#update: I linked the cool things post

[ablndfsh]

Ok, uh, time for a pinned

how does this work

Pinned under the cut???????

I'm sorry (not really) Genuinely, how do I make a pinned

I don't have any prominent tags that are MINE, dude

Whatever, it'll come naturally? Is that bad to say?

Also, dni is just, like, anyone that... is bad? Is a bad person? I know it's vague, but it might do for now

I'll find a silly separator, don't worry

Cool things post

Pronouns: any.

K' there's the separator, and of course, credits to @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more for the little separator.

Okay, so I guess I put music artists and things that I like and fandoms that I'm in here at this part, right?

please don't judge me for any of the fandoms I'm in.

sorry for the gap

also, the tilde (this ~) means I don't really engage in it anymore

Jhariah, Will Wood, ~Tally Hall~, Lemon Demon, TBOI, Chonny Jash, ERB, Rhett & Link, Femtanyl, Bug Hunter, Tom Cardy, HomeStuck, Toby Fox, ~IDKHBTFM~, MilkInTheMicrowave, ~Undertale~, ~Deltarune~, Skegss, ~Gravity Falls~, ~Pokemon~, ~TOH~, The Big Bang Theory (I don't even know how, alright), Holes (both the book and the movie), Moral Orel, Dungeon Meshi, GO, Sodikken, Smiling Friends, Cyriak, -more to add?

(Sorry if the color scheme is bad looking)

I'm fine with any nickname, as long as it isn't trying to be derogatory.

[chatterbox-juice]

Juno is important. according to AJHQ on their insta, Juno is NOT an alpha but an ancient hero, which is interesting, because if Juno isn't an alpha, then canonically the arctic wolves has no alpha. for my AU, i've been considering reviving Juno, not because of author's bias, but because narratively, Juno is THE protector of Balloosh, the newest land added to the game. and I don't want to create an Arctic wolf alpha bc

A: shamans can't create anymore shamans after the phantoms (which i'm changing a bit)

B: that's boring

C: the implications of bringing someone from the past back to the present is somewhat horrifying

but yeah, Juno is OLDER than the shamans, and in my au I said "nuh-uh" because I couldn't think of a way of Juno being older that fits the timeline. correction, I just didn't like it.

in the game, they have two major connections to presumably (100%) dead alphas; Star and Fang, the direwolf and sabertooth alphas respectively. Fang is unimportant, and Star is mildly more important than Fang.

Now, while Balloosh really shines in the Juno Era to the Hexagram Era, it existed as far back as the Culture Era, if we're talking about it being established. the land Balloosh was established on most likely existed in the early history eras.

but anyway, to make sense of Peck, Greely, Gilbert, Liza, Graham, and Cosmo being the original six shamans, Star and Fang will no longer be shamans. they'll be important figures, like pack leaders (did sabertooths and direwolves form packs??), but not shamans. Juno doesn't exist here.

Star and Fang are older than the six in terms of age, just to establish that. Juno is younger in age. So how does Juno come to exist?

they're a gift from Mira. prior to this, Star and Fang joined their packs together and wandered just like that, a massive culmination of canine and feline. this most likely takes place in the Dominion Era, so collaboration between different species was unheard of. Star, Fang, and their pack was shunned, pushed to the far marshlands, but Mira had a sort of respect for it. so she gifted them Juno in the form of a feather.

this is also why Juno is nonbinary. they weren't created with a gender. (also they didn't feel entirely comfortable with gendered pronouns later in life)

these marshlands would also later become Balloosh, founded by Star, Fang, and Juno.

but anyway, Star carries around the feather with a piece of twine, treating it as the second coming of God, whilst Fang leads the pack with one of the leaders fixated on a feather. Fang found it redundant, and he always scolded Star for it, but Star herself did not care about what he had to say. Mira respected them. Respected them! if it wasn't obvious, this is from Star's point of view. to Fang, he acknowledged the feather as a gift, but felt that Mira's attention was fleeting. ultimately, in some way, shape, or form, he wasn't entirely wrong.

one day, during the Settlement Era, the feather glowed as bright as the sun, and soon it grew legs, and fur, and ears, and oh god it's a pup now. this pup was baby Juno, the arctic wolf born from a feather. Star and Fang became parents, almost. they were both a bit feral for Juno more tame demeanor, but they loved Star and Fang nonetheless.

[what-if-doctor-who-was-yuri-yaoi]

btw i have a couple rss feeds on my neocities ^^ u can check em out if u want :3

[lumenniveus]

Calling all wild witches and handsome devils: it's time to rock 'n roll.

Hey, you, wake up a new CC set just dropped! This time @mellosakicc joined me and threw in some very wicked cool goodies for you. Everything is Base Game Compatible and optimized for potato computers. Go and build your slightly haunted Memphis studio apartments.

But only after you downloaded our small tribute here: MERGED ZIP

Update: This set is making it into TS2! Well, kinda? I hope so. I'll update this if more gets converted. (pls, someone, I also don't have the know-how!)

@grilledcheese-aspiration did a stellar job porting the really pretty clutter over [Link] I love how the Belladonna looks nicer in the older game

Mid-Century's elegance meets Gothic Kitsch in Rituals, a 50 asset large set full of stuff for your living, dining and bedrooms. Every object was lovingly (help me) hand painted by yours truly (pain... the pain...!) and I hope you have as much fun playing with it as I had making it!

Read more and get a preview below the cut

As usual, here's the catalogue of the entire thing

And an unedited in-game screenshot

Highlights of this set include:

a very modular set of curtains

3D wall paneling

a vanity table

a canopy bed

vintage electronics

lots of references for you to find

buy and build items ( these walls and floors are included, yes)

I playtest to my absolute limit, but I'm a one-man-team so if you end up finding bugs I missed, please send me an ask or comment on this post. That way it gets fixed asap.

[simandy]

It has been so long since I posted any wip! This is the hair i was working on for Halloween (along with other stuff). It was supposed to be a test for a blender add-on I got, but it turned out to look so good I really want to give it to you guys. I regret not updating blender earlier or looking for add-ons, this one really does make it much easier to create hairs! It's not free, unfortunately 😖 but it was worth it for me, it will make the hair making process much easier (and fun!) than what it was! To me, the best part is that I finished meshing the curves and solidified them as meshes and when i went to check the poly count it was 10k. FOR THE ENTIRE HAIR. COME ON.

I'm making this post because i believe real artists don't gatekeep! Here is the link of the video and download, in case you're interested. Posting the video link because of the promotional code ^^

*** IMPORTANT ***

This add-on is magical and i can prove it since I'm staring at sims4studio now with THAT hair (in the post above) imported with the hat chops and it's at 10k vertices and 14k polys and i didn't make a singular effort to reduce it yet. And if you work with hairs you know how this sounds like sorcery.

ANYWAY I have stuff to say. This add-on creates a thing in your mesh called COLOR ATTRIBUTES. I don't know exactly what they're for (because my blender knowledge is restricted to making cool crystals and custom content for the sims 4) but SIMS4STUDIO CANNOT READ THEM. FOR LIFE. They will cause various errors that will make you spiral forever because they're extremely UNCLEAR. I found them by accident so, if you bought the add-on and is now making beautiful hairstyles and struggling to make them to sims4studio, here is the culprit:

Located in: DATA. Delete every other color attribute besides "color0" and your hair will import to s4s normally!

[felassan]

August 30th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length and spoilers.

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 first Q&A (June 14th)] | [Link to video recording for first 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 `˶ )

Please note before proceeding that the devs advised that this Q&A may contain minor spoilers!

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

KFM: Community Manager Katey JE: John Epler CB: Corinne Busche

---

KFM: We’re gonna be joined by John and Corinne here in a sec, just waiting for them to get on. Hey John, hey Corinne, thanks for joining - hey!

JE: Hello! Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure.

CB: Hey y’all. It's so good to see so many people, I see some familiar names here. Good to see you again.

KFM: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to, you know, bring us this second Q&A on the Discord server. Last time we were really, really happy, with the way it happened, y'know, it turned out and how everyone seemed to really enjoy it so we're back again. Thank you for submitting your questions on the ask-bioware channel. I am going to start and kick that off in just a second, but, for those of you who might be new here, I'm the Community Manager, and I'm going to let Corinne and John introduce themselves as well.

CB: Hey y'all, I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I just generally help people on the team do cool things and create this world.

JE: And I'm John Epler, the Creative Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Corinne picked probably the best way to describe what I do, too, so I'm just gonna steal that. I'm there to make sure the team can, is enabled to do their best work and I'm super excited to share all this with you.

KFM: Awesome. Yeah before we start I also wanna give a quick heads-up, you might have seen in Announcements, but there are a couple of questions in here that we have answers to that we would consider minor spoilers. I'll give a heads-up before that minor spoiler answer is given, or even the question is read, so you can go, y'know, grab some water, or y'know, go outside for a second, or just do anything, to decide if you want to listen to the answer or not. But, I promise, these spoilers are, y'know, we'll call them out before we say anything.  

CB: That is kinda the coolest part of this session, we're getting closer to launch now, so I think we can do a little bit deeper on some of the questions this time.

KFM: Yes, no this is so exciting! Okay, are you guys ready?

JE: Yes! Yes I am.

CB: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's start with a fun one. Do all Evanuris hate tea? Does Ghilly-Flower exclusively drink haunted bog water?

JE: Alright. That is a fun one. Y'know, it's funny because I think Solas is the only one of the elven gods that actually really has a tremendous aversion to tea. That said, we don't really get too into what they drink, I would say though, knowing what I know about Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, I think Elgar'nan probably drinks a combination of gas station coffee and the Thedas equivalent of an energy drink, at all times he's got a big Thermos with him. Whereas Ghilan'nain is all about the herbal concoctions that are supposed to be really good for like, your gut health, things like that - she really takes care of herself, so.

CB: John, I think you just described you, and then me. Interesting.

JE: Hurtful, Corinne, accurate but hurtful.

KFM: Okay, next one. So we know that we can hug Assan, but will we be able to hug any of our companions?

JE: So you can't hug your companions at all times. There's not an option to just walk up and give them a hug. They've got their boundaries, they've got their preferences. But there are opportunities in conversations, in dialogue, in scenes where you will, you know - a companion may ask you for a hug because they're having a rough time and you are able to give it to them.

KFM: And will there be a lot of politicking involved? And by politicking they mean quests like Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

JE: Yeah, so I mean, there's not gonna be a quest quite like the Halamshiral Ball, I mean that was very specific to the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was trying to gain favor with a bunch of different factions, they were trying to form an army. Rook's struggle and Rook's, honestly,  challenge is much more immediate and visceral. That said, it's Dragon Age. It wouldn't be Dragon Age if there weren't politics. You'll have influence on the, y'know, things that are happening, and the fate of nations, that are happening around the world, and Rook, I mean, throughout the game, across this adventure, Rook does become a fairly important figure, so it's natural that you’ll have some influence and some involvement with the affairs of the different factions and nations.

KFM: Gotcha. So this question, this next question comes from Onomatopoeia. I know this has been asked before, but they didn't see an answer for it - is there a way to toggle off nudity and sex scenes?

CB: Yeah, let me take this one. It's so funny, John, you get the fun questions and I get the thirsty nudity questions - I'm here for it. So, let me, let me answer and maybe elaborate. So, there is a toggle for on and off nudity. That is one of the settings we have. And we'll be going deeper into settings and accessibility and things like that as we get a little bit closer to launch. But let me also expand on this. So when you're in character creator, you'll actually be able to select what underclothes your Rook wears, and whether that exposes your chest or your breasts. So, by default nudity is on, chest or breast, that is up to you by your underclothing that you select, particularly as you get into, say, romance scenes, but, at any point you can toggle the setting to be non-nudity and it will override your undergarments. 

KFM: Gotcha. This question comes from DarkGoddessEris. What are the companions’ ages? That was a question that actually came up a bunch, so I'm excited for somebody to be able to answer this one.

JE: Yeah,  I can take this one. So the companions in The Veilguard range anywhere from kind of early-mid twenties with Taash at the youngest, all the way up to Emmrich who is in his early fifties. The rest of the companions tend to be in their late twenties, early thirties, again though, they're all experts in their field, they're all people who have been through a lot, so even the ones that are at the younger end of the age spectrum, their experience, they've been through a tremendous amount by this point by the time you meet them, so, yeah. So I mean, I guess, Taash is the closest to Sera at early twenties, but they’re all in kinda that age range, so.

KFM: This next question I'll pitch to Corinne. How linear is the quest experience? Are there going to be side quests that you can stumble upon and resolve within areas or are you locked into a golden path?

CB: This is such a good one. Yeah, a lot of people have been asking about this so thank you to whoever submitted it. So the content in the game is a mix of directed, kinda like story quest missions, and then explorable content. Or you might say optional content. I don't even like calling it side content because it's a lot of fun, it's really good content. So to give you an idea, a lot of the main story quests are critical path missions if we want to call it that. They're very highly crafted. They're more linear than some of the other parts of the game, because we feel that’s how we can tell the best stories, give you a very intentionally-paced experience, y'know, with lulls and climaxes, so it really hits you. But that's only part of it. You're also gonna explore, fully explore a bunch of the locations in The Veilguard, so like, let me just lay a few on you: Arlathan Forest, Hossberg Wetlands, those are probably two of the biggest ones, the Crossroads - now we've seen Crossroads before in Trespasser, but this, isn't necessarily the Crossroads as you remember it. So you'll be able to explore this, this part of the Crossroads, and as you're there, you're absolutely gonna be discovering new areas, new quests, mysteries and new challenges. So exploration in the game is absolutely about player agency in these larger, less linear levels, and it's really an important part of the overall experience and core to our design. Now, as a player - and I'm just speaking for me personally - I'm the kind of player that wants to 100% every area. I want to go find all the optional quests, all the treasures, I wanna see that big 100% completed on my map. That's gonna take you quite a bit of time. So hopefully that answers the question. It is both.

KFM: I think that's a great answer, thanks, Corinne. This next one is from a user named Benedictus: Will we ever get the Venatori gear?

CB: Yeah, I can take that one as well. Venatori gear - so like, I'm assuming what we mean is for to like, wear on Rooks or on companions. Gosh, y'all, I'm gonna be honest - we really, really tried on that one. Hopefully you've seen in the videos our cloth sim, our hair sim, I think it's quite beautiful. The Venatori gear, generally we couldn't make that work to the quality we'd expect within combat. So, no you can't get most of the Venatori gear, but I will say there is a unique Venatori-themed helmet. I, I don't want to spoil what that is exactly, but, so, you can get a helmet, it is unique, it's pretty interesting and ties into some of the events that can happen in the game but I'm just gonna leave it there.

KFM: Gotcha. So, now we're getting into our first real minor spoiler question, so - consider yourself warned, do whatever you need to do, either listen or don't for the next, like, I don't know, minute. So this question is from Kala: Will there be any romanceable NPCs outside of the companions?

JE: I'll take this one. So, no - not this time. This time the romances for Rook are strictly within the companions. We wanted to really focus on those relationships and make sure that they were as developed and as deep as we could make them. And yet honestly and part of it - the other side of it is - Harding was a great example in DA:I, that was a character that as we were building the game, it really struck us, stuck out to us, this is a character that, actually, y'know, you see a lot, you build this very specific rapport with, and the writer, Sheryl, wanted to create that light romance with Harding. None of the characters in The Veilguard really jumped out to us in that same way as, this is a character we really want to build a relationship with, for Rook, but again, y'know, really focusing down on making sure the companion romances were as deep and meaningful as we could make them.

KFM: And this question is just for fun. So we're passed a spoiler, we'll get back into other spoilers in a bit, but this one's just for fun. We have so many cute, silly bird videos on the internet - Lucanis' Ninth Dagger, by the way, says that birds are their favorite animal - if you could just snap your fingers and a bird Easter Egg would be added for Assan, what would it be?

JE: Oh, that's a good question. So actually I'm gonna cheat, because I am trying to think of bird memes, or bird videos specifically, and I'm having a hard time, but, y'know, the thing about griffons is that they're half bird and also half lion, so I'm gonna go with a cat meme, say my favorite meme, and this is one that still brings me joy years after it came out, is the video of the cat grooving to the guy playing Finnish polka on the drum. Again, years old, I've loved - that's one of my favorite videos on the internet, so y'know, if we were gonna give Assan any kind of Easter Egg it would be that one.

KFM: I love that one - 

CB: You know, don't judge me on this, you're putting me on the spot here, but, the only thing I can picture in my head - y'all remember that video a few years back where the kid unleashes the rabbit into the field and then immediately that hawk comes down and snatches it up?

JE: Yes!

CB: Don't judge me, y'all! Don't judge me. But that's where my head goes.

JE: Oh, man.

CB: Assan just getting a little treat.

JE: I love that.

KFM: I love that.

JE: That's a great, that’s a great answer, Corinne. Fantastic.

