#there's not a lot of headsup here

[ghost-of-you]

hey anna, which show in brazil would you go too and how much are the tickets?

Okay so they are here Sunday 23 of July and Tuesday 25 of July. I was working around the assumption I would have to go to Sao Paulo cuz it's a more guaranteed thing, I didn't know if they were going to do Rio, I have to do some research now because I would definitely try to go to the 23th one, because Rio is closer to me and it's on a Sunday so it wouldnt disrupt everything in my life as much as going to São Paulo in a fucking Tuesday. The tickets are ranging between 460 reais and 740 reais, that's around 90 USD to 150 USD, we still don't have information about VIP packages so that price is definitely gonna go up. The trip would be the biggest issue since i would have to go to a different state and I haven't done enough research to know.

[felassan]

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

Under a cut due to length.

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

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

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

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

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

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Katey: Hello!

John: Hello.

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

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

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

Corinne: Can you hear me okay?

John: Yep.

Katey: Yep, we can hear you beautifully.

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

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

Corinne: John!

John: Hello.

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

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

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

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

Corinne: Well there you go, right?

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

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

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

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

John: The Fade has taken Matt.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right.

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

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

John: Yeah, yeah.

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

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

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

John: Oh -

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

John: Well, I think –

Corinne: Those are some of my favorite parts.

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

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

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

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

Matt: Testing.

Katey: Oh hey Matt!

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

Katey: Yes.

Corinne: Welcome Matt, the lovely Matt Rhodes.

Matt: Testing, testing.

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

Katey: So mysterious.

Corinne: Oooh!

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

Matt: Thank you.

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

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

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

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

Katey: I love that answer.

Corinne: This is my favorite answer so far.

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

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

Katey: I love that.

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

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

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

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

John: Mhm.

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

John: Mhm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corinne: The Pride there, huh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John: Ooh, that’s a good question.

Corinne: Isn’t it?

John: Corinne, you wanna go first?

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

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

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

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

John: Absolutely.

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

John: Hear, hear.

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

John: Just for [inaudible].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John: Oh no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katey: This one is –

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

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

John: I love this one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katey: Assan in chat everybody.

Corinne: Assan in chat, alright!

Katey: I love it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corinne: Getting into the deep-cut questions now.

John: Deep-cut questions, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John: No spoilers Corinne!

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

John: No spoilers.

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

John: Yep.

Matt: Don’t try to stop me, Smee!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matt: Yeah.

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

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

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

Matt: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John: That’s a, that’s a deep cut!

Corinne: Very, that’s a deep cut.

John: Holy smokes.

Corinne: My goodness.

John: The sound of my childhood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matt: Thanks everyone.

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

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

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

John: Bye y’all!

Matt: Bye.

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

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

[justepilepsy]

Headsup

In case anyone of you has been following the reveal of James Somerton's fragrant Plagiarism via Hbomberguy's "Plagiarism and You(Tube)

James Somerton has released a second response video, which may be more collected and calm, but he mentions his diagnosis with epilepsy and therefore the memory issues he suffers from as a reason for how the rampant continous plagiarism was possible to happen over and over again.

I believe him in saying he has memory issues. (I also believe him that he got fired because of his epilepsy, because sadly this is a very common occurence!)

I personally am not convinced, that memory issues cause you do copy-paste entire books and a multitude of articles into a script, close the doc, open the doc the next day and go "wow i definitely wrote all that, let me read it into the camera".

I don't remember a lot of the things I am saying, especially in verbal communication. Friends quote me back constantly and a lot of times I don't remember, I can only say "this sounds like something I would say".

My memory is very bad at times, and terribly accurate at others.

I know there are different types of memory issues.

But I can not - for the life of me - ESPECIALLY when I know I have these issues, imagine that someone with memory issues does not include pasting a link to the SOURCE of the text they are copying into their word.

I also am pretty sure, one would recognise their own writing style, even when not remembering writing something... especially in like - longform text formats.

I think also - when having a co-author, I would lean towards asking the co-author to check my writing for instances of accidental plagiarism, in order to stop it from happening (again).

But maybe this is just me. Am I being overly harsh here?

I don't want to shoot against someone who is also epileptic without reason. Please share your thoughts.

[loreiiiiiiiii]

The discourse surrounding Eurlychous and Odysseus in the thunder saga is so fascinating because extremely valid points can be made as to which one of them is in the right and which one is in the wrong.

Eurlychous' reason for staging a mutiny is perfectly understandable imo, but a lot of people call it hypocritical for two reasons:

1) Eurlychous' behavior in Circe saga. In that saga Eurlychous was perfectly willing to abandon the men on the island, while Odysseus wanted to save them, but like.. what was Ody's actual plan here? From any rational POV this was a completely unwinnable situation for them, and Odysseus probably would've got turned into a pig too if it weren't for Grandpa Hermes showing up and giving his grandson some handy performance enhancing drugs.

2) Eurlychous opening the bag of wind, more or less directly causing the death of the vast majority of Odysseus' fleet. Now, opening the bag was a pretty fuckin stupid move on all accounts, but I think also somewhat understandable given Ody's behavior earlier in the sage. In 'luck runs out', Eurlychous rightfully asks Ody if he actually has a plan on surviving the wind god's island, to which Ody replies 'nah bro just trust me lol' and shuts down any attempt Eurlychous makes for discussion. This is a HUGE redflag from a leader, especially considering Eurlychous is Odysseus' second in command. He, out of anyone, needs to be the one to challenge his captain, but Odysseus doesn't want that. He wants absolute devotion.

This is why Eurlychous says 'if you want all the power, you must carry ALL THE BLAME' during mutiny, which is a pretty damning line...but it also makes Eurlychous a hypocrite, because Odysseus never actually has 100% of the power, as evidenced by the crew opening the bag of wind, or Eurlychous asking to just fuck off from Circe's island. And when Eurlychous actually DOES have the power? He hands the reins back to Odysseus the second shit hits the fan. Where's all that accountability now, Eurlychous?

I have less to say about Ody, considering he's our central POV character, but there's still a few things to unpack. While his decision to go through the lair of Scylla is undoubtedly a shitty one, it was either that or die to Poseidon (or a raging whirlpool in the original poem.), so it was either gamble the lives of all your men or sacrifice 6 to preserve the rest. What else was Ody supposed to do?

