#just in general but also specifically because of how both of us are as people

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

Baldur's Gate 3 (Part 1 - Introduction)

It's a great time to be an old school Dungeons & Dragons player, you get to smugly observe millions of people realizing the game is good actually... or at least that the game can facilitate heart touching romances with imaginary, terrible people.

(To be clear, I'm not judging you - these two are, but I'm not)

As one of the biggest AAA games of 2023, it's unsurprising that it's big and complicated - and there's a lot that can be talked about with many aspects of it - including female armor and costumes. Indeed, there's already a lot of commentary on it and community activity, from the confusing, to the life affirming.

It has also been the topic of how corporate practices continually reward those who participate in the creation successful art with notice of dismissal.

And of course, both Dungeons & Dragons and Larian Studios have histories that we've touched on before - and I can confidently say it represents a huge improvement in quality, style and attitudes. Plus sometimes their advertising is just gay.

There's good, there's bad, there's inspired and there's missed opportunities - so it'd be impossible to sum it all up in one post.

Also, now it's finished... I can feel safe commenting on it and not being told "that's changing next week" - that's the excuse I'm using for being so late to the party on this one.

It'll also be impossible to avoid talking about it without some spoilers. So I'll try to cover as much as possible spoiler-free, then put spoilers below a read-more break.

-wincenworks

In General

It's pretty good. Most of the costumes and armors are essentially gender neutral and the ones that do change seem to do so in response to social conventions, rather than a desire to sex shit up sexy - but where you can sex shit up sexy, it applies equally across genders. (Seriously, Lae'zel's lingerie looks amazing on Gale (nsfw 🖼️) and he's not the sort you'd think could rock it).

Looking at the artbook that I have because I'm one of those people who buys deluxe editions - it looks like there might have been a few early stumbles in concept but these were smoothed out before release.

There are some amazing examples (Minthara), and some baffling designs (all Githyanki armor), some interesting (Orin's) and some that are complicated (Dame Aylin's).

But overall it's pretty good and I would certainly like to see more fantasy media take it's lead from these sorts of designs.

So let's start with a few examples of how everything is complicated.

Why goblins have sexy armor?

The goblins in Baldur's Gate 3 are disgusting, sadistic raiders who are primarily interested in killing, torturing and enslaving all other races. They don't seem to have any crafts people of their own, preferring to steal and adapt.

So it's puzzling that, statistically, when most players encounter them they get this cutscene to showcase a goblin in sexy leathers.

Now, these goblins don't have a sense of shame - or at least not one related to things like nudity taboos. They're not exactly tactical masterminds or great crafts people.

So there's no reason for her to have masterwork armor, or hide her body... but this particular piece looks like pretty lovingly crafted lingerie made specifically to be sexy and flaunt as much skin as possible.

And the couple of goblins that have this, stand out among the rest of the goblins... who are mostly wearing scraps and bits and pieces they've cobbled together with nowhere near this level of craftsmanship.

Obviously, this outfit is not ideal with the sharp bits poking out... but it's pretty intimidating and it'd make it things more difficult for an enemy trying to stop Zurga from killing them so it works.

The end result is weird… but also oddly foretold.

Great armor, terrible disguise

Now, this is great armor - a little flashy with a lot of extra doodads - but from a fantasy perspective, it conveys the message and that the wearer is a pragmatic person prioritizing their own self-preservation.

Honestly this is one of the best examples of armor that is designed to be fancy without becoming completely unworkable, like it is real armor that's been adapted for ceremony. It has layers and while you would expect it to quickly become damaged beyond recognition, if you needed to be ready for a surprise scrap - it'd do the job and do it well enough (a cosplayer friend advised the breastplate is a little prone to being bumped but otherwise she didn't bump into anything)

(Though as a random reminder, if you're going for the very realistic approach - helmets should be a top priority. We accept that doesn't happen in video games like this though because we want to see those emotive, sexy faces - judging us for loving them.)

But Shadowheart is a priestess of Shar, and if you accept her as a companion she will happily tell you all about that and how an important part of being a priestess of Shar is secrets and concealing your faith from the masses...

There is also an explanation for why she happened to be in her ceremonial attire... but for most of the game, she demonstrates no awareness that she was in vestments when you met.

Now I understand that a lot of these choices are due to various experiments, iterations, etc. Shadowheart being an "authentic" priestess of Shar is not as important as her being an interesting companion in a fun game.

And now that I've definitely made sure nobody is going to "well actually" about the armor design or Forgotten Realms lore... a conspiracy theory:

Karlach's outfit (#freethenipple)

So when you meet the tiefling muscle-mommy known as Karlach, her default outfit indicates that she does not partake in bras. (She's barbarian which is a class in D&D that protects themselves not with armor, but by getting so angry weapons do less damage to them... just go with it...) and despite the forced sexiness of this design - it kinda fits her backstory:

So, she has a definite look, and apparently does not partake the wearing of bras... good for her! She's literally so hot that fire flickers off her, the boob sweat has got to be epic.

Interesting, Karlach is one two female characters who's "camp clothes" are listed specifically as "trousers".

The other one is always in pants and bra on female characters (but not male), but for some reason Karlach's trousers include this top that... just doesn't match the rest of her style and is nothing like her underwear (which also doesn't match her style):

So it seems this seems to be an odd case where in a game where you can access full nudity easily, and they gave her sexy armor... they did a last minute cover up to prevent the woman who would have the epic boobsweat imaginable walking around camp topless... and her model has a lot of detail that gets hidden by that top and her armor. (nsfw 🖼️)

And I know I am not the only one (nsfw link) who has had this idea.

Unless you just go into inventory and take her clothes off..., then toggle so she's always in "camp clothes" and always nude. It's just weird that the players are fully able to make her a nudist, but the game seems to have stopped at the last minute at making her go casually topless.

-wincenworks

[superectojazzmage]

I really dig Qimir's characterization. He's a Sith and a lot of the brutality of Sith culture is on full display, but he doesn't really come off as necessarily evil or even especially malicious, at the very least no the in the typical way Sith villains are portrayed.

Mae's hunting of the Brendok Jedi seems to have been more of a personal thing for her that he reluctantly went along with as part of her training, and Qimir himself is evidently more concerned with keeping his culture alive than perpetuating old grudges. He hates Jedi because of all the bad blood between them and Sith and the ideological differences and has no issue with killing them, but also mostly just wants to be left alone to practice his faith, use his powers, and rear his own students/children as he sees fit rather than being forced to follow the laws of the nation that destroyed his own.

He bears no delusions about the Sith's current predicament as a tiny husk of it's former self hiding in the cracks of a society dominated by ancestral enemies, like many of the Baneite Sith do. He isn't interested in fantasies of revenge and conquest. As he says to Sol, the only reason he kills the hunting party is because Mae has caused them all to discover the Sith, and if the Jedi Council and Republic learn about Sith still existing they'll default to slaughtering or depowering them all for being "tainted by darkness", the exact same way they've done after every prior conflict with the Sith.