KFM: So this next one is from a user named Ash. So Taash breathes fire, Lucanis has wings, Harding is a dwarf who has magic. A lot of our companions have some strange abilities - is this because the Veil is compromised?

JE: Oh, I'd say it's, I mean partially yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how over the course of the time since Dragon Age: Inquisition, I mean, it started at the end of Trespasser. The Veil's not in great shape. Corypheus already did a number on it, and Solas has very clearly, as you saw, in the [inaudible] preview, not been making things better in the intervening times. So, there is to some degree, y'know, I'll use Bellara as an example - Bellara's someone who's seeing these artifacts turn on, and being able to interface with them because there's all this magic that's coming back to the world through the torn Veil. Other characters though, I mean, you are recruiting people to stop the end of the world. You're recruiting extraordinary people, they're gonna have extraordinary abilities, and you know, someone like Davrin, a lot of his abilities are focused around Assan and the fact that he's got this partnership, this, almost, you know, familial bond with Assan, his griffon, so.

KFM: Can we get some Assans in the chat?

JE: I think I'm seeing a lot of Assans in the chat, so I think we're well covered there.

KFM: Me too.

KFM: Alright. This next one is for both of you, and I will say, another quick little spoiler, minor spoiler warning, depending on the way that either of you might want to answer this question. This is, of all the companions, who's the team's favorite and what companion was the most difficult to design?

JE: Ooh. I'm gonna cheat, I wrote Bellara so, I’m definitely not gonna say the companion I wrote because that would be weird, but I will say I loved the companion interactions so I'm gonna go with two of my favorite relationships that Bellara has within the team, friendships that she has within the team. So, Bellara and Lucanis start off as two characters who feel like they're from completely different worlds, their experience growing up was very different, where they lived, what they do, and over the course of the game, they kinda build this friendship over all these things that despite again - very different upbringings - they have a lot of things in common. They're both the, y'know, characters who just believe family is deeply important and that shows up in a lot of their interactions, a lot of, y’know, the way they talk to each other, they interact with each other, both within the Lighthouse but also out in the field. The other one - and this was one that came up organically as we were building the game - is Neve and Bellara and they, y'know, Bellara is a character who, y’know, despite being out in Arlathan is very big on stories, very big on - she finds - gets all the newspapers from Tevinter and she has kind’ve learnt who Neve is through that, and they build this very sisterly relationship that I love and that over the course of the game, I mean, we started out without this kind of as the intention, we started finding all these places that this can show up and it turned into, again, one of my favorite friendships that exists between the companions, so.

CB: Oh, that was such a good answer. Yeah, I think I might cheat as well, John, because, first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of the entire team. So I'm gonna give you my two faves if that's alright. And I feel like y'all already know me on this. Every time we have a chance to talk about Taash and Emmrich I'm right there for it. I'd say they're probably my two favorites, but here's the thing y'all, here's why I love them so much. When you're out in the field like exploring, or on missions with them, their banter is so good, because they do not see eye-to-eye on necromancy, like, at all, and, it's really funny, it's really delightful, I love seeing how it evolves - so like, look - if you wanted a recommendation from me on like, banter in the field, you've got to hear Taash and Emmrich. Most difficult to design, let's touch on that really quickly. I, so, I'm gonna answer, but I don't want to say that like we put more effort into one versus another, but I would say the most challenging was probably Harding, just because you've probably seen if you saw some of the teaser footage, the pre-release trailer, we have teased some strange new powers for Harding, and when we do that we have to figure out how that layers into her combat kit, and when we onboard that, and, yeah it was an interesting challenge, it was a really fun one.

KFM: Awesome. Backing away from spoilers for a quick second, I'm going to ask this question to Corinne. With only two companions per party, as a Nightmare mode player, how can we balance not having a warrior in the team to tank? Will higher difficulty players be forced to bring Davrin or Taash for a melee instead of bringing the characters that we want?

CB: Oh super good - I was hoping this would come up, especially after we released the combat deep-dive for warrior trailer - hopefully y'all enjoyed that. So, let me start by telling you what's happening under the hood. Well, first of all, I'm not gonna bury the lede - you're not gonna have to bring a tank if you don't want to. But, let me first tell you what's happening under the hood, this is gonna be kind of high level, maybe we can go a little bit deeper when we have more time. Behind the scenes when you walk into an enemy encounter, we generally know how much pressure, or you could say intensity or aggression, we want to be putting on Rook to maintain that satisfying moment-to-moment experience. So to give you an idea of some of the levers we have for each encounter, that is the number of enemies that could be specifically focused on you versus your companions, how many enemies can be attacking at once, and even when you have multiple enemies coming at Rook, we have a ticketing system.

[text block character limit reached]

CB: And what that means is each enemy basically knows when it is allowed to attack or not. So, I tell you all that because basically when we're looking at the different types of classes and team compositions, those levers exist underneath the hood, so that we give you the most autonomy and flexibility, but also maintain that, that pressure, that engagement for you the player. So, a couple of other things on that. Now that you kinda get a sense of like what's happening under the hood, it is absolutely beneficial, but not required to have one of each class in your party. We did go into this with the goal of giving players more flexibility than perhaps we've seen in past entries. It's just a different approach. What we know is that players tend to get very attached to certain characters. If you've got your favorites, you oftentimes wanna bring them with you or if you're romancing a character, sometimes it's a feelbad to feel like you have to leave them behind because maybe they're the same class as you. So, the whole game is built and balanced around flexibility, and giving you the agency. So you can be successful, you can mix it up, but you gotta plan for it. So what, what do I mean by that? If you're not using teamwork, if you're not planning for your party composition for those synergies, it's definitely not gonna end super well. Right? Like, I've done no tank runs, but it takes some foresight in the strategy here. So I'll give you an example if you don't mind, I think I've been pretty out there that my favorite class and specialization right now - could change tomorrow - is the rogue Veil Ranger specialization. And this is very much a ranged archery-based specialization. So, I want to keep enemies at ranged, because I want to get those well-aimed critical hits, right, if those enemies are right up on top of me, I'm not gonna be able to do that. So if I don't have a tank in my party, a couple of the tools that I turn to - and I have done this, in fact, in my last playthrough I did this quite a bit - I might bring Bellara and use her Galvanic Tear, which pulls all the enemies towards like this really cool-looking gravity well and gets them off of me. I might instead use Neve's Time Slow. So the cool thing about this is it slows time for everything in the world except for you and your team, right? So I'm running away, I'm doing a Heavy Draw, getting those headshots, or making other tactical decisions. I could also turn to my rune loadout - hopefully y'all saw runes in the warrior combat deep-dive - that's an important part, especially if you're playing on Nightmare Mode, the strategic and tactical options that gives you, will allow you to overcome things like not having a tank. I think everyone may have saw the rune where you're doing a, basically an AoE freeze, and freezing everything in place. So it's kind of a long-winded answer, I'm sorry, it's complicated, but point is, is I think you're gonna have more flexibility in your build crafting and your synergies, but it's gonna depend on the strategy and composition that you feel works best for you and your own preferences. And then you did mention Nightmare, let me just finish with saying, and this is anecdotal, but in our own Nightmare playthroughs, we actually find that the most challenging aspect to plan around isn't necessarily aggro management, but making sure you have coverage on all the various elemental damage types. So, I just say this for anyone planning to go into Nightmare - plan well.

KFM: Staying on the topic of combat, it was noticed during the high-level combat videos that weapons and armor seem to be tied to different factions. Are there bonuses or something similar involved if Rook is a Grey Warden while using Grey Warden equipment? Are these removed if a Shadow Dragon Rook is using Grey Warden equipment? 

CB: Oh, interesting. You know, everyone went deep on that gameplay video, hey, I’m glad you noticed that. Yeah, so, to answer this, you're going to be working really closely with the factions in the game, right? Like the threat you’re up against is a world-ending threat so you’re going to interact with each of these factions. So that means that you’re gonna get a lot of the gear that that faction tends to use, and especially the stronger you help them become, the more gear you’ll have available from that faction. So when you see a piece of gear that has like the Veil Jumper icon on it, that signifies that it is aligned with that faction, but you can use it regardless of if that’s your faction background or not. All it means is that, you know, if I want to maybe improve it or get more gear in that vein, or that looks similar, I can see it’s from the Veil Jumpers, I’m going to go back to the Veil Jumper quartermaster, and that’s where I will find more items of that type or upgrade possibilities. But it also leans into the thematic identity. So, you know, I think in that video we were using the transmog system, but if I’m using a Veil Jumper gear like an armor, it’s gonna look like it was crafted by the Veil Jumpers, and it’s gonna lean into the mechanical themes of the Veil Jumpers as well, which, one of those themes tends to be lightning damage. Now, I will also say, and this is a little specific, but occasionally you will find gear, or even like skill nodes, that will occasionally be empowered, they’ll get stronger relative to your strength with that given faction. So like if you find a piece of gear that’s really core to your build, and it strengthens the stronger the Veil Jumpers are, like that gives you a pretty good signifier that maybe that’s a faction you wanna focus on.

CB: Katey, I don't know if you're still there.

JE: Yeah.

CB: Did we lose you?

[there is silence on KFM’s line]

JE: Ope.

CB: We may have lost Katey, y’all. 

JE: We can start, just, you know, let’s - 

CB: Yeah. Why don’t, why don’t, I do have the list of questions here so why don’t I ask the next one until Katey comes back. I hope everything’s okay on your side Katey. Alright. Next question I see, the Evoker description on the blog-post highlights ice-based magic. Does that mean we will not be able to have lightning- and fire-themed playstyles as the Evoker? No, no, absolutely not. The Evoker can lean into all of the elements, in fact, all mages can to a degree. You probably have seen the skill trees, you’re gonna pick up abilities, perks, traits, of all elemental types, and powering up those elements. So just because you’re an Evoker, doesn’t mean you’re like pigeon-holed into ice spells. What I will say is, if you’re heading towards that specialization, you’re gonna pass through the section of the skill tree where you’re more easily going to be able to naturally pick up those ice spells, right? So it might lean towards ice, but you can expand it. The name of the game is agency here.

JE: Corinne, why don’t I ask you the question so we can still kinda do a Q&A thing? CB: Yeah, that, that sounds good.

JE: Corinne, can I set the gear to look however I want without losing stats? And that is a question from YoCallMeRob.

CB: Alright, well, y’all know, fashion’s the true end game. So, we did confirm we have a full transmog system, so what I’m gonna do is spend some time going a little more in-depth for y’all, so that we’re getting new information. So yeah, if anyone’s not aware, transmog basically is, I have a piece of gear, but I apply an appearance to it that makes it look like something else that I like better so I can be fabulous. So, how this is gonna work is you’re of course gonna find gear as you adventure through the world, and you can equip that. But any piece of gear you find is also going to unlock the appearance for that gear. So you might find something that you really like, and you wanna look that way, and then you replace it, anything that you’ve already acquired, you can apply the appearance to whatever gear you want. Additionally, and this is one of my favorite parts, is, you’ll also find some appearance-only cosmetics that are specifically used just for transmog. So sometimes these are some of the fancier or more niche pieces of gear, maybe end up looking like a training dummy for instance. So you’ll get these appearance datas from opening treasure chests, exploring the world, and more frequently from vendors. So, look, if you’re in it for fashion, check out those vendor inventories because they got you. I would also say that you can transmog your casual wear, so field wear and casual wear, fully transmoggable. If you wanna be platemail while you’re hanging around the Lighthouse as a mage, more power to you. And then if I were just to give you a practical example of this, like on the Blood Dragon Armor, the pre-order bonus, those are cosmetics, those are just appearance datas, right, so they’re effectively evergreen, you can use them anytime you like without compromising your stats.

JE: I will say that I don’t think I’ve spent as much time in any other menu other than transmog, because as Corinne mentioned at the beginning of this, fashion is the true end-game, so. Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

JE: Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

KFM: Am I back? Can you hear me?

JE: Yay, you’re back. 

CB: Katey, we did our best Katey.

JE: Yeah.

CB: But I don’t think we were very impressive -

KFM: No, I think you both did a great job. It was one of those weird situations where Discord force-quit, but I could still hear everything everyone was saying. I don’t really know what that was about, but.

CB: I just assumed you didn’t like my answer.

KFM: Yeah, I rage-quit actually Corinne, it’s all your fault.

JE: Taken by the Fade.

KFM: No, thank you for taking over while I was figuring that out. There is a non-zero chance that that happens again, so just keep an eye out. 

JE: We’ll keep an eye out for it, we gotcha.

KFM: Thank you.

KFM: So I’ll just pick it up from the next question. The latest, latest - wow, I can’t even talk anymore - video series mentioned how each companion can set up or detonate specific combos. Are those always set in stone or would we get opportunities to change it up, through the skill-trees or otherwise? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. I eat up these really specific combat questions. So first, let me give you an overview of how the primer-detonator relationship works between the classes. Like, this is very nitty-gritty y’all, if this is your jam, get your pencils out. So here’s the overview. Mages, and this whether, this is true of companions and Rook, mages apply weakened and overwhelmed debuffs, and those are two of the debuffs we call primers. Magers detonate the sundered debuff. Then if we go to rogues, rogues apply weakened and sundered debuffs, and rogues detonate overwhelmed. Warriors apply sundered and overwhelmed, and warriors detonate weakened. So you can see, kinda the interesting rock-paper-scissors relationship there. And when I talk about it as beneficial to bring one of each class? It’s just the inherent nature of that rock-paper-scissors relationship that I’m really thinking of. But, to answer your question, that is just the baseline, that is the default if you don’t modify it. Throughout the game, you will find opportunities, whether it’s from gear, skill-tree nodes, even runes, that allow you to break this paradigm. So when it comes to your companion builds, again it all comes down to the abilities you choose, what gear you’re equipping them with, how you allocate your skill points. Yeah, does that answer the question? There’s quite a bit of flexibility but there is a baseline paradigm as well.

KFM: Yeah, I think that answers the question.

KFM: Let’s see. The next one is, will we see a bit more the Lighthouse before release, as well as non-combat gameplay?

CB: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ll keep it brief here because we are gonna be talking more about exploration and the Lighthouse next month, so forgive me, but I’ll say stay tuned on that one.

KFM: Alright. Then, this next one I believe is a little bit of a spoiler. I know that some people have, can’t hear me still for some reason, if you can’t, tell folks to quit Discord and rejoin it, but -

CB: Okay, minor spoiler y’all, if you can’t hear Katey, this one’s a minor spoiler.

KFM: Yes. Thanks Corinne. This one is, will we be able to give gifts to our companions, either generic or plot-specific?

CB: Yeah, you sure can! I actually wanna shout-out one of our lovely designers, Dusty. This was a passion project from him. He was advocating for this. So, the cool thing about this is, it’s not like a transactional thing, like where I’m gonna go farm a bunch of like nonsensical items and just like, mechanically turn them over. Out in the world, and there in various locations, so you kinda stumble upon them, you can buy a gift that is very personal to any one of the companions, and then you go, you turn that into them, you give it to them, they have a nice acknowledgement. And then, the thing that’s just like so sweet about it, we’ve talked about how the companion rooms evolve over time, but if you go and get them one of these, like, very personalized gifts, they’ll display it in their room. Like it doesn’t go into some stats void. It’s actually on display.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: This next question, I'll pitch it to John. Some of our companions like Neve, Emmrich and Lucanis have been in past short stories and comics and there's also a passing resemblance to some of the old concept art from years ago. What is the process like for making a character at some point and then planning to bring them back as a companion, or were they always written or designed and intended to be companions?