The biggest mistake Ody makes here isn't the decision to sacrifice these men- it's not giving his crew the headsup about it. Had Odyssues actually TALKED to his men and warned them of their choice, maybe he'd even have volunteers. But Odysseus cannot fathom this, because he requires absolute obedience from his crew, and nothing less. My way or the highway. The viewer knows Odysseus is objectively correct here, but the crew don't. All they know is their captain just threw away the lives of 6 of their friends without any sort of headsup or discussion, so why the hell would they trust him?

That being said...I don't really blame Ody for his decision to sacrifice his crew in thunderbringer. Because he wasn't the one to make the decision to kill the cattle. That was PURELY Eurlychous and the crew's choice. Odysseus tries to warn them several times, but they don't heed that warning. Had Odyssues made a better effort to build trust and rapor maybe they would've, but still. If you want all the power, you must carry all the blame.

[simmireen]

Hiiiii everyone, you lovely people! 

I wanted to give a little headsup about everything going on!

Let's first officially announce that my adventcalender is progressing very well and currently I am still working on the last posepacks to get it all finished up. Remind me though, IF I am still in this community next year and still wanna do this, that I start in January already (.... finishing 24 posepacks is really a pain!)

I hope you are ready! 

it's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving...

November will have 4 of the recent pose commissions I did, that will be released so I can focus on that december calender for the rest of the month! If you want to do a commission, note that you have to wait a little longer than normal, since I really want to get this adventcalender done before I start posting in december <3

Then I want to address my recent change of a few posepacks you can find exclusively on ModCollective. For me this opportunity is really amazing. I get to create between a lot of very talented people and seeing my name in between them, is just one of the big goals I had when I discovered I felt I was/am good in something, in well, basically life. Posecreation is making me happy, because I get to tell little stories with my dear sims in them.  On the other side, yes, I have to adjust to their way of working with early access (most of you know how much I hate it and why I don't do it..) and giving away some of the control about releases (I am a control freak, sorry). Yes, you have to create an account there to download. They also have a limit of downloads (10 per hour) if you keep being a free member, but all without intrusive ads. In the end, with a little patience, it's free. And that is what I find important.

Don't worry, most of my posepacks, since I create a lot, will just be distributed through patreon and simfileshare in the 'old way'.

I hope you can be happy for me :) That's the only thing I ask. 

Next thing I want to mention again, is that with releasing my advent calender, the eyelids bug will probably still be there and you will notice it in my poses, because I decided (since I'm rallying hard of this bug to be fixed) not to change anything in my way of posing eyelids.

So I want to ask you again -YES IT'S A NEW TOPIC, because they said they fixed it with the life and death update, but that's not true at all - to hit me too in the new topic.

Even if you think you already did it, please check double if you hit 'me too' on this bug because we have to start over rallying 'me too's!

Here is the link to the topic again: EA HQ

The last Phil is added after they said they fixed it. No change.

Then the last thing because I am thankful. 

You, my amazing supporters, I wouldn't be anywhere without you.

You, the one who downloads that package file everytime I upload anything.

You, the one who uses every posepack I upload or just use one pack that you need in your story.

You, who just enjoys seeing my boys or other sims having a good life.

You, who lurks in the dark.

You, who hearts the post I post.

Thank you <3

[ppnuggie]

HIIIIII! I LOVE YOU

Earthspark Soundwave, Megs, and anybot of your choosing with an insensitive s/o?

As in, they say some out of pocket shit at the best/worst times. 💙💙💙

　　　　　　EARTHSPARK x gn human reader

　　　　『　soundwave ,, megatron ,, skywarp ,, optimus ,, gender neutral human reader 』

　　-> bots w/ s/o who says stuff so out of pocket

　　— fluff ,, sfw ,, crack

　　— yHEHE SHEKSN LOVE YOU 🫶🫶 you said bots of my choice and i leaped to add skywarp 😩 shes so pretty in the new show ,, girlboss 👁💍 honestly i kinda did it as reader says shit out of pocket 💀💀 theres a lot of profanity and stuff in his so a headsup

soundwave ::

• soundwave couldn’t remember why exactly he was teaming up with a human but his cassettes like you ,, so he can look away for now

• the moment you say “mother shit balls” hes already flying over ready to cover frenzy’s head to block out what you just say

• but its too late as she’s already saying it during the next time she messes with megatron and optimus

• he shakes his head and sighs ,, grumbling to himself as he just ignores it

• the second time you say something its ravage who takes the courtesy of saying it to soundwave next time he calls him

• please stop talking omg 😭😭 soundwave is begging ,, its one thing to have his kids act like hooligans but now that theyre going around shouting “son of a bitchin bastard whore” 😭 he just cant handle it

megatron ::

• hes heard some things ,, working beside humans for some years ,, but that doesnt mean he’s not gonna predict what theyre gonna say the next minute

• so when you walk into ghost agency and immediately start shivering whilst saying “ its colder than a polar bears pussy in here” hes more than shocked

• he doesnt know what to say ,, hes shocked frozen and embarrassed

• now when you say something like that during battle ,, hes face palming and begging silently for you to be quiet bc omg soundwave is right here

• that doesnt stop soundwave from recording you saying “HOLY BANANA DICKS WHATS THAT” midbattle with megatron

• he uses it on optimus ,, and megs is ready to deflate right then and there

skywarp ::

• shes all for it ,, teach her all your crazy words and sayings 🙏🙏 she wants to use them on megatron the next time she sees him ,, or maybe even optimus

• mandroid aint having it ,, he gets all huffy and puffy and ends up threatening you ,, to which skywarp gets defensive and all that mess

• she finds it hilarious ,, how any time something unexpected happens your go to line is “MOTHER OF COCKS WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT” and its mainly targeted at smt mandroid made

• she ends up using your lines against his latest battle w/ megatron ,, and the man just stands there 🧍

• she’ll have to thank you later 🫶

optimus ::

• he’s not a fan of it ,, oml ,, 😭😭 hes on the verge of tears

• “ maybe you could replace some of the words with something else ?”