And while he disagrees with the Jedi Code, he also despises when Jedi fail to follow their own stated principles and gladly points out when they're being hypocrites (like how he mocks Sol for being upset over Jecki's death because she's "a child", as if he didn't personally lead said child into lethal combat after rearing her as a warrior and as if the Jedi in general don't use their padawans as child soldiers as a rule). His obvious disdain Sol and the Brendok Jedi specifically over even the other Jedi seems less motivated by the Jedi-Sith feud and more by him knowing about the very bad thing they almost assuredly did on Brendok and being livid about them continuing to act like they have the moral high ground despite it.

In a lot of ways, he's in the same position as the Brendok Coven, someone who wants to be free to live their own way and not be bashed into line by the Jedi and Republic, which would certainly explain why he and Mae gravitated to working together. They see each other as kindred spirits, both people left alone and in hiding by the imperialism of the Republic and the Jedi's refusal to let anyone who challenges their view of the Force exist in the long term, if at all. And that also adds to his anger with Mae when she turns on him; she was trying to throw him under the bus so she can ingratiate herself with the people who killed both her and his people. Even in a culture that values cunning and deceit, that sort of betrayal would probably be seen as unimaginable, the kind of dishonor that can never be atoned for.

All in all, the show is such a nice throwback to the more morally nuanced and even-handed works you used to see more of during the Legends EU days, showing the flaws and issues with all the involved groups while not coming down too hard and deeming any one pure evil, as well as treating the individual characters within those groups as varied in nature but usually sympathetic or at least understandable. The Jedi as an institution and a part of the governmental system are deeply flawed at even the best of times, but most of the Jedi come off as decent folk who are genuinely just trying to do the right thing. The Brendok Witches had their issues, but also justified reasons for everything they did and at the end of the day they just wanted to be allowed to live their lives without fear of outsiders storming in to take their children away and forbid them from passing their ways on. And now, with Qimir, yeah, the Sith culture is shown to be very harsh, ruthless, or even downright savage by the standards of the Jedi (and our own real world values), but they're still people at the end of the day.

[sunriseseance]

Promo Theory Brain Dump

I Have Thoughts and now I am making that other people's problem.

GENERAL THOUGHTS: I think this season is going to center around the fact that you cannot just paint over the cockroaches in your life and have them go away. They got rid of their powers, they have lives to live, and by all rights they should be happy. They're not, and it's because their trauma still exists, and they are still the Hargreeves (even if they do not want to be). I think being without their marigolds is killing them. I think the universe is probably tearing itself apart in some way or another. I think that's why this mysterious subway exists. They CANNOT escape their pain, they have to actually face it. Which is why I think their powers come back wrong/weird/better when they do get them back. Will they end up in the original timeline? Who knows. But I think they are going to have to actually, materially confront their shitty father and the shit they've gone through in order to save the world. What will that look like? I don't know, but it seems they have a ways to go given that they are still DOING SHIT WITH HIM!!! I am excited to see, and to hear any thoughts y'all may have. Ok, theories under the readmore.

One last trip to the moon 🌚:

Luther....@anglophile-rin said stripper and that was my first thought as well. HE's got the ones in his pants, he's covering his crotch, he's holding the umbrella in a kind of salacious way. We see the one dollar bills, he is number one, and he is outweighing his space helmet full of cash. Why? It's a deliberate choice that they did not have to make. He sits on a lot of sitting surfaces very normally. They chose for the balance to be off, which I think means it matters. I think it is about internal balance, or perhaps self worth. He is figuring out that he is more than the moon trip, finally unpacking it (as it seems this season is circling back to a lot of life and trauma from season one). I think there is also something to the fact that they used the moon with the face. Personifying it. And maybe he's a stripper.

One last slice and dice 🔪

Diego is split between two worlds. He has the boxes on his left (packaged up, and mirroring both the box in Lila's and his emoji from the first set of promos). Interesting that the Umbrella is also on his On the left, but it is closed (indicating no current need for it). He only has a knife that he is holding by the blade in his right hand (which makes sense to me). He is harming himself and turning his back on his family and closure by choosing the "right" thing. This is probably the most brilliant one IMO. I wish I knew what the boxes were about more specifically. Interesting that in Lila's, the boxes have baby bottles.

One last starring role 🎬

STARRING ROLE I KNEW IT. Allison is the answer to it all. She kept her marigold, and she caused all of this (one way or another), and she is miserable, and she has to fix it. She got herself the limelight and she HATED it (more circling back to season 1), just like she hates this world. The detergent is interesting to me. It feels... quaint compared to international superstardom. It also feels domestic, except that it is her face on a bottle that would be in a domestic space, not her. Just her image. I do think the bottles are for Ray and Claire. She did all this for them, and she has to do it again. I think she will be back to stardom, but I think this is more about her being the key. I think she will have to play a part. The first episode is clearly named for her, "The Unbearable Tragedy of Getting What You Want" is literally the story of her life. She has to fix this.

Also she looks so fuckin cute I love her so much.

One last Cleanse 👻

Klaus knows shit we don't. As @bisexuallilapitts pointed out, Episode 4 is called "The Cleanse" and is about how the world needs cleansing (with sage, not with soap. I wonder if his cleanliness thing ties into Allison's detergent at all). It seems clear to me that he is aware of something and it is terrifying him. In the trailer we see him hung upside down in what looks like a shitty motel (s1 anyone?), and we see him performing a seance, and we see him with his fucked up You Look Like Death tat. Interesting, also, that cleanse and clean are linguistically tied. That would also echo his s1 arc, esp if some part of this is related to Dave (like the gas mask, maybe?). Germophobia/agoraphobia are one thing, a gas mask is a whole other fucking ballgame. I think he is having visions, and that he is going to want to fix this (for selfish reasons), and that as the prince of death he will have a unique part to play in righting wrongs. In addition, the bubble wrap looks more like someone trying to dispose of a body than someone trying to protect themself. Note that he has the ghost emoji again, instead of the sponge (and his goodbye tat). He has to face his new fears and his new troubles, and the old ones as well. I am interested in the fact that he is standing far to the left (farthest of all, in fact!) if we work with the theory that right is heroism/trauma and left is healing, I think that makes sense. I also think he fits into that first ep title perfectly. I want to know what he knows. Whatever his arc is, it will be tragic and wacky and insane and important. Glad to see some color on him.

One last time jump 💼

Okay so those are commission files, and his emoji is the briefcase instead of the hour glass. Five is finally going to deal with his commission trauma. He got the world safe, now it is time to reckon with what that means. He's also all the way to the right, with the umbrella and the files to his left. The files are open, but the umbrella is closed. I think this will have to do with closure. Five has to work through his past (literally) and find peace. More echoes of s1.

One last fight 💀

Christmas lights???? OK???? This is the one I am far and away least confident abt. The skull is, I think, a triple meaning. We are going to find out how Ben died (referenced in s1 as the thing that really tore the family apart), but this Ben is also a killer, and their Ben is dead. That I get. We also know that this Ben felt really sad about not getting to be with the Boys for the bachelor party, about not getting to be a part of things, and we know he got arrested. Christmas is a time for a lot of stuff, but it is absolutely a time for family. That is the only meaning I can derive from that.