JE: Alright, that's a great question, and it's actually one I'm gonna go a little deep on. So, as we build the game, as we start writing companions we see how they fit in the story, see how they fit together. Some characters have been around, some character concepts have been around for quite some time, others come in a little bit later in development as we realise we have a gap, you know, something in the story that we need someone, who makes sense to fill that gap, to be that character. But part of it’s also just as the writers we want to make sure that the people who are writing these companions are passionate, and they're writing a character they want to write. We don't want to just say "we need X, Y and Z. Write a companion to fill these gaps", but it'll be "hey, in this story, it really doesn't make sense that we don't have somebody, ah, doing X, is there a character we can build for that?" And so, y'know, you'll see the old concept art and a lot of those concepts, y'know, a lot of those, kinda the core of those characters remains intact, we may have changed details of them, we may have decided "okay, they were going to be X but now Y makes a little bit more sense" - Or as a writer I'm a little bit more interested in why, y’know, what, this particular concept speaks to me more. In terms of comics, short stories and such, generally speaking - and this isn't universal - but generally speaking, writers are writing these short stories in particular, it’s a volunteer, we ask the team, like, "hey, does anyone - we've got this short story anthology, who wants to write something for it?”, so writers are going to pick characters that they're passionate about and in those cases they tend to be their companions, so for example. You know, Neve’s shown, is mentioned. Neve, Emmrich, Lucanis have all shown up. Those were written by people who are passionate about those characters and we had already intended for them to be companions. Other characters, though - I mean, and Harding is an excellent example - we create a character to fill a role. In the case of Harding, she was in Inquisition largely to be there to kind of connect those exploration spaces together and give you a sense of the Inquisition’s presence, and then we saw the fan reaction, but beyond that, Sheryl really wanted to explore Harding's arc more deeply, so she got promoted to be a companion as well, so, yeah, I mean, it's an organic process, and I mean again, it comes down to, we want to make sure the people who are building these characters, ah, not just the writers but also the artists, y'know, the cinematic designers, the editors, y'know, the gameplay people, are excited to build these characters. And you know, and actually, I'm gonna go a little bit side topic on that. Bellara's a great example where we knew what Bellara wanted to be, needed to be in the story, but gameplay-wise it took a bit to kinda land on how her gameplay and her character arc and who she was melded together. Y'know, Corinne’s talked earlier about the companions and how they show up in gameplay. A really big thing for us on this project is making sure that the gameplay reflects the characters, their arc and their personality as much as possible, so. Yeah, kind’ve a long answer to say, it depends, but yeah, generally if they show up, especially in something like a short story, we’ve already intended for them to be a companion because, those are the characters that people, the writers are most passionate about, so.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that, now that stuff seems more overall universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough. Are there choices presented freely - are there choices presented that are impactful, that wildly different outcomes will come from, while - wow, wow, wow, let me start that one again. I think it’s just, I’m reading it straight off the sheet. 

JE: No worries.

KFM: I'll start from the top. Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that stuff seems more universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough? Are there choices that are impactful and wildly different, and different outcomes and decision paths?

JE: So, I mean, there's a few incentives, one of which, is, and I mean, the most basic is, the three classes from a gameplay perspective do play differently and, you know, I’ve, it’s funny, Corinne was talking about how her favorite is the Veil Ranger but that might change. Mine literally changes every time I play, I start a new playthrough, I develop a new favorite class, which is the class I'm currently playing. But more generally, yeah there are choices in the game, there are different outcomes, there’s content that does, that you will see or won't see based on choices you make both within the critical path of the game but also with the followers themselves so, y'know. You're not going to see everything in a single playthrough, you're not even going to see everything necessarily in a couple of playthroughs, but, y'know, you want to see how your choices have different outcomes, that's the best way to do it. 

KFM: This question is - I understand mages having very magical-looking moves, but why do rogues and warriors also have very magical-looking moves? Was making every class look like a mage a purposeful choice? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. So it's a multi-part answer, but yes, everything we've done has been with intention towards supporting the overall player experience. So I guess the first place I'd go to answer this is from a game-tuning and balance perspective. We knew that supporting multiple damage types like physical, fire, electric etc, that was gonna be an important factor in the strategic depth of the combat system, particularly as it leans into builds and the strategies you'd use to take on various enemies. It’s not the extent of it, but it's an important part of it. So that meant that making sure the various classes in some capacity have access to some or all of these damage types. And that then means that we need to make them read visually as such on the battlefield. So the first part is about making sure you have those strategic options on the battlefield. But there is more to it than that I'd say, we also found - and I've heard this from a lot of you, that some of our magical hybrid classes have been amongst the favorites. My goodness the discourse around Knight Enchanter - 

JE: M-hm -

CB: - So this felt like a very thematic way for us to support that goal if that makes sense, the goal of game balance but also leaning into the things that seem to resonate the most. If I was to just focus on the Warriors out there for a minute though, because we just released the warrior deep dive, we've actually long had a goal within the team of making them more visually interesting and impactful. We know, and I’ve heard from a bunch of you that warrior, y'know, tends not to be peoples’ first choice, but hey, any of the warrior fans out there - big props to you, because I love them, too. So this was like our chance, really, to show what a warrior can do, to make them feel like they have a presence on the battlefield that could be as interesting as some of the other classes, but I will say, I absolutely recognize that there are those of you that like, if you're playing a melee class, you even want a pure, like, physical-based warrior aesthetic, maybe something that's a little more grounded, you can generally make a build that's more physical-focused if that’s more your taste.

KFM: In addition to playing the first three games, what comic books or novels do you recommend reading before playing The Veilguard?

JE: Oh, that's a great question. I mean, generally speaking, one of the things we wanted to make sure with The Veilguard was that players could get into the story, understand what was going on without needing to, y'know, get into the ancillary material. I love the comics, I love the novels, I love the short stories, but they are intended to be kinda side content. One of the things that we hear loud and clear is sometimes folks don't really want that to feel like I need to have read this, I need to have seen this comic, I need to have watched that show for it to make sense. That said, I’d say The Missing, the most recent comic series. is a very clear lead-up to the beginning of The Veilguard, it's setting up events, it’s kinda setting up, y'know, Varric and Harding's search for Solas, it sets up some of the characters that you'll see in the game. Tevinter Nights is another one, not - we mentioned earlier that some of the companions show up there. Beyond just the companions, there’s some thematic stuff that comes out of that as well, some things that we kinda wanted to set up when we wrote those short stories, like, giving you an idea of what the worldstate is, how things have changed over time, and then I’d say, you know, more very recently, we have the podcast, Vows & Vengeance, which is intended to give you a taste of the companions and also, again, talk about the worldstate of Thedas at this point, you know, giving you kind’ve the lead-up to weeks before the events of the Veilguard, so you do have that sense of what’s going on, who are these people, and how, you know, when I first meet them in The Veilguard, you kinda have an idea of who they are. Again, though, this is all stuff that I think enhances the experience, but it’s not required, there’s never going to be, we’re never gonna put you in a situation where a character shows up and, you know, everyone makes a big deal out of it, and you’re sitting there wondering like, who, who is this person? Because they were introduced in other media. We always wanna make sure that you understand, that the only thing that you need to have done to understand The Veilguard is play The Veilguard, so.

KFM: Awesome. Also, yes, Vows & Vengeance is so good, so definitely, you know, give it a chance. The first episode is out now. I think a lot of people in the Vows & Vengeance Discord server, Discord channel are, are really stoked about it.

KFM: This next question. Will we be able to adjust how much damage the companions do in the accessibility settings?

CB: Yeah, so our customized difficulty, and accessibility settings as well, they’re more focused on how you the player experience the game while in control of Rook. So, things like enemy health, timing, things of that nature. So not in the settings, no, but if you really wanna be that kind of player that wants to amp up your companions, like have them do a greater share of the overall damage, there’s a number of ways to accomplish this. You’ll get gear that just strictly says, your companions do more damage. And then there are some unique buffs we support like Rally Party, so you as Rook can trigger this surge in your companions’ ability. So, again, we know how diverse the motivations are within the player-base, so we wanted to make sure those tools were there for y’all.

KFM: So now we’re getting back into spoiler territory. There’s minor spoilers, but, you know, definitely, take heed, for the next couple of minutes if you don’t wanna hear them. Okay, we ready? Will we finally meet Maevaris Tevani in Tevinter?

CB: Oh my goodness, y’all. Alright, you got the spoiler warning, so when I talk about cameos and appearances, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay, this one’s very near and dear to my heart as a trans woman myself, I’m pretty open about that. Yeah, yeah, our dear Mae, she’s in the game, happy to confirm it, and I am, every time I see her I absolutely freak out. What I’m not gonna tell you though is what role or capacity she plays, so you’re just gonna have to wait and see. But Maevaris Tilani, she’s in.

KFM: I am living for chat right now. Like, I try not to look at it too much during these, because it’ll distract me, but I’m living for chat right now.

KFM: This next one is also a minor spoiler. Will we find out what happened to Lucanis' parents, for his grandmother to have had charge of him?

JE: Yeah, so I mean, Lucanis is an Antivan Crow. If you know anything about the Antivan Crows you know that they are, well, assassins, and assassins tend to have fairly deadly politics, and the daggers are a lot more literal than you would see somewhere like Orlais, so. That’s all I’m gonna say. You’ll find out, you’ll find out at some point for sure.

KFM: We’re doing a great job at not giving too much away.

KFM: Do we get any jealousy dialogues from any of the companions if you switch up your romance plans partway through? Are any of the romances hard-locked at any point?

JE: Yeah so, you can, I mean, once, there is an opportunity, or there is a place in a romance where you essentially commit to it being exclusive. And we really wanted to make sure that, A), we were very up front about the fact that you were committing to an exclusive romance at that point, and before that, it is portrayed as, you’re flirting, you’re kind’ve, you know, figuring out each other. So, not, there’s no jealousy dialogues, but there are - places where you commit, and we wanted to be very clear to fans. There’s also going to be a place, because I think I’m reading this right, where, there’s a point in the story where if you haven’t committed, if you haven’t said like, yeah, let’s, let’s, you know, I’m in for it, I’m up for this, let’s do this, where you no longer have that opportunity. We’re very clear about what that point is, because again, we don’t want people to be missing out on a romance, to think like, I’ve got some time, you know, I really wanna romance Neve, but, I’ve got a little, and then find out that no, in fact, you don’t have anymore time, so. 

KFM: Are class specializations locked to a particular faction, or can Rook only learn a specialization from a particular faction, like through a faction trainer?

JE: So, the specializations are a lot more thematically tied to the factions than they are a strict, you must be X faction, you must get it from this person. You know, for example, I’ll use the Veil Ranger is all themed, as Corinne said earlier, around electricity, around the use of the Veil, around the use of that kinda magic. So while they are thematically tied, there is no, you must be a Crow to be a Spellblade for example, and part of that is because, while we do like having that connection between gameplay and, you know, roleplay, we also don’t want you to feel like, well, I really wanted to be a Spellblade, but I also really want to be a Grey Warden. We don’t want those two things, sometimes we want gameplay to influence narrative, but we never want you to feel restricted by one against the other, if that makes sense.

KFM: Yeah, definitely

CB: Katey, can I go off-script really quickly?

KFM: Of course.

CB: Alright, so I saw someone post in chat, “okay, poly next time, though”. Let me just say, I cannot make promises, I cannot, but I’m with you. I’m with you. 

KFM: I love it. Anytime you wanna address anything that’s happening in chat, by all means.

JE: Oh, shit, copy that.

KFM: I mean, don’t go too crazy. Alright.

KFM: This next question is from Que Sera Sera. Will we be able to change the font size in the UI, subtitles etc?

CB: I can take that one. So, quick reminder, we are gonna do a deeper dive as we get closer to launch on accessibility settings, but let me just answer this one. Yeah, yeah you absolutely can. There are limits of course, but as a fellow person who often has to squint, I’m 42 y’all, my eyes are starting to go. I can play comfortably, I suspect most players will be able to play comfortably.

KFM: Will there be a way to save characters we make so we don't have to start from scratch each time?

CB: Heck yeah, you absolutely can. We, I mean, look, all of you playing Inquisition, you’re still sharing your OC and your characters ten years on. We know how much you love it, so yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do wanna have a, some caveats here though. So, it’s when you’re in the character creator, you can import the character appearance, it’s just gonna be the appearance data, from an existing save of yours. So when I say an existing save, just let me put a very fine point on it, that save has to be local to the machine. Remember, we’re an offline game, there’s no online character sharing built in. But for those of you that like, your OC, are very near and dear to your heart and every time you replay you like to have the same character, and you’ve spent hours and hours and hours working on it, yeah, you can import that.

JE: We saw how many of you were saving screenshots of sliders in DA:I, and that was not a great experience, as we’re well aware, so.

KFM: This next one is, are companion quests going to focus on internal factors or external personal events? Like will it be a growth in character and self-discovery, or are they firmly-rooted in their sense of self and will ask for/need help with their factions, interpersonal relationships, etc?

JE: So that’s a great, another great question. It’s a mix of both. I mean, each companion has their own personal arc over the course of the game. You know, you go on missions with them, you solve problems with them and the nature of those problems, you know, it’s, the problems are a lot, often-times very external in nature, you know, something’s happening that they need help with, but most of the time those problems are also tied to their own personal growth as a character. Again, you know, we really want to make sure that players feel invested in these characters, feel invested in their stories. And we also want to show that these characters do grow over the course of The Veilguard, this is, there aren’t characters that remain completely static from moment one to the end-game. These are characters who grow, and you help them grow. They’re still, their problems are still not going to like, they’re not sitting there saying, well, Rook, you need to do everything for me, but you are, you’re intended to be the leader of this group, but also, you can be their friend and help them with things that, their challenges, so. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a mix of both, we really just, it comes down to the individual character and there is a lot of nuance in that answer I think too.

KFM: This next question from XenoGabby is a minor spoiler, so you’ve been warned once again. The question is, is Lucanis possessed?

JE: So, again, spoilers, everyone has been warned, fairly warned. So Lucanis Dellamorte is also known as The Demon of Vyrantium. And, he has spent a lot of time killing Venatori, who are mages, and who do know a lot about demons, so. Yeah, somebody decided that it might be a good idea to make that nickname stick.

KFM: And this next one, from a user named Crom, is there reactivity towards the specialization that you chose? Like some people might trust more Champions, or maybe freak, others will freak out with Death Callers or Reapers? 

CB: Yeah, what a good question, so, in general the reactivity is reserved for things that aren’t necessarily likely to change, things that can create a throughline that we can keep building and building upon, so like your faction, your lineage, your class, your choices. So that keeps a consistent narrative thread with those elements, and then we can assume that thread continues from A to B. So the answer is no, they don’t react to your specialization, but in part that’s because you can full refund, you can respec at any time, you might a Death Caller one moment and another specialization on the next encounter.

KFM: And, this next question. You mentioned encountering companions on their own missions in the world. If I keep my party mostly the same, does that mean that I miss out on their side missions, or are they unavailable to be picked up during that time? 

CB: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re, you have all the tools that you’re not gonna miss out on quests based on who’s in your party. How would I answer this - so, there are certain plot elements that can change what quests are available to you, and in some cases, some quests that you might have in your journal can actually expire based on choices and how you advance the plot. So there are ways that quest content gets cut off, or alters. But in general you have the visibility and the tools so that you won’t miss out on it. I can give you a couple of examples, that might be helpful. So when you meet companions out in the world, there’s kinda like a couple of different ways that they can show up. In a recent playthrough, I was exploring Hossberg Wetlands. It was technically for a quest that should’ve been more oriented towards Davrin, but I didn’t have him in my party, and as I got close to the objective, he showed up with Assan and helped me clear the path forward. The other way this will happen, I was out in Arlathan, actually doing, on my way to do a main story mission, and I get to the far reaches of Arlathan Forest, and I already knew that Taash wanted to help me with some of the challenges of that arc. Well, Taash is right there waiting for me, so I actually chose to instead like, ah, Taash seems impatient, I’m gonna actually jump on that story arc right now instead of what I intended to do, so. Just some examples of the way that as you’re journeying through this world, opportunities are gonna show up, but they allow you just to express more agency, you’re generally not going to miss them.

KFM: Awesome. This next one is, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned. This next question is from Tazaba. What's the difference between the Veil Jumper faction and the Veil Ranger Specialization?

CB: Yeah, okay, so, yeah we just wanted to kinda flag this as a spoiler, just because there might be assumptions about how you take on specializations in this game. So John touched on this a little bit already, but specializations really represent the training and fighting styles used by a given faction. As John mentioned, you do not have to be a Veil Jumper to choose a specialization that’s associated with the Veil Jumpers. You’ve just been around them, you’re aware of their techniques, and you wanna take that on yourself. So, in this particular case, and I get the confusion because Veil Jumper and Veil Ranger sound very similar. If I’m playing as a rogue, using the Veil Ranger specialization, all that means is I’m fighting in the style of the Veil Jumpers, like they do, with bow and arrow, typically with electric damage, that sort’ve thing. So just, to be super clear, it’s not required that you have to play a Veil Jumper in order to be a Veil Ranger.

KFM: This next question is, where is the equator in Thedas, or the planet Thedas is on, relative to places we’ve explored?

JE: That is a great question. So, I will say that, you know, it’s funny until I saw this question, it’s not something I’d ever thought a lot about, but as I started thinking about it a little bit more deeply, based on how the climate changes across Thedas, you know, obviously, to the south are the Avvar and things get a little bit more wintry, and then up north is a lot more tropical, I’d say that Thedas is a southern continent on this world, so.

KFM: Are there any main story missions that require you to use a specific companion? Kinda similar to a previous question.

CB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there are a few, yes, again, in the warrior deep dive, I’m not gonna describe it, just in case anyone, you know, didn’t wanna have spoilers, you can see that a companion was required for that. However, that’s the exception rather than the rule. In general, we try to give players the agency to bring who they want for these moments. There are these times where a companion, either their faction or their story arc is so closely tied or intersects with the events of a main story mission that they do become required, but it’s not the standard. And then of course, in general, if you’re doing your companions’ arcs, those are the moments where they’re more than likely gonna be required.