• hes just not used to cuss words in general ,, he doesnt say them he just turns the other way

• “ now now ,, lets use our nice words ,,” he’ll pick you up and scold you gently about your potty mouth ,, having made a technique where you replace the cuss words with things you like

• the type to say “ oh my flowers !” instead of oh my primus or oh my god 😭

[felidaefatigue]

Btw if any of ur fav artists or businesses are in canada i highly suggest you buy anything you want from them NOW. like. This Second Now. if you want them even remotely around the holidays. And if youre sending mail consider doing it asap.

our national post service is potentially going on strike on nov 1st if the company cant negotiate with them in time and theyve failed thus far soooooeeewww either the workers are going to get forced into a shit deal for the holidays or theyll be striking. so expect distuptions. Even if they use a private company a lot of things like ups and what not up here rely on our national system for last leg delivery because either they dont service the rural routes or area or because they literally cant access private locations that the post can.

so ye. just. headsup!

[the-s1lly-corner]

TADC X READER REQUESTS + RULES!

a modified list of rules for requesting for TADC! for the most part its the same as the original post, but with some important modifications! The inbox part is especially important as I will likely close and reopen requests several times depending on how many are sent in! While I did have loads of fun doing all the requests last week it was very overwhelming and extremely taxing on my mental and physical health <\3

That said, yahoo, I'm back!! Not sure how active I'll be today (11/4), since I'll be spending a lot of the day drawing and prepping for tonights dinner. But !!!

How to request!

sending in a request is simple! you can go into my inbox and send in the character(s) you want! you can describe what kind of reader you want, as well as put in any scenario you want! If you are unsure on whether or not my requests are open, you can refer to my bio, which i keep up to date with of the request status! What all you can request will be detailed below!

What you can request/What I will write!

Please note that if you send in a request while they are closed it will not be answered**, so its best to hold on to your requests until theyre opened or to find another blog !!

**anything sent in while requests are closed will not be answered even after they were reopened; otherwise there wouldn't. Really be much of a point of the open/close system, yk?

you can request most anything so long as it is not listed in the will not write section! if anything slips by and makes me uncomfortable i will let you know!

romantic, platonic, and familial hcs are all welcome here!

the reader is GN by default, you can request a gender if you want, however due to the style of my writing it wont make much of a difference

you can request anyone from the entire TADC cast (save for bubble and Kaufmo), however i will note that occasionally some characters will be left out of full cast lists due to the admin not having any worthwhile ideas for a character. this is less of a "dont request certain characters/less characters" and more of a "hey this is headsup and this is a case by case thing but overall i do do the entire cast"

readers that are similar to existing characters! just a headsup that if i dont know the character i will rely on a character wiki or a friend who knows about the character! So theres a solid chance I may do a disservice to the character in question, heed this warning (/lh)

im also down for character x character! again if the ship makes me uncomfortable i will let you know so you dont have to wait on a request/can move on to a different blog to answer for you,,, should note I rarely do character x character so quality on these will be especially shotty

What you cant request/What I will not write!

no NSFW or kink related asks, please. this blog is SFW, anything that is NSFW or kink-adjacent will immediately be denied

no yandere. while i do write for jealous partners and readers, full yandere stuff is where i draw the line as i am not personally comfortable with the trope/the romance stuff surrounding it

general no no stuff (ab^se of any kind, active** SH, ect ect)

SH is allowed so long as its about healed wounds rather than the act itself being written

Other!

full fanfics and oneshots

I have the right to deny any request for any reason, be it discomfort or feeling underqualified to write about a certain topic. It is nothing against you, there are some requests I simply may not be able to complete. I urge that you respect that and to not push me to answer a request I have already denied

please do not spam or try to push me to answer your request sooner, i tend to answer requests in the order they have been sent; so while it may look like im answering a bunch of people and ignoring you, it is likely not the case! as well as this, sometimes tumblr eats stuff so sometimes it could also be that and i am unaware that you have requested something

my posts tend to be a short paragraph per character or a list of bullet point hcs, i am not at all confident in my skills of writing actual. fanfics, so uh uh .. yeah

[autumnfangirler]

The Magician in Reverse: When was your character manipulated?

The High Priestess in Reverse: When has your character felt betrayed emotionally?

For Sofia and Johan? (I hope I spelled those right)

HELLOO EVENING THANK YOU FOR THESE OPPY!!! but also goddamn the emotionally painful questions first huh (also yes you spelled them right dw). small headsup that these two are actually being renovated atm so if i say anything here and end up saying something else later on. dont even worry about it 👍

The Magician in Reverse: When was your character manipulated?

Sofia- sofia is an oblivious naive 8 year old child, literally when has she Not been manipulated. if i had to pick one instance tho, i would say it was during the first time she got on a ship– ie, meeting the rival crew. she was brought on board the ship with the promise of a life full of adventures and fun. really, they just wanted child labor. she picked up on it fast though, which is part of the reason she decided to help vincent beat their asses when he showed up lmfao. the current crew they run with is at least a lot more upfront with their thoughts, those thoughts being "go find another ship we can Not afford to take care of children."

Johan- johan has an excellent nose and a keen memory. sometimes, though, there are things he picks up that, when he asks, gets waved off. over the years, hes learned to curb his curiousity from family, friends, and even his own crew in favour of respecting their privacy. lately, though, he cant help the feeling that theres something hes missing– maybe something more than he can afford to let go.

The High Priestess in Reverse: When has your character felt betrayed emotionally?

Sofia- this feels like spoilers, but one particular fight she had with vincent stuck with her. vincent has always been a little stricter with her than he was to other people (not his fault but thats another matter entirely) but this was full on Fury at her for messing up, for not doing what she was told, for being the way that she is. shes been told so many times in her life that she people didnt like her, but it never felt so real until it was vincent telling her those things. never hurt as much either.

Johan- hes a levelheaded individual, so hes hard to emotionally shake. however, hearing that his sisters bar– the bar he grew up running, mind you– was on the verge of bankruptcy, and gina deliberately hid that fact from him hurt. he doesnt hold it against her, and learning about it eventually led to him joining the crew, so it was a net-positive overall, but he still wishes she couldve trusted him to help.

questions from here!

[kamitsubaki-city-ensemble]

well. kce was a very... contained game. and there doesn't seem to be a lot a lot of kmtbk/isotope art here on tumblr. so I might just make this a vocal synth blog more generally (keeping the kce theme).

I have like 6 followers so this is more of a headsup than a question

there will be some vocahorror here but that'll all be tagged and stuff dw dw

[quillheel]

// at this point i really oughta note it, SO: headsup to all my roleplay partners! because of a lot of irl shit happening and stressors including financial concerns and losing two pets in the span of a few months, my brain's been really struggling with processing time and getting in the headspace to Be here beyond JUST writing (so DMs and the like), so if i don't respond, that is why, and i sincerely apologize! I'm trying to get back into the swing of Actually answering people but if I don't or it takes a while, that's why!