One last chance to save the world 🎻

Viktor has nothing to his right, and the umbrella comfortably in his left hand. He also, from the trailer, seemed the most well adjusted to this new life (makes sense, given his old life). He has his bar rag on his person, and he has his closure and his family in his left hand. He looks relaxed, and content. What is left, then? Well, finally righting his wrongs. "The End of the Beginning" is the name of the final episode, which subverts the first season's finale title. He saves the world this time, with his violin (thank you emoji), to bring it all back around again. Closure. Peace. I think his arc will be about accepting those powers back so he can do what he always needed to do. I also REALLLLY hope they address the book, as long as they are bringing back season 1. That said, I am so happy for him.

One last disguise 👠

Oh fuck! Baby bottles in a box, a map of the multiverse, and the umbrella to her left, her far right. Her emoji is a red shoe (the handler), and her caption references a job she does not want to be fuckin doing!!! She wants her family, she wants her life, but she has to don the shoes in order to save those things. I imagine her arc will be tied with Five's intricately (and Diego's ofc). " I wonder why she was sobbing in the trailer. Has to be something there, right? She wasn't in season one, but she was all red shoes in s2, so I am counting that as her callback. She has to unpack what the Handler did to her, and what kind of person she wants to be moving forward. She started that work, but hasn't ended it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAND FINALLY

One last family reunion 🧐

His item is the marigolds and his emoji is the monocle (do we finally get to learn the secrets? Will Kracken go diving to find the monocle he dropped in the water in s1? Find out in 43 days lol). Clearly, he still has power over his kids, power that they will need to take from him and dismantle in order to heal. Ominous and disgusting as hell that he literally has their essences hostage. I think that their powers are their history, are their trauma, so they have to have them back in order to move forward. IDK what his arc will be, except finally finally finally getting what is coming to them.

Okay parting thoughts. Of course it is releasing on 8/8. There are 8 Hargreeves now. Of course they released this 43 days before the show. 43 children. It is interesting that the numbers change based on who is in the picture. I realy do think this is the season of healing and coming to terms with what happened to you. I think this is the season of finding peace, and taking it. I think this is the season of family and friends and love. I am so excited for this season I love you all so much mwah mwah tell me what you think tell me your theories say hi!!!

[cr0wc0rpse]

A win for the moving out eventually plan. My brother said yes to being my roommate. Free roommate who I already know and know I can live with 💪 and the concept of us sharing our own place is a little insane due to how we both are. Adhd weirdguy central

[destinationtoast]

background/future relationship tagging on AO3

I've encountered two opposite critiques/requests* for AO3 tagging of background or future relationships, and I don't think a single perfect solution exists. But I'm curious to see if there are strong preferences.

Scenario (see my tags for why I'm basing this on a specific situation instead of making it more generic): I'm posting a one-shot story to AO3 that is about A/B hooking up for the first time. But also, both A & B used to date C, and A is trying to help B/C to get back together, which seems likely to lead to A/B/C.

*If you're less familiar with tagging dilemmas AO3, here are the two different issues I've seen:

When I've tagged offscreen/potential poly relationships like A/B/C as relationships, I've gotten some complaints because that those relationships weren't onscreen, which disappointed people who were actively seeking out A/B/C.

When I've tagged only A/B, people who only want A/B and were trying to filter out A/B/C were unhappy, because A/B/C is discussed a bunch onscreen.

My opinion about the best thing to do here has wavered back and forth, as both of the above raise valid points. Very curious to see what others think is the best tagging practice!

[icewindandboringhorror]

my personal Media Genres tier ranking and also Neopets Species tiers. put together in the same post just due to being adjacently related because they're on the same website lol

links to the specific tier makers: Media Genres --- Neopets

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt my dupe ocs again... Maybe Quinn does have hashtag issues actually

[readymades2002]

tumblr sexyman is not an archetype or a type of character at all it is a phenomenon. you can’t just call any character a tumblr sexyman you can’t just fill out a checklist and WOW its a new one how fun! its not something that you make its something that happens

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

My cousin saying he doesn't like soda cuz carbonation hurts to drink

Homie its the sensory processing issues cuz we're all autistic

[inbarfink]

When talking about the distinction between Simon Petrikov and the Ice King,  it’s important to remember that originally, the Crown wasn’t trying to turn Simon into Ice King -

It was trying to turn him into this guy.

At the time, the Ice Crown - or rather the Wishing Crown - was programmed with Gunther’s wish to become Evergreen. So everything related to making the current wearer like Evergreen is a very direct result of the Crown’s Magic. The physical changes -

And the obsession with the name ‘Gunther’ -

And maybe some of the irritability and anger issues -

That is something the Crown is very directly forcing unto its current wielder. 

But everything else?

Ice King, personality-wise, was not much like Evergreen at all, or even like Gunther's view of him. And Ice Finn of the Farmworld Universe was also pretty different from the both of them.

At the time, I remember people assumed Ice Finn’s behavior is more indicative of what the Crown is actually trying to do with its wielders. That Ice King is so different because of Simon’s subconscious resistance against the Crown - while Finn’s much younger and dumber brain is a lot susceptible to the Curse’s influence to become some sort of mad world-conquering emperor of ice and snow. 

But, with the context of the Crown’s actual backstory. That doesn’t seem very likely anymore. I think what’s actually happening there is that the Crown is just trying to make its wielder an Ice Wizard on par with Evergreen (who was the Actual Goddam Ice Elemental) and that means pumping the wielder’s brain so full of Magic, Madness and Sadness to a level that is bound to overwhelm anyone.

And Simon’s and Farmworld Finn’s very different behaviors after putting on the crown is indicative, more than anything, of how their psyche reacts to Madness and Sadness in general. You know, Finn has a very proactive and kinda aggressive personality - and you add Crown-induced-Madness-and-Sadness and a compulsion to use Ice Magic as much as possible and you get all of…. this 

Meanwhile, for Simon, the compulsions of the Crown originally filtered exclusively via the language of protection 

As his madness always manifested as romantic obsession 

And using goofy humor to try and deny the pain he’s going through 

Because that’s how Simon’s mind specifically reacts to being flooded with so much Madness and Sadness.

That’s why there’s so many parallels between Ice King and the sort of mistakes and screwed-up stuff Simon does right now! He’s even kidnapping people again!

Because the Madness and Sadness of Ice King might’ve been induced by the Crown, but now Simon has plenty of personal home-grown Madness and Sadness inside him - and it’s no surprise that Curse-Induced or not, his mind reacts to it in a sorta-similar way. (Although obviously not as intensely, again, there was a LOT of MMS in the Ice Crown).

Now as for Ice Thing, and the fact that he seems to be actually rather well-adjusted under effects of his version of the Wishing Crown. I mean... not by the time of the 1000+ Era, but that’s literally eons in the future and also maybe more Gibbon’s fault. Even if the Crown will eventually take some sort of toll on him, for now he seems to be doing pretty well considering his wish. I mean, there's still some sort of Loss of Identity stuff going on

But everything we've seen of Ice Thing (in the present day, at least) shows him as a friendly and cheerful individual that gets along well with others. A far cry from how maladjusted every single wielder of the Ice Crown acted.

At the very least, if there's any notable amount of Sadness in him, we really haven't seen it yet.