KFM: Will we be - 

CB: It's pretty flexible, like if, if you’re worried about like, every mission I go through, like am I gonna have someone that is gonna be mandated? Generally not.

KFM: Sorry, I almost talked over you there Corinne, my bad.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to pause cutscenes? Will there be any kind of dialogue history to look back on if we miss what was said? 

JE: So, you can pause every cutscene in the game. Obviously, life happens, you know, somebody, maybe you’re cat’s, you know, just to use an example that definitely doesn’t happen to me regularly, my cat might be throwing up in the next room and I need to find a way to get her off the carpet and on to, you know, not the carpet, so you can pause any cutscene, and conversation. There is no dialogue history at the moment unfortunately, and that’s not something, we did look into it but it’s just based on how the dialogue is structured and how it’s built in this game, that’s not something that we are going to have unfortunately. 

KFM: I saw somebody say “cat vomiting is so real”, and I agree, sometimes when I’m playing games, my dog decides to do something insane.

KFM: So, this next question is, since companions can get into relationships with each other, is there a mechanic behind which companions get together? Can a companion leave due to your world decisions, and if so, will their partners leave with them?

JE: I’m gonna answer half this question, the other half is a spoiler that we’re not gonna get into right now. Companions, there is not actually a mechanic behind the companions getting together. We never wanted it to feel like a mechanical thing, and obviously, different companions are gonna have different attractions. One of the fun things is, as you’re going through, especially if you’re not flirting with one of the companions, you can see these relationships starting to develop, and the thing that actually allows them to, you know, completely develop is, generally committing to another relationship, or, you know, not being engaging, not engaging in a romance with those companions at all. So, yeah, I mean, there’s not a mechanic, it’s just what we felt made the most sense and, I think that’s honestly one of my favorite things about the companions is, they’re all written to feel like real people with real preferences and real, you know, attractions. So beyond just romances, they also develop friendships and even rivalries with each other, because of these, them feeling like these characters that exist outside of just the game, so. 

KFM: Awesome.

KFM: This question is all about Davrin. Hildrana would love to know more about Davrin. What’s his personality like, what kind of hobbies or things does he like, and what his relationship with Assan is like?

JE: So Davrin is one of my favorite, I mean, I say one of my favorite characters, honestly I love all seven companions so it’s challenging for me to say which. But Davrin is stern, thoughtful and considerate though, he has a soft side for sure. You see that develop over time as he starts to warm up to the other companions. He has, you know, a kindness to him that is brought out in particular by certain companions, and also a strong sense of pride and when he develops a rivalry with some of the companions. So there’s that sense of, he knows who he wants to be, he knows who he is, and a lot of his arc is making that journey. In terms of how he relates to Assan, you know, his relationship over, evolves over time, I’m not gonna get too deep into spoilers because there are spoilers for that in his quest. The other interesting thing about, about Davrin, and this shows up, we’ve talked about this before. He’s a monster hunter. He’s not just a Warden who sees fighting monsters as, you know, just part of the job. He believes in turning this into a skill-set that he alone, you know like, he has more than anyone else. Learning how to defeat monsters, learning their weaknesses, and that does show up a lot in his character arc, so.

KFM: This next question came through our askbox on Tumblr, so shoutout the BioWare Tumblr. Rosered is asking why do elves seem to not like wearing shoes? Is there a lore reason behind it? Are they not afraid of getting frostbite or stepping in something gross?

JE: So the shoeless elves thing is in part a, it’s a, Dalish are very close to nature, they walk, go around shoeless, in large part, to become closer to nature. It’s part of their culture, it’s part of who they are. But, you know, especially, and it’s not true of every Dalish clan, the Dalish are a tremendously widely-spread and widely-varied people, so. For example, Bellara does not go around shoeless. She wears boots. She’s climbing around on ancient ruins, walking through maybe a shattered eluvian, or a place where eluvian’s shattered, it’s a great way to get your feet sliced up on the hard rocks and on the hard glass. And in general Veil Jumpers are a little bit more, where they go and what they do really requires a lot more care and a lot more protection, so. I mean you’ll notice in Bellara’s visual design but also in the visual design of the other Veil Jumpers, they’re very practically minded, they know that what they’re doing is dangerous, and, you know, and, again, not every Dalish clan goes round shoeless, so.

KFM: ZJ wants to know, do all companions have aesthetic changes when in the Lighthouse and outside of the Lighthouse?

CB: Amazing. Yeah, yeah, they absolutely do. So, just like Rook, each of the companions has what we refer to as their casual wear. This is how they look in their downtime, their more relaxed moments. It’s definitely different from how they look headed into battle. And I’ll tell you this. If Emmrich’s casual wear doesn’t send you, I just don’t know what to tell you.

KFM: I’ve got a fun one coming up. Do they companions have favorite foods, and if so, what are they?

JE: Oh I love this one, so they do. Each of them does have favorite foods. It’s funny, I’d say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is probably the most we’ve talked about food in a context of Dragon Age, ever. But yeah, I mean, you know, some of them are a little bit more, you know, they have simpler tastes, and in large part that’s because that’s what they’re used to or what they can cook. We talked, I’m gonna actually give a little bit of a, I don’t know if I consider this a spoiler, but maybe if you’re really sensitive to spoilers you don’t wanna listen to this last part. We’ve talked about how there’s people on the team who are better cooks and people on the team who maybe don’t have necessarily the skill-set, who could burn water. So one of the things I really love is, you know, Bellara and Lucanis actually end up being, essentially, the team cooks. Bellara, you know, spending a lot of time out in nature, learning a lot about, you know, different types of cooking, is really big on experimentation, she likes to, you know, try different things. Lucanis comes from the Crows, Lucanis is very big on the finer things, so between the two of them, there’s a point in the story where they basically decide, if we don’t do this, the entire team is going to starve, so let’s just call ourselves the cook, cooks, and make sure that nobody dies of food poisoning, so.

KFM: This next one, I believe we actually might’ve even touched on this in the first Q&A, but, Trev has noticed a lack of dwarves in our promotional material concerning Rook. Inquisition had them sharing facial hair options with humans. So their question is, will dwarves return to more braided, grander beards, or will the facial hair options be shared like previously?

CB: Yeah, we did touch on this briefly, so let me go a little bit deeper. Yeah, there are some grander dwarven beards, like braids, beads woven in, it’s really lovely and really thematic. And y’all have seen our Strand hair, how great that looks, I think it looks just as great for the beards. And I do know, we’re gonna, at some point leading up to launch, we are gonna be showing some dwarf Rooks. So, let’s see if we can’t get some beard options on display there. It actually really was quite the challenge to get the physics to work with all the armor variance we have on those beards. So I’ll tell you what y’all. The team loves hearing from you. Would it be okay if I just asked in chat, could we get some love for our character art and tech anim teams because they put their heart and soul into make sure this would work for y’all. 

JE: It is, it is incredible how good the beards look, like, it just, they did, the work that they’ve done is just spectacular.

CB: Aw y'all are too kind. And then I guess just to finish up this question, we try and let you use as many options as the character creator has for any character you wanna create. So we definitely created bears in mind that are more dwarven in nature. You can use that on a qunari if you want, or you can use a more traditional human beard on a dwarf if you want, but your options are there. Aw, y’all are lovely, thank you so much.

KFM: So we didn't tag this next one as a minor spoiler. I don’t think that it is. But, definitely want to flag it anyway. Will the Solavellans have a chance at a happy ending?

JE: Corinne, I’m gonna let you do this one. 

CB: Oh my goodness, this is the question. Look! I mean, I thought y’all wanted the pain? Didn’t you tell me you wanted the pain, that tortured romance that rips your heart out? Honestly though, I just wouldn’t feel right about spoiling anything there. I’ll just say this, I’ll just say this. Trick has done a fantastic job with Solas, they always do, this is some of ther best work I think. And then I’ll also say, as, for myself as the resident shipper on the leadership team, I’m repping y’all, but that’s all I’m gonna say.

KFM: That’s definitely what I meant by, not really a spoiler, but some people might’ve thought that in the beginning.  

KFM: Okay, next question is, since you can choose to be part of the same faction for most of the companions, will that give you an advantage when trying to befriend them?

JE: So you will get some unique dialogue with the companions that are part of your own faction. The first time you meet them, they may not all know you by face, but they’ve at least heard of you, I’ve heard of who you are, maybe even heard of you leaving the faction to go help Varric to track down Solas. But that said, you know the faction, you don’t necessarily as people. So they will know you but you still have to work to earn their trust and learn, you know, get them, help them with their problems.

KFM: Next question is, will there be more connections between the Veilguard? Like will we see them hanging out together without out us?

JE: Oh, I love this one. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I’ve said this twice already, but my favorite thing is how much the companions feel like a, end up feeling like a found family. They’re invested in each others problems, you know they’re, invested in each others’ success and failures, and this manifests through a bunch of different ways. Scenes, banter, even interactions in the Lighthouse itself. Because one of the things that I think is important, I know Corinne also thinks is super important, these worlds, these games feel the best when they don’t feel like they’re there as a theme-park just for you, just to exist for Rook as a protagonist. These are characters that have relationships, have, you know, things going on that don’t necessarily directly involve Rook all the time. They have their own relationships, their own feelings, and we really want them to feel like their own people, and feel like they do exist outside of just the sphere of Rook. So, you know, they’ll follow, you’re the one leading this fight, but the companions don’t just exist for you.

KFM: So this next one is a real minor spoiler warning. Will the companions have interactions with Solas? I imagine the companions will comment on Rook’s decisions regarding Solas, but was wondering if the potential relationship between Solas and the companions will play any part?

JE: Oh, this is a good question. So a lot of Solas’ relationship is with Rook. Rook and Solas have a connection, they have a bond, and part of that is, and I’ve said this before, but Solas sees a lot of himself in Rook. He sees, you know, the person, you know the person he was before, the person he thinks he is, in Rook, and becomes, you know, again, we, they develop a connection. You get to flavor how it is, you can make it more antagonistic, make it friendlier, but ultimately it is a connection between the two of you. Now, that said, the companions are much a part of Rook’s story as Solas is, and sometimes those relationships can cross over, as well as, there are followers who, you know, are going to have a more complicated connection and complicated relationship with just, Solas as an entity, you know, Bellara, for example, is an elf, she’s Dalish, and this a person from her pantheon, so. There’s going to be a lot more of a, I guess, like I said, complex relationship between the two of them. Davrin is another example, someone else who is Dalish, so, you know, their views on the gods in general are going to be a little bit different. And then on the other side,you have someone like Emmrich who is very big on magic and the Fade, so they’ll have their own [inaudible] and their own thoughts. 

KFM: Before I get to this next question I do wanna say we’ve got about a fifteen minute warning, we’ve got about fifteen minutes left, so we’ll get through as many questions as we can in that time. And with that said, our next one is, and, I feel like we might have actually touched on this one earlier, but, keep me honest. Would it be possible to hide some of the combat UI, such as companion trackers and enemy HP bars, for even more immersion? 

CB: Yeah, good question. It’s actually, it’s reasonably robust what you can do with your UI. So let me give you some examples. If, normally when you hit an enemy you’ll see damage floaties come off of it. If you wanna turn those off, you can. If you want to play without, say, the minimap or the wayfinding markers, have a more organic experience, you can. I challenged myself to do a, it was really difficult to do a really difficult run where I turned off my own health bar, you can do that too. And then, I know one of them that a lot of people have been asking about is, we do have the incoming attack indicators, that just help you react. But, if you’re the kind’ve player that wants to turn those off, cut down on the noise, yeah, you can do that too, so. You know, I can’t say that we support every single option that you might have in mind, but it’s reasonably robust. 

KFM: And then, another, just small, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned yet again, is there lock-picking in the game?

CB: Oh gosh lock-picking, notorious lock-picking. Well let me answer it this way. I think the approach we took in The Veilguard is that each companion has a unique, what we’re calling, exploration ability, or abilities, that you can use to solve puzzle, access new areas and find treasure. So, like in that regard it’s not actually dissimilar to lockpicking, it’s just that it is more thematic to the companions and their unique skill-sets within The Veilguard. It’s very specialized, I guess you could say. And, look, I’ve been there when you’re playing and you feel like you have to take a rogue, otherwise you’re not gonna be open the lockpick chests. Some players like that, some players dislike it, but the option that we wanted to give to y’all is that, you know, we did say this is a spoiler right? We did, yeah. So Rook does find a certain dagger and through it a method to channel these exploration abilities of their companions, even when the companion is not in your party. So like, look, if I’m exploring Hossberg, and there’s a puzzle and I know how to solve it, like I’m not running all the way back to like a party swap-point, you can just use the dagger.

KFM: This is not a spoiler, and it is actually something we confirmed a little bit earlier in the Q&A, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear. Can we freely reallocate or refund skillpoints?

CB: Yeah, so we’ve confirmed this, I’m just gonna keep it brief, yes, absolutely. Refund all, refund last, no cost. It’s an entirely friendly refund system. Go experiment, and then let me know what you do.

KFM: Will the acts be broken down into acts or stages at all? Mainly wondering for like spoiler discussion purposes, while they’re all playing and wanting to talk to one another about it?

JE: So while we don’t officially within the game say this is this act, this is the next act, there are some pretty obvious narrative breakpoints where the context changes, or there is, you know, events that make it clear that things are now advancing into a different stage. That’s now, to be clear, that’s largely around the critical path. Other content can largely be done at any time, but even there we do unlock certain things over the course of time, because, again, it makes, it maybe doesn’t make narrative sense in the context of, say, an earlier act, but now, you know, you’re into act two, it feels a lot more meaningful and makes a lot more sense in the world. You can do a lot of content in any order, but the critical path is largely broken into acts.

KFM: Now, I think this next question might be the most important question we can answer. A user by the name of doggiesnores says, would you please tell me happy birthday? 

JE: Happy birthday doggiesnores.

CB: Aww, happy birthday doggie - I feel weird saying doggiesnores. I mean, listen -

JE: You gotta roll with it Corinne.

CB: John, Katey, do we wanna sing? Do we wanna sing?

JE: No!

KFM: Oh we can - oh, okay.

JE: You can sing.

CB: Alright. [sings] Happy birthday to you -

KFM: - [sings] to you - [stops singing] are we gonna stop now? Okay.

CB: We’ll stop, we’ll stop. 

JE: Yeah, I think, yeah. 

CB: We gotta get back to the questions.

KFM: Yeah, we do have a time limit now.

KFM: Alright, next question, alright. This is from Guapa. Okay. I wanna know the helmet situation. Back in Inquisition, there were helmets exclusive to races, and to be honest, most helmets were exclusive to humans. Will elves and humans share helmets since their head shape seems to be more similar now, and will there be qunari helmets rather than just facepaints?

CB: Love this described as “the helmet situation”. I love it. Yeah, so let me describe this to you. All the helmets can be worn by all the lineages with one big exception. The qunari still use the vitaar face paint. So each helmet has a unique look, and if you’re using the vitaar variant of that instead, that too has a unique look, so you’ll wear that facepaint instead of the helmet. And we, we felt that this was just generally a good precedent following Inquisition and, really what led us to this decision is that, when you see horn customization, and hair customization with the horns in character creator, we didn’t want to sacrifice that aspect of it in character creator. It’s just effing cool, that’s all I can say about it. So, yeah, the qunari will use vitaar. All the other helmets can be worn by all lineages. We’ve talked a lot about transmog, so of course you can transmog them, you can hide your helmet, you can hide your helmet in certain situations. So I’d say, as a “situation”, we’re pretty happy with it.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to tint and change the color of our armours, or have they, or do they have their default colors only?

CB: Oh cool, yeah, that kinda gets to transmog in a way. Gosh, what’s the, the best way to answer this I think is that each armor piece, like gear piece you have, will have bespoke colors, but for almost every single armor piece, while you can’t dye them, we have created color-variant cosmetics and they’re very often aligned with the various factions in the world, right? So like, there’s one, for instance, that has this like, incredible, like flowing cape, I use it all the time. There’s a variant of it for each faction with different faction, with different colors and logos and things of that nature. So you can’t dye, but it really is flexible and very thematic. And then I guess, going back to the Venatori armor question we had way at the beginning, while I wouldn’t say they’re explicitly Venatori, there are some very Venatori-like color schemes in some of the armors you’ll find.

KFM: I think this might be our last minor spoiler question, so once again, you’ve been warned. AelaFireheart asks, will we be seeing other griffons from The Last Flight? 

JE: So, again, just to be clear, spoilers, but yeah, Assan has brothers and sisters, so Assan is not the only griffon that shows up in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 

CB: Hey, I just gotta respond to something in comment, that somebody says, wait, does that mean I can’t be pink? And I’m assuming we’re talking about armors. There are some pink armors. Don’t worry -

KFM: Confirmed.

CB: - there’s some pink.

KFM: As some of the companions come from media outside of the games, were they already chosen as companions for the game and then integrated into the additional media, or were they characters outside of the game, and the team wanted to bring them in?

