#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.

[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

Alternative DL on Google Drive🔗

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.

[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 💖

[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.

[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 2 p.m. 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 they were gonna faint. They told me they hadn't eaten anything all day, and looked like they were freezing their 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.

[mothking-rising]

Got a rude response from someone I reblogged from so I'm making my own post about Ice Flight because um--

Hey Ice Flight can be pretty cool actually and be different from the rest of the flights, and this post is gonna be my two cents about it. I've seen people go around just summing it up as "cops" when just like every other Flight they can be so much more?

While first, I do agree that Ice’s aesthetic is kinda weak as is. Not a lot you can do with the same winter themes over and over with the occasional broken chain motif. I’d love to see people get creative to what they think Ice represents and how they contribute to Sornieth’s systems, cultures, and dragons as a whole.

I see ice flight specializing in stuff like collection and cataloguing as iirc before the map update it said those were things Ice Flight likes. I think where Earth is Uncovering What Was, Ice is about Preserving What Is.

They’re not entirely just cops (and even then stripping them to just the role of "cop" is a bad take). They’re also researchers of the things they fear, and of relics that need studying. In my head Ice would probably have the best museums, archives, and storage houses. What better way to preserve or trap something than in ice?

They’re a flight of Order, not so much in the sense of cops and law but a flight that bulks when there’s a sense of disorder or chaos, disorganization, and imperfection. If it’s uncategorized, unsorted, then it needs to be so in order to be learned. Where Lightning is stats and progression, Ice is pattern recognition (Tundra’s memory being linked to their smell may also reflect this) and tradition (Gaolers role system and lack of awareness about the state of Sornieth and not just the Ice Fields).

This can be extended then into interests, individual home cultures, businesses and what not. Why not start a collection of rocks? Or insects? They’d know best how to preserve it. Need something specific from the shop? Probably very easy to find if you know the qualities and traits you’re looking for. Need something preserved for safe keeping? They’ll do that, and they’ll do it awfully well. Perfectly. The systems have to be perfect. The line up has to be perfect and up-kept and looked after intensely— possibly so intense it’s evolving into passion. There can certainly be a sense of pride.

Combine with the lore that Ice is typically more hostile to outsiders due to their melting home I can see them being much more traditional and closed off. Not quite isolated, but having a more unique culture that’s a little more closed off from others and not quite as shared, trying to preserve what is left of their home and traditions.

What about urban legends and superstition? They’re guarding creatures and horrors in those prisons, surely the local resident dragons have folklore over that? What about fishing and hunting, two very popular ways to get food or supplies in climates like these? Where are the ice fisherman skins or hunters bound in furs? What about the fauna or flora found in the region we can probably make skins for that too.

Existential horror can also be fun; remember, relatively recently Gaolers learned that Sornieth has changed. Dragons of other flights have other magic not native to their elements and in addition the age old threat of Shade that seems to be making new problems for new times.

We have a flight literally dealing first hand with monsters and horrors existing already on the planet and in its own prisons and fighting against it, yet people relegate that to Arcane. 😔 Unlike Arcane, the unknown is already here in Ice.

You could easily take inspiration from the movie The Thing, too. It writes itself ngl.

Theres much to do and think about with Ice when you remember this is a region with its own people and culture and not just an aesthetic, and I’d like to see it dabbled in more. Even if it’s just headcanon, you can make it into a skin. That’s what people have done with Light with the whole angelic themes, so why not take creative spins on ice too?

Give ice some headcanon love like y’all do with Arcane and Light. Those flights aren’t about eldritch horror or angels but there’s endless skins for them about it. Give ice some of that same ole love too 💕

[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 

[bewareofthenewphannie]

sigh....please don't kill me for this

AO3 Phandom Stats - Top or Bottom?

As many of you may have noticed there has been a shift in the depiction of Dan and Phil in fanfiction over the past few months from previously predominantly Dan being written as the bottom to now largely Phil bottoming. This post aims to put that trend into numbers and visualise it in a few overly convoluted diagrams below the cut.

Does any of this matter? Absolutely not.

Is it interesting? Oh boy, it sure is!

Disclaimer: This is an analysis of the fanfiction writing and tagging trends within the Phandom. It's at most tangentially related to the Real People Dan and Phil and is not meant to spark any type of discourse. I am doing this as an avid fanfic reader and with the utmost respect and appreciation for the authors of these fics, so I don't want to see any negativity directed towards them. Above all this is meant to be fun and interesting.

And as always - don't like it, don't read it <3

Note on accessibility: linked here is a doc with all the numbers shown in the screenshots of this post. Inspired by emma's stats I will be putting the cell range in the ID - if there's a better way to do this, please lmk!!

Methodology

To get the numbers shown here I filtered the works in the Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF) AO3 tag by "date updated" from the Jan 1st to Dec 31st of each year and by the following tags:

Bottom Dan Howell

Bottom Phil Lester

Top Dan Howell

Top Phil Lester

Short excurse on AO3 tags for those unaware:

The tags I chose are canonical tags, which means other tags that mean the same thing but are for example spelled differently are linked to this tag by tag wranglers and appear when you search for the canonical tag (see example below).

Additionally, the "bottom x" tags are metatags for the power bottom tags, which means fics tagged with "power bottom x" also appear when you filter works for these tags.

It's important to note that not every fic where one of them tops or bottoms is tagged as such. That means these stats very specifically look at the author's choice to tag fics with these tags and not the overall amount of fics where one of them tops or bottoms. However, I would argue it's fair to assume that it's at least somewhat reflective of the general writing trends within the Phandom.

For simplicity's sake I will refer to these tags as e.g. "Bottom!Phil" (b!p) going forward.

Stats 2013 - 2024

Here you can see how many fics were tagged with each tag in the respective year and the amount of bottom!dan and bottom!phil fics relative to the total amount of fanfic written in the same time span.

As expected, up until 2023 the split was about 2 b!d to 1 b!p fic (precise numbers: 71% to 29%; see pie chart above).

In 2018 we can see a peak in both in the number of phanfics written and the relative amount of fics tagged as bottom!dan.

Starting in 2023 (more on that below!) this flips and in 2024 the ratio of b!d to b!p fics was 1 to 4 (precise numbers: 81% to 19%; see pie chart above).

Furthermore, making up 4,62% of the total amount of phanfics written in 2024, the bottom!phil tag is relatively speaking twice as popular now as the bottom!dan tag ever was.

Sidenote: You can see that generally the amount of fics tagged with b!d and t!p, as well as b!p and t!d correspond to each other for obvious reasons (they're usually fucking each other). This year however there's 16 fics more tagged with bottom!phil than top!dan, which shows that there's been a very specific interest in writing and tagging bottom!phil in the last year.

Here you can see the total amount of phanfics written by year because I already collected the data, so I might as well put it here:

Stats 11/2023 - 12/2024

Now I want to take a closer look at the past few months post hiatus.

You can see that there's been a steady increase in the total amount of fics written per month!

That's incredibly cool!! (Love to all the wonderful writers out there <33)

Before we get into the actual stats, it's important to note that we're working with very low numbers here, so don't be fooled by overinterpreting percentages in the first few months depicted and look at the actual numbers! In the diagram below I excluded September and October 2023 because there simply wasn't enough data to produce useable results.