There might be several factors here:

First things first, I should acknowledge the possibility that it’s just that Orgalorg’s eldritch brain is better at intaking all that MMS juice. That could play a part, but I think it’s probably more important, at least thematically, to look at the distinction between ‘I wish to be Evergreen’ and ‘I wish to be Ice King’. 

First in the sense that while Ice King was occasionally mean to Gunter at times - he was generally much kinder than Evergreen ever was for ‘his’ Gunther. So, like, pretty much the one Personality Flaw of Ice King that you can directly link to the Ice Crown’s attempt to mimic Evergreen is the occasional anger issues.

And how they relate to Gunther’s view of Evergreen, so grumpy and controlling and constantly saying ‘NO!’

(Both Finn and Simon’s demonstrable not-crown-induced trauma responses can make them pretty short-tempered as well. So I’m not going to say this is purely the effects of the Crown. It still probably plays some sort of factor at why the wielder of the Ice Crown is Like That).

And that is not a factor in how Gunter views Ice King. For him, Ice King was a doting and loving father figure - so if the Crown was ever trying to implement any sort of specific negative personality traits, this is absolutely no longer a factor. Because the original Ice Crown was a reflection of Evergreen’s abuse, and now Ice Thing is a reflection of Ice King’s fatherly love.

Which is, itself, probably an echo or remnant of Simon’s own strong parental instincts. 

Secondly, while the Crown was trying to make the Ice King just as powerful as Evergreen…. Ice King was obviously not as powerful as Evergreen. Because he was already a second-rate copy of the Ice Elemental’s power, and because Ice King was often just too doofy to use his powers correctly and probably because some remnant of Simon’s original sensible self is subconsciously holding his powers back.

Either way, being ‘like Ice King’ as Gunter sees him requires less Magic than being ‘like Evergreen’ as Gunther saw him - and therefore less Madness and Sadness. Leading to the wearer or, um, the eater being a lot more well-adjusted from the get-go.

And I think that the implication that Ice Thing has fused with the Crown, so there's never going to be another poor sap who puts on the Crown and gets Ice King'd. But if there is one somehow... at least the process is going to be less mentally detrimental that time around?

Maybe one day Simon could look back and appreciate how much he (or Ice King, or both of them, or however you want to look at the situation) is responsible for basically neutralizing the Crown that ruined his life in the first place.

[jadevine]

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

[bisexualbaker]

Why do people keep recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative, when Dreamwidth and Tumblr are so different?

To be flat-out honest, it's because Dreamwidth has so many things that Tumblr users say they want, even if it's also lacking a lot of features that Tumblr users have come to love:

Dreamwidth has incredibly lax content hosting rules. I'd say that it's slightly more restrictive than AO3, but only just slightly, and only because AO3's abuse team has been so overwhelmed and over-worked. Otherwise, the hosting policies are pretty similar. You want to go nuts, show nuts? You can do that on Dreamwidth.

In fact, Dreamwidth is so serious about "go nuts, show nuts", it gave up the ability to accept transactions through PayPal in 2009 to protect our ability to do that. (It's also one reason why Dreamwidth doesn't have an app: Dreamwidth will never be beholden to Apple's content rules this way.)

Dreamwidth cares about your privacy; it doesn't sell your data, and barely collects any to begin with. As far as I'm aware, it only collects what it needs to run the site. The owners have also spoken out on behalf of internet privacy many times, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

No ads. Ever. Period. They mean it. Dreamwidth is entirely user funded.

Posts viewed in reverse chronological order; no algorithm, opt-in or otherwise. No algorithm at all. No "For You" or "Suggested" page. You still entirely create and curate your own experience.

The ability to make posts that only your "mutuals", or even only a specific subset of your "mutuals", can see. Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie, Clyde, Butch, and Cassidy? You can do that! Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie and Butch, but Clyde and Cassidy can't see shit? You can do that, too!

The owners have forsworn NFTs and the blockchain in general. Not as big a worry now as it was even a year ago, but still good to know!

We are explicitly the customers of Dreamwidth. Dreamwidth wants to make us happy, so any changes they make (and they do make changes) are made with us in mind, and after exploring as many possibilities as they can.

Dreamwidth is very transparent about their policies and changes. If you want to know why they're making a specific change, or keeping or getting rid of a feature, they will tell you. You don't have to find out ten months later that they're locked into a contract to keep it for a year (cough cough Tumblr Live cough cough).

So those are some things that Tumblr users would probably love about Dreamwidth.

Another reason Dreamwidth keeps being recommended is that a significant portion of the Age 30+ crowd spent a lot of earlier fandom years on a site known as LiveJournal. Dreamwidth may not be much like Tumblr, but it it started out as a code fork of LiveJournal, so it will be very familiar to anyone who spent any time there. Except better.

Finally, we're recommending Dreamwidth because some of the things that Tumblr users want are just... not going to happen on the web as it is now. Image hosting is the big one for this. Maybe in the future, the price of data will be much cheaper, and Dreamwidth will be able to host as much as we all want for a pittance that a fraction of the userbase will happily pay for everyone, but right now that's just not possible.

Everywhere you want to go that hosts a lot of images will either be running lots of ads, selling your data, or both.

Dreamwidth knows how much it costs to host your data, and has budgeted for that. They are hosting within their means, within our means.

Dreamwidth is the closest thing we may ever get to AO3 as a social media platform. One of the co-owners is from, and still in, fandom; she knows our values, because they are also her values. It may as well be the Blogsite Of Our Own.

[felassan]

Notes from the June 14th 2024 Developer Q&A, from the official BioWare Discord

Under a cut due to length.

Please note that these notes are mostly not directly-transcribed quotes! It was a live session, so these were quickly-written cliff notes produced at pace. So if anything sounds weird or slightly off, it's almost certainly because of that and not because of anything a dev said. Corinne Busche, John Epler, Matt Rhodes and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

Update: I have done another pass of this post to tidy up typos, grammar etc. :>

Update 2: 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 `˶ ) Also, I have done another pass of this post while listening back to the video, to tweak a few things and fill in a few lil gaps that there was. :>

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The session began. The first question was on which of the factions in the game the devs would like to belong to. The Antivan Crows have great fashion - Corinne said that we are going to love their threads. Corinne loves both them and the Mourn Watch. She said she would go with the Crows for fashion reasons, and her vibes-based answer is the Mourn Watch.

John's answer was the Veil Jumpers (for fashion + vibes both). “Who doesn’t like a walk in the forest, you know, even if that forest is filled with horrifying monsters and terrifying anomalies?”

Arlathan Forest is filled with horrifying monsters and terrifying anomalies.

The faction Matt would choose is the Lords of Fortune because "pirate-barbarian is just such a great combination of elements"; he likes that they are related to treasure-hunting, beaches, palm trees and everything like that. "It's a really good mix."

This game is a much more intimate experience, and in this regard the camera has been pulled in. The reason why is that the devs want us to feel like we actually are in this world, like we're walking these city streets of Minrathous, looking up, seeing the buildings all around you - "you're a part of this place". They believe that as the narrative unfolds, this creates a lot more immersion.