JE: I think this is pretty similar to a question we answered earlier, so I mean, again, it depends, but if they showed up, especially in Tevinter Nights, they were already intended to be companions at that point, so.

KFM: Are there any lineage-based surnames or is it just based on the background?

JE: So surnames in this game are entirely based on your background choice. The reason for this is we do reference your surname in dialogue, a not inconsiderable amount, and we didn’t, at a certain point it becomes unsustainable in terms of how many different variations, so. We reference it based on your surnames, sorry, your background.

KFM: Is there any chance that we will be getting any audio snippets of some of the companions and Rook’s voicelines before release?

JE: Well that’s the great news about the, Vows & Vengeance, is that, each companion will show up in one of the episodes, and you’ll be able to hear their voice in there, so. First episode yesterday, and there’s more to come.  

KFM: Remember when I said that was the last, or we had already read the last minor spoiler, I was wrong, there is one more. So, once again, you’ve been warned, minor spoiler upcoming. This question is from SammyCherryLee. Considering Varric’s timeskip, looks are a direct, Varric’s timeskip looks are a direct translation of how he looked in the comics. What thought process went into Morrigan’s new design, and what do you usually consider when bringing in old beloved characters back, but also make sure to adapt them to the years that have passed within the game?

JE: So, in every case, any time we’re bringing back a character, we want to think about, what would, what’s changed for that character in the time since you’ve last saw them, so, Varric, Morrigan, any other characters we bring back, there is this thought of, okay, it’s been, in this case, you know, almost ten years, what’s changed for these characters in that intervening time? In the case of Morrigan, she’s coming to terms with a lot of truths about both herself but also her mother, you know, you see her with Flemeth’s crown, or a variation of it, and that’s speaking to her personal journey of, what I would call, kind’ve acceptance of who she is and how she connects to Flemeth, because ultimately we want this to feel like a real world. It’s, they’re not the same person they are ten years ago, none of us are, and we don’t want characters to feel like, either ten years have passed, and hey, I’m exactly the same, because that’s stagnation for the character, and it’s just not believable or, honestly, fun, for you. And it doesn’t do justice to those characters.

KFM: Can we clarify - ooh, fuck, I think my Discord just went down again.

JE: Yep, I can still hear you.

CB: We can, we can hear you Katey, so.

KFM: Oh, good!

CB: Yeah.

KFM: I’ll just keep talking!

CB: Great, let’s do it!

KFM: I’m so sorry for the f-bomb, I didn’t know you could still hear me. 

CB: Hey, we’ve all been there.

JE: Cursing, in our Discord, my goodness!

CB: How very human of you.

KFM: Ban me, ban me. This next question is, can you clarify if Spellblade will be forced to use a dagger, or can we still use staff as a melee combat weapon?

CB: Oh, heck yeah, let’s go. You know, I was wondering if this was gonna be clear in the combat video we put out, so I’ll speak about mage, but this is generally true of all the classes. So they each have two weapon sets, if you’ve seen the character sheet. So for mage, you’re gonna have your staff slot and then you’re gonna have the orb-and-dagger slot. So, at any point, like even between weapon swings, you can swap to your class alternate weapon set by hitting down on the D-pad. So you’re not locked down into one weapon set or the other, even if you’re in a given class or specialization. Now, like what I would say is that the Spellblade specialization has a lot of extra functionality and depth that like is augmented when using the orb-and-dagger, but, like if I give you an anecdote of how I play, the staff heavy-attack armor, I take this, or, the staff heavy attack charge, I take a trait where when I’m doing damage and playing, it’s building up that heavy attack charge on my staff. Even when I’m playing as my Spellblade. So I’ll be, just going to down with orb and dagger, I’ll notice that my staff is fully-charged, I’ll swap at a convenient moment, use my heavy staff attack, blast the enemies down, I was telling y’all, like, these Nightmare players, like planning around your elemental damage types, it’s really great to have weapons of multiple elemental types, right? So I go up against something that’s resistant to fire, I’m gonna hit down and maybe swap to my necrotic weapon.

KFM: I'm back, in record time. 

JE: Welcome back! 

KFM: Okay, did we get to the next one, or was that just the Spellblade question?

CB: Oh that was, sorry I was geeking out too much Katey.

KFM: Oh that’s okay, no, it’s great!

CB: We hit upon a favorite topic of mine.

KFM: That’s okay. Do we think we have time for one more, or do we think it’s time to wrap up?

JE: I can go a little late, we’ve got, I think we can do a couple more, for sure.

KFM: Okay, we do only have three left, so.

JE: Let’s finish the list!

KFM: Let’s do it.

KFM: Alright, next question. Since it was mentioned that playing as an elf in the Veil Jumpers will see you more of a, see you as more of a Dalish elf, and a City elf if you play as a Shadow Dragon, what kind of elf would you be in the other factions?

JE: So this is actually a really interesting question for me because I think one of the things I’d say is, while City Elf versus Dalish Elf is a lot more of a useful distinction in, you know, Ferelden, Orlais, we’re in northern Thedas, things are different up here. And a great example is Rivain. Dalish settlements, you know, they have Dalish settlements within cities, integrated into the cities, because, again, they don’t have that same bias, that same distinction. So it’s not really a City Elf versus Dalish Elf thing in a lot of those cases. It’s a lot more about, how you play into the faction, you know, and, in some cases it matters more that you’re an elf, in other cases it doesn’t actually matter to the people of that faction, they’re just looking for someone who could do the work. A great example, and I’ll just, very, very light spoilers, Mourn Watch is a great example where, they just care that you are capable of, you know, executing the duties that you’re given, so.

KFM: This next question, we’ve definitely confirmed a few times today already, but I’m sure there’s been a couple of people who cycled in and out. Will, when will we be releasing detailed information on the full list of accessibility features in the game?

JE: So yeah, so I mean, we mentioned, we’re not quite ready to talk about them, but we will be diving into them before launch. We wanna make sure as many people as possible can enjoy and play the game, so.

CB: Yeah, I think we’re doing a feature, some kind of blogpost on that, but, that’ll be a good format where we can be a little bit more in-depth.

JE: Yeah.

KFM: Alright, and the final question that I have on my list. It’s about localization. WoodenSmith says, I’d like to hear more about how localization works. What sorts of things have to be changed or adjusted so they make sense in different regions? Do localization teams have to be super careful when they translate to make sure they’re not accidentally revealing more than was intended in other versions? I’ve also always been very curious about accents in other versions. For example, do the, I’m gonna butcher this, do the Orl - Orlesian -

JE: Orlesian.

KFM: Orlesian, thank you, John. Character voice -

CB: That was really good, Katey!

KFM: I tried!

JE: Yeah, you tried, you got most of the way there, yeah!

KFM: For example, do the Orlesian character voice actors speak in a French accent in the Japanese version, or dwarf characters speak with an American accent in the French version?

JE: So I’m going to talk broadly about localization, and I’ll get a little bit into the accent question. So, localization is a thing that we’re doing constantly. We’re almost working with the teams, we have regular syncs with them, and a lot of that is because localization is not just, a lot of people think of it like, yeah, you’re just translating. Well, you’re not, you’re, you know, you’re, again, there’s different things to understand about different languages, they have different rules around grammar and, I will say, I think every writer has at least one story where they wrote, kind’ve, a fun double-entendre into a conversation, and then they got a ping from some of the localization teams saying, hey, can you very thoroughly explain what you meant there? And that’s what I like to describe as being hoist on your own petard because, sometimes, you’re like, oh I said this, it was really ribald, and now I don’t want to talk to this person who is very seriously and very concernedly, looking, it’s just like, ‘can you please tell us what that means?’ But yeah, I mean, in general, it’s an art-form of its own. You know, different sayings translate differently into different languages, different metaphors translate differently to different languages, and we always wanna make sure that other people, you know, people are playing this game in every language have an experience that feels authentic and meaningful, and doesn’t feel like it’s just kind’ve, you know, phoned in, we just, we just ran it through Google Translate or something, so. Again, localization is a huge part of what we do, the localization team we have is amazing, they do fantastic work, I love working with them. As far as accents, yeah, we do try to keep some consistency, it’s not always going to be a one to one, but we do try to say like, okay, so, this character, this group of characters needs to sound similar, and they’ll find an accent that works with the language that they’re trying, because, again, different accents work differently with different languages, and we wanna make sure that there’s that consistency, so, yeah.

KFM: We did it!

JE: Yeah!

KFM: That’s all of our questions that we’re able to get to you today. Wanna just say a quick thanks again to the community for submitting all of these really questions, it was a lot of fun going through them and, you know, making sure that we were able to give you some new stuff this time around. Yeah, anything you guys wanna say before we hop off?

CB: Yeah, can I just say, look, we love here, being here answering questions for you but the support, the interest you all show, it really fuels us in the team.

JE: Mhm.

CB: You all are a big part of us being able to make this game what it is, and I really hope we do you proud, so just, sincere thank you to everyone. 

JE: Yeah, just, I just wanna echo that. I’ve been on this project for a while, and it’s been a lot of, not getting to talk about it, and quietly saying I don’t know, are we making more new Dragon Age? So being able to actually have these conversations and give you the details that you want without spoiling the game, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. This is genuinely the funnest part of my week, so thank you everyone.

KFM: Awesome, well thank you both so much for your time, Corinne and John. And, yeah, we have recorded the audio for this, so we’re going to turn that into a transcription, and put that in the Q&A archive channel, which lives underneath ask-bioware. That will be coming, you know, in the next couple of days to a week or so, you know, we’ll, we’ll be working away at it as soon as possible, so just let, let me know if you have any questions.

JE: Awesome. Thank you so much everyone, have a good Friday, good weekend, and I’m gonna go eat a sandwich, so.

CB: Happy Friday!

KFM: Happy Friday, and happy sandwich day!

CB: Bye bye.

JE: Thank you.

KFM: Bye.

JE: Bye.

[source: the official BioWare Discord server, August 30th dev Q&A]

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.

[fashion-runways]

hiii new pinned post again because the last one was outdated, there are links to the previous ones in that one as well. unfortunately there are no real updates re: my dad's wrongful imprisonment. at this point, they might be waiting until the statutes of limitations happen and it's over, i don't know. he has a therapist who's kind of expensive but we have to pay for and he has to go weekly because of all the trauma he has left from being in jail and from losing his job/not being able to find a new one because of this. his health got worse in there, too, so there are a lot of different doctors he has to go to, medications, etc. he's doing better every day, though, but that takes a lot of money of course.

i used to have a redbubble account that helped me get afloat alongside this blog, but it got suspended without notice and never got reinstated no matter how many things i've tried, so... that's another source of income that we lost. i used to make around 30/40 dollars a month there, now i make like 1/2 dollars on teepublic monthly, that's a huge difference. argentina's economy was always bad but it has been an absolute disaster since the current president got elected. prices rise literally on a weekly basis for everything from basic groceries to public transportation, power, water, phone bills, etc. my laptop's keyboard broke at some point and i almost had to buy a new one with money i literally didn't have, just going into negative numbers, but i managed to find a guy who replaced it for as cheap as he could. it was still expensive, but it was better than having to buy a new laptop entirely. would love to get a stable job, but that's always been impossible in this country, even more so lately. for updates on argentina in english, this person on twitter makes very good informative threads if you're interested.

on top of that my dog passed from cancer a few weeks ago, that was really expensive for us too, meds and appointments and special foods and everything that we could do to keep her happy until it was her time to go, and she was. i also started therapy around the time she was diagnosed (thank god) but my therapist had to rise her rates because of the economy mess i already mentioned, so... yeah. everything is exhausting and everything is expensive, and this is literally my only source of income. it's also the thing that i love doing the most and the thing that keeps me sane in all of this mess, so hey, never leaving. in fact, if anything ever happens to this website, you can always find me under fashion_runways on twitter or probably anywhere else. some of you guys mentioned not seeing my posts lately too, so if you can/want to, you can turn notifications on!

anyway yeah, all that to say i love this blog, i love fashion, and i love showing you guys new cool things and giving you guys ideas for art, or writing, or your own style, or just interesting stuff to look at. so if you can donate any money, that would help me more than you think. even a single dollar can change what i can do with my day sometimes, i swear. as usual, my kofi link: https://ko-fi.com/fashionrunways and my teepublic link: https://www.teepublic.com/user/dinah-lance. thanks for being around and sharing and reblogging my posts, thanks for asking questions about fashion, and of course thanks for helping to the ones who can, and thanks to the ones who can't too, i know how that feels like, don't worry about it. i love you 💖

[thefirsthogokage]

Fuck AMPTP and the bullshit going on. I'm tired, might not do this well:

(link to article in above picture) From The Article

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”

The studios and streamers’ next think financially strapped writers would go to WGA leadership and demand they restart talks before what could be a very cold Christmas. In that context, the studios and streamers feel they would be in a position to dictate most of the terms of any possible deal.

[Image IDs: Twitter thread by David Slack posted July 12th, 2023 that reads in totality:

And right on cue, here’s the inevitable Deadline article claiming that the AMPTP and their CEO bosses are ready to wait us out and let us “go broke.”

They’re not. They can’t. This studio propaganda, and here’s why.

In the increasingly mega-merged and hedgefundified Hollywood, these companies live or die on their quarterly earnings reports. It only takes one bad quarter for their stock price to plunge, putting the company and the CEO’s job in jeopardy.

But their stock prices are holding steady, right? Right. For now. Because our industry is a pipeline that starts with writers. The TV and movies they’re releasing now are shows we started making for them 4-12 quarters ago. But what happens when that pipeline runs dry?

What happens is they run out of product. No new shows in streaming to drive and sustain subscribers. No new shows in broadcast and ad-supported to bring in ad revenue.

No shows, no money.

No money, bad earnings report.

Bad earnings report, bye-bye stock price. Bye-bye CEO.

After 70+ days with no writers to create their product for them, the pipeline is running dry.

Their stock price isn’t tanking yet. But if they don’t make a deal with us, it will.

And they know it.

If they make a deal soon, they might be able to weather it. Stretch out releases. Rush some new stuff through.

But the longer they keep us out, the longer that pipeline runs dry, the more unavoidable a catastrophic dip in new high-quality shows becomes.

And they know it.

So yeah, the studios are planting articles in the trades that make it sound like they’re so determined not to pay us the 0.02% of company revenues we’re asking for that they’re willing to hold out forever.

Bullshit.

I’m sure the AMPTP bosses would love to break our union. But they love their jobs more. They love money more. They can’t make that money without us.

And they know it.

Ignore the trades, walk the line, stand together, and win. #WGAStrong

/End ID]

Bonus: John Rogers' Reaction

[Image ID: A tweet from John Rogers that he posted July 12th, 2023 that reads:

I was trying to be cool and professional about this strike, but this AMPTP “we want to drive them to homelessness” shit means I’m going to be dug in at WB Gate 4 like Hiroo Onada. They’re gonna have to send @ellenstutzman with a bullhorn to order me out of the bushes.

The second image is Ellen Stutzman's Twitter bio that says:

Cheif Negotiator for WGA MBA, Assistant Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, West; Cornell ILR and UCLA Anderson alum. Views are my own.

/End ID]

EDIT: Please see the update on this HERE

[yanderemommabean]

Hey Beans-

Hey beans, I have a bit of a hellish update. 

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. My grandma made a huge fight happen while I was on call with a friend, and things just escalated between me and her so badly I had to leave. When I came back home, my family was also on my ass about it all, despite knowing how she lies and how she instigates. 

She threatened to hit me, she threatened to kill Sammy, she hurled insult after insult at me and this all started because I didn't get up in time to do something she asked (Which was locking the door. I waited three seconds too long and she went off). 

When I came back after trying to let things cool down I was berated and told I had no right to be so “selfish” in the house, so on and so on, and the fight got so intense I had to just physically walk away, leaving the home and going two miles up the road because I did not feel safe. 

They made me so sick I began to pee blood again, as well as my sugar spiking and causing me to have palpitations. My heart cannot take this stress anymore, and neither can my mental health. I wish I could explain how bad the situation was. I had tears down my face, gasping for air, chest heaving and in pain, I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. 

I got in contact with some good friends of mine, who say they can help get me out of not only that home, but the entire state i'm in. But I need money to do so, for travel and gas and so on. As much as they can house me, they need me to pull my weight. 

I hate having to ask for help, I hate that I'm even in this situation, to the point I'm so sick I might have to be seen in the ER or sent to ICU. 

I need to come up with 700 dollars, and I'm willing to do some commissions, but with how sick I am I may take a bit to get back with you. I plan to leave by early June, if not the beginning of July, as that's when my friends are able to drive down and get me. 

Donations are greatly appreciated, even if you can only afford a single dollar, it’ll be more help than you know. 

If you’re wanting a commission, please don't send money and then ask, for your sake and mine. I’m incredibly overwhelmed, and I’ll do my best to get with you and explain rates. 