Contrary to what I expected, the increase in fics tagged with bottom!phil does not coincide with gamingmas 2023 (pour bot hem and top bunk kind of guy), nor phil's birthday live stream (topped by kakuna) but only really starts in June 24 and spikes in August for reasons I'm not fully sure about.

If I had to pin it on one thing it'd be the precious baby angel picture, which was posted in mid August.

Much more likely is though that this was simply a dynamic that built over months and had a wide array of reasons mentioned above and could very well be a self-reinforcing dynamic of more and more people looking for that tag and also writing for it.

If anyone has more insight on this, please share your thoughts :]

On that note, I'm finally done yapping, I hope this was at least mildly interesting!

[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

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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 💔💔💔

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*yourusername and oscarpiastri added to their instagram stories*

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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.

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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

[misaerabl]

She Won't Go Away...

CONTENT: wc… 8.2k ✦ sub!ellie,dom!reader, ellie is readers ex, reader get’s off on ellie’s misery, u make her beg, dry humping, fingering e!receiving, oral sex e!receiving, overstimulation, cheating, lowkey pathetic ellie, no use of y/n, PLOT W SMUT/SMUT W PLOT (totally not proofread!) SUMMARY: Months after your messy breakup, Ellie pretends she’s moved on—but the cracks are showing. She’s got a new girlfriend, a doe-eyed freshman trailing after her like a puppy, but one rainy night, she shows up at your door, desperate and drenched. She’s begging for just one night—to feel what she’s been missing since you. Will you give in, or is this your chance to turn the tables?

It’s been six months since she kicked you out—six months since your relationship with Ellie imploded. She had always been a storm waiting to happen, volatile and unpredictable, and that night was no different. You should’ve seen it coming, the way she turned everything upside down and left you stranded in the wreckage of your own life.

You blocked her on everything. Deleted her number, unfollowed her accounts, erased every trace of her from your digital world. But the real world wasn’t as simple. Your drama-loving friends, always hungry for the latest gossip, couldn’t help themselves from slipping in updates about her spiral.

And honestly? You’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel a little satisfying. Hearing about Ellie’s downfall—how she’d moved back in with her parents, how her rebound was barely old enough to vote, how she was making a spectacle of herself downtown—was a strange kind of vindication. She’d kicked you out of your own apartment, thrown your life into chaos, and now the universe seemed to be paying her back.

You tried not to dwell on it, but the memories lingered, sharp and bitter. That night had been the culmination of weeks of fighting over something Ellie refused to own up to. She was in the wrong—clearly, unmistakably in the wrong—but you’d let her steamroll you anyway. Maybe it was pity, or maybe you’d just been too exhausted to keep fighting her battles for her.

Your phone buzzes relentlessly, teetering on the edge of the table as notifications pile up from your group chat. You need to see this, one of them says, accompanied by a link to Ellie’s latest post. You hesitate, thumb hovering over the screen, before giving in to curiosity—or maybe morbid fascination.

The image loads, and there she is: Ellie, arm slung around some girl who looks like she’s trying way too hard to keep up. Your chest tightens involuntarily, but it’s not jealousy. It’s something darker, sharper. Disbelief.

The girl—doe-eyed, awkward, and dressed in that painfully calculated way that screams I swear I’m cool—looks like she stumbled out of a thrift store with no clue what she was doing. You almost laugh, but it’s not funny. If Ellie thought this would get to you, it hasn’t. The only thing you feel is pity.

The longer you stare, the clearer it becomes: she’s a downgrade. Massive. The kind that makes you wonder if Ellie’s doing this to punish herself or to prove some kind of misguided point. The girl’s charm feels forced, like she’s trying to mold herself into something Ellie’s already lost.

And then it hits you. The girl isn’t just a downgrade—she’s a replica. Or at least, an attempt at one. The shaggy hair, the oversized flannel, the too-big grin—it’s like looking at a ghost of Ellie herself, back when you first met. Back when she still had that spark, that reckless, magnetic energy that pulled you in before it burned you alive.

Figures. Ellie’s always been in love with herself, even if she never admitted it. Or maybe this isn’t love at all. Maybe she’s chasing a memory, a version of herself that felt invincible—before the mess, before the break, before she lost you.

It’s almost poetic, in a way. Ellie, so desperate to reclaim what she had, clinging to something that’s already gone. And you? You’re here, watching it all unfold, the bitterness in your chest laced with the faintest trace of satisfaction.

It would be cruel to admit it out loud, but deep down, you knew the truth—you got off on Ellie’s misery. It wasn’t healthy, it wasn’t kind, but there it was, simmering under your skin like a guilty thrill.

Exhibit A: A month after your breakup, she moved back in with her parents. Jesse and Dina told you, of course, slipping it into conversation with cautious glances, like they were testing if you’d even want to hear it. They were your closest friends once—back when Ellie still held her shit together, back when you thought the two of you were untouchable.

Exhibit B: Just a week later, she was spotted at some party, bruised and beaten. She’d gotten into a fight, according to Sydney, a mutual friend who loved to keep tabs on everyone’s business. You could almost picture it: Ellie, fists flying, fueled by some combination of alcohol and self-destruction, still trying to prove she was untouchable.

Exhibit C: Her social media was practically a highlight reel of “I’m fine.” Carefully curated posts of nights out, new hobbies, and a string of new faces, all plastered with that same cocky grin. But you knew her too well. The cracks in her facade were glaringly obvious. The oversharing, the desperate attempts to prove she was thriving—it screamed the opposite.

And the list went on. Every new piece of information was like another point scored in some unspoken game. By some sick, twisted reason, you loved it. Watching her stumble and fall, knowing that she was unraveling—it gave you a satisfaction that felt both intoxicating and shameful.

Ellie thought she was the one who broke you. Maybe she did, for a while. But the real truth? She was the one breaking, piece by piece, and you couldn’t help but savor the view.

You were mid-sip of your coffee, half-listening to Dina ramble about her latest project, when she suddenly gasped, her eyes widening as she stared out the cafe window. “Oh my god,” she whispered, leaning closer like she’d just spotted a celebrity or a crime scene.

“What?” you asked, setting your cup down, already bracing for whatever drama she was about to unload.

Dina didn’t say anything, just tilted her head toward the window. You followed her gaze, and there she was—her. The fucking freshman Ellie was supposedly dating.

Your chest tightened, but not in the way it used to. This wasn’t jealousy. It was something colder, sharper, tinged with disbelief and a twisted sense of amusement. The girl was standing across the street, balancing an oversized tote bag and looking all of eighteen years old, fresh-faced and clueless.

You leaned back in your chair, crossing your arms as you watched. “That’s her?” you asked, tone flat.

Dina nodded, her expression unreadable, but you could see the gears turning in her head. “Yep. That’s the one.”

The girl was painfully… average. Awkward, even. She had this overly eager energy, the kind that screamed pick me, with her oversized hoodie and the way she kept glancing around like she was lost. If Ellie thought this was an upgrade—or even a distraction—she was delusional.

“She’s…” Dina trailed off, struggling for the right word.

“A kid,” you finished for her, your voice laced with disdain.

Dina winced. “I mean, yeah, kind of.”

You rolled your eyes and turned back to your coffee, trying to pretend you didn’t care, but the sight of the girl lingered in your mind. It wasn’t jealousy—Ellie’s life was her own mess now—but seeing the girl in real life made it all the more ridiculous.

