#dos2 had some stuff that really liked

[plushchimera]

huh I sure do plan to play a lot of casters for someone who is using a fraction of available spells ^_^; 

[cloudmancy]

I have no desire to get you in trouble but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the new episode and the preview because I also have.. thoughts and I'm interested in what other people clocked as not great or kinda.. idk. other people's concerns, because I have had a lot of them and I never see people really talk about those things

they're doing a new format this season where they film a bunch of rp episodes in a row then take a break when there's a battle so the crew can get the battleset ready, so I understand the dissonance. but the tone of this episode from the tone of last episode was SO jarring. I was ready to chew drywall at the end of episode 17 but we head into the episode 18 fight and at the end all I can say is... damn! that sure is a battle that happened. the entire fight felt really low-stakes even though objectively a few of the bad kids were in mortal danger, but the mood at the table was so relaxed and chill and there was almost no roleplay at all... which drove me so crazy

>no rp except for fun silly party stuff (no callbacks to the adaine elven oracle in a storm thing? after all the fun setup last time??)

>fought 8 different antagonists and none of them said a word

>nobody questioned why or what oisin's grandma or all those dragon were doing there they just started taking them out one by one like raid battles in