[3-loch-prinzessin]

just as a headsup (more relevant to the ppl that i directly interact with but also in general) i will be stepping away more and more from the whole....gender aspect of a lot of my kinks (aka the whole "u are made to serve bc you were born a woman" thing - basically reducing it to "u are made to serve.") reason being that out of all the stuff that i am into this one is just ...genuinely bad for my mental state. basically i have been always been kinda cagey about my gender identity on here (bc it doesnt matter and at this point in my life i dont care that much how other people gender me) but it is decidedly not cis (and not female)

basically currently i often enjoy things ... despite going against that instead of..i dunno celebrating and indulging in that (also a lot of shame i assume)

(probably not gonna change my blog title because i am scared that tumblr will go nuke me ☠)

will it change anything aside from me maybe unfollowing some blogs? no not really, i dont mind people who are into that following and interacting and otherwise things will continue as usual

tl;dr kinda made myself always a bit depressed when horny due to trying to ignore/supress some identity stuff on here out of fear of being less desirable(?) - will try to change that

(and on that note - much love to all the trans, nb, etc etc ppl following me - despite knowing that other ppl like me exist i just kinda...forget that at some point and feel lonely due to that)

[bwoahtastic]

Maybe the first meeting between seb and nico was not at all planned. Totos babysitter bailed and he had to take Sebby to the date with him.

Luckily he was able to give nico a headsup and even told him to bring a stuffie (a little mouse and it becomes one of sebs favorites) so he could start of good with sebby. The plan works and seb is totally anarmoured with nico very softly going bap bap on his feathers and even falling asleep on nico.

he does like nico a lot less when he finds out his papa is serious about him. If nico comes over he will cuddle the mousi and his wolf while clarring at nico while it is very cute because he is a chonky toddler toto does need to talk about it with him. After a lot of those talks he doesnt glare anymore but starts comunicating his big feelings through his plushies. He says things like "Mousy is sad and happy nico is here" (because he actually likes nico he is just sad he needs to share toto with him).

Oh plss!

Seb was supposed to go for a playdate with little Dan or Britta but they got sick! So sebby couldn't go there and was already a little sulky but then papa tells him he csn come along on the dinner Toto has!

Nico is a little nervous and already arrived before the dad and cub, wearing a pretty dress and having groomed his feathers to perfection! Little seb is a little shy at first, hiding behind papa but when Nico offers him the mousy stuffy the ice is quickly broken. Seb happily.munching away on his dinner and purring loudly when Nico let's him have some bites from Nico's dessert! And it's very entertaining to go bap bap on Nico's feathers jsjs

Seb even falling asleep on Nico's lap and he just likes Nico a lot! Bur it's so scary when he sees how serious Papa is about nico and how nico comes over a lot more, seb can't lose his papa!

Seb glaring at nico more then, baring his teeth even and bapping at the feathers less carefully. Nico is confused and sure, little chonqy kiddo isn't exactly intimidating but it's confusing... toto tries to talk to seb about it but seb is too little to explain his big feelings! They try to make it better with the camping trip but it only frustrates more cos he used to only do that with papa!

Nico realising that Seb is trying to explain his big feelings while playing with plushies? Anx that's how he figures out why sebby is so upset when he is there and even tries to hurt nico!

[alovelyburn]

Rambles about the Millennium Falcon Arc Part 2

You know, I really should have just tacked the Griffith stuff here onto the last one, but it was so long.....

Anyway as a result this is a bit of a transitional piece that covers Griffith’s establishment of his Apostle inner circle as well as Farnese and Serpico’s backstory. Ahoom.

Oh and headsup for discussion of... incest I guess? Eh, you know what I mean, if you’ve read Berserk you know what they’re like in this part.

Rambles about the Millennium Falcon Arc Part 2

1. So, one thing I forgot to mention, is this kind of subtle heart theme that turns up in Neo/Femto’s stuff, like Femto’s entire chest reflects it as well...

With his chest muscle area resembling a biological heart which then heads down into a series of stylized hearts. It’s interesting – the heart theme I assume is a call to his role as the King of Longing – it seems analogous to Slan’s dildo corset. Things that represent them. I have to look closer at Ubik, Conrad and Void to see if they have anything similar.

 Anyway, back to Griffith scaring the hell out of Kushans.

 2. I love how Griffith just kind of waltzes over there and kills this guy. It does remind me of an old conversation I witnessed where people were arguing that Griffith in his current form isn’t a good swordfighter anymore because he doesn’t have a bunch of swordfighting feats. I think that’s a little silly though, like okay he came back to the world and just left all his skills behind, sure.

3. So, because Miura never really broadcast what Femto/Griffith could do (and sometimes showed things quite subtly, although obviously not right here), I’ve seen a lot of confusion over this and people just kind of forgetting some of the things he can do, I’m going to try to keep track of his demonstrated abilities. None of them have official names obviously but this one I call “Immunity to Violence.” Specifically physical violence, because it appears that physical weapons just don’t connect with him at all – he doesn’t block them or dodge them they just never touch him. I wonder if this is the issue Guts ran up against in recent chapters.

Guts definitely got closer than like, the arrows but that could have something to do with the amount of force or the fact that Guts was closer to begin with?  Who kooooows.

Yeah, I’m sure that the dozens or hundreds of arrows that just fell out of the air and landed roughly the same distance from him all at once was a coincidence, cool. I mean, obviously this guy doesn’t even believe it, it’s just such a silly thing to say.

4. I don’t remember whether I’ve talked about this before, sob. But I often think about like, why some apostles’ human form have an actively bestial look to them, like Zodd, and some are just entirely human looking, like Locus for example.  And then you also have some people in the middle like Grunbeld. There’s a few things that could explain this.

-They could get more bestial over time like vampires in some vampire mythos will tend to do.  I don’t really think this is it, though, in part because Grunbeld is quite a young Apostle but he still looks partway to Zoddville.

-It could be that their “human” form as an apostle is not necessarily what they looked like in their human life, like it could be that it reflects something about them or their desires. This is probably more likely than the first, and someone like Wyald is strong evidence for that because his actual human form was a frail old man while his Apostle human form was, well, Wyald.