“She’s trying too hard,” Dina muttered, almost to herself. “Like she’s auditioning for something.”

You smirked, swirling your coffee absently. “Figures. Ellie always did like a good project.”

And as much as you hated to admit it, there was a small, dark part of you that couldn’t wait to see how this one would end.

A few minutes later, the door to the café swung open, and in came Jesse, his laughter ringing out before he’d even reached your table. His grin was wide, his energy electric, and you knew before he even said a word that he was about to deliver something chaotic.

“Did you see her?” he asked, barely getting the words out between fits of cackling. He plopped into the chair next to Dina, grabbing one of her fries without so much as a greeting.

You raised an eyebrow, feigning indifference even as your stomach tightened. “See who?”

“The kid,” Jesse said, smirking. “Ellie’s little… whatever she is.”

Dina groaned, rubbing her temples. “Jesse, come on.”

“What? I’m just saying,” Jesse said, leaning back in his chair. “She looks like she wandered out of a high school open house. Please tell me you saw her.”

You kept your expression neutral, though the corners of your lips threatened to curl into a smirk. “Yeah, we saw her,” you said, taking a casual sip of your coffee.

Jesse snorted, shaking his head. “Man, I don’t know what Ellie’s thinking. It’s like she’s doing everything in her power to scream, ‘I’m totally fine, guys!’”

“She’s not,” Dina said, her voice soft but firm.

You glanced at her, but she didn’t elaborate. Jesse, however, didn’t seem to care. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he looked at you.

“Tell me you’re at least enjoying the show,” he said, his grin sly.

You shrugged, playing it cool. “I’m just minding my business.”

“Bullshit,” Jesse said, laughing. “You love it.”

You didn’t respond, just leaned back in your chair and let the conversation flow around you. But deep down, you couldn’t deny the flicker of satisfaction Jesse’s words brought. Ellie’s mess was her own to deal with now, and you? You were just here for the coffee.

Finals week brought a brief, blissful silence. Everyone was too busy cramming and stressing over grades to care about the aftermath of your breakup or the whispers of Ellie’s spiraling life. For once, the campus drama machine took a breather, and you got to relish the peace.

But finals ended, and the parties began.

Celebrations cropped up everywhere, and your friends were relentless about dragging you out. At first, you resisted. Maybe you were still riding the exhaustion from finals, or maybe you just didn’t feel like pretending to enjoy yourself. But eventually, you caved. Blame it on the free drinks or the fact that Dina and Jesse had bailed to spend time together like the nauseating lovebirds they were.

The house buzzed with energy, bodies packed into every corner, and music so loud it felt like the floorboards might give out. Conversations competed with the bassline, creating a chaotic hum that filled the air. Laughter and shouts spilled out onto the front lawn, where clusters of people stood smoking or catching their breath. You hung near your group, drink in hand, soaking in the chaos without engaging too much. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.

And then you saw her.

She was in the kitchen, beer in hand, laughing at something the guy next to her said. From a distance, she almost looked like her old self—confident, collected. But you knew better. The forced laugh, the way her eyes flickered around the room when she thought no one was watching, the tension in her shoulders—it all screamed try-hard.

And clinging to her arm, like some desperate groupie, was the freshman. You had to give her credit for persistence; not many people would still fawn over someone this obviously falling apart. Ellie threw her a smile, but it was hollow, like everything else about her these days.

You turned back to your drink, feigning disinterest, but one of your friends nudged you. “Isn’t that Ellie?”

“Yep,” you said flatly, not even glancing back.

You weren’t going to let her ruin your night. No, that privilege was yours alone now.

Still, Ellie had a way of making herself impossible to ignore. Everywhere you turned, there she was, laughing too loud or gesturing wildly like she was the life of the party. She wasn’t. She was flailing, and it was almost embarrassing to watch. Almost.

At one point, your group migrated to a quieter corner, gossiping over drinks. The conversation was mindless, but it passed the time. You were just starting to relax when one of your friends leaned in, smirking. “Yo, isn’t that your ex?”

You didn’t need to look to know who they meant.

“She looks like shit,” someone muttered, and you couldn’t help but agree.

Ellie was leaning against the wall now, beer bottle nearly empty, her grey hoodie rumpled like she’d pulled it from the bottom of a laundry basket. The jeans she wore hung loose, the way clothes did on someone who’d lost weight they couldn’t afford to lose. Her glasses sat perched on her nose, slightly askew, the way they used to always be—an effortless part of her polished appearance. Her hair, once perfectly messy, now just looked like she hadn’t bothered. She was a shadow of the person she used to be, and you loved it.

“She’s trying so hard,” another friend snickered, and you smiled into your drink.

It was true. Ellie was a disaster, and she didn’t even know it. Every movement, every laugh, was a performance meant to convince everyone—including herself—that she was okay. But the cracks were there, and you had a front-row seat to watch her crumble.

You caught her looking at you once, just for a second, before she quickly looked away. That single moment of eye contact was enough to tell you everything. She was spiraling, and she knew you knew.

You raised your glass in a mock toast, a smug grin tugging at your lips as her expression darkened.

God, it felt good to see her like this.

Every stumble, every fake smile, every awkward interaction was proof that she hadn’t moved on, and that knowledge was sweeter than any drink you could have had tonight. Ellie might’ve been the one to end things, but you were the one thriving now.

And as you watched her shrink further into herself, you couldn’t help but savor the irony. She’d thought she was better off without you, but now? She was the punchline to a joke only you truly understood.

Karma had never looked so good.

Eventually, you grew tired of your so-called friends and their endless gossip, their voices blending into a monotonous hum that felt more high school than college. Rolling your eyes, you muttered a half-hearted excuse and slipped away, heading outside for a smoke.

The night air hit you like a reset button, cool and sharp against your skin. Away from the suffocating noise of the party, you finally let yourself breathe.

You were halfway through your cigarette when the back door creaked open, the familiar sound of footsteps following immediately after. You didn't have to look to know who it was—Ellie’s presence was unmistakable, like a ripple in the air that made everything feel off-kilter.

She came into view, cigarette dangling between her fingers, the glow from the ember briefly lighting up her face in the dim backyard. She stood there, awkwardly shifting on her feet, her posture too stiff to be casual. The smoke from her cigarette curled into the air, but she didn’t take a drag immediately—she was eyeing you, as if deciding whether to approach.

You didn’t make any move, just took another slow drag from your own cigarette, watching her from the corner of your eye.

“Can I join?” Ellie’s voice was rough, a little too slow, but she made her way over, unceremoniously leaning against the brick wall beside you.

You exhaled, the smoke curling into the cold night. “It’s a free world,” you said flatly, not bothering to acknowledge her much beyond that.

She nodded, as if to herself, and then lit her cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating her face in a flickering moment of vulnerability. She dragged deeply, her eyes closing for a brief second as she exhaled, the cloud of smoke mixing with the night air.

You couldn’t help but glance at her—she was wearing the same loose grey hoodie, her glasses perched just so, like they had always been a part of her signature style. The jeans she wore hung too loosely on her frame, the sign of someone who had lost more than just weight. The way her hands shook slightly as she took another drag was a stark contrast to her usual confident facade.

The quiet stretched between you both as she smoked, and you weren’t sure if it was the booze or just the weight of everything, but Ellie spoke up again, her voice softer now, too soft.