Since the question was about there being two companions, Corinne continued, "Now, how this relates to companions, we went back and forth on it a lot, but we actually found, with this perspective," having two companions really allows the companions to each have more visibility and presence. The companions are fully-realized, we will really see them shine. They did testing with their internal team and the Council of players as well [the Community Council] and found that when you’re playing in the combat system, when you’re planning strategies, two really felt like the right number to manage. Rook has a lot of different types of actions, abilities and individual attacks available to them as the PC - more than ever before - and the number of inputs we need to take when telling Rook and the companions what to do is also higher than ever before. Timing and position matter a lot in this game. With those things in mind, two companions in the field felt like the right balance.

Banter is still absolutely a core part of and big thing in DA:TV. There is global banter (the general stuff that we will get in all spaces) as well as mission-specific banter. If anything, this game has the most banter that they have ever done in terms of pairings of companions. They have added some interruptible and resumable banter too this time. John said, “You could not stop the writers from [writing banter] even if you tried”. Writing is one of the more light, fun things for the writers to do. They get to write little stories and arcs between different companions, and DA:TV is no different.

Corinne added: "John, 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 them? Like, do I get to see my companions interacting in a broader group more often? 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, those are some of my favorite parts."

They wanted to make sure that the companions had a life and relationships of their own outside of the times when we take them out into the field. "So we made sure that they had those interactions there as well."

They were asked about the customizability of Rook's backstory. Rook has 6 different backgrounds that you can choose from. Each of them is tied to one of the major factions in DA:TV. "Each one sets up who Rook was before they were recruited by Varric. Well that sets out the broad events. As you go through the game, as you 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 background to ground them in the world and then letting you decide what that means, what that says about you, is also a big part of it." "A lot of opportunities to really define who your Rook was and who they are now, so."

Q. Will crafting return? A. We can improve and customize our gear, that is a big part of RPG progression. "I will say though, it is different this time around, and it does get into spoiler territory so I'm gonna be a little bit cagey about it, but there might be a mysterious entity that assists you with that, that will be an important part of the narrative."

Emmrich’s skeleton Manfred is not "kissable" or romanceable, however, they added - “not that skeleton, but we’re not saying no skeletons”.

They have taken a different approach on how we import our decisions into the game this time around. This is now fully integrated into the character creator. The devs believe that this serves a dual purpose. Corinne said that she playfully thinks of it as ‘last time on Dragon Age’, though it isn't actually called this in the game. She noted that it has been ten years since the last Dragon Age game was released, so this aspect serves as a refresher on critical events as well as allowing us to remake those decisions that are critical to us. The system for doing this is very highly visual and uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic. "It’s a very visual and playful experience as you go through it." It was very important to them that this system was built into the client, so that you can play this game entirely offline. No online connection is required, no linking to EA accounts is required – this was a big fan request. Corinne added, “I don’t want to spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, but I will say that this [thinking about the decision import system and what decisions to include] has been a really interesting creative intersection for us, because on the one hand, this is a whole new adventure”. In this game we are in northern Thedas, in locations we have not been to before. This naturally affects "some of what will matter and what decisions they're not using this time around, as far as decisions. But obviously there are some very, very clear connections to existing characters." “It’s no secret that the Inquisitor is going to show up, so that’s a factor”.

The game only begins in Minrathous, it doesn’t stay there. “I don’t want to get into too much spoiler detail, but getting to go to and work with the art, narrative and design teams, to build out these locations that we've talked about", places in this game where characters in previous games came from and referred to in previous games has been really exciting for the dev team. We do start in Tevinter, but Minrathous is not the entire game by any stretch. "We've gone back to what we believe delivers the best, most curated, intense narratives." There is side content in the game, the locations can open up and we can go back and "solve mysteries" and things, but these are not fetch quests and they are not "grind content". The game is a very hand-crafted, mission-based, curated experience. The side content is really great. "The most important thing for us [on that], obviously we've talked about how narrative, story, characters are the most critical to us, and this has allowed us to build these experiences in a way that emphasizes that extremely well, tying into the story threads and the story beats."

Q. Will the companions have unique specializations? A. The "companions will have abilities that are truly unique to them, but also, they do fall into the archetypes of mage, rogue and warrior. For instance, because she has a bow, you might be surprised to hear that Bellara is in fact a mage, and I love that”. The bulk of the companions’ abilities are based on their own unique 'personality'. For example, Neve is the only mage that is an Ice Mage, so she has related abilities that are distinct to her, but because she is a mage she does have access to abilities that all of the mages share, like Time Slow. The devs are really happy with this balance, a good mix of representing their archtype, their class, and also their distinct "specialization or personality, whatever you wanna call it." “Each of these characters exists, each of these characters have a history, has a story of how they became who they were. Part of that was finding the intersection between narrative and gameplay”. They want to serve the needs of gameplay but also allow the characters to breathe as their own people both in conversations and out of conversation.

Healing spells return, and these are a part of the 'core mage kit'. "Your mages, you wanna make them a healer? Do that."

Q. Will DA:TV still have tactical combat? A. Yes, combat gets quite tactical. The combat system is an evolution of the previous combat system. The game has a robust difficulty system. Tactics are of increasing importance the higher up you go in the difficulty system. If you want a higher tactics experience, crank up the difficulty in particular. “I want to make sure I am super clear in my answer. 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 is a reason for that”. As the game progresses (we didn't see this in the gameplay reveal demo), it will display strategic information about enemies, such as what enhancements they have, what are they resistant to, what are their vulnerabilities, what are their elemental weaknesses. Our type of abilities, leaning into elemental gameplay, matters a lot. Also, tactical decision making also takes the form of coordinating abilities between Rook and the companions to create synergies or devastating (what they call) “detonation combos”. An example of this is that Bellara has an ability that is like a gravity well called Galvanized Tear. This pulls enemies together. You could use this to draw enemies in to one place. Then, Neve has a Slow Time ability. This affects the world around you but does not affect you. So you clump enemies up and then slow time. Then you could come in as Rook to do something like a devastating Area of Effect or Damage over Time spell or ability on the enemies that have been gathered up and slowed/frozen in place. The devs said that it is good to try and ensure that you have a few possible detonation combo synergies amongst your team that you choose to bring out into the field - so there is tactical gameplay while in combat, but also an element of pre-combat strategizing as you decide who to take. Also, the Wheel will tell you when there is a synergy combo available, remind you of those synergies between companions. You can queue both of those abilities up at the same time and when you pause out of the pause-time menu, they will both execute.

The enemies in Arlathan are “Fade-touched”, and they are vulnerable to lightning abilities.

Veil Ranger, one of the three rogue specializations, is one of Corinne’s favorites.

In CC, Rook’s pronouns can be chosen. You can select both pronouns AND gender, as as Corinne noted, these are related concepts, but actually not exactly the same thing. Rook can be non-binary. The pronouns available are she/her, they/them, and he/him. The Character Creator is very detailed and very deep. The team focused a lot on doing good hair and doing hair and skin tones respectfully. There is full body customization. They are going to show us a lot more on CC in the future, but at a time when they have the time and space to do so. The devs were asked about whether there will be a Photo Mode being in the game. They said that this is something that they are actively looking into. They know that there is a ton of interest in this. It is a feature that they like the idea of even just internally, as it is helpful for them to have this internally when they are building things out. They said that they will let us know about this when they can. "We are as geeked on that possibility as you all are."