-It could be that they just don’t all walk around in full human or full awakened forms all the time. Maybe if they go fully into their human form they look like they did in life, but some of them choose to live in a mid-transformed state. This is the theory I like the best, because it explains a number of things, such as Grunbeld being obviously too tall to be human. It’s also probably correct, because you do see Rosine stop at different points along the human to apostle scale.

That really had nothing to do with anything but anyway.

5. Locus is one of those characters I wish we had more information on. But I also wish we had more information on.... people who have powers but aren’t mages or seemingly otherwise magical. Sonia is the obvious first example – a seer, a medium, a telepath, just kind of out of nowhere. In the Grunbeld novel, they have another character who had some kind of psychic or mystical oracling ability, and then we have this mention by Locus.

Generally speaking I find Berserk’s worldbuilding quite fascinating and well thought-out, although I do think there’s a shift in the kind of world this is meant to be between the Black Swordsman arc and the Lost Children arc. @Chainusser has discussed how the basic components of the world seem to have switched from the middle ages to somewhere approaching the renaissance, for example – Miura loved his anachronisms, but I do think that’s true. But that’s only one of the changes really – we also started getting oracles and psychic girls out of nowhere which honestly maybe shouldn’t bother me since the witches also came out of nowhere, but I do kind of want to know what their relationship to the world is. Are all their visions sent by the Godhand the way the blind priest in Conviction’s were? That’d be pretty uh interesting.

5. “The wind whispered that the world had begun to change.” I love the way the world starts to warp itself in response to Griffith’s presence or even just the approach of a time when he’ll be present. It happened in the Golden Age, and it continues to happen. It’s one of the things that makes me think the reincarnated Godhand of a given millennium is meant to change the world for its next era – the world literally starts to prime itself for major changes.

So what do you think the chances are that Raksas is actually the one who takes out Griffith? Can’t say it wasn’t foreshadowed if so.

I love this bit a lot – the brutality and chaos caused by the Apostles and the casualness with which they present it.

One of the things I like about this whole sequence, the whole thing from Griffith’s arrival through the Apostles kneeling before him is... the sheer carnage that they cause when they arrive, breaking down gates and decimating dozens of fighters in a handful of seconds. Because it does underscore the strength of the army Griffith ends up commanding but also the brutality of them, which contrasts beautifully with the more controlled and civilized way they behave once Griffith gets his talons on them.

I also like... how freaking menacing they look back there.  Now this is kind of interesting, too:

6. “That’s the Hawk of Light. The savior of the world. Or perhaps...”

Schierke’s first appearance. I think it’s interesting that she refers to Griffith as both the Hawk of Light and then on the next page as the Hawk of Darkness. She also reflects some uncertainty as to what he is and what he is there to do – the savior of the world, or perhaps...

One of the things I notice about the way the mystical types perceive Griffith  -- and I’m not going to claim this is universal because I’m ultimately just referring to the ones I can remember – is that they don’t tend to refer to him as an inherently malevolent force but rather as a confounding force that creates... chaos as a byproduct of his existence. Here I’m thinking all the way ahead to Elfhelm, where the people Guts talked to about Griffith perceived the monsters and destruction he created not as an end to itself but as something done in order to accommodate his creation of Falconia but I mean we’ll get into that more later I’m sure.

Anyway the point is...

 Schierke obviously finds him distressing and dangerous – I think at some point he’s actually called dreadful? Maybe that was a fan translation. But it does make sense considering one of the first things he does is start burning down powerful witches. Even so, he does have this air of ambiguity to him as is appropriate for one whose actions may cause suffering or salvation.

Also, Master of the Sinful Black Sheep (Apostles), King of the Blind White Sheep (humanity). I’ve seen it suggested that the latter is the Holy See specifically which I guess would work as a messianic reference, but I do think it means humanity as a whole since his deal is that he’s leading all of mankind into one nation under, well, him.

7. The destruction, the violence, and the beauty that shines through it and overrides it, it’s very appropriate to Griffith, don’t you think?

I wonder if every incarnated Godhand becomes the master of the Apostles or if it’s just part of Griffith’s specific thing. Better than that, though, I wonder if there were Apostles when the last Godhand incarnated.  That might seem like a somewhat random question, but this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now: when Void’s Eclipse is shown there are no apostles anywhere. And the name Apostle in itself suggests followers of something or someone – a messianic figure for example. Also, we’ve never met an Apostle older than Zodd, and he’s only 300. Now obviously there could be older ones out there we’ve never met, but it is interesting isn’t it? It wouldn’t be farfetched to suggest that they are, well, Apostles of Griffith specifically and that this specific form of human-turned-demon may have been created specifically for this era.

Okay so lemme talk a little bit about Griffith for a moment.

I always say NeoGriffith is my favorite of all the Griffiths – and he is. He is the embodiment of all the things that draw me so powerfully to Berserk – the embodiment of the questions raised by the worldbuilding, and his enigmatic nature is incredibly intriguing to me: what does he feel? Is it anything? How does he feel about his situation? Does he have regrets? Is he happy? Is he capable of happiness? Does he find Falconia satisfying, or does he miss the people he lost? Obviously that One Scene, you know the one, seems to imply that he does miss them and does harbor some regrets. But at the same time he also implies that he doesn’t feel that way until the transitional period between Moonkid and NeoGriffith, thus implying that on a day-to-day basis he’s fine.

NeoGriffith is, like I said, an enigma. I’ve seen people say he comes off as a bit robotic, going through the motions of fulfilling the things Griffith wanted to do for no particular reason other than that Griffith once wanted to do them. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but there is a certain emptiness to him and it’s hard to say whether it’s because he himself is empty or because honestly most of what he does amounts to going through the motions because he lives on a stage and he is in a constant state of performance. He does show hints of reactions from time to time that seem genuine – the smile as he walked away from Rickert after being rejected comes to mind – but most of the time it’s like he’s semi-sleepwalking through life, and the thing is that does make sense because ultimately Griffith as he is now is a fundamentally different kind of being than he was as a human.

Also, Miura once commented that he wrote Griffith as someone who didn’t talk about his mental state, which does imply that there’s something going on there beyond what’s immediately evident – especially since that was a response to someone noting that he seems like a secondary protagonist after his reincarnation. So he wasn’t talking exclusively about Griffith’s emotional and psychological issues during the Golden Age. There’s something happening behind his placid surface.