And if you’re willing to donate anything, here’s my Ko-fi link. 

Again, I can’t thank you enough for if you donate or even spread this post around, even well wishes mean the world to me because I know you beans care and want to help however you can.

This post was incredibly hard to make, I’m still all over the place and trying to figure everything out, so I apologize if this sounds like rambling and nonsense. There is a silver lining however, as I actually have a way out this time, and I pray I can get out before things can get worse.

-Mommabean 

[love-belle]

promise me you'll lie !!!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which their post break-up era is them lying to themselves and to each other; saying that they don't love them.

or

for when you can't help but lie because it's better than facing the truth. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

warnings - language

author's note - back to back updates!!!!! i hope u like this <3

≡;- ꒰ °twitter ꒱

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by lewishamilton, carlossainz55, landonorris and 1,527,926 others

yourusername promise you'll lie

11,526 comments

username i flinched whattehfyckkk

username im shattered im in shambles im in ruins im crying im screaming this is crazy what the fuck

username if 😭 i 😭 don't 😭 get 😭 to 😭 have 😭 u 😭 at 😭 least 😭 our 😭 matching 😭 tattoos 😭 last 😭 for 😭 life 😭

username im throwing hands idc IM THROWING BOTH HANDS

landonorris cool song

-> yourusername thank u i wrote it myself

username tears are falling down my face what is this

kellypiquet so beautiful 💐🫶🏼 just like you

-> yourusername missing u and p <3

username i'll forever be missing their black cat bf x golden retriever gf era 💔💔💔

≡;- ꒰ °twitter ꒱

≡;- ꒰ °instagram stories ꒱

*yourusername and oscarpiastri added to their instagram stories*

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by y/nsblackcatera, y/ntheloml, mewheny/n and 76,527 others

stargirl y/n y/l/n and oscar piastri called it quits almost 9 months ago and it seems like the singer is ready to move on. she was seen out on a "date" with her close friend and her producer of her sophomore album, this is how you fall in love, which she — ironically — wrote for piastri. the reason for their split is still unknown although sources close to the pair claim, "it was just too much work and they both were busy with their own things. it was about time that they broke up." for more details about piastri and y/l/n and the singer's new flame, click on the link in our bio.

comments are disabled for this post

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by landonorris, alex_albon, maxverstappen1 and 799,245 others

oscarpiastri can't promise i'll lie

8,628 comments

username THE CAPTION I JUMPED

username i js fell to the floor what.

username someone sedate me what the fuck

landonorris you've been lying the whole time but okayyy

-> oscarpiastri i'll block you

username the cats 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁 babies of divorce 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁 weekend with dad 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁

username HIS STORY IM SCREECHING WHATTTT

username no bc the way that one post from a literal fan acc managed to get him log in into his ig acc and post a shady caption abt his ex gf like boyyyy

-> username fr like js say you'd be on ur knees for her to take u back

[norrizzandpia]

Longing Glances and Whispered Confessions (LN4)

Summary: In which, in the darkness of the night, Lando Norris loves Y/n Fewtrell, only for the pain of their secrecy to plague them in the daylight.

Warnings: language, a shit ton of really sad fights, the break up scene is unlike anything ive ever written, i feel so bad for y’all, this shit hurt my heart

Note: plz forgive me with the part 2 i am promising you

Note (part 2): also i think I’m going to start adding lyrics and pictures at the beginning of my longer, more heartbreaking imagines (so basically everything i write) that describe the situation in a nutshell. I just think it makes it more dramatic and poetic 🤭 also also this imagine wasn’t written along the lines of illicit affairs i just listened to it while i wrote and took inspiration from it but feel free to listen to it while you read! Thats why i linked it

UPDATE: i posted part 2 queens

“And that’s the thing about illicit affairs, and clandestine meetings, and longing stares, it’s born from just one single glance, but it dies and it dies and it dies a million little times” - Taylor Swift, Illicit Affairs

“Y/n?” Lando’s voice traveled through the hallway, meeting her ears in the kitchen.

“Yeah?” She yelled back, eyes lingering on the wall in front of her in concentration of his next words.

“Can you come tell me if this skin on Halo is stylish?” He giggled, eliciting a giggle from her as she paddered softly into his gaming room, coming into view of his camera and allowing the chat to go wild with her presence.

She bent down, arm leaning on his shoulder as she inspected the animatronic, “I think it’s cool, yeah!”

Lando’s eyes twinkled up at her, “Really?! Your brother thinks it’s ugly.”

She reared around when Max came into the room, “Fewtrell! Don’t be mean!”

His hip popped out and he stared at her blankly, “Y/n, first of all, your last name is Fewtrell too, so I’m not sure why you’re calling me that. It doesn’t have the same effect. Second of all, it is ugly. I don’t care if that’s mean.”

Lando scoffed from behind her, but went quiet when her small hand squeezed his shoulder in a comforting manner, “Don’t be discouraged, Lan. If you think it’s cute, then that’s all that matters.”

Again, his eyes poured out love for her. His body buzzed and his cheeks warmed under her smile, something that visited him in his dreams at night. His head tilted, mind glazing over at the way she reassured him, supported him. He knew he was crazy for going this deep over her words on a gaming skin, but that was the way he was with her. Secretly obsessed.

Nevertheless, her touches were fleeting and she was exiting the room with her brother, the two in deep discussion about her calling him by their last name.

Lando, on the other hand, was left to address the chat’s exposing messages.

ln4andop81

He’s so in love with her when will anybody realize it

—

Lando couldn’t believe how wasted Y/n was. As she stumbled to his car, he got out quickly, not realizing how much she had drunk when he wasn’t there to stop her.

“LAN!” She yelled, arms wrapping around his neck when he got close enough.

He chuckled, dragging her body over to the passenger seat and gently lowering her into it. He leaned against the door, smiling at her dazed demeanor, “Fun night?”

She nodded, eyes wandering around, “Yeah, except I missed you.”

Even her drunk words made his heart beat faster than normal. He knew she was impaired, she didn’t understand what she was saying or what it meant, but he still took it and held on. He had admired her so heavily from afar that any inference of requited love had him in a death grip.

Nodding and walking back around to his side, he got in and started the engine again. From his turned around position, arm splayed against the back of her seat as he backed out, she giggled, “Anyone ever told you how hot you are?”

He choked on air, mind spinning out at the question she had blurted out so easily. His lungs seemingly constricted, loss of breath prevalent as he stopped the car.

With his trunk sticking out, Lando looked at her deeply, “What?”

“You’re hot. I’ve always thought that. That and about what it’d be like to be with you. Always wondered about that. Always wanted that.” She replied, laughter continuing as if she wasn’t destroying the reality Lando had built up in his head to protect himself from the feelings he held for his best friend’s little sister.

He shook his head, resuming his prior actions, “You’re drunk, Y/n.”

Her singsong voice replied, “Drunk words are sober thoughts!”

He drove her home, helping her into bed and making sure she was okay before turning out the lights and driving back to his apartment. Throughout it all though, he wondered if drunk words really were sober thoughts.

—

The morning after, Lando’s mind was eating at itself over Y/n’s comments the night before. He had been so agitated that he drove to her house, pounding on her door impatiently.

When she opened it, looking incredibly hungover, he stormed in and paced the space of her living room before turning around and coming to a stand still.

“Are you okay?” She questioned, eyebrows furrowed at his neurotic movements.

“No, you said things last night and I need to know if they’re true.” He tried, voice very clearly pleading.

She sat down on the couch, staring up at him confusedly, “What’d I say?”

“You said that you wondered what it’d be like to be with me. You said you’d always wanted that.” He said forcefully, pacing starting again as his nerves stopped his ability to look at her.

Her heart stopped, wishing that she hadn’t gotten drunk, called her brother’s best friend, and proceeded to spill everything she felt for him. Similarly, she couldn’t look at him either, too scared for the reaction he would have to her reply.

“Yes, that is true.” She heard his steps stop, however she didn’t see him or what he was doing until he came and sat down next to her.

She was on the verge of tears, ready for a calm rejection from him, but was surprised when his hands gently took her face and turned it to look up at him.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispered, eyes searching hers, but only seeing astonishment.

“Yeah,” She said back, a smile breaking out when he leaned down and captured her lips with his.

It was slow, passionate as the two learned of the feelings the other had suppressed for just as long as they had. It was heartbreaking, the way they had missed time to be together out of the fear of losing the other, but they were kissing each other and things were finally fitting.

When he pulled back, hands still cradling her jaw, he smiled at her and she beamed back.

Whispers of how much they loved each other lingered in the air as he led her upstairs to her bedroom.

—

Max was always upfront about how against he was of the idea of Y/n and Lando. Promptly, Y/n and Lando decided it was best to keep everything a secret until time passed and they grew certain of their future together.

The only problem was that, from the start, they knew there would never be an end.

That complicated things. The uncertainty and confusion over when they would tell Max warranted an overwhelming amount of fights. Fights that took place in the small time they had to spend together.

“CAN’T YOU JUST SEE WHERE I’M COMING FROM?!” She yelled at him, hands flailing around with a face so disappointed in her boyfriend, it pained him to see.

“I DO! I DO SEE WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM, BUT WE HAVE TO BE REALISTIC, Y/N! I MEAN, SHIT, AM I THE ONLY SANE ONE IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?” His words cut her soul, the man she loved judging her character after having told her how it was one of the things he loved most about her.

She scoffed, arms crossing over her chest in a physical plea for protection from his cruel, strategic insults, “FUCK YOU, LANDO.”

His hands flew out by his sides, an exacerbated sigh leaving his mouth, “GET OVER YOURSELF!”

She shook her head, it falling down exhaustedly, “I’m so fucking over this.”

He laughed dryly, “What? You want to break up now?”

She huffed, stomping her foot on the ground, “NO! I JUST WANT YOU TO LOVE ME AND TELL ME WHEN YOU’LL DO IT UNASHAMED!”

He stared at her, eyes searching hers for answers that were reasonable, “Y/n, you know I love you and you know I can’t give you a timeline of when the public, especially your brother, will accept us.”

She turned away, wiping the tears that had fallen down her face, “I’m so fucking exhausted of this. It’s been six months, Lando. And I’ve loved you for so much longer. It’s been years of having to hide how I feel about you and now that I have it, I still can’t show it.”

His presence loomed behind her, hands falling onto her shoulders softly before his lips kissed the skin, “I know, baby, and I’m so sorry. I truly am. For everything, the fight and this feeling, I’m sorry.”

She turned back around, body being held by him, “I know you are. I know this isn’t what you want. I’m sorry for that too, but, Lan,” She trailed off, his nodding taking place.

“I know, I know.” He assured, signaling that he understood how sick she was of pretending like there wasn’t anything going on between them.

She laid her head on his chest, murmuring, “When will it change?”

Truthfully, neither of them were sure they would ever know.

—

Parties were the hardest. Seeing Lando flirt with these beautiful women had Y/n throwing back drinks so quickly, it could be designated as a sport. However, this time, her boyfriend was quick to stop her from continuing, only allotting for a tipsiness to take over.

With Deja Vu, Lando drove her back to her house, except this time, he stayed in her bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist in the darkness of the night, she spoke, “Why do you have to do it in front of me?”

He kissed the top of her head, “Do what?”

She separated herself from him, moving to sit up and let her legs dangle over the side of the bed. He followed her movements, “Flirt with other girls.”

He nodded, surprised at the topic. His words took a moment to form in his head, and even when they did, he dreaded saying them out loud, “You know, I have to keep up the image. I can’t start dodging women’s advances. It would look too suspicious.”

She exhaled a breath, getting up fully and walking over to the wall to turn the lights on, “So, what? You just eye fuck other people so obnoxiously right in my fucking face?”

He let his chin meet his chest, “I don’t have the energy to have another fight with you.”

She groaned, “I’m not asking you to have a fight with me, Lando. I’m asking you to explain to me why you have to shove this shit down my throat.”

Lando stood abruptly from the bed and yelled, “I JUST FUCKING DID!”

She shook her head, “NO, YOU FUCKING DIDN’T! YOU GAVE ME A SHIT EXCUSE FOR A SHITTY SITUATION. OWN UP TO ONE FUCKING MISTAKE IN YOUR LIFE, LANDO. FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

He rolled his eyes, “OH, GIVE ME A BREAK! YOU KNOW I OWN UP TO MY MISTAKES WHEN IT’S WARRANTED!”

Her eyes bulged, “SO, BORDERLINE CHEATING IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ISN’T A MISTAKE TO YOU?! DOESN’T WARRANT AN APOLOGY?”

Lando scoffed loudly, heels of his hands coming to dig into his eyes, “I’m so fucking over it. You know I hate having to entertain them. You know I do.”

“Do I?” She challenged, staring right at him when he let his gaze wander to hers.

His mouth stood agape, “You think I want to cheat on you?”

She shook her head in return, “I don’t fucking know at this point, Lando. It’s awfully convenient that we have to stay private according to you just as all these women begin to throw themselves at you.”

“I’M NOT SOME MAN WHORE, JESUS CHRIST!” He yelled, pushing past her and walking toward her front door.

Clad in gray sweatpants and no shirt, he shoved on the hoodie he had left strewn across her couch when they first came in, “I’m leaving.”

She laughed, “Oh, what? I find out what the fuck you’re doing behind my back and you run away? Perfect!”

His hand on the door knob, keys in the other, he forcefully turned around and yelled, “NO! I’M NOT FUCKING RUNNING OUT WHEN YOU’VE CAUGHT ME. YOU HAVEN’T BECAUSE I’M NOT DOING THAT SHIT BEHIND YOUR BACK. YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. LEARN TO BELIEVE IN THAT AND THEN COME FUCKING TALK TO ME!”

He slammed the door shut on his way out, definitely waking up some neighbors in the process. Y/n stared at the white paint, it’s continuous chipping off the wood annoying her, and cried. Cried like she had lost him all over again and cried because he brought up an eye opening point.

She didn’t believe that he loved her.

And she never had.

—

Y/n’s persistent knocking had Lando opening his door aggravatedly.

“We need to talk.” She said authoritatively, walking through the threshold without any permission.

He scoffed at her behavior, eyes rolling as he watched her retreat further into his apartment.

“Alright, about what?” He asked, his arms coming to tangle against his chest.

She turned around, looking at him sympathetically, a look so contrasting to the fiery one she had shot him throughout their fight the night before that he was reminded of how much he cared for her. That look had started it all, the adoration and yearning in her eyes that had pulled him in and refused to let him go. His eyebrows knitted together, head tilting as he willed the tears in his eyes away.

“What are we doing?” She said, clearly shocked over the trajectory of their relationship.

His mind froze, “I… don’t understand.”

She mirrored the cocking of his head, “Lando, ever since we got together, all we’ve done is fought. The love we share doesn’t amount to anything when it comes to how this has worked out. It doesn’t make sense, it never did. We were never supposed to work together.”

Was she really doing what he thought she was doing?

He shook his head, “Y/n, what are you going on about? Baby, I lov-”

She interrupted him quickly and tearfully, “Don’t call me baby. Please. Because of you, I’m a mess and an idiotic fool. I’ve ruined myself over and over again for you, and it never seems to be enough. I give and I give and I give, and nothing ever ends up meaning something. I’m sick and tired of sneaking around, using a different perfume when I’m with you so that no one can smell me on you, taking different streets so the paparazzi doesn’t see me leave your place. I’m sick of taking small looks from you when other girls get your full attention. I’m over being second to everybody else when I know I deserve better. My love for you isn’t enough for the pile of lies and gaslighting I’ve put myself through.”

Lando’s eyes searched hers for any kind of hesitation or regret, but all he found was an unwanted amount of tears and looks of exhaustion. He couldn’t believe the woman he had fallen so deeply in love with had gone on like this for so long and he never knew. It was as if he was waking up now, realizing just how much he had pushed her with his fears and just how late he was to save it all.

When he didn’t respond, she took a deep breath, wiped away the tears that stained her cheeks, and continued, “I can’t do this with you anymore. I won’t give you the typical it’s not you, it’s me. You don’t deserve that. I can’t do this with you anymore because it’s not worth it anymore. All the pain I feel, I constantly feel, has outweighed whatever this was. For my own sanity, I can’t be with you any longer.”

When he spoke, Lando wasn’t expecting to find his voice so broken, wet with the beginning emotions of unrequited love, “But, it has to be, Y/n. Your love for me has to be enough. My love for you is enough. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

She shook her head, swallowing thickly as she looked down at her shoes, “No, Lan, because my actions never made you doubt the love I had for you. Yours did. The constant shutting down when I asked when we could tell Max, the flirting with other women, the ignoring me when I was around you in a room full of people. That was the gradual journey that I was forced to embark on because I wanted you so bad. But, last night, after you told me to come talk to you when I started believing how you felt toward me, I realized that that day would never come. I don’t even imagine myself understanding the feelings you have toward me. If anything, come to me when you learn how to love me publicly.”