On abilities: The Ability Wheel does have a capacity (as in number of abilities available on it). You have to choose which three abilities you want to bring for Rook, and what three for each of our two companions respectively. This creates emergent gameplay - you have to do that strategizing, building the combat kits before you go on a mission. The devs noted that while there are three ability slots for Rook, there is so much more than that on the Wheel. The Wheel has other things on it that we can perform directly from it. For example, on the Wheel Rook gets an "ultimate ability" that is associated with their class or their specialization. There is also a type of item we will get that will function like abilities, typically like buffs and enhancements, in the form of runes. These will be controlled for Rook and our companions from the Wheel.

We can choose what enemies our companions will target. Also, a lot of the companion gear really synergizes with that directing your companions. When you issue commands, that too will prock [sp?] based on the gear that they have equipped. "There is just so much from the Wheel, that once you get in and see everything working together, it becomes more and more apparent."

Fireball and Cone of Cold do not specifically return as spells in this game, but their successors do: Meteor and Frost Nova. These two abilities serve the exact same combat role and function as the previous two, only "with quite the glow-up", especially Meteor. It is “so satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed Meteor”.

On Accessibility features: They have spent a lot of time thinking about this topic so that we can play the game in a way that really works for us. They will go into this in more detail closer to launch when the time is right.

On the timeskip: John said “Anyone who's paid attention to Dragon Age, timelines are always a little iffy. They change and morph over development as we see how long events take. But for DA:TV we were actually pretty consistent since the start". It has been about ten years since the events of Trespasser transpired. "As you may have noticed, Varric has become a little bit of a silver fox." Solas’ Ritual has taken time to set up, and we are coming in at the end of that hunt [in the start of the game.]

They confirmed that Solas is still bald. Matt: “Solas is still Solas. I really like how Solas has turned out this time around."

In Thedas, ancient elves go bald when they’re like "millennia" old. So, Solas was not always bald. "So if you were to end up seeing what Solas looked like in the past, things might be a little different." What happened to Solas' wig from Tevinter Nights? John: "I'm sure he still has it somewhere. He's just taking care of it elsewhere, it's his most important possession."

Q. Will we be able to change companions' appearances and outfits, or are they fixed, similar to Dragon Age II? A. Matt Rhodes: "Yeah we, um, 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 basic outfit. So we really tried to make some space for them this time around, so, they still have, kind've iconic color palettes and things like that, but they do have a wider range of appearances that you can find for them. Some are just cool, but then there are some that are tied directly to their narrative and just kind've, what's happening in their life."

Q. "Will we be seeing or visiting Kal-Sharok? I've been obsessed with it forever." A. Matt Rhodes: "Yeah, me too. I, I will say, 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, where 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, add drips, and bits and pieces. So that stuff was really fun. In The Veilguard, we're actually getting to visit, like, a whole lot of those locations that had only been hinted at for reals, 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 kind've fun. I'd say say, yeah, for what we can show of Kal-Sharok, and, and other locations, it's just, there's more to do."

There are a number of different types of dialogue wheel in the game. All of the dialogue wheels are based off the same principle. In DA:TV, there are "tone wheels" (roleplaying your character and picking a consistent tone), "emotional 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'. The "Investigate" option also returns. They want players to understand as much as possible about what it is they are going to be picking on the wheel. "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."

Q. How extensive are Rook's decision trees for companions and NPCs throughout the game going to be? A. "Huge. It's a Dragon Age game. We wanna make sure you have choices, we wanna make sure you can choose your roleplaying but also choose outcomes of conversations, choose how events unfold. 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 is 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 the it's noticing what you're doing is a huge part of how we've written out the dialogue trees in this game."

Each of the seven companions have full romance arcs and they are all romanceable by all genders. This does not mean that they are playersexual, and this fact is important to the team. The companions don't conform or twist their identities to who we as the player are, and they don’t suddenly have a preference for men or woman based on what we are playing. Instead, they have their own fully fleshed-out identities which they are true and authentic to. They are all pansexual in this game. They have their own histories of romance, and sometimes we will hear about their preferences and things of that nature from them. If you don’t romance them, they will actually build their own romances with each other. Taash and Lace is one of Corinne’s favorite companion relationships. She says that she has heard that the shipname in the community for this is "Laash". (Corinne pronounced "Taash" like "Tosh" or "Tawsh").

Q. What are the markings on the faces of Davrin and Bellara? A. "There are quite a few, easily more than we've done before I think, tattoos from various cultures. We're bringing the vallaslin back of course. There are a ton of different options, especially when we're going into all of these new regions. Each region has its own kinda visual language for that. But yeah, we are bringing the vallaslin back, and then a couple of the characters have them, but we've kinda customized them a little bit, they're a bit more specific to their personality."

"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." Corinne said "they all feel like my dear friends".

Corinne's favorite thing other than the companions is the CC. "That CC, the makeup options, the range of sliders... I'm a qunari fan, so even just the way you customize the horns and combine that with the really great looking hair".

The art team worked very hard to make the story more visible around you in the game than ever. They really leaned into trying to make sure that every design, prop, characters, environment, VFX, that all these choices were putting the story on-screen. They wanted to put the story on the screen so that we can really see it all unfold. Matt, who has worked on all of the Dragon Age games, said that DA:TV represents one of the best attempts they have ever made at doing this.

This game contains "the deepest companion arcs" that they have ever done - not just in a Dragon Age game, but in a BioWare game in general. "Being able to work across all the disciplines, building characters who look and sound and behave in very specific and characterful ways." Each companion has their own story arc you can go through, decisions you can make. "They really do take center stage. As you play through them, you see the care and love that the team has put into each one."

There are moments in each companion arc that will make you cry, angry, excited.

John loves the way that the companion arcs integrate into the story as a whole. "Finding ways to bring these characters together. Finding ways to make this narrative, this story of, you need to put together a team and stop the end of the world, has just been absolutely exciting and thrilling, and again, you see the team's love in every single piece of it.”

DA:TV has been the highlight of John’s 17 year career in games. It has been part of his career and life for "literally the last decade and a half". He has worked on it since DA:O. "There's something about DA:TV that feels like an amazing mix of novelty but also familiarity, it's like coming home in a way that is going to be very exciting for people who are existing Dragon Age players. There's also so much here that's new and exciting for people, new players and old alike. Going to the parts of the world, seeing things we've never seen before, and just getting to take this amazing world and series and expand on it, and build on it in ways that, have just been honestly an absolute thrill."

There have been times in the companion arcs where, even knowing exactly what was going to happen, with some of these decisions, Corinne had to set down the controller, let out a heavy sigh and go, "oh my god, what am I going to do here?"

Corinne: “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. To anyone from BioWare who is listening in, thank you so much. Y'all are just the best”. John: "Absolutely. Here here."

Q. Why does Varric have dark hair now? A. Matt: "He has been adventuring for a while now." His hair is actually more gray than black, but he's been in very dark scenes so far. We will see him in more contexts.