But all that said.... he does lack a lot of human Griffith’s charm, and sometimes it’s difficult to believe that it’s the same person – although, in fairness, it isn’t really.

But all that said as well, I will note that it’s actually pretty hard to tell how much like Hawks Griffith he really is, because when we knew Hawks Griffith we saw him through Guts’ experience, and Griffith was never “normal” about Guts. My point being its entirely possible that from the outside – from the perspective of people who weren’t the best friend Griffith was in love with and confided everything in – the personalities would not be as visibly different as they are to us.

(In fact I’d say that’s probably the case.)

Miura once said that Griffith’s return to the world was the beginning of his and Guts’ relationship as adults. So that’s interesting, too.

And now on to Farnese and Serpico!

8. The relationship between Serpico and Farnese is kind of awkward to write about, because of the Serpico/Farnese relationship being weird and because as a result I’m going to have to talk about incestish-tinged emotional relationships. But here we go.

In one of those quotes posted on Twitter, Miura talked a bit about his unwillingness to do that anime thing where someone is really strong but has a skinny body, so he felt like Serpico’s formidability had to come from his speed. I don’t think he directly mentioned Serpico’s wits, but I do think that not unlike Griffith, his mind is one of his stronger assets, and so is his ability to play pretend. I mean I can see why some people consider him to be a Griffith type even though as I’ve said before I don’t really think they’re that similar.

Anyway, for a small kid without money, developing those skills – learning how to defend himself without brawn, learning how to outsmart an enemy or let them think he’s helpless and then snap out at them becomes key to his survival. He still kind of uses that strategy – appear meek and weak and then unleash when necessary.

But even though the skills in question end up helping him later in life, when he was a kid it just made things more difficult – he talks about having to bear the pride that his mother put on him and having it stripped away daily. It seems like her insistence that he remain prideful tended to force him to his feet when he was attacked but instead of saving him, it made his tormentors even more cruel, and the beat him down until that pride drained out. And then he’d go home and have it pushed onto him again. It’s another thing he has in common with Farnese later – the weight of “family” expectations that he can never live up to. That, really, he doesn’t even want to live up to.

I guess his mother had “consumption”, aka tuberculosis? Because I don’t know that untreated advanced cancer would have allowed her to live long enough to end up burning on the stake whereas TB may give you a few years. Plus she was having coughing fits.

It’s interesting to me how this idea – the dream that is a burden – keeps coming up, particularly in reference to these poverty-stricken people who are meant to try and raise themselves up to nobility. This makes sense because in the kind of society we’re talking about here, it’s almost impossible to actually achieve that feat, so trying to do so is like trying to run on quicksand. In Serpico’s case he isn’t really allowed to let go of that and try to build a life inside the world that he actually inhabits instead of the one she dreams of him entering.  

It’s a bit different with Griffith because he’s... Griffith, I mean he’s built different. But even he found it burdensome by the end. Serpico also lacks Griffith’s unrealistic charisma and I’m not saying this to bag on Serpico I’m just saying that he lacks the Griffith option of turning his enemies into followers, so all he can do is try to survive them.

Enter Farnese.

Yeah she did think that. I mean I guess the thing is, at this point in their lives they’re both needing something the other can provide. Farnese, living in this loveless house, neglected and ignored, is desperately looking for someone to love her and pay attention to her – thus the progressive set of animals she tries and fails to bond with which is a whole other issue. But I do think she initially took him in for the same reason she picked up all these animals. If he hadn’t taken to her, I’m honestly not sure what she would have done. Thrown him on the pyre too? Kicked him out into the streets? Probably something like that.

But that doesn’t happen, because Serpico has basically been primed for this moment by his mother’s insistence that he aim to enter noble society. ...he’s also been primed for it by the events of his life as a poverty stricken kid who has to support his dying mother and himself, and is constantly getting beaten half to death for it. For him, as ill-tempered as she is, Farnese is a savior of sorts – she takes him off the streets and out of the cold and gives him a better life, and because she does he is able to afford a caretaker for his mother, thus lifting that off of him as well.

The fixation he develops on her as a result of that reminds me of Casca’s fixation on Griffith, or Farnese’s fixation on Guts – though it manifests differently because Serpico is a different person. But, you know. As a result of this person upending the world they felt trapped in and showing them a new way of life, they develop this devotion to that person. Although I will say in Serpico and Farnese’s case, in many ways she didn’t free him so much as give him a more comfortable cage.

9. The way Farnese treats Serpico is, you know, completely abusive. It’s also odd because there seems to be very little motivation behind it, and it’s not as though she doesn’t care about him. I think one big thing is that at this point in her life, Farnese is still in the habit of trying to control everything that she feels threatened by or is afraid of – not to say she’s afraid of what Serpico would do to her but rather she’s afraid of being emotionally invested in someone who doesn’t invest back.

Which brings me to what I think is the primary reason she does this: as a test of his devotion. It’s something people with a fear of abandonment do sometimes: push people to see whether they come back. How much do you love me? If I say this thing, will you forgive it? Do you love me enough to overlook how mean I am? Do you love me enough to not get mad when I hurt you? Do you love me enough to stay when I tell you to go?

If the target leaves, it just confirms their fear that they’ll always be left behind. But at least it hurts less if they know it was their choice.

And if the target stays... it’s not enough. It’s never enough, because they always think the next thing will go over the line and they’ll be alone again.

Serpico recognizes that isolation and loneliness in her because he lived with it in his own life. I imagine too that part of the reason he sticks by her so hard is because of what he did to get there: he failed his mother – left her alone and unable to fend for herself, with only a caregiver to spend time with. He chose Farnese instead. Having made that choice, he can’t go back without making it all worthless.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t love Farnese or that he wants to abandon her, I don’t think that’s the case at all.

Something ghastly compelled her – it’s the fear though, isn’t it? Farnese is afraid of a lot. And her way of staving off that fear is to try to control it and if she can’t control it, then she tries to join with it. A fire can’t burn its own flames. Lightning can’t strike itself. If she keeps dancing with the storm, then it can’t sweep her away.

Editorializing moment but while I understand what’s going on here, it’s also the only thing I have a hard time with. I’m an animal person, idk what to tell you.

I like how Miura let the reader and Serpico come to understand Farnese bit by bit together. Not that you could tell from how I frontloaded info oops.

