it make you angry? Is that on purpose by the creator of the thing? Would it make someone else angry in the same way? How would you explain the anger to a neutral third party?

Consider responding instead of reacting. Let's say you're seeing a lot of very sad and upsetting things online and it's making you sad and upsetting you. You re-share these things because you don't feel like there's anything else you can do or you get angry when you see people sharing incorrect information, perhaps you argue with people about this. Now try looking at the upsetting things through the lens of point number four. This has upset you; how has it upset you? And once you've thought about how it upset you and have articulated that to yourself, find out what you can DO. I cannot make conservative talk radio go off the air, but I can support the groups harmed by conservative talk radio; thus there is no point in me getting upset and angry about conservative talk radio when I could be helping the people they target instead.

And that gets us to the last big tip which is:

Ask yourself if you are spending your time in a way that is enjoyable and edifying.

We all have limited time in our days and limited time in our lives. If you are finding yourself frequently frustrated online, it's a good time to consider whether you want to be spending so much time online.

If you feel like The Internet has become a rat race in which you can't read more than a few paragraphs without getting frustrated, there's a good chance that not only are you spending too much time on The Internet, but you're also spending it on doing things that you don't particularly like.

A realization like yours, Anon, that you are getting frustrated with any longer texts, can actually be really helpful because it provides a good opportunity to look at what you're engaging with and consider the questions:

Is this something I enjoy?

Do I feel good when I do this thing?

And that's a great way to figure out how to get rid of things that are leading to your background frustration. Maybe that looks like paring down the list of blogs you follow, maybe that looks like unsubscribing from some youtubers and podcasts, maybe that looks like uninstalling apps, maybe that looks like blocking a whole bunch of people and terms on your socials.

I don't think that everything we do has to help us grow as a person or expand our consciousness or anything like that, but I do think it's important to prioritize doing things that you like and doing things that you feel good about.

Like, I'm not doing something *wrong* if I spend an afternoon on Youtube watching drama channels every once in a while, but if I come out of a few afternoons of watching youtube drama channels feeling restless and anxious and like I wasted my time - even if I enjoyed myself while I was watching - it's probably a good idea for me to take a break from drama channels and see if there's something I can do instead that will make me feel better.

ALSO, A NOTE:

You are an animal that requires significant enrichment in your enclosure.

Think about tigers. Tigers in captivity are going to be excited to get high-value treats for any reason. They will eat and enjoy the treats. But if a tiger in captivity is only given the treats and never given any other form of activity to engage with, it is not going to be a happy tiger. If you start putting their treats in a pumpkin or a puzzle feeder or giving them toys to play with, that is going to be a much happier tiger.

Please give your brain things to play with that are more than just treats (though it does need some treats!). Make yourself a happy tiger. Your brain need a puzzle feeder, not a treat button.

[briefinquiries]

Tyler Owens x Reader: Read Between the Lines

Request: anonymous said: "I was wondering maybeeee if you could write some protective bf Tyler ( because i would be swooning ) maybe either someone keeps hitting on her so he steps in or someone maybe in another storm chasing crew is being mean so he steps in and defends her <3 idk"

Word count: 3.9k

Warnings: language, mild fighting i guess?? slight angst

A/N: sorry I haven't been posting as frequently! I started work up again and ya girl has been BUSY. Anyyywayyy, thank you for reading! please keep the comments coming! I love to see all your requests and I promise i'm getting to them as quickly as i can :)

“Need anything?” Tyler asked, leaning against the hood of the truck in a way that shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. 

“I’m good,” you said, offering him a gentle smile before brushing a few loose strands of hair from your sticky forehead. 

“You wanna come in with me then?” 

You shook your head– the idea of sitting in a stale diner with no AC was just about as unbearable as the thought of driving another second. “No, I think I’ll stretch my legs out here.”

“Okay,” he said in a tone that indicated you’d be missing out. He gave the truck a pat before adding, “We won’t be long.”

“Take your time,” you assured him. 

He offered one final nod before turning and following Dani, Boone, and Lily across the parking lot. Dexter also stayed behind. Instead of shitty diner food, he’s opted to take a nap inside the RV accompanied by his noise canceling headphones and a fan blasting right at his face. 

You were exhausted, down to your bones. You and the rest of the team had driven nearly six hours that day tracking a cell that hadn’t ended up amounting to anything. You were stiff and tired and irritable– just like everyone else. But you hoped that some time alone outside might help at least level out your mood.