“Sometimes I think I fucked up more than I thought,” she said, her gaze fixed on the ground.

You didn’t reply right away. Instead, you took another drag, letting the silence hang, thick and heavy. She had this way of saying things she didn’t really want to say—things she thought she could bury under the weight of her act, but here she was, practically inviting you to take the shot.

Ellie looked back at you, meeting your eyes briefly before quickly looking away, uncomfortable again. "I didn't mean for it to go this way," she muttered.

You couldn’t stop yourself from smirking. “No one ever means it,” you said coldly, flicking the ash from your cigarette into the grass.

Ellie’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond. She just took another drag, trying to keep it together, though it was clear her mind was somewhere else entirely.

You couldn’t help the satisfaction that crept through you as you watched her like this—so far from the confident, untouchable girl who used to walk around like she owned every room. Watching her crumble, piece by piece, had always been more satisfying than you'd ever care to admit.

“Well,” you said, voice almost light, “at least you’re consistent in how much of a mess you are.”

She flinched at that, but didn’t retaliate. Instead, she just stared at her cigarette, the smoke curling upward, her shoulders slumping a little more with each breath. You didn’t care to pretend you cared about her sadness. It was better this way. She’d made her choice.

You finished your cigarette first, tapping it out and flicking it into the yard. "Have fun with that," you said with a sneer, before turning on your heel and walking back toward the house, the sound of the door closing behind you louder than any of the bullshit you’d just walked away from.

You didn’t see her again at the party, at least not until later when you were waiting for a cab, conveniently she was too. You were standing near the curb, scrolling aimlessly through your phone, ready to call it a night. The air had cooled further, and the sounds of the party were slowly becoming a distant hum. That’s when you spotted her—Ellie, standing just a few feet away, looking like she was trying to make herself small despite being too tall and noticeable.

She didn’t see you at first, and you almost considered pretending you hadn’t noticed her. But then, as if the universe had other plans, she glanced in your direction. Her eyes flickered for a moment, just a brief flash of recognition before she looked away.

You started to turn your attention back to your phone when the cab you’d called pulled up, but then Ellie surprised you. She was already walking toward it, the same cab, as if fate had decided to throw one last curveball.

Her eyes met yours again as she reached the door, and she hesitated for just a moment before saying, “You waiting for a ride too?” Her voice had a touch of awkwardness, like she wasn’t quite sure if she should even ask.

You paused for a second, then shrugged, stepping closer to the cab. “Guess so,” you replied, your tone flat but not unkind. You didn’t really feel like arguing, and she clearly wasn’t going to back down.

It was too late to back out now, so you both climbed into the backseat, the door shutting behind you with a soft thud. The car started moving, and for a moment, the silence was just as thick as it had been when you were standing outside.

The ride was quiet, the kind of silence that felt thick with unspoken words. Ellie sat beside you, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her face illuminated only by the dim glow of the streetlights passing by. You could feel her tension, the way she fidgeted with the hem of her hoodie sleeve, clearly trying to fight off whatever thoughts were eating at her. You didn’t bother to break the silence, letting the hum of the car’s engine fill the space between you both.

When the cab finally pulled up in front of your new apartment building, you were already reaching for the door handle, ready to escape the awkwardness. But before you could step out, Ellie surprised you again. She unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed the door open too, stepping out of the cab at the same time you did.

You blinked in confusion as she closed the door behind her and walked toward you, her pace slow but determined. “I’ll walk you to your apartment,” she said, her voice firm but not unkind. It almost sounded like a statement rather than a suggestion, like it was something she had already decided in her head.

You stared at her for a moment, trying to process what she was saying. It wasn’t like Ellie to make such an offer, not after everything that had happened. You were about to ask her what she was doing when she tilted her head slightly, looking at you with a mix of resolve and something else—vulnerability, maybe.

She didn’t wait for your response, already starting to walk toward your building. You found yourself following her without thinking. There was something about the way she was acting tonight, something different than the reckless, unbothered Ellie you were used to. You couldn’t quite place it, but for some reason, you didn’t protest.

It felt almost like a routine, walking beside her in the quiet of the night. The distance between you wasn’t much, but it was enough for you to feel the strange tension in the air, the unspoken words hanging between the two of you.

The elevator ride up to your floor felt like an eternity, the space between you both growing with each passing second. Ellie was unusually quiet, her hands shoved deep in her hoodie pockets as she stared ahead, her lips pressed together in a line. You couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or something else, but she seemed more... guarded, like she was holding herself together by a thread.

You were about to say something when she spoke, her voice low but pointed. “You know, you’re not as over this as you act.”

The words hit you like a slap in the face. You snapped your head toward her, eyes narrowing. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, but the edge in her voice was unmistakable. “Just saying. You act like you don’t care, but I’ve seen you watching me tonight. You don’t fool anyone.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open, but neither of you moved immediately. You could feel your heart beating faster, your temper flaring. “I don’t care? You think you know me? You’re the one who left, Ellie. You don’t get to make assumptions about me now.”

She rolled her eyes, her usual sarcastic smirk creeping onto her face. “Oh, please. Don’t act like you didn’t move on. I saw you at that party, having the time of your life with your little friends.”

That did it. You stepped toward her, your voice rising. “You don’t get to act like I’m the one who moved on too quickly. You don’t know what it’s been like for me, and frankly, I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Ellie’s expression shifted, and for the first time that night, you saw something softer in her eyes. But before you could process it, her tone sharpened again. “I never said you owed me anything, but I didn’t expect you to throw it all away like I meant nothing.”

“Stop acting like this is all my fault,” you shot back, your voice barely controlled now. “You pushed me away. I had no choice but to move on, Ellie. You made sure of that.”

The argument hung in the air, thick and tense. But before you could say another word, Ellie closed the distance between you, her breath warm against your skin. In one swift motion, she cupped your face, pulling you in. You didn’t fight it. The anger, the hurt, all of it seemed to melt away in the heat of the kiss.

It was raw—desperate even. Her lips were hungry against yours, and you kissed her back, your hands coming up to tangle in her messy hair. It felt like everything you’d been holding back, every word you hadn’t said, was pouring into that kiss.

But as quickly as it started, reality crashed back in. You broke away, gasping for air, your heart pounding in your chest. Ellie stood there, her face flushed, eyes wide with the same shock as yours.

You stepped back, shaking your head. “This... this doesn’t change anything, Ellie. Just go home.”

Her gaze softened, and you could see the disappointment in her eyes. But she didn’t argue. She simply nodded, turned, and walked away.

You stood in the cold, the echo of her footsteps fading down the hallway as you finally unlocked your door. The kiss lingered on your lips, but it wasn’t enough to make you forget why you had to push her away. Not now. Not like this.

A few days had passed since that night, but it felt like everything from then had been a twisted joke you were still trying to figure out. You weren't sad about the breakup; no, that ship had sailed. You were pissed that you’d ended up making out with her—Ellie, of all people—after everything.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. You weren’t supposed to let her back in. And yet, there you were, rolling around with her in the elevator like some lovesick idiot. You had to keep telling yourself it was a mistake—a moment of weakness, a lapse in judgment. But you couldn’t deny the satisfaction that came with seeing Ellie in such a mess. The messy flannel, the loose jeans, the awkward way she was trying so hard to pretend she didn’t care. It was delicious.