But the fact that she’s willing to burn her beloved keepsake because of an offhand remark from her father speaks volumes. She’s chasing his shadow, trying to be seen. Trying to win affection from a rock. Basically.

Serpico understands her, though, because even if they come from different places and had different experiences, they know the same pain. They both lived in isolation and loneliness in their childhood. They both spent most of their time afraid. To bury that fear they surrounded themselves in walls that obscured their core selves from the world – even though to do that left them cut off from the things they wanted to reach for, alone in the cold.

And I think this – this moment when he comes to truly understand her and chooses to stand with her even when she tries to push him away – its really the moment when their relationship started developing in the direction that it did. For better or worse. ...mostly worse, really, at least until later.

And the reason it’s mostly worse is this little catch in the road. Because the thing is I... this is a I guess a controversial topic, but for me it was always very obvious that Serpico and Farnese were kind of... I mean, look, I’m not trying to make a statement about children having romantic feelings for each other (although I mean, they do – I remember when I was in like 5th grade people talked about who they had crushes on all the time, they even “dated,” idk, do people not do that anymore? I HAVE NO IDEA, I DON’T KNOW ANY CHILDREN) but I am saying the relationship between them is... romance...flavored? And I mean, I guess some people have a hard time seeing/accepting that because they’re siblings but like, they didn’t know that at first, and Farnese still doesn’t know. I’ll bring up some other stuff in a minute but first let’s just say... their being related changes the trajectory of their relationship in a way that neither ever fully adjusted to.

 And we’re about to get into all that in this next chapter I guess!

"Time passed within the labyrinth. The two saplings beneath the snowy drift became bent and entwined as they grew. And before they knew it, trees begin to extend their branches beyond their miniature garden... bearing curious fruit.”

Farnese uses Serpico as a shield between herself and the obsequious social climbers trying to cling to her skirt. That’s the thing, like she’s obviously snubbing them but as soon as we move away from her and see what people are saying about it...

No one cares about her. No one’s talking about how sweet or intelligent she is or how charming or how beautiful, it’s just gdi I want to marry into her family. And I mean look that’s probably because the only thing of the above that they can attest to is her looks – she won’t talk to them so it’s not like they know how bright she is or even what her personality is like once you get close. But knowing that must be a turnoff for her when she has Serpico there at her side. Besides if she marries into some noble family isn’t that the same as staying there? Wouldn’t she just end up alone in a house again?

And okay here comes the uhh incestish portion of this treatise.  I know it’s a touchy subject, and I’ve had some disagreements with people who don’t believe there was anything particularly romancey going on between them, but I’m going to state it and back it up, and by the way it’s not like I want them to get together ok, it’s the same thing I always do: just look at what’s on the page and take it for what it is.

Okay so the point about them that I most often see is that Farnese only asked to run away with Serpico because she was desperate to escape the arranged marriage, not because she had any particular romantic interest in Serpico himself. I’m here to say that’s incorrect and here’s why:

First – the way she treats him, the way she whips him and then gets noticeably excited by it, and the sexualized way in which her interactions with his bare skin are presented are extremely reminiscent of her reaction to whipping Guts back in the day... which was very obviously because she was attracted to him. ...and to whipping, I guess. Also....

Second - Serpico is aware that she’s into him before the arranged marriage thing comes up, he’s just kind of ignoring it. In the guidebook there’s this one bit where it says that she uses her actions toward him as an outlet for her feelings and desires. Which makes sense because the more she loves the more she fears, and so she lashes out and she gets possessive and she tests and she hurts him in order to reassure herself or comfort herself, or vent the things she wants into a more “acceptable” form if you consider whipping your servant and biting him acceptable I guess, I mean uhhhh it’s not but you know, maybe it’s more socially acceptable than having a relationship with an underling even if he is titled.

Sometimes I feel like the way Farnese treats Serpico is the way some weirdo Griffith haters think he treated Guts, lmao. You know like the people who are all, yeah he had feelings for Guts but obviously he was super-abusive. Like I don’t know if they have whipping headcanon going on or what. Anyway.

More on that in a second, but first...

The juxtaposition here is really cool – Look at the way the page is constructed with the panel layout of the bottom a reflection of the top, emphasizing the way Serpico and Farnese’s experiences and relationships with their defining but absent parents are similar and different. In Serpico’s case, his mother is mentally absent – because she’s so sick, he grew up in a state of parentification. He had to fend for himself. Farnese is the same way – she grew up in a gilded cage instead of a hovel and the streets, but even so she was left to raise herself, emotionally abandoned, and each of them were ultimately subject to the demands and expectations of those parents which forced them into roles they wouldn’t otherwise have taken on.

And this expression – the same face she had on when her father told her to throw away her beloved bunny doll. Parental relationships can just be like. Needles under your skin, I don’t know.

Okay so like, Farnese doesn’t know they’re related, you know? She isn’t asking him to do this just so she can escape – she has feelings for him, Serpico was already aware of that. That being the case, and knowing how terrified she is of abandonment or rejection, and the fact that to issue this request is to defy the orders of the father she’s been chasing all her life... imagine how hard it was for her to ask him this.

I don’t really think that she’d made this request if she weren’t in love with him, because it’s too big a risk. If it were like that – if all she wanted to do was escape – there’s no reason she couldn’t have just said let’s leave, fuck this place. She didn’t have to frame it as a romantic overture. But the fact that she comes out with this now, right after her father announces that he’s betrothed her to some guy she doesn’t know, is also pretty telling. It’s her last chance to try to say what she hasn’t been saying before it’s too late.

 And I think...

The shock and pain on her face when he rejects her speaks for itself. I just think after all they’d been through together, and everything she’d thrown at him without his complaining, and all the times she tested him and found that he was always still there with her... she didn’t... expect him to reject her. This ultimately sets her off into a frenzy because...

Remember, when she hurts, or is afraid, she tries to control it, and then she tries to merge into it. It’s just the same as when she feared the burning outside her window and fought it by throwing torches on the pyre, or when she was afraid of the storm so she went out and started dancing with it, destroying things. I think... the fact that her father is trying to oust her from the house, that the person she thought returned her feelings rejected her (which to her mind means she’s now trapped into this marriage), she feels like it’s burning her down, so she expresses her pain by burning everything else down too. And that’s why....

She is able to calm down when Serpico saves her, and holds her.