Lando reached out for her, but it only pushed her closer to the door, “This can’t be it, Y/n. I didn’t wait years for this to happen, only it to end this way. Please, there has to be something I can do.”

His pleading increased the tears falling from both their eyes, a painful reminder of the deep scar forming on their hearts, “No, Lando. There isn’t. That’s why I’m here and telling you what I am. Trust me,” She took a step forward, hand rubbing the skin of his cheekbone while the other splayed across his jawline, “If there was a way for this to be fixed, I would tell you. Realizing we don’t work is one of the worst heartbreaks of my life, but it’s life, right?”

His eyes closed at her touch, “But, what’s life without you?”

His whispering broke any semblance of her soul as she whispered back, “That’s what we both need to find out.”

Torturously, at the end of her sentence, the warmth of her palms was disappearing from his face and the grave coldness was returning. When he opened his eyes, he found the love of his life lingering next to the door, ready to leave him and the life he thought they would build together.

“What happens if we both find out that life without each other isn’t something we can sustain? What if we miss each other?” He tried. Anything to keep her for a second longer. Anything to get her to stay.

She shrugged, wiping a hand over her face to dry it, “I don’t know, Lando, but I think we won’t have to find out. I think this is for the best.”

Again, she sent him that gaze he fell in love with all those years ago before she walked out.

So ironic that that would be the last thing he remembered from the conversation where she ended it all.

So ironic that the face that had brought him happiness for such a long time would be the face of the greatest pain he would ever feel.

A/N: how y’all feeling about that part 2?

[marlenesluv]

book lover. (LN)

summary: you’re a booktuber, always posting about your books, coffee, music, and of course, your amazing boyfriend, lando norris.

warnings: none!

note: i’ll probably write another book reader for daniel as well. (the polls were close and idk i think they’d both be cute.) also, another note, haley pham, sara carroli, and destiny sidwell are bookstagram/youtubers, so keep that in mind while reading. this is for my taylor swift and books lovers, cuz me too.

masterlist here -> masterlist link

^ check my list for all posts! ^

liked by: landonorris, haleypham, and 246,275 others

y/n.user: “and it would’ve been sweet, if it could’ve been me”

view comments…

landonorris: are you breaking up with me????

|> y/n.user: HUH??

|> landonorris: the caption??????????

|> y/n.user: thats a taylor swift quote, lan. and it’s about the book i’m reading

|> landonorris: you NEED to update me on these posts before you post them

|> oscarpiastri: he was literally running around the paddock thinking you were mad at him

|> y/n.user: oh no, my baby 🙁🫶

haleypham: i cant wait for your new video :))

|> y/n.user: :))

|> booksfan: Y/N AND HALEY COLLAB????

georgerussell63: how on earth did you take a picture of your phone with your phone…

|> y/n.user: that’s not my phone….

|> georgerussel63: we’ll it isn’t landos?

|> y/n.user: i have other friends besides lando

|> landonorris: *boyfriend*

|> y/n.user: right, he’s also my only boyfriend

readerpop: live, laugh, love, y/n <3

_______________________________________________

liked by: y/n.user, danielricciardo, and 346,015 others

landonorris: my little book worm🫠❤️

view comments…

danielricciardo: what book is she reading, lando?

|> landonorris: i think “the tales of the housewives”?

|> y/n.user: i’m reading THE HANDMAIDS TALE LANDO

|> landonorris: i was close

f1wagsupdates: OUR book worm, actually

landonorris.fanpage: they are too damn cute

carlossainz55: mate, i think she rather read than be with you rn😬

|> landonorris: she said she’s “escaping reality”

|> oscarpiastri: so “escaping you”

|> landonorris: what

|> y/n.user: THATS NOT TRUE, STOP STRESSING HIM OUT

formula1.fp: cutest f1 couple

_______________________________________________

liked by: landonorris, des.sidster, and 251,947 others

tagged: haleypham

y/n.user: new video out with haley!! we read, drank wine, played uno, and suffered listening to lando and ryan talk about football🙁

view comments…

haleypham: literally, suffered. but at least we got reading time

|> y/n.user: so true

f1.edits: am i obsessed with the fact that y/n gives us lando snippets? yes, yes i am

|> y/n.fans: just wait, she said a while ago that she’s posting a video from game night with the grid

|> y/n.fp: is that even still happening??

|> y/n.user: mwahahaha, soon

|> y/n.fp: i think i j shit my pants omg

landonorris: everyone go watch my girlfriends new video!! she’s so pretty and cool and awesome and sexy and funny and adorable and etc

|> charles_leclerc: there isn’t a better promotion for this video

|> y/n.user: thanks lando! my boyfriend is also so pretty and cool and awesome and sexy and funny and adorable and etc!

|> landonorris: you think i’m pretty?🥹

|> y/n.user: my pretty boy

|> landonorris: ive passed out

|> maxfewtrell: YOU BROKE MY BSF

_______________________________________________

liked by: y/n.user, carlossainz55, and 401,284 others

landonorris: date nights consist of book shopping, reading, and y/n taking pictures of me in a golf cart!

view comments…

y/n.user: good thing you’re the photographer in this relationship

|> landonorris: and you can read enough for the both of us

f1wags: cuties are being cuties

bookstagram.edits: so y/n has GOOD book taste, i see

alex_albon: i think y/n has an eye with the camera

|> landonorris: don’t lie, alex

|> lilymhe: at least y/n can read

|> y/n.user: GO OFF QUEEN LILY✊

formula1updates: pls pls why are they so sweet, WHY AM I SINGLE

carlossainz55: how did you manage to get a girlfriend who reads and deals with you

|> y/n.user: he offered to buy me books, so i give him gf content

|> carlossainz55: ah yes, this makes sense

|> landonorris: thats not funny

|> y/n.user: hehe

|> landonorris: let’s see how “hehe” that is when i don’t cuddle you tonight and throw ur books away

|> y/n.user: NO MY BOOKS

|> carlossainz55: AHHHAHAHA MATE OMG

|> landonorris:…..cuddles……

|> y/n.user: I MEAN- OH NO I NEED MY CUDDLES

f1xupdate: omg the comments HELP

_______________________________________________

y/n’s instagram story:

seen by: landonorris, maxverstappen1, and 324,048 others

_______________________________________________

liked by: landonorris, saracarrolli, and 399,824 others

y/n.user: “he was sunshine, i was midnight rain” (lando its just a t.s. song lyric i love you.)

view comments…

landonorris: i love you more☺️

taylorswift: you guys are adorable! i wish you nothing but happiness and love <3

|> y/n.user: TAYLOR!? OMG YAYWBFLWNR KENT FI CSMT OWKFKS HELP DIDKSD OMGBRODK

|> pierregasly: uh oh, taylor broke y/n….

|> des.sidster: OMG Y/N TAYLOR AHHHHHHHH

|> y/n.user: IK AHHHHHH WKEKDOSK IABRFKDJE

|> maxverstappen1: lando. your girlfriend is glitching

|> landonorris: she’s sobbing in my arms, she’s more than glitching, mate

f1.edits: i am LIVING for taylor being here

y/nxlando.fans: where did taylor, mother, come from?

y/n.user: GUYS TAYLOR FOLLOWED ME. TAYLOR ILY AND I HATE JAKE GRRRR JAKE

|> arthur_leclerc: GRRR?????

|> olliebearman: i get it

_______________________________________________

(reposts, comments, and likes are appreciated!^-^)

[marchofmistria]

A Nice Contrast

A/N: This is my first Fields of Mistria fic so I hope you like it! It's based off March's autumn dialogue when you speak to him at the forge and he tells you that it's nice and warm in contrast to the cold outside <3

Planning to cross-post this to AO3, and will update this post with the link when I do.

Summary: March helps you warm up by the forge when it starts to cool down in Mistria.

Word Count: 2,127

Tags: March x Reader, gender-neutral reader (2nd person), hurt/comfort, fluff AO3 link here!

The summer bled into autumn and it was officially cold in Mistria. You felt like you barely had time to catch up, and the first two seasons you spent in the town sped by so fast you could scarcely remember to enjoy the season before it was over. Days at the beach with friends felt long and restful in the moment, and now they let out to a short and cool autumn when a farmer's work is hardest. Your wardrobe had yet to catch up to the change in Mistrian weather, however, and unpacking your warmer clothes was on the to-do list. However, a late start to the day after a late night in the mines and that plan was gone.

It was already 2PM by the time you had finished your daily tasks on your farm. The crops were watered and they had just begun to peer out of the dark soil. Your animals were fed and seemed happy. You sat down for a moment next to Caldarus, chatting with him as you untied your hair and changed out of your farming gloves. There were errands to do today, after all, and Mistria certainly did not rest for you.

As you fell into the swing of the day, your morning plans were quickly and totally forgotten. You didn't have much of a chance to notice; you felt warm from running around the whole town for hours. These townsfolk sure knew how to run you to the ground. First it was a delivery for Balor, then a chat with Nora before returning to Balor, then a trip to the museum to discuss a new finding with Eiland and Errol, some fishing for Reina's new dish at the Inn tonight, and a quick trip to the mines to repair a chip in the metal of your shovel.

Your body had gotten stronger in the last few months since arriving to the small town, but you felt exhausted regardless. Days felt like they ended too soon as is, but as you left the mines, you were truly surprised by the incoming dark. How did it get so late so fast?

The feeling really set in once you set off to the forge to smelt your findings. The breeze blew your hair back and out of your face, exposing your shoulders further and starting a chill down your arms. You felt thirsty and very hungry and realized you missed lunch and would miss dinner if you didn't hurry.

Wanting to catch March before he left the forge for his own dinner, you hurried on, wrapping your arms protectively around your shoulders for some mock-warmth. It did little to help, and you had begun to feel a bit lightheaded.

March seemed to be finishing his work day just as you were arriving, although you knew he would leave the forge hot for you to use at all hours. He had grown accustomed to your habits, knowing how busy you were throughout the day and that you might come to the forge even late at night to squeeze as much into the day as you could before you passed out from exhaustion.

When you finally stumbled up to him, he addressed you with a curt "Hey," his usual attempt at appearing nonchalant. Just as he had grown accustomed to your habits, you had gotten to know his as well. You had gotten pretty good at giving whatever he gave you right back to him, and your conversations were at the point of total ease.

But rather than shooting the shit with him as you usually did, well enough to break down his boundaries to show even some vulnerability (a shock to anyone who had ever spoken to March), you ignored his greeting and rested your hand on the anvil for support. At this point, you felt like it was the only thing supporting your weight up.

March, who often couldn't help but observe you closely whenever you were near him, noticed right away and rushed over to you. His brows knit together, he put a strong arm under your arm for you to lean into. You all but collapsed into his support for a moment, before regaining a bit of strength and using your legs to lift yourself up a bit more again.

"What's wrong?" March asked, an arm still around your torso in case you fully passed out on him. His heart beat faster, worry showing on every feature. As soon as your head stopped spinning a moment later, you looked into his eyes and saw his concern. He couldn't even try and hide his real feelings like he usually did.

You blushed as soon as you realized how close your faces were to each other. The closest they'd ever been, you both quickly noted before pulling away from each other slightly. March did not withdraw his support though, despite the blush that was tinging the tips of his ears.

"Hey, did you hear me? What's wrong? Should I call Valen?" March asked again, concern growing as you didn't answer his first question. Your mind swam back into focus when March reached his hand up, moving your hair out of your face to feel your forehead with his hand. You closed your eyes at the warmth. His hands were rough against the skin of your forehead, but the warmth spread throughout your body.

"O-oh, sorry! I just got dizzy for a second..." You finally stuttered out. The crease between March's brows lessened slightly, but was still visible. He didn't move his hand away from your face. "I think I'm just tired from the mines, and I realized I didn't eat much today. I'll be fine though."

"What the hell? Why didn't you eat anything, dumbass?" March all but barked at you. You couldn't help but smile a bit to yourself. So this is what it looks like when March worried about you...

"Charming as ever, March," you replied quietly, hoping to ease some of his worry and show that you really were okay. But as soon as that signature smirk reappeared, pulling up the corner of his lips, it was gone as you tried to walk again and stumbled once more. The dizziness was back, and you were worried that he may be right about the fever after all.

"Hey, hey... you should sit down. Don't try and stand up again," March commanded, lowering you gently to the ground. You didn't think March was capable of touching anything so gently, let alone you. He kneeled down at your side and made sure you were comfortable with your back propped against the outer wall of his house. "You're freezing... why aren't you dressed more warmly?"

You had nearly forgotten how chilly you'd gotten, and his comment caused a shiver to run down your spine. March had you scoot a bit closer to the fire in the forge. "It's warm by the forge," March said quietly, taking your hands in his and pulling them a bit closer to the fire in an attempt to warm you up a bit faster. "You shouldn't hang around in the cold too long. Especially in what you're wearing! What were you thinking?"

"March, I'm fine. I promise. I'm just a bit tired." You said weakly, hoping to provide reassurance once more (even though you didn't want him to let go of your hands quite yet. The warmth felt too good, both from the forge and from your closeness.)

"Like hell you are. You're gonna sit here while I go find Valen, got it?" You didn't dare defy him while looking into his sharp eyes. "Will you be okay a few minutes alone?" he said, the softness seeping through yet again. Your head was reeling from this contrast alone, and you nodded. March looked back at you one more time as if to verify the truth, his eyes softening as you leaned your head back to rest against the side of the house once more. Just before he left, he took off his brown jacket, throwing it on your lap before he turned and walked to Valen's clinic with speed.

As you waited for March to return with the doctor, you shrugged the jacket onto your cold shoulders. You couldn't help but note how comforting it smelled. It was the same pleasant smell you noticed when March leaned closer to you as you worked at the forge, observing your work and chiming in with helpful comments. It was also the same smell you enjoyed when March all but pulled you to his side at the Inn when he had a couple of beers in him. The warmth spread from your nose to the rest of your body. The smell of a crackling fire, leather, a bit of sweat (not at all unpleasant), and even... chocolate.

You had nearly fallen asleep in the pleasure of the smell alone when you heard March's deep voice coming up the cobblestone path to you. "—seemed like she was gonna faint. She told me she hadn't eaten anything all day, and looked like she was freezing her ass off."

Without a greeting, Valen knelt down to you eye level, checking your forehead with her hand before asking to put a thermometer in your mouth. You noticed how different her hands felt from March's. Soft, gentle, and a bit cold. Clinical was the right word.

"March, please go down to the Inn and grab them a bowl of soup, would you? That would be just the thing, I think." March went right away, as if he was tempted to do just that before Valen had given him the instruction.

"Y/N, you need to take better care of yourself. This behavior is a bit concerning to me, and it seems to March as well. Which, alone, says something, no?" Valen smiled knowingly. She gave you a bottle of water to sip on, and asked if you were still feeling dizzy. You were not. Just plain tired.

"You're running yourself to the ground with work, which I can't say I'm too happy about in the first place. But to make matters worse, skipping meals? Not dressing for the cold weather?" Valen chastised lightly. You were embarrassed that your lack of self-care had caught up with you, and now it was a problem for others as well. You hadn't meant to make anyone worry, which you expressed to Valen.

"You're right. It won't happen again. I'll make sure to take better care of myself," you said softly. "Sorry to make you worry..." Valen chuckled, surprised by your humbleness. "No need to apologize to me. We just want you to be healthy. You may not realize it, but everyone in this town has really grown to care for you. I know you want to take on everyone's problems, but I really think people would be more grateful if you watched out for yourself before you burn out all your energy."

Cheeks burning, all you could muster was a nod of your head. March returned with the soup in his hands. The steam that rose from it looked so incredibly appealing. March sat down next to you. "Have enough strength to hold the bowl or do I need to feed you?" March scoffed.

You shook your head, offering a small smile and thanking Valen again when she told you to monitor your condition and find her right away if you felt bad again. March sat next to you as you took spoonful after spoonful of the delicious vegetable soup. March said nothing, but in the silence you could tell he was making sure you finished every drop in the bowl. As soon as you had taken the last spoonful, March removed the bowl from your hands and set it down on the floor. "I'll bring this back later," said March.

"Do you think you can stand? I'll walk you back to your house," March sighed, extending his hand out for you to grab. The combination of the soup, the fire in the forge, and the presence of March next to you made you regain much of your strength. You grabbed March's hand and used it as leverage to pull yourself up to stand. Still wearing his brown leather jacket, the two of you set off in the direction of your farm.

It was only after March saw your front door close behind you and the lights flip on in your bedroom that he turned to head back home. Something about the thought of his jacket in your bedroom made his heart beat faster, and you both fell asleep that night heated by the feeling of each others proximity that lingered and left its warmth in you through the entire night.