You were in your room now, screaming into your pillow because, honestly, what the hell had you just done? Dina was on the bed, far too entertained by your complete frustration.

“So, you and Ellie kissed,” Dina said, her voice dripping with amusement. “Or should I say, ‘ate each other's face’?” She leaned forward, practically glowing with excitement. “How was it? Did she kiss like she still had a chance?”

You groaned into the pillow, the sound muffled. “I didn’t eat her face, Dina. It wasn’t anything like that.” You lifted your head just enough to glare at her. “She’s a disaster. She came on strong, and I was—ugh—I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

Dina was laughing so hard she almost fell off the bed. “Oh, come on. You’re so into her. I can tell. And you’re acting all annoyed, but I saw the way you kissed her. Don’t lie. It was intense.”

You sat up, scowling at her. “I’m not into her, Dina. I just... I don’t know, she pissed me off so much, and then bam—we're making out like idiots. But it’s not like it meant anything.”

Dina’s smirk didn’t fade. “Right, sure. Whatever you say, but I bet Ellie’s loving it right now, huh? She’s probably regretting her whole life choices while you’re sitting here getting off on her misery.”

That hit a little too close to home. You were enjoying the way she was falling apart. Seeing her so wrecked, so desperate to hold on to something that had already slipped through her fingers—it was delicious. Karma had never tasted so sweet.

You flopped back onto your bed, rolling onto your back with an exaggerated sigh. “She looked pathetic, Dina. But it’s like—ugh, I don’t know. Seeing her like that... It was so perfect, you know? She’s this whole mess, and I’m over here just... thriving.”

Dina raised an eyebrow at you, clearly enjoying the way you were reacting. “I get it. You love watching her self-destruct. It’s like everything she put you through is finally coming back around. But you’ve got to admit, kissing her like that—it’s got to mean something.”

You shot her a glare. “No. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just enjoying the fact that she’s miserable now. She thought she could walk away, but now she’s the one suffering, and I’m just... here for it.”

Dina grinned, clearly not buying your act. “You can try to act all tough, but I see you, dude. You’re not as over her as you think.”

You groaned and buried your face back into the pillow. “Just drop it, okay? I don’t need to hear your analysis right now.”

Dina’s laugh rang through the room, making you just a little more annoyed. “Fine, fine. But you’re so into her. Don’t even try to deny it.”

The rain pounded relentlessly against the window as you stepped out of the shower, steam curling in the air around you. Dressed in a pair of pajama shorts and a matching top, you walked into your room, ready to collapse into bed and lose yourself in mindless scrolling or random videos.

But before you could settle in, a soft knock at your door froze you in place.

You sighed, already dreading who it could be. Opening the door, you found Ellie standing there, drenched from the rain. Her auburn hair stuck to her face, and her usual cocky confidence was replaced by an almost hesitant shuffle.

“Can I come in?” she asked, her voice low and thick with something unspoken.

You crossed your arms, glaring. “What do you want, Ellie?”

She hesitated, her eyes flicking to the floor before meeting yours. She looked out of place, like she didn’t belong here but couldn’t stay away. “Just... please.”

You stared her down, letting the silence linger until it became unbearable, then stepped aside reluctantly. Ellie walked in slowly, dripping water onto the floor as she fidgeted with her hands. She always did that when she was nervous.

Closing the door, you leaned against it and crossed your arms again. “Well? Spit it out.”

Ellie’s shoulders tensed. She avoided your gaze for a moment, exhaling sharply before finally looking at you. “I miss you,” she said, her voice quiet, almost trembling.

A laugh escaped you, sharp and cold. “Bullshit. You have a girlfriend, Ellie. Why the hell are you here?”

“I know,” she replied quickly, holding her hands up as if to defend herself. “I know, but… she’s not you. No one has ever made me feel like you do. I miss you. Please.”

Your heart clenched, but you buried it under your growing frustration. “You’re unbelievable,” you said, your voice cutting. “You’re with her now. What’s her name again? Oh, right, the freshman who follows you around like a puppy on a leash. Does she know you’re here, begging me for crumbs?”

Ellie winced, her cheeks flushing. “It’s not like that,” she said, her voice barely audible.

“Isn’t it?” you shot back. “You’ve got her wrapped around your finger, Ellie, and now you want to come crawling back to me because you’re bored or because she can’t give you whatever it is you’re looking for. Do you even hear yourself?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore!” Ellie snapped, her voice breaking. “She’s not you. She’ll never be you. I need—”

“You need to leave,” you interrupted, cutting her off. “Go back to your little puppy. Play house. Whatever it is you do with her.”

Ellie stepped closer, her hands trembling at her sides. “I don’t want her,” she said, her voice softening again. “I want you. Just… just one night. Please.”

You raised an eyebrow, a cruel smirk tugging at your lips. “You think one night is going to fix this? After everything? You’ve got some nerve, Ellie.”

“I don’t care,” she said, desperation lacing her words. “I don’t care how much you hate me right now. I just—please, I miss how we used to be. I miss you.”

You let out a bitter laugh, stepping closer to her. “If you want me that badly, prove it,” you said, your voice sharp and unrelenting. “Beg for it, Ellie. Get on your knees and show me how much you miss me.”

Ellie’s eyes widened, her lips parting in shock, but she didn’t hesitate for long. Slowly, she sank to her knees, her trembling hands resting on your thighs. “Please,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I’ll do anything. Just… let me stay. Just for tonight.”

You tilted your head, looking down at her with mock pity. “Is this what you do when things don’t go your way? Crawl back to me while your girlfriend waits at home, none the wiser? Pathetic.”

Ellie flinched but didn’t move, her grip on your thighs tightening. “Say whatever you want. I don’t care,” she said, her voice shaking. “Just… please, let me stay.”

For a moment, you let the silence hang heavy between you, the sound of rain pounding against the window filling the room. You could feel her desperation, her raw need, and—god help you—it made you feel powerful.

Finally, you leaned down, tilting her chin up with your fingers so she had no choice but to meet your gaze. “You don’t deserve it,” you said, your voice low and cruel. “But I’ll give you what you want. Just this once.”

Ellie’s breath hitched as you leaned in, capturing her lips in a kiss that was anything but gentle. It was rough, desperate, and laced with all the frustration, hurt, and longing that had been simmering between you for months.

Her hands slid up your legs, pulling you closer as she kissed you back with equal fervor. It was a mess of emotions—anger, desire, and something neither of you dared to name—but for now, it was enough.

When you finally pulled away, both of you breathing hard, you stared down at her, a smirk playing on your lips. “Get up,” you said, your tone sharp but teasing.

Ellie stood, her eyes never leaving yours. The night was far from over, and you both knew it.

A sly grin tugs at Ellie’s lips as she watches you sink into the couch, legs splayed wide. Her hesitation lasts only a heartbeat before she steps forward, closing the space between you. Without breaking eye contact, she lowers herself onto your thigh, her breath hitching as she settles in, the tension crackling between you like a live wire.

Her body sinks into yours as if she’s trying to melt away the distance between you. Her arms coil around your neck, fingers threading through the hair at your nape. She starts to move, a slow, deliberate grind, her breaths hot against your skin. Her voice, soft and raw, spills into the hollow of your neck like a confession wrapped in velvet. “God… I missed you so much,” she murmurs, the words trembling with a teasing ache, her desperation weaving itself into every shift of her hips, every flicker of heat that blooms. 