The thing is, when she tried to initiate a romantic relationship with him and he turned her down, she probably registered that as the end of the road basically – the thing that finally drives him away from her. But when he saves her, when he still cares about her and stays with her, she’s able to regain enough security and stability to stop her rampage. But the thing is...

Remember she is a person who is terrified of rejection. The fact that she never brings it up again doesn’t mean that her feelings changed. It means that she is never going to take that risk again, because she barely survived it the first time.  Also honestly, when someone rejects you, leaving it alone and not bothering them about it is probably the right thing to do, you know?

I think Serpico’s feelings are a little more difficult to read, in part because he’s so masked up all the time. But in an interview Miura does refer to him as analogous to Andre from Rose Versailles, which is telling if you know the story because he’s the attendant who loves Oscar and stays by her side even though he has no reason to believe he’ll ever be able to be with her. It also got into Miura’s theory on romantic ideals – the three types of man that he believed women would dream of, in Farnese’s case being the faraway one that she longs for (Guts), the one who sticks by her side (Serpico) and down to earth guy with money who woos her (Roderick). It’s also mentioned elsewhere that Serpico has “special feelings” for her, which could mean anything really. And their relationship is described as having the “outward appearance of a mistress/servant relationship, but....”

NOW, LISTEN. I don’t want anyone walking away from this thinking I want siblings to hook up, lmao. It’s not that, it’s just that I think that... it’s important to register where these characters are coming from because we’re about to go on a long journey with them, and one that both challenges and changes their dynamic. If we can’t recognize that Farnese and Serpico have this kind of like emotionally incestuous thing happening, or that those feelings never quite faded (at least up to this point in the story), then a lot of things later make less sense.

And the other thing is... Farnese has no idea that this is even an issue. She doesn’t know Serpico is her brother. To her, he’s just a guy she loved who rejected her. So this story looks very different from her angle than it does from Serpico’s or the reader’s.

Anyway, moving along.

It’s interesting to me how Serpico... is like “yeah maybe this is where she’s meant to be!” Because the last time we saw her burning things with that look on her face, he recognized it as a coping mechanism – pushing people away. But at the same time, I think at this point he was probably just relieved and pleased that she had found something, since they were no longer able to be as close as they were. The distance that came up between them after he rejected her means that he can’t warm her the way he used to, even though he’s still there at her side.

Somehow I forgot that the people they were burning weren’t even pagans, they were like... Lutherans basically, yeesh.

This is like the final boss in Serpico’s life. Sorry that’s kind of callous but what I mean is, he’s been running from his past for so long, struggling with his feelings about his mother who was ... not a good parent but through no fault of her own. And he had that... caretaker’s curse of half-wishing she’d die, and at the same time still loving her, and hating her. He ran from it really – has he even stayed in regular touch with her?

...yeah, Lutherans. It’s tragic though because it’s not like she even had the capacity to understand or decide to join this other sect, not that it’s okay to burn people for being Lutherans anyway.

This is such a heartwrenching moment. The thing is, it seems cruel – it is cruel. But she’s trying to protect him. In this moment, surrounded by the Holy See’s knights, what can they do?

The scene of the burning there, that’s from when Farnese burned her beloved worn down bunny. Because her father told her to, and she ultimately... chose to follow his edict rather than holding onto something she loved.

So. Farnese tells him to burn his mother – the broken down thing that he still loves – and he does it. So he can follow her, at the expense of losing something he held onto until now.

The metaphor of fire that keeps coming up in Berserk – fire that keeps the dark back, fire that marks the presence of a true leader. For Farnese, fire means a way out of the cold that she’s lived in her whole life. Serpico lived inside it with her, and they gave each other warmth, but as long as they were trapped inside the world defined by others – the Vandimions, the church, they would never truly be able to thaw. Serpico seems to recognize this drive in her  - the way she’s drawn to Guts’ light, ironically enough, given that he is so dark.

It foreshadows, too, the way Guts will change their dynamic as Farnese develops her feelings for him, and Serpico... deals with that.

All right, well, that was longer than I expected. Just proves I can bang on forever about literally anything because I never thought that much about Serpico’s past before.

You know what I have thought a lot about though? The Beast of Darkness, which is coming up next time same hawk time same hawk channel.

[inastarlesssky]

Hey folks! Just a headsup, I'm gonna be a bit busy the next few days so I probably won't be here much.

Everything's okay, I've just got a lot of stuff going on.

[therhythmafterthesummer]

This ask is inspired by my parents who got another Great Dane bringing the total in the house up to THREE GREAT DANES and a single chihuahua (who is plotting my parents demise after this new addition).

Which WhereRoomie brings home the puppy unannounced, which WhereRoomie is against the puppy at first but then falls more in love with it than the one who brought it home, and most importantly what death threats does Sir Percival give to the one responsible for the puppy?

- 🐺

THREE great danes??? those are a lot of big bois hahahahha

i feel like either pretty mum or jeongin or maybe even minho would bring a puppy home unannounced....

explanations and the answer to the other questions under the cut:

if it's pretty, you just know she just need to bat her lashes a bit and chris will fold immediately. jeongin would have to try really hard to convince him (he'll probably give in eventually when he meets the puppy, but will give jeongin a scolding for not giving him a headsup), whereas minho would be like "it's like we're bringing in seungmin part two, it'll be fine" and chris will sigh and tell minho it'll be his full responsibility.

seungmin would be against it, for complicated seungmin reasons, but will eventually love having the puppy around. but there's another one that will hate the puppy with a passion and eventually warm up to it.... we'll get to that.

sir percival's reaction will depend on who brought the puppy to the den... if it's pretty mum, he'll keep his mouth shut because pretty can't do anything wrong. if it's minho, he'll complain and complain and be annoying but eventually will settle for simply Ignoring the puppy's existence. if it's jeongin..... jeongin will join his mortal enemies list, and he'll let jeongin KNOW. sir p will sneak out of minho's flat to stand in front of seungmin and jeongin's door to whine all night if necessary. "how dare you. how dare you bring a worse version of you guys in here while i also live in here????! I'M GONNA THROW UP. I'M GONNA THROW UP AND TAKE A PISS ON YOUR FRESHLY WASHED LAUNDRY".

regardless of who brings the puppy to the den.... after a while, sir percival will not only warm up to the puppy... he'll start training the puppy so it's less canine and more feline....

the puppy will be named Squire.