You extended your arms over your head, groaning when you felt something lightly pop in your back, before craning your neck from side to side. The air was stifling– thick and humid with little to no breeze for any sort of relief. The heat hadn’t broken in nearly a week, and unfortunately for just about everyone, the truck’s AC didn’t work as well as it used to. 

The parking lot to the diner was relatively empty. Aside from the crew’s RV and truck, there was an SUV parked in one of the front spots and a small sports car with a steady cloud of smoke pouring out the cracked window.  

You let your eyes wander past the diner parking lot at the sprawling field across the road. The windmills were agonizingly still in the stale air– like even they were desperate for some reprieve. 

Your eyes fell shut as you took a few deep breaths, trying to get your bearings. 

Your peace lasted for about thirty seconds. And then the sound of blaring music and screeching tires had you turning your pulsing head. Instantly, you rolled your eyes at the sight of the familiar vans pulling into the lot beside you. 

Merrill Anderson and his crew started chasing in the area almost thirteen months ago. You knew because each and every moment that you’d known about their existence had been more painful than the last. 

Anderson was a meteorologist out of Texas that wore a cowboy hat almost as big as his mouth and an inflated ego to match it. He made sure you and everyone else around him knew that he had a PhD, and therefore, in his opinion, was automatically more entitled to chase. Him and Tyler had hated each other from the moment they met while chasing an EF2 in Arkansas– their feud only grew each time their paths crossed. 

Anderson was grinning at you through the window as soon as his van rolled by. You did your best to avert your gaze– hoping that lack of eye contact would avoid any sort of conversation. 

Unfortunately, you weren’t so lucky. 

“There she is,” he announced, boots scuffing against the dirt parking lot as he hopped out from the driver’s seat. 

“Now what're you doin’ out here all by yourself? Your team finally leave you behind? Realized they didn’t need two uni drop outs on their team?” he asked, tone already dripping in sarcasm. 

He was an antagonizer who got off on provoking others. And although you and Anderson had your fair share of unpleasant exchanges, you knew he only ever bothered you to get under Tyler’s skin. 

Tyler’s biggest weakness was that he was endlessly protective of the people he loved. You saw this particular trait as a strength– but you knew that Anderson fed off Tyler's anger, which you could only imagine was his intention now. Thankfully Tyler was in the diner– hopefully gorging on raspberry pancakes as you spoke. Because if he were to see Anderson talking to you– you knew this whole interaction would escalate quickly. 

“Anderson,” you sighed, leaning casually against the hood of Tyler’s truck. The smile you forced on your face was almost painful. “So lovely to see you, as always.”

You hoped if you withheld from his taunting, he might move on quicker. 

Instead, to your despair, he backtracked from his van to stand across from you. “You guys go ahead,” he instructed his crew. “I’m gonna spend some time with my friend here.”

They nodded before heading towards the diner, leaving the two of you alone. 

“You should teach that hillbilly- boyfriend of yours some manners. If I remember correctly, last time I saw him, he drove through a puddle to splash me.”

You bit back a grin as you recalled the moment he was referring to. “I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose,” you lied (it was absolutely on purpose). 

Anderson chuckled. “You know– I don’t know if we’ve ever had a conversation just us, without him lingering around. You’re much more pleasant. Both in conversation and in looks.” 

You felt a chill run down the length of your spine at his words– but the way he was looking at you was infinitely worse. You watched as his eyes flickered from your face to your chest– currently more exposed than you would like in the tanktop you wore in the stifling Oklahoma heat. You wished you had grabbed a shirt to cover up in– but they were all either dirty and packed away somewhere in your duffel. 

Clearing your throat, you stood up straight and crossed your arms, attempting to shield yourself from his lingering gaze. 

“Oh, hey now darlin’, don’t cover up. I’ve been stuck in the van all day with these jokers, this is the most action I’ve gotten all summer.” 

You could feel the blood rushing to your cheeks as you tried desperately to remain level headed. Anderson was a jerk– and he’d definitely make you uncomfortable… but you couldn’t imagine that he’d ever actually do anything to harm you.  

Then again, you’d never interacted with him for longer than a minute or two with Tyler and the rest of the crew at your side. This was uncharted territory that you didn’t care to explore. You felt your earlier determination to handle him on your own fade away with uneasiness.  

You turned your head towards the diner, hoping you might catch Tyler’s gaze through the window or something. Of course you were too far away for that– all you caught was the glare from the sun. 