She tries to press her knee against you, sliding between your legs with a boldness that only fuels your frustration. But you’re quicker, pushing her back with a firm hand. “No,” you bite out, your voice cold and unyielding. She doesn’t get to have this her way—not after everything. She doesn’t deserve to touch you, not until you decide she’s earned it.

When you shove her knee away, a soft whimper escapes her lips—fragile, pleading, yet laced with determination. She leans closer, her breath warm against your skin as she murmurs, “Let me touch you, baby.” Her voice trembles, a delicate mix of desperation and longing, as if she’s begging for permission to worship what she knows she doesn’t deserve.

You tilt your head, locking eyes with her, your expression cold and unyielding. Her desperation clings to the air between you like a suffocating fog. “You don’t deserve to touch me,” you say, your voice low but cutting, each word sharp enough to pierce through her resolve.

Her breath hitches, her hands faltering where they’ve dared to rest on your thighs. “Please,” she whispers, her voice breaking just slightly, the word hanging in the silence like an offering.

You lean forward, closing the distance just enough for her to feel the weight of your presence without granting her the satisfaction she craves. “You don’t get to beg for what you threw away,” you add, your tone cruel, though the flicker of heat in her gaze tells you she doesn’t hate it. If anything, she leans into it, her fingers curling tighter against your legs.

“I’ll make it up to you,” she says, almost breathless, her voice trembling with urgency. “I’ll do anything. Just—”

“Anything?” you interrupt, your lips curling into a slow, taunting smile. “You really think anything will erase the mess you made? You want to earn this? Then prove it. Show me how pathetic you can be.”

Her cheeks flush, her eyes dropping to the space between you as though she’s already considering how far she’ll go. And when she looks up again, there’s a spark of something reckless in her gaze—something that says she’s willing to sink lower if it means she can have even a fraction of you.

She knelt on the ground, her hands bound behind her like a captured bird, the belt tight against her wrists. You moved around her slowly, like a predator circling its prey, the tension in the air thick enough to taste. Her eyes flickered to you, but her body remained still, the soft rustling of fabric the only sound as you drew near.

Every bone in your body screamed at you to walk away, to resist the urge, but seeing her—especially earlier, drenched in rain, her eyes pleading for your touch—was a temptation you couldn't ignore.

You’d moved past her. Moved past everything. She was a lousy girlfriend then, and nothing had changed. Now, she had a new girlfriend—if you could even call that wide-eyed freshman a girlfriend. More like a puppy, really. But seeing her, broken and desperate, begging for what you used to give her? You couldn’t help yourself. You were going to make her feel everything she did before—and then some.

It was a striking thing, seeing her so completely at your mercy. She used to be the one in control, always dominant, always pushing you around—and you, you let her. But not anymore. Not now. Now, the tables have turned. She needed you, not the other way around, and you made sure she understood that. With a sharp tug on her hair, you forced her gaze to meet yours.

With a slow, deliberate motion, you used your foot to spread her legs wide on the cold ground, ensuring her gaze stayed locked on you. 

Ellie's breath catches as you spread her legs, the motion bold, deliberate—sending a shudder through her that you can almost feel in your own chest. She glares up at you, but now there's something else in her eyes—something uncertain, a crack in the defiance. Ellie licks her lips nervously, her usual bravado slipping away like a mask, leaving her raw and exposed in a way that stirs something in you. This isn't the Ellie you once knew, and that makes everything so much more... thrilling.

Her heart races as she feels your foot firmly press against her center through her jeans. Her eyes widen in shock and humiliation, but she can't help the way her body responds. Her breath catches in her throat as you maintain eye contact, dominating her completely.

Her face burns with embarrassment and arousal, but even she can't deny the heat building between her legs. "Fuck-" she whispers harshly, trying to maintain some dignity despite her vulnerable position. Her legs want to close, but your foot presses harder, keeping them firmly apart.

"Please, let me touch you, baby... That’s all I need..." Her voice trembles, low and pleading.

You chuckle darkly, the sound low and dangerous, before replying, "I told you, Ellie... you don’t get to touch me."

Ellie's lips part in disbelief, a frustrated whimper escaping as she realizes the cruel game you're playing. Her body aches to touch you, but your cold words remind her of the power she's lost. She glare up at you, her eyes flashing with mingled fury and desperate need.

Ellie's teeth grind together as she fights back a groan, your cruel denial stoking the flames of her arousal higher. 

“Stand up.” You commanded

Her legs tremble slightly as your foot leaves its intimate position, leaving her feeling empty and aching. She struggles to stand on shaky legs, her pride demanding she maintain some semblance of dignity, despite the obvious effect you're having on her. 

She stumbles forward, her hands reaching out to steady herself on the couch. You push her down roughly, making her sit on the edge of the cushion. Before she can react, you grab the hem of her pants and yank them down her legs, leaving her in nothing but her boxers.

She gasps in surprise as you quickly remove her boxers, leaving her completely exposed. Before she can process what's happening, your face is between her legs, your tongue delving into her soaked pussy. Ellie's back arches off the couch, a loud moan escaping her lips as you devour her.

Her hands fist in your hair, pulling desperately as she tries to pull you closer. Her hips buck against your face, seeking more contact, more friction. "Dammit, dammit," she pants, her body tensing as she tries to hold back the release you're pushing her towards.

As you continue to eat her out, you suddenly push two fingers inside her, stretching her open further. The sensation is too much, and Ellie's back arches off the couch as she screams in ecstasy. Her pussy clenches around your fingers, gushing with juice as you finger fuck her alongside your tongue.

Your fingers push inside her, stretching her tight pussy as you continue to lick and suck her clit. Ellie's legs shake violently, her whole body trembling as the dual sensations overwhelm her. She screams in ecstasy, her pussy clenching around your fingers as she cums hard, her juices flooding your mouth.

As she rides out her orgasm, you don't let up, continuing to eat her out and fuck her with your fingers. When she finally starts to come down, you add a third finger, scissoring them inside her to stretch her pussy even further.

The combination of your fingers and tongue becomes too much, overstimulating her. Ellie's vision starts to blur, her mind going blank as she's hit with an intense wave of pleasure. She screams again, her body convulsing as she experiences what feels like an endless orgasm.

“Mmm... you asked for this,” you murmur, a smirk tugging at your lips as you slowly withdraw your fingers, taking a deliberate step back. “You said you wanted me to make you feel good.”

You knew, deep down, that this wasn’t what she had in mind when she came to you, desperate for a ‘blast from the fucking past’. But that’s exactly what you intended to give her—whether she was ready for it or not.

The next day, the news came—she and her little freshman had broken up. You didn’t need the details; you already knew how it went down. It was always going to end like this. She’d come crawling back to you, driven by some half-baked nostalgia, thinking she could reclaim something that was long gone.

But she was foolish if she thought you’d take her back. That door had closed, and she had no one to blame but herself.

After class, you glance at your phone. A single message from Ellie: "Can we talk?"

You pause, the weight of her words settling in. She thought this was some simple conversation—someway to undo what had been done.

You don't rush to reply. Instead, you let the silence stretch. When you do finally respond, it's deliberate, cold: "What’s there to talk about?"

Her reply comes quick, desperate: "I need to explain..."

You smile to yourself, a small, satisfied thing. She needed to explain? There was nothing left to explain, but you knew what she wanted. She always did, didn’t she?