The Inquisitor appears in the game in the flesh. The devs know how attached we all are to the Inquisitors and they have seen our love for our OCs. The Inquisitor can be customized, "include some of our new customization options". “Yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.” John: “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're gonna be a part of this story, so."

Right now, the team's focus is entirely on the quality of the game as it is so important at this stage – they are all-in, with all of their attention on finishing the game and on the quality of the game and the promise on it. They are 100% focused on making this being the most complete game that they can make it.

There are no microtransactions. There will be no battle-passes. You do not have to connect online to play. They want to make this "the most complete singleplayer game that they possibly can".

Armor transmog exists in the game. "Hell yeah." Corinne said that she is the kind of player that believes "fashion is the real end game". She said that there is a transmog system, and that it is sick.

Q. Are any of the characters explicitly ace, or on the ace spectrum? A. Corinne shared that she is gray-ace. “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, '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, some time in the future when it feels like the most authentic fit for a companion, when we can do it best."

Q. Can mage Rook do blood magic? A. “This gets a little spoiler-y, so let me just say, Rook has some pretty good reasons to avoid blood magic. Rook is not gonna wanna 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."

One of the three mage specializations is "a necromancer one". Another was described as “an elemental one”. The third was described as being more like "a combat mage".

Davrin has already named the young griffon "Assan". "Assan is a very good boy." [Assan emojis flood the chat]

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, we had Skyhold. In this game our headquarters is called The Lighthouse. There will be more to be seen on this later. Narratively it serves kind of a different purpose to Skyhold and also the same purpose. The Lighthouse has elements that will change over time, and there are some things about it that we can adjust. “It definitely does start to feel very much like home over time”.

Q. Do pasta and noodles exist in Thedas? A. Matt replied by geeking out about worldbuilding. “DA:TV for us is a real dream opportunity to go places that we've only ever heard references to or seen hints at. And so, going through the worldbuilding process and trying to build these places out, not just as neat things from the IP, but also, if you've read about the 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, and probably hoping for something spectacular, and our brains are always far better at creating this stuff than any game developer or any artist can really do justice to. So you really have to swing for the fences to make something very satisfying and exciting. That can be everything as big as architecture, landscape, biomes, ecosystems, but it does get into things like art, culture, costume design, and also food, and this time around we did, that was one of the many things that we did look into just to try and 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, at least one place does have pasta."

Mabari are not nearly as big of a thing in the north of Thedas as they are in the south. Sadly, in DA:TV we will not get a mabari (but to be fair, we have a griffon!!) And he can be PETTED! “I have actually hugged the griffon”. There is lots of opportunities to interact with the griffon. "Can we see Assan in chat if we wanna see him in The Lighthouse hanging out?" [Assan emojis flood the chat] "This was so important to the team, too, this is the team's, like, just huge support for this feature, so props to them."

We will get to see the Character Creator before launch. "We are laying out a roadmap for what we are going to show and when we are gonna talk about it. So, yes, you will see it, as we get a little bit closer to launch."

In CC, the body customization can be done for humans, elves, dwarves and qunari. Qunari hair options and horn options are rad. They acknowledged that it was hard to have nice-looking hair for qunari in DA:I.

"Related to this, your Lineage (human/elf/dwarf/qunari) gives you a lot of really unique dialogue options, so that's a really lovely aspect of choosing your lineage as well." "Each lineage, depending on the lineage you choose and the background you choose, there are some specific call outs to. For example, if it's the Mourn Watch, them being a faction from Nevarra of mages, obviously your experience as a dwarf there is going to be different than say a human or an elf, so, there are also specific callouts tailored to those combinations with again, the intention of giving each lineage their own little flavor as to how they fit into that faction as a whole."

Barkspawn/Dog is safely gnawing on a bone somewhere next to a fireplace in Ferelden! Don't worry, he is fine. Mabari live exactly as long as you need them to.

"Rook's last name is defined based on their faction, again, we wanted to tie that into your backstory, but also, there'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." But if you always struggle during CC and name all your characters like 'Bob' or something, you're gonna be okay thanks to the name generator.

The Voice Actor cast are very talented. They devs are super excited to talk about them more over the summer. They are not quite ready to announce their names yet.

Q. Will there be a Collector’s Edition? A. They will talk more about the different editions of the game that will be available soon.

Q. Will tavern songs return? A. There are tavern songs in the game, and they are pretty great. They said huge props to the audio and performance teams that made these.

There is a little tavern in Minrathous called The Swan. The song that you hear there is great, and is probably Corinne's favorite.

More information on the required PC specs will come soon.

They are not quite ready yet to talk in specifics about the music. But in broad-strokes the process of creating the music is always the same: working with the composer, figuring out what the themes are, working out what kinds of elements they want to keep, working out what specific elements they want to tie to specific characters. It is a really in-depth and collaborative process. The team have great audio and music people. They want to make sure that the music feels like a cohesive part of the game experience.

On the narrative themes of the game: “What you start with [when setting out to create/write a game] 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 it from this angle or maybe if you twist it a bit." This has been true for all of the DA games. “For DA:TV, one of the biggest themes has been how regret shaped peoples' lives, how people deal with their regrets, how people maybe move past their regrets.” Each of the characters, the stories as a whole, have elements of this tied throughout. They really wanted to have this thematic cohesiveness to the game's story.

The world reacts to Rook’s lineage and backstory. There are unique dialogues or conversation options based on backstory and lineage.

There are glorious, fantastic dwarf beards. "I don't know what magic the character art team did with the beards", but they feel/look like how beards should.

"If you go against a companion’s wishes or make decisions that they don’t like, you can piss them off, they might not agree with you and they will take some time away. That said, this is the biggest threat to Thedas we've ever seen, so they, they're 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."

“The things that we have enjoyed, the things that shaped us, show up in these characters”. "I don't think that any characters have what I would describe as, this [thing] was a direct reference."

Q. Why is Harding a companion? A. John: “It was impossible not to see the love that people had [in the Dragon Age: Inquisition era] for our murderous girl-next-door dwarf. She has always been a fan favorite. But I think beyond that, it's something that Harding's writer wanted to explore, there was more story to tell there, more perspective. And beyond that, Harding obviously has a strong connection to Solas, Varric and the events of the past ten years. I wouldn't say that it's always been, but I'd say that Harding's one of the first ones that we settled on, that this is a character that we want. And her writer had a story that they wanted to tell with her so, it just made sense." Matt: “It's not a huge part of her character but, she tends to be one of the people that have the most insight into Solas, who he was." John: "It also provides you with that little bit of perspective. Who was Solas, what kind of character was he? Using characters to provide windows onto the world is one of my favorite things.”

They want to make sure each quest provides a perspective on the world and the characters, and feels obviously and immediately relevant to what you are doing. "Narrative and narrative heft". We are trying to save the world. “We really wanted to make sure that these quests were something that you”, someone who is trying to save the world, would think is important or worthwhile to do when faced with the end of the world. Everything is hand-crafted and intentional. We aren’t going to be "gathering Shards in the Hinterlands"; everything is built with intention and a dev lovingly crafted the experience. They heard loud and clear previous feedback on this. There are quests of all sorts and sizes, but all of them share that kind of 'this is the kind of thing that The Veilguard would do', especially when faced with the end of the world. "We spent a lot of time listening to what y'all said."