“You know I’m not used to seeing you in clothes like this, usually you’re all covered up,” Anderson whistled. 

As soon as he took a step closer, you instinctively moved too. Except your legs collided with Tyler’s truck– preventing you from actually going anywhere. For some dumb reason, you felt obligated to hold your ground– to not let him see how uncomfortable he was really making you. But with each passing comment, you grew more and more fearful. 

Anderson now had his body angled towards you with a look that could only be described as predatorial. “God, it’s true you don’t know what you’re missin’ til you see it. We should have these heat waves more often if it means I get to take a look at this every day.”

You tried and failed to remain stoic. You wanted to yell– to tell him to shut the fuck up. But for some reason, your body and brain weren’t connecting. 

“C’mon, where is she?” he taunted. “You know, your sweet side has its perks. But I much prefer ‘em a little spicy.” 

He took another few steps closer to you. It was subtle, but you noticed. Anderson was so obviously getting a kick out of whatever the hell he was doing here, and you were doing a piss-poor job at withholding from it, like you’d originally planned. 

“Why don’t you come on back in my van with me,” he winked. “I’m not sure how your hillbilly does it, but I can show ya a real good time.” 

Get away from me, you wanted to scream. But your mouth wouldn’t move– your voice was lost somewhere inside of you. And all you could get your body to do was lean away from him slightly. 

“Don’t be like that, darlin’,” he cooed. He was so close that you could almost smell his breath. Your brain told you to fight– to shove or kick or do something to get him away from you. But all those previous instincts you had to fight back faded into paralyzing fear. 

Anderson reached across the space between you to move a loose strand of hair from your face as you began to tremble. “And don’t be afraid, baby doll. I don’t bite… too hard. Owens ain’t gotta know–”

“Anderson!” 

Your head snapped at the sound of a familiar voice… Not just any familiar voice– Tyler’s voice. He was currently storming across the parking lot with a look of pure hatred across his face. The second his eyes landed on you– undoubtedly and obviously terrified, that anger only intensified. 

“Get the fuck away from her,” he demanded. His eyes were narrowed and shockingly darker than their normal shade of sage. 

“Here he is!” Anderson taunted. “Her douche bag in shining armor.”

You couldn’t help but notice Anderson didn’t step away. In fact, if anything, he looked like he was about to step closer, just to really test his limits. But then, to your relief, you saw Boone, Dani, and Lily storming out of the diner in Tyler’s wake– all coming to your rescue. 

In an instant, Tyler was there, stepping between you and Anderson– forming the protective barrier you needed to finally feel safe again. Without thinking, you fisted the back of Tyler’s T-shirt for good measure. 

“Easy, Rambo,” Anderson sneered. “I was just tellin’ your sweetheart here how much I enjoy her new look. Who knew she had all this hidin’ under those baggy shirts? That the reason you keep her hangin’ around, Owens? I knew she had to be good for something–”

But Anderson didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Because before you knew what was happening, Tyler was lunging forward and connecting his fist with Anderson’s nose. 

The crack as it broke was deafening, you released Tyler’s shirt to cover your mouth in shock. Tyler hit him with enough force that he went staggering back a few steps, his hands instantly moving to cup his face. 

Tyler was still shaking off his hand when Anderson stood up straight, blood pouring out of both nostrils. 

“Damn, that bitch must be as good as she looks if she’s worth all this,” Anderson continued to taunt. Even with a broken nose, he didn’t back down.  

Without even hesitating, Tyler moved to strike again. But as soon as he did, Boone and Dani were both stepping in front of him to break things up. 

“Easy, T–” Boone said. 

“Stay the fuck away from her,” Tyler snarled in warning, pointing his finger over Boone’s shoulder. You’d never quite heard his voice so malicious or threatening before, and even though it was in your defense, it sent shivers down your spine.   

Suddenly, Lily grabbed your hand from the side, causing you to flinch. “It’s okay,” she said, tugging you a few steps away from the chaos– like she knew how badly you needed space from everything. “You alright?”

You nodded, flustered.  

“Next time you want to settle this without your little army of strays, you let me know, Owens. And next time you want a good time, Y/N, you know where to find me,” Anderson said, offering you a wink that churned your stomach. With that, he wiped some blood from his nose and began sauntering back towards his van. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Tyler snarled, still being physically held back by Dani and Boone. 