You meet her at the old usual spot, a dimly lit corner outside the café where you used to sit and talk—before everything went to shit. The air feels thick, charged with the weight of what happened, and Ellie stands there, fidgeting, her eyes on the ground.

You take your time walking toward her, letting the silence hang between you before you speak.

“I’m listening,” you say, your voice steady, almost too calm for the storm brewing beneath it.

Ellie looks up, her face flushed, eyes wide with that familiar desperation. She takes a step forward, her voice shaky but insistent. “There has to be something, right? After what happened… after that night… You made me feel something again. You made me feel so good. That has to mean something.”

Her words hang in the air, and you almost feel sorry for her, but the truth is, you don’t. Not anymore.

Ellie swallows, her gaze softening as if she’s trying to pull you back into the past. “You still love me. You have to. I know you do.”

You stare at her for a moment, allowing the silence to stretch uncomfortably before your lips curl into a cold, empty smile. “Love you?” you say, your voice low, almost mocking. “No, Ellie. I don’t love you.”

She flinches at the words, her eyes searching yours for something—anything—that would contradict what you just said. But there’s nothing there.

“You think I did this because I love you?” You shake your head, the laughter that follows bitter. “No. I did it because it felt good. Seeing you beneath me, broken, desperate—it gave me something I didn’t know I was missing.”

Her breath catches, and for a second, you almost feel the weight of her confusion, her shock, but you push it aside.

“You want to get back together?” you ask, the words dripping with disdain. “You’re pathetic, Ellie. You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

She tries to reach for your hand, but you step back, coldly rejecting her touch.

“No. You’ve had your chance. You don’t get to come back and rewrite what’s already been done.”

Low and behold, like the asshat she was, you'd heard from Dina how Ellie had been talking shit about you—spinning stories about how cruel you were, how you had used her, how you made her feel worthless. Typical Ellie, always turning herself into the martyr. Always blaming someone else for her own mess.

You hadn’t been surprised when Dina had spilled the details. You knew Ellie. She was the type who would do anything to make herself feel like she hadn’t been the one left behind, the one who hadn’t been able to make things work. The truth was, Ellie wasn’t strong enough to face what she had done, to admit that she had come crawling back to you, begging for something that she could never have again.

She couldn’t stand the thought of losing control over you. It was always about that. But now, that power was gone. She didn’t get to walk away from this with her head held high. No, she had made her bed. And you weren’t going to lie in it with her anymore.

You’d already heard her excuses, the things she’d said to Dina, how she made herself out to be the victim. And as much as it pissed you off, you weren’t surprised. This was Ellie’s game. It was always her way or no way. But you knew better than to get dragged back into her toxic cycle.

You remembered that night—the way she had begged, the way she had been so desperate for something, anything. But what had she really wanted? To feel wanted again? To feel like she still had some hold on you? To make herself feel better about all the times she’d walked away from you, played you like a fool?

Well, now, she was just another piece of your past. She wouldn’t go away. But you were done.

Even after everything, she kept finding ways to crawl back into your life—whether it was through casual texts, uninvited visits, or her half-hearted attempts to rekindle what was lost. She couldn’t just accept it. Couldn’t just walk away like she had all the power in the world. But you were done.

She kept telling herself that you’d come back. That you’d always come back. She couldn’t fathom that there was no room for her in your life anymore, no place for her desperate pleas to fit in. It didn’t matter how many times she tried to make herself the center of your world.

And yet, she wouldn’t go away. Not entirely.

Even now, you could feel her presence lingering, like some shadow that just wouldn’t dissipate. You weren’t sure what she expected from you, or why she kept thinking this twisted version of “us” could work, but there was no denying it. Ellie wouldn’t just let you move on. She had to cling to the past because, for her, it was all she knew.

But you? You were done. You weren’t going to chase after her anymore. You wouldn’t keep playing her game.

You couldn’t make her disappear, but you could walk away.

[verstappen100]

An ongoing Daniel Ricciardo video collection ❤️🍯🦡☀️

adding links to vimeo and youtube finds (under the cut, so it'll update reblogs as I add more links over time!)

hello!! This is definitely not a comprehensive list, mostly filing under things that are just new to me as a more recent fan! it's cool when I stumble upon a vid I haven't seen or one I recognize from a gif set! so I'm adding them in a list of links here in case anyone else is curious ❤️ some are like 30 second commercial spots & others are longer interviews, most so far from 2014-2020 🎥🎤✨

okay allons-y!!

Sourced from Vimeo

not chronologically organized (yet!) so I've just added the upload date atm for a date approximation; have yet to look into all the uploading accounts, too, so there is definitely way more out there to see!

📍Update 01-01-2025:

Btw if you click a link in the tumblr app and it shows a tumblr page saying "There's nothing here" sadly many of the vimeo links are not redirecting correctly atm 😭

the videos are still up and available (thankfully!! and they can be found by searching the titles on vimeo [which are listed for each vid before the upload date part below]) but!! I will be making like a Google doc with all the links, since tumblr insists on adding this redirect bologna and I'm not tech savvy enough to know why its not working hehe 🙃 I'll be back this weekend with a fix and the new link list!

lastly here's the link for DR's brand vimeo which also has the overall site search option at the top for easy access 🔍 not linked but copy-and-pastable into Google or Safari etc: https://vimeo.com/user50821531

thanks y'all!! ❤️

update 01-05-2025 I'm sorry y'all!! I have been fighting a fever all weekend 😭 so I have yet to compile everything, but the Google doc with all the working links will be here asap!! ❤️ (update 02-02-2025 omg I'm taking 5ever! Sorry y'all, I've not forgotten, life has been hella busy but I'll be adding all the vimeo links to a file soon!! Thanks for being so patient with me! hope everyone is well!! ❤️)

definitely starting with the dozens of videos on DR's official brand Vimeo (which has the delightful Sunday Night Flights series of casual post-race recaps) link

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen paint Aston Martins in Hosier Lane - Uploaded on Mar 21, 2018 - link

Daniel Ricciardo - T Magazine Aus BTS spot - Uploaded on Jan 14, 2023 - link

Ricciardo, favorito para el GP de Singapur - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2016 - link

Red Bull - Camper Race BEHIND THE SCENES | Max Verstappen und Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on May 29, 2017 - link

Red Bull InFrames - Singapore GP with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives Renault Clio - Uploaded on Jul 24, 2014 - link (ah the image in the collage above is for the other Clio commercial linked below and vice versa!! I got them mixed up when adding screenshots hehe. Pobody's nerfect)

Daniel Ricciardo | Race Service (parallel parking with some slightly haunting editing) - Uploaded on May 22, 2022 - link

Season Break - Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 30, 2020 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Hilton - Uploaded on Feb 7, 2023 - link

Optus TVC Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2024 - link

Fox Sports - I Am Daniel Ricciardo (bananas editing /positive) - Uploaded on Apr 9, 2017 - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD: DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Opener - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 (I have yet to watch the full documentary!) - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD- DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Preview 2 - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 - link

Daniel Ricciardo: Uncut (😳🥴 sorry mind in the gutter, this is a longer interview tho!) - Uploaded on Sep 17, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo Feature - Uploaded on Mar 28, 2018 - link

Renault Clio I Ricciardo I Augusto Gimenez Zapiola - Uploaded on Sep 3, 2020 - link