[unriding]

EVIE’S NOTE! welcome to my very first event! this is an open fandom, minecraft centered event that is open to anyone 18+ (anons, strangers, non-followers & non-mutuals are more than welcome to join in!! i would love to create a little selfship / match up post for you)!

if small text is hard on your eyes, see here for this exact post in large text & auto caps. otherwise, details & how to join are written below!

UPDATE… as of nov 15, this event has closed! thank you all for joining!! i’ll be making them for a lil bit :>

INPUT (SEND THIS BLOG AN ASK)… first: your pseud / name (if anon, u can name yourself … anon A? sparkling anon? or just anon). second: if off anon, send me a picrew of yourself! any picrew is fine, but there’s one if u can’t pick. if on anon, describe yourself in detail please! for skin tones, i think i would cry if i got the wrong one, so please give me your fenty beauty foundation shade as a reference ^^; then send either your preferred fandom or your f/o’s full name!!

AVAILABLE FANDOMS : bllk, genshin, haikyuu, honkai star rail, kaiju no. 8, my hero academia, one piece, tokyo revengers, & wind breaker. you’re more than welcome to send in fandoms that aren’t listed! just know that i am unfamiliar with the char but will do my best (: so i guess any fandom goes

RECAP : send pseud / name + your description or picrew as an ask. if you have an established selfship, send name of f/o. if you would like a matchup, send your preferred fandom instead.

EXAMPLE 1 (MATCHUP) : “evie, kind of wavy black hair, light blue eyes, skin tone : fenty beauty 150 - neutral). pls match up with wind breaker! *insert info about my personality* + any characters that i definitely do not want to be paired with!!

EXAMPLE 2 (SELFSHIP) : “evie + moze, here is my picrew !! *optional: insert some cool info about my selfship that would help me set u two up on a date”

OUTPUT (WHAT I MAKE)….. here’s the link to an example!! i make a post on @z3vie, and i’ll tag you if you’re not on anon. if you’re on anon— u can either scroll or check the queue below for the link!

i’ll make you and your f/o a minecraft skin- to the best of my abilities. features will be vaguely represented. i’ll set u up on a minecraft date!! who’s fighting mobs and who’s picking flowers ? >:o we will see. there’s a limited number of date ideas, so repeats will happen. thennn finally, i’ll make you a little moodboard and blurb to go along with it.

OTHER INFO THAT MIGHT BE RELEVANT… i won’t post your ask. it’ll be deleted marked as complete in my queue! also, it’s a very chill event! you’re welcome to send me no selfship info, or pages of selfship info. don’t even stress about it ^ ^ !!! (tho u should send me selfship lore because i am nosy)

oh shoot also stunies is severely understaffed (there is only one evie here and no twice in existence to duplicate myself) so please be patient > < i will do my very best !! trust :>

ONE MORE THING MY DEAREST FRIENDS! this selfship event is in collaboration with @mlkbwunnies’s 2024 yume creators market !! meaningggg a bunch of others are hosting selfship events right now too!! free free to check out ying’s masterlist here :> HAVE AN AWESOME SELFSHIP WEEK YAYY

CURRENT QUEUE! check @z3vie for your post!! also, note — the animal group names have no relevance, they are just cute hehe

POSTED, COMPLETED, OR QUEUED FOR POSTING

deer group — ( grey / letta / kiki / yue )

polar bear group — ( min / rye / ying / nick )

cat group — ( awea / aegis / sua / gray )

hamster group — ( kendall / lauren / kruin / rara )

rabbit group — ( rae / lena / marlyn / aspen )

lion group — ( aliyah / hea / quinn / bibi )

koala group — ( sylvester / kayla / lexi / jess )

tiger group — ( venus / em / nyx / meirin )

axolotl group — ( jiae / romy / luvie / candy )

panda group — ( kai / ai / cy / aims )

fox group — ( jay / liv / amor / sam )

UPDATE (NOV 29 — done w blurbs- mb & skins left)

CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS

bumblebee group — ( bee / flora / zebra / atlas)

unicorn group — ( ophelia / fuji / venus / mari )

hummingbird group — ( esther / risu / mitzi / lotus )

NEXT UP

sea otter group — ( mochi / ryu / luna / honey )

sea horse group — ( amor / mellina / rain / cha )

bluebird group — ( whimsy / clever / steph / brynn )

[silksongeveryday]

Welcome to the Hornet Journal Series!

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 550

On this project, for the next 150ish days or so, I will be drawing Hornet as a journal entry/enemy/boss from the hunter’s journal each day until I run out of entries to draw her as

Just as a warning, some of these journal entry drawings are going to either look really cool or really cursed. So be prepared for anything lol. Not even I know what some of these will look like since I haven’t entirely planned them yet.

For the most part, I will be trying to include as much of Hornet’s original design as possible (her horns, her cloak, etc). However, with each entry, I will be including the enemy entry’s features in some way. Some days that may mean hornet looks more like the enemy, while other days she’ll look a little more like herself. It’ll make more sense once I start posting them, but generally that’s how it’s going to be.

Some entries will also be combined together to avoid some repetitiveness with certain enemies that similar enough to each other and I won’t be including entries like void idol, seal of binding, etc since they aren’t really that drawable.

So to not make this post extremely long, below the cut will be extra things like FAQs, Journal entry list, etc

Journal Entry list

The list/categories below will be the other I will be drawing the the journal entries! So if you’d like to know what’s coming next, just look here! (Links to posts updated eventually)

Forgotten Crossroads

crawlid - vengefly - vengefly king - gruzzer & gruz mother - tiktik - aspid hunter - aspid mother/hatchlings - goam - all small husk variants - husk warrior - husk guard - false knight - maggot - menderbug - life seed - Baldur&elder baldur - entombed husk

Greenpath

mosscreep & mossfly - mosskin & volatile mosskin - fool eater - squit - obble - gulka - maskfly - moss charger & massive ver. - moss knight - mossy vagabond - durandoo and duranda - aluba

Fog Canyon

charged lumafly - uoma & ooma - uumuu

(more to be added soon)

FAQ

(frequently asked questions)

Will the Journal Entries be in the same order as you see them in the game?

Mostly! Some of it might be a little out of order for sake of convenience/putting entries together in one post but it’ll stay mostly the same I think

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜

For Game Informer’s July 17th DA:TV article, "BioWare On Returning To The Dragon Age Series, 10 Years After Inquisition", the article is still titled as such on its own page, but it looks like on the GI DA:TV Hub page its listing was updated to "Dragon Age: The Veilguard Is 'Respectful And Referential' To Previous Games Without Making Them Mandatory"

[previous comment for context - Brenon: "we do have "decision saves" before big choice moments, but there are still a bunch that depend on a whole mess of stuff you've done earler...so yeah...RIP"]. Derek on this: "Choice and consequence, baby." [source]

[context: DA official Twitter's news about what's coming in August] Derek: "Buckle up!" [source]

Bryony Corrigan (Rook) on the strike: "I care a lot about this game! @/dragonage. Gutted we are unable to speak more about the game for now but absolutely in solidarity with actors in the US. I hope @/EquityUK are also fighting for better protection against AI clauses in the UK too…!" [source]

Matt Rhodes recently wrote to his mailing list that "The project I’ve been working on for many years is nearing completion. In my rare free moments, I’ve been starting to organize concept art to start posting after the game ships." [source] So it sounds like DA:TV is nearing completion and that he will be posting DA:TV concept art that he created after release. [This] is the link to his website where you can view his art, including some existing DA:TV and previous DA game concept art. If you click the envelope symbol on this page, that's how you can subscribe to the mailing list

from Community Councilmember Ladyinsanity - Lucanis x Rook apparently might be an "angst pairing" and there's maybe another one of these in the game also...? 👀 [source]

A user mentioned that they aren't keen on the word "roadmap". Michael Gamble explained: "all it means is a list of cool things you can expect to see us showing." [source]

Bellara's family name Lutare wasn't recently changed as some users wondered, it was Lutare at least a year ago during development. It seems it was just mis-printed or mis-reported in the GI coverage [source]

This article describes DA:TV as the most beautiful game the writer saw at SGF. It says the prologue is dated 9 years after DA:I. "Varric isn’t a ginger so much as a grizzled gray fox now". On Solas, he "wants to tear down the Veil that separates Thedas from the world of demons, restoring his people’s immortality and glory and sacrificing thousands in the process. But when his ritual goes awry, two of his most ancient and powerful adversaries are released. They seek only to finish what they started millennia ago – the complete and utter domination of our world." The game moves quite seamlessly from action to cutscene, and in the prologue "every cutscene is clearly building toward something larger". Position matters in combat. There is an accessibility option which involves the path-tracing of enemies' ranged attacks. At the beginning of the demo, the devs mentioned that they thought about the way different lighting affects your character. " The animations associated with combat are complex for one reason: responsive character features." CC has "inclusion of thick curly hair and capturing the tightly curled texture of Black hairstyles and natural hair", customizable shoulder-width and "a much-welcomed broad spectrum of skin tones—capturing both cool and warm undertones of both white and brown skin". The article highlighted the fluid movement of cloth. The writer also said, "I’m sure other Summer Game Fest previews will have a lot to say on the evolving relationship between Varric and Solas". [source] ((I don't remember seeing this article til now, it's from June though so I either missed it or have seen it and forgotten. also I don't know how accurate it is but the writer was one of the attendees of the DA:TV demo at SGF))

[character limit text break!]

Malcolm: "When I joined DA:Ve I was really hoping there'd be a romanceable dwarf companion and boy howdy did that come true. Harding is ☀️delightful☀️" [source]

[context: this Tumblr post of some neat art] Malcolm: "This is amazing and I fully went "oh wow that really sounds like Emmrich" before remembering that Nick Boraine is in fact a entire human person." [source]

User: "Speaking of Stalker, as a player the description of Bellara and Veil Jumper i've heard so far, alongside their exploration of Arlathan, somehow reminds me of Clear Sky and Chornobyl in Stalker series..." John Epler: "great eye! roadside picnic, Annihilation and STALKER were all absolutely inspirations" [source]

John Epler: "time to slowly make my way home after an awesome 4 days. thanks for an amazing experience to everyone who was a part of it. back to work." [source]

User: "We know there are returning characters in The Veilguard, so my question is: How would you and the rest of the writers go about writing a returning character who was originally primarily written by a writer who is no longer at the studio? What is the process?" Trick Weekes: "1. Watch videos to get the performance, how the character speaks. 2. Don’t try to replicate the character exactly. Allow them to have grown. Morrigan in DAI wasn’t Morrigan in DAO. She’d grown up. 3. Trust Character Art and Performance/VO. As soon as Morrigan walks in and talks in DAI, it works." [source]

Ali Hillis (Harding) on Twitter: "@dragonage @/bioware @/BioWarePulse @/ea #/DragonAge #/SDCC #/SDCC2024 FOLLOW ON INSTA FOR MORE!" [source]

Alex Jordan (Rook): "To all the D&D loving Dragon Age fans out there, let me tell you about my D&D group, made up of faces from the games industry! Including the voices of Geralt from The Witcher, Clive from Final Fantasy XVI, and Noah from Xenoblade! We are ⁦@/NaturalSix ⁩#/DragonAge" [source]

Erika Ishii (Rook): "Grateful I got to spend SDCC celebrating my roles in 2 games I love. Thank you to the devs (including laid-off workers who deserve full credit!), my friends, and the community. This is the last you’ll hear from me about my games from struck companies until they sign an interim agreement or the strike is won. Keep playing games, but share info from the union and let people know we’re taking a stand for all creatives. See you on the other side! ✊🏼🎮" [source]

Jeff Berg (Rook): "Damn, I love making video games. It’s like the perfect blending of theatre on film, where an actor is encouraged to collaborate and let their imaginations soar. And damn, do I ever love the incredible support from the fans of this incredible medium. Unfortunately, we’re in a time of upheaval in the industry. So let me make it perfectly clear: Video game performers deserve fair wages, safe working conditions and A.I. protections. I call on the employers to #/LevelUpTheContract. Guys, this is no single player game. We need you on our team. #/SagAftraStrong #/VideoGameStrike". Text in the accompanying video reads “Video game performers are stuck in a grind. AI is stealing voices, and companies are hoarding profits. The future of voiceover and performance capture artists is at stake. But out fight isn’t single-player. Whether you’re a gamer, a fan, a performer, a labor ally, or just someone believes in fairness. Keep video games people powered. We need you on our team. Video game companies must offer AI protections to ALL video game performers. Join me and show your support for those who bring our favorite games to life.” [source]

Jessica Clark (Neve): "Aaah a true bucket list moment!! Thrilled to play Neve Gallus a Private Investigator & one of the companions in the upcoming DragonAge The Veilguard Video Game!! We are appearing at the San Diego Comic Con as we speak!! With so much thanks & appreciation for the most fantastic team @/bioware & inspiring fellow cast members including (not limited to) @/missalihillis @/nickboraine @/zach.mendez @/jeffberg1 & more 🙏🏽 Draon Age The Veilguard releases this Fall 2024 & from what I've seen... It's truly epic!! You will love it & yes, it's worth the wait. (SAG-AFTRA issued us a specific window to promote & celebrate at Comic Con & from Sunday night onwards we will all be joining our fellow actors in the picket line for the Video Game Strike)." Text in the accompanying video reads "I’ve wanted to share this for so long! Thrilled to reveal that I play Neve Gallus in the upcoming Dragon Age The Veilguard!! Appearing at Comic Con San Diego as we speak” [source]

[source]

Jessica: "Last night's Comic Con San Diego's Fandom red carpet celebrating Dragon Age The Veilguard! Releasing this Fall 2024!!" [source]

Zach Mendez (Lucanis): "A truly amazing first day of SD Comic Con at the @/dragonagegame poster signing at @/darkhorsecomics booth. Thank you to the fans who made my first con unforgettable #/sdcc /#sdcomiccon #/dragonage #/darkhorsecomics #/lucanisdellamorte #/voiceacting #/bioware #/eagames #/theveilguard #/babysfirstcon" [source]

Zach: "Dragon Age. Dancing. Derulo. Thanks @/fandom for a killer party" [source]

Nick Boraine (Emmrich): "Thank you @/bioware @/ea and @/comic_con - had an incredible time! #/dragonage #/theveilgaurd #/emmrichvolkarin @/zach.mendez @/missalihillis @/thejessicaroseclark - can’t wait for the fall release date." [source]

Ali: "Honored and thrilled to have been a part of another epic @/bioware story w @/ea . Thanks from the bottom of my heart to the whole team! We worked hard, and put our all into this one. Can’t wait to see you all at #/sdcc2024 this week to celebrate @/dragonagegame #/dragonageveilguard" [source]

Ali: "1st day of San Diego Comic Con 2024 !! The lines were long and the signings so much fun! Met some really nice fans, hung out w dragon age performance director @/ashley___barlow , companions @/thejessicaroseclark @/zach.mendez & Nick Boraine . So SO grateful for this #/dragonageveilguard family!" [source]

Ali: "I love every one of these people. There, I said it! What a warm welcome we received! Thanks to ALL! For EVERYTHING!" [source]

Ali on SDCC: "Gooooooood times. ❤️" [source]

Here is a 'behind the scenes at the DA:TV SDCC panel' photo -

[source]

Here is a photo of Erika Ishii with Rook's blue knife -

[source]

Here is an excerpt from Brianne Battye's website:

Text reads: "Dragon Age: The Veilguard Defy the gods. Rise as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight back and lead your team of seven companions, each with their own rich story. Together, you will become the Veilguard. Coming soon From EA/BioWare. I was responsible for a companion story arc, significant side characters, faction content, exploration content, and helping develop and expand worldbuilding lore."

[source]

Also, last year Zach Mendez (Lucanis) made a prior podcast appearance:

Zach: "I was lucky enough over the pandemic to have just hit a really nice commercial, and then I got this beautiful job on a video game where I was doing motion capture. Motion capture? Okay, so you put on this leotard, this black suit, and those little dots on, and you do all the motion for a video game, and you get to do the voice, and they put all these black lines on your face, so they capture your performance and whatnot. And so I was doing that and had some commercial money, so throughout the pandemic, for the past few years, I’ve just been getting to live off acting, which is great." -- Zach: "[Voiceover is] what I'm working on right now." -- Zach: "My father's from Spain." -- Zach: "I'm currently working on a video game, I can't say which video game." "It is a big one, it's not a big deal, it's a big one, I'm one of the main characters, it's not that big a deal." The interviewer asked about how acting in video games works. "Somebody's giving some performance that of course, they layer on imaging afterwards, like in graphics, right? But you're giving facial expressions, that's what gives it the reality, that's what I find so fascinating about motion capture, is that, you get to give big performances, because you're playing these crazy characters in crazy situations, and a lot of your performance is coming through in the final product which is, just gets me excited about the future of things about all the different ways. It's my voice, a lot of my facial features, I voice, I think, one or two characters in this game."

[source (dated ~a year ago. source link isn’t work-appropriate. I don’t recommend the podcast)]