“Yeah, and he’d deserve it. But he’s not worth catchin’ a charge,” Boone said. “It’s been a slow season and we don’t got the kind of money to bail you out of jail.”

“Take a breath, T,” Dani said. “He’s walkin’ away. Take a breath.”

You watched Tyler slowly come back to his body. He listened to Dani and took a deep breath– his shoulders visibly relaxing when he exhaled. It seemed to be enough for his friends to finally release him. 

As soon as he was free from their grasp, Tyler turned around– his attention landing on you. “Are you okay?” he asked, his previously menacing voice now laced with so much care and concern. He stood in front of you– his body blocking all views of Anderson and their vans. His hands moved to cup your cheeks gently. 

“I’m fine,” you said, attempting to convince yourself more than anyone else. But even you knew it didn’t sound convincing. Your voice subtly cracked on the final word. 

Tyler stroked his thumb along your skin. The look on his face told you he didn’t quite believe you as his eyes flickered down to your trembling hands. Thankfully he didn’t ask more. 

“I gotta say that was a nasty right hook, T,” Boone said, clapping Tyler on the back as he approached. “I didn’t know you had it in ya.”

“What’d that asshat say to you?” Lily asked. “You looked really shaken up when we saw you out the diner window.”

“Nothing,” you mumbled, too embarrassed to repeat his taunts. You were shocked by how self-conscious you suddenly felt with everyone’s eyes on you. Anderson’s previous words had made you incredibly aware of every inch of yourself– like there was an electrical current humming underneath the surface of your skin. 

“Just the usual shit,” you tried to brush it off.  

You felt grateful when they didn’t push. 

Eventually, the crew disassembled– everyone focused on getting their stuff together to hit the road again. Anderson didn’t reemerge from his van, but as you sat idly in the passenger seat of Tyler’s truck, you didn’t take your eyes off from where it was parked– like you were anticipating some sort of retaliation. 

You remained hidden from the team– feeling so awkward and uncomfortable– like you didn’t want to be perceived or noticed by anyone. And you hated that Anderson’s words were the ones to make you feel that way. You couldn’t find any shirts in your duffel bag that weren’t disgusting. And currently you didn’t have the time or patience to dig through your second bag in the RV. So instead, you wrapped your arms awkwardly over your chest, trying to make yourself as small as possible just as Tyler climbed into the front seat. 

“Everyone else is riding in the RV, it’s just us,” he said, eyes lingering on you. 

“Okay,” you said, trying your best to sound casual. You wondered if he ordered everyone in the RV so that you’d feel more comfortable. You made a mental note to thank him for that later, he was always so good at reading between the lines.  

Tyler instantly noticed your uneasiness. “Baby, what’d he say to you?” 

You shrugged, refusing to meet his gaze out of sheer embarrassment. “I mean, I think you caught the gist of it at the end there… Just a lot of that.”

You heard his loud exhale. “Just say the word and I’ll barge into that stupid van and kill him right now.”

The corner of your lip tugged into a small smile. “I just want you to stay here,” you admitted. 

He nodded solemnly. Without another word, Tyler passed you something he had scrunched up in his fist. It was one of his T-shirts– like he knew you wanted to cover up without even having to say it. You took the shirt– the thanks you wanted to offer him remained stuck in your throat, but Tyler didn’t seem to mind. 

Instead, he pretended to fiddle with the radio while you silently slipped the shirt on. Almost instantly, you felt like you could relax underneath the fabric of his clothes. 

You curled your arms around yourself and tucked your knees to your chest. When Tyler asked if you were ready to head out, you nodded without another word. 

…

It was only seven when you arrived at the motel. Tyler went into the lobby to book the rooms while everyone else hung back. Boone and Lily were going on and on about using the pool later that night, but once you’d grabbed your bags from the truck, you sort of tuned it all out. 

Tyler found you sitting on the curb once he’d passed out everyone else’s room keys. He picked up your duffel from the ground before speaking for the first time in almost an hour. 

“You ready for bed?”

You nodded, offering him your best attempt at a convincing smile.  

“C’mon,” he motioned his head to the left. “We’re upstairs.”

Tyler led the way to your room– and even though this was a dingy motel, you’d never seen anything more perfect. The shades were dark, the AC worked, and there was a single, plush-looking queen bed in the middle of the room just screaming your name. 