Sky Sports Ident - F1 - Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 5, 2018 - link

PIRELLI: DANIEL RICCIARDO P ZERO WORLD - Uploaded on Aug 12, 2016 - link

C4F1 Daniel Ricciardo Interview Australia 2019 - Uploaded on Mar 20, 2019 - link

Daniel Ricciardo_comp_1005 - Uploaded on Dec 11, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Artura - Uploaded on Feb 10, 2021 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives the Triple Eight Project Sandman V8 Supercar - Uploaded on Mar 16, 2016 - link

Red Bull Racing x PUMA USGP Launch at Austin Speed Shop - Uploaded on Mar 7, 2017 - link

TAG Heuer Aston Martin Red Bull Racing 2018 Global Commercial - Uploaded on Jul 12, 2019 - link

Red Bull : One day in the life of Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Apr 15, 2016 - link

Carsales // Celebrity Drive with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Aug 1, 2023 - link

On_set_with_Daniel_Ricciardo.mov - Uploaded on Nov 22, 2021 - link

Castrol EDGE Daniel Ricciardo Live on The Edge - Uploaded on Jun 4, 2020 - link

Aston Martin Racing - Daniel Ricciardo vs Darren Turner - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2021 - link

Red Bull Racing Daniel Ricciardo Photoshoot - Behind the scenes - Uploaded on Sep 16, 2020 - link

Dan Ricciardo and Alissa Smith - Silverstone 2018 Interview - Uploaded on Apr 14, 2019 - link

YouTube

omg I have yet to properly dive into YouTube! probs this section will just be as I come across things (Vimeo is much more manageable for perusing)

[2017 F1]日本GP ダニエル・リカルド&マックス・フェルスタッペン トークショー Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen's talk show - 10-08-2017 - link

Added 01-01-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo on Malaysian GP - 09-27-2017 - link

Added 01-02-2025 - Q & A with Tonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo - 08-31-2011 - link

Added 01-05-2025 - Trackwalk with Daniel Ricciardo, Korea - 10-17-2011 - link

Added 02-02-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo's "Ultimate F1 Track Layout" interview - 09-22-2016 - link

more to come soon!! ❤️ thank you for stopping by!

[luna-loveboop]

Wait...

It's November. It's November first. Yesterday was October 31st, so October is over. ...it's over. Is it over?

Inktober, artober, whumptober, flufftober, linktober, every tag ending with -tober that's been circulating for the past month... is it over? I don't know why it's just hit me but...

This matters. So I will try to get the message across, even though I'm not the best at it sometimes

Fanartists, fan writers, artists, fic writers, people making comics, every single one of you that has created art for the past month...

Thank you

This is my first October on tumblr. When I started seeing the "tober" tags, seeing the posts from artists with wips, saying they were going to make something every day to a prompt, making masterposts to update with each day, I thought "cool"

But every day this month, I have gotten on here and smiled.

And I don't mean smiled. I mean I smiled at least 20 times every time I got on the app because I saw all the art and fics. I got to see artists/writers connect stories through different day prompts. I saw people having the most brilliant ideas and creativity, flowing from their hands into their posts. I saw artists responding to continuous asks, telling them how amazing they are. I saw artists getting behind, and keeping going.

I saw Free. Beautiful. Emotional. Amazing. Original. Creative. Art.

Every day

I haven't committed to anything of this before, so I can't directly relate to what you guys were thinking and feeling. But I'm willing to guess; I think you probably enjoyed it, because most won't do such a huge project unless they enjoy it. I think you probably saw it as a challenge you were willing to fulfill, and an opportunity to grow and develop your skills.

... but I'm also willing to bet you did it for us. For people like me, who love art, but don't do this specific type, who are in fandoms, who love tracking and watching you art and sending you compliments, who take joy in your work. For the other artists (and writers!) who admire each others styles and love to learn from each other.

If anyone ever tries to tell me that humans are inherently evil again, I will strap them to a chair, pull up these posts and say look. Look at what these people did. Look me in the eyes and tell me these sorts of actions don't come from the most loving hearts. Tell me these people don't want to make others happy, that they aren't inherently good. And I will tell you you're wrong.

I have so much going on, yet somehow it slipped into my life that I was constantly looking at your art for the joy of it without me even noticing.

And how is it possible. That we have such a beautiful community of people here that we will share. And communicate. And exchange compliments. And literally do things and send asks solely for the purpose of making someone smile.

I'm almost crying by now. God I can't express it well enough! But I am so. So. Grateful

You guys brought me a month of joy! You gave headcanons, and art, and stories!

Even yesterday, Halloween, I was blown away. Because I had expected... I didn't expect anything. And then I log on and see people sending happy halloween asks, exchanging doodles of candy, and headcanons and gifs.

And some are still catching up to the schedule or whatever, and that's ok! But at the beginning of this post, when I was simply realizing it was November, I asked myself "is it over?"

Is it over?

... I don't think so. I've seen artists say they're going to continue and expand on a piece they made and especially liked this month. Some people are still continuing, catching up to a voluntary deadline. All those masterposts with your whump/fluff/link/ink tober art? I know many as well as myself will be going through, looking over your posts with smiles, catching up on some things they missed this month... it will continue in the people and artists I didn't know existed before, but now follow. In the skills and growth in creativity! In the community we've grown, and art you've made, and the art to come, at a normal rate like every other month, even if it's not October anymore!

But my artists, writers... thank you so much. I don't know if you guys know how valuable and amazing you are. How incredible it is that you exist! People say it's amazing we exist under a sky of such stars, but how incredible is it that you made a stranger on the internet smile every day! Your life is so. So. Valuable. I can't even express how grateful I am that you exist, that you somehow are selfless enough to share the most beautiful parts of yourself simply to create, and to create joy. Thank you so so much.

(And this applies to all artists, in any fandoms, not just mine. And I'm just as grateful to people who couldn't do something every day, or only one day! You still share your art, you're just as... incredible. You are incredible.)

Okay.

So I'm gonna do this, and if others want to do it in the reblogs that's great! I do not care at all about reblogging or likes, but I want to make the people that have brought me such joy some appreciation- I hope I can bring you even a smidgen of the light you have brought into my life. So I'm gonna tag all the artists/writers I know of/can think of that have done any sort of October challenge, all of you creators that have made me smile. If people wanna want to tag others in the reblogs or replies to spread love that's cool.

(Basically I don't know social customs or anything at all, so if you don't want me to tag or if I was supposed to do something different or something let me know I have no idea what I'm supposed to do)(if I like accidentally tagged someone who isn't an artist/writer or forgot someone I follow... sorry)

@skyward-floored @kikker-oma @adrift-in-thyme @blueskittlesart @zeldaseyebrows @smilesrobotlover @bahbahhh @soso-dedeck @lennsart @arecaceae175 @illcamp @breannasfluff @solarfire-art @26kabeuchi @cathianemelian @truffeart @scribbly-z-raid @uniquevoidflowers

To all the artists and writers out there: thank you so much!!! You are amazing and I'm glad you exist. Your life is precious, and you matter. Thank you so much for sharing your beauty with us, we love you too!!!!!

... yeah. Just want yall to feel loved... because you are. Again, thank you. Thank you so so much to my beautiful creators who create joy as well as art, who keep storytelling alive. Just... thank you.

:)

[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)]