Q. Are there any locations in the game that can only be accessed by making specific story choices? A. "This does start getting into spoiler detail. But I will say that" locations can fundamentally change based on decisions we make. For some of the parts of the world that we will go to, the choices that we make have an impact on how these spaces exist and develop. “Don't want to get to into story spoilers, but your decisions do impact how the world shows up”.

If Rook gets knocked out during combat, we will have to reload our saves unless we have invested in companions’ progression and what they can do (they can be specced out to be able to revive Rook, if you have invested in their progression and what they can do).

Q. “Will Solas still occasionally or dramatically speak in iambic pentamer?” John: “Massive kudos to Patrick who always writes Solas so well. Solas is a returning character, it’s the same Solas you know and love or hate depending on who you are, the same writer. So the answer is, yeah, it’s Solas”.

The decision of who was left behind in the Fade in Dragon Age: Inquisition does not show up in DA:TV. However, this does not mean that it will be a decision which will never be important in future. "Not for this one, though."

There are no mounts. “Mounts addressed a need in Inquisition that we don’t have in DA:TV. You’ll see why when you get to play”.

On sidequest design – they are all hand-crafted, all story-focused. “Narrative is so much at the core of DA:TV, and anything other than hand-crafted quests just felt like it would be a disservice to the game we were building”. There is no mechanic in DA:TV like Power in DA:I, there is no mechanic that blocks your progression until you fill a bar. “You have the autonomy to engage in these quests as you like, there is no 'grind-out gates' before you can progress”. “We want to make sure that doing this content feels as natural and part of the logical flow of the story as possible”. They acknowledged that Power was a divisive mechanic in DA:I.

Q. Are there War Table missions? A. “We haven’t talked much about the player’s base, The Lighthouse. We will save that for now. The Lighthouse, your headquarters so to speak, has its own unique purposes and functions this time. This is an area that we will leave for you when we talk more about The Lighthouse.”

Dual-wielding (they wanted to bring it back) is back as part of the rogue kit this time. Warriors are focused on mighty two-handed weapons which have a real heft to them when swung. (Warriors can also use sword and shield). The amount of hits rogues can get in in rapid succession is really satisfying – dual-wielding is the providence of rogues this time.

John: "The thing that keeps me sustained is just knowing that the game we are building is the right one, knowing the pieces are coming together." They mentioned “knowing just how much people care about this franchise, care about these games”. They are excited for when people can see the fantastic work the team has been doing, they think people will be excited when we get to see it. This game is huge. John gets pleasantly surprised on a daily basis even today and is always amazed by the awesome stuff the team has done, how good it looks etc. Sometimes he spends an hour late at night watching the work come in, watching the cutscenes come, watching the work coming together, it etc and is blown away by the work like 'holy smokes'. Corinne said “Speaking on behalf of the dev team, everyone is working so hard, putting so much passion and of themselves into it, this is a franchise the team really loves. Seeing everyone’s support, cheering us on, has meant a lot to the team, I want to say thank you to all of you.” They are working on a way for the Q&A to be immortalized somewhere for us so that the info does not disappear into the ether. "Stay tuned". John hopes this was the first of many of these opportunities to talk to us directly. He is really excited, and Corinne noted that how much Dragon Age means to us is wonderful. "It's wonderful to see you all excited and invested. Thank you again, truly."

Session ended.

[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.

[catboybiologist]

So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

[princessbellecerise]

Sweet Like Sugar

──── ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧ ────

summary | In which you’re Coryo’s sugar baby

warnings | smut, sugar daddy!coryo, slight public sex

this is an eighteen plus fic. minors do not enter

divider by @princessbellecerise

You’re not sure what to say at first when Coryo proposes this idea to you, but you have to say that you’re shocked

You’re nothing more than a district girl, having been raised in not quite poverty but not abundance either

You’ve never had anything other than the bare minimum, so when Snow offers to give you the world and to take care of your family as well?

Well, it’s obvious what you choose

Quickly, you end up being transported from your district to the Capitol in no time. While your family is given a high rise apartment and grocery deliveries every month, you’re given your own space; a house not too far from his own mansion

Snow likes to keep you close, as he does with all of his prized possessions

And first things first, you’re spoiled

There’s no one in Panem that has more than you, no one that has more jewels, clothes, makeup, etc. Not even Coriolanus himself

He takes such good care of you, making sure that you want for nothing and that you have everything you need

He’s surprisingly generous; but you both know that it doesn’t come without a cost

The world outside of the capitol is a harsh one; one that you desperately don’t want to experience again. You’ve seen people starving to death or being maimed by wild animals in your district and you do not wish to live that kind of life. You’re content, comfortable with how you live so any price he states, you pay

Usually it comes in the form of Coryo being on top of you, a hand around your pretty little neck while he fucks you on his desk

Or, sometimes it’s in his room, with your face stuffed into his luxurious pillows as he fucks you from behind

One way or another, he uses you like you use him. Whenever and however he pleases

You don’t mind of course, loving the way you’re bouncing on his cock one minute and then the next he’s buying you a diamond necklace

He likes for you to get dolled up for him, so he can show you off and make everyone around him jealous

He sees the way they look at you, and the way other men and even women envy him. He knows that they’d give to have you but they can’t. They can’t afford you

Sugar daddy!Coryo that always makes you call him ‘sir.’ He tell you that it’s the proper way to address him as he is the president, but really he just likes the way it sounds coming from your pretty little lips

Often times, he’ll call you nicknames such as ‘Doll,’ or ‘Pretty Girl’

They’re fitting seeing as you’re always dressed up, whether that be in fancy dresses or silk night gowns that he’s specifically picked out for you to wear

Sugar daddy!Coryo that takes you out for fancy dinners, only to end up fucking you in the bathroom like he’s a commoner. He always hates when he looses his self control like that but fuck—sometimes you just look so good that he can’t help but to stoop to that level

Sugar daddy!Coryo that kisses you desperately in some random bathroom stall, that has you pressed up against him and can’t stop rambling about how hard he is

Coryo that has you stepping out of that expensive dress in no time, even tearing it a little so he can reveal your pretty cunt

You’re always wet for him, always so eager and that’s what Coryo loves

He loves the feeling of you wrapped around him, moaning his name and begging him to let you cum

Of course, before it even reaches that point, he also has you on your knees, sucking him off to try and relive some of his desperation

Even after everything, Coryo likes to think that he’s a gentleman, so of course he lays his jacket on the floor so your knees won’t be hurting

It’s the least he can do because fuck—you always have him cumming in no time, and again once he’s fucking into your tight cunt

He never cums inside of you, always on your tits or in your mouth

He just loves the way that you look up at him, pretty face coated with his seed. He always take a few seconds to admire you before cleaning you up, making sure you’re presentable once again before finally settling down at your table, thirty minutes later

And of course, before he takes you home for the night, he also makes sure to fuck you one last time in his fancy limousine, windows fogging up and all of Panem having no clue what’s happening behind those tinted windows

[aptericia]

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.