Tyler let you shower first. And when you emerged from the bathroom, all the sweat and grime finally washed from your skin, he was gone. But in his place, he’d laid out one of his T-shirts and a pair of his boxers on the bed for you to use. You almost teared up at the sight of just how thoughtful he was… Still reading between the lines. 

You’d spent the entire duration of your shower trying to convince yourself that what had happened earlier wasn’t that big of a deal. Anderson was a jerk– of course he was going to say some jerk-ish things. It shouldn’t have been a surprise– and yet, you couldn’t shake the discomfort you felt. It was like all the words he’d said to you had nestled underneath your skin and made a home for themselves. 

In an attempt to shake the thoughts away, you quickly shrugged on Tyler’s clothes before sitting on the edge of the bed and wrapping your arms around yourself. 

Almost as soon as you sat down, you heard the front door to the motel open up. Tyler stepped into the room carrying his own bag and a couple of water bottles he must’ve grabbed for the two of you. 

“Better?” he asked, handing you one. 

You nodded and cracked it open. “Much.”

Tyler sighed before joining you on the edge of the bed. “Baby, are you sure you’re okay?” 

“I-” you started and then stopped. Your hands were shaking, but you jumped when you felt Tyler’s hand close around yours, steadying them. His touch gave you just an ounce of courage to speak. 

“It wasn’t even anything that bad–” you admitted. “I meant it earlier, you heard the worst of it… I just, I don't know, I can't explain it. But everything he said made me feel so gross… and dirty, and…” And, well, you didn’t quite know what else. Words were hard to come by tonight. 

“Oh, baby,” Tyler exhaled. He released your hand to wind his arm around your shoulders, tugging you to his chest instead.  

It wasn’t until he shushed you that you even realized you were crying, but it came out in a rush. You clung to him, instantly impressed by his ability to just make you feel so much safer. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. 

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he assured you, only squeezing tighter. 

“I don’t know why this bothered me so much–” 

“Because Anderson is an asshole and he intentionally said some gross shit to shake you up,” he answered for you. “You’re allowed to be upset by that.” 

You exhaled against his shirt, and when you licked your lips, you tasted salt. 

“I’m the sorry one,” he said. 

“What?” you shook your head. “You don’t have to be sorry–”

“I should have been there.”

“You were there,” you reminded him. “Unless I blacked out or something and I was really the one who punched him in the nose…”

Tyler chuckled softly, you felt the vibration against your chest– instantly soothing you. 

You sighed after a moment, trying to decide if you wanted to share what was really bothering you. You bit the inside of your cheek. It was so tempting to keep it to yourself, but more tempting than that was the idea of finally feeling a little more at ease again after just telling Tyler the truth. 

“I just–” you paused again. “I–” 

“Hey,” he said. You looked up at him briefly. “It’s just me.” 

That was the problem– it was Tyler. And you didn’t want Tyler thinking less of you because of what had happened. 

“I didn’t fight back,” you said quietly. “I just froze up– it was like I couldn’t even think straight. And he kept going and going, and I just stood there– taking it.”

Tyler ran his hand up and down your arm reassuringly. “What are you talking about?”

“It just felt like…” your voice tapered off. 

Tyler waited a moment before asking gently, “Like what?” 

“It just felt like I didn’t do anything to stop it,” you whispered so quietly you weren’t even sure he’d heard you. “Like I let it happen.”

“Baby,” Tyler sighed. “Baby, no. Anderson is such a jackass, it wouldn’t have mattered what you said–”

“But I could have told him to get the fuck away from me–”

“You were just trying to keep yourself safe. Baby, we can’t control how we react when we’re scared. It’s fight or flight–”

“Or freeze,” you mumbled, embarrassed. 

“Or freeze. I’m pretty sure fawning is one too, now,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter– what matters is you can’t control that you froze. Just like–”

“Just like you couldn’t control punching him in the face?” you asked. 

You glanced up just in time to see Tyler’s lips tug into a smile. “Exactly,” he said. 

“I just wish my fear reaction was a little more effective,” you pouted. “Freezing didn’t do much.”

You let your eyes fall shut when Tyler tugged you closed to his chest. “I guess it’s a good thing you have a douchebag in shining armor to come help whenever you need it,” he smirked. 

“Thanks for protecting me,” you said quietly. 

“I’ll always protect you, you know that,” he said, planting a soft kiss on the top of your head. 

You smiled against his chest. You really did know that. “And thanks for punching him in the nose.”

Tyler snorted. “Anderson’s had that coming for a long time.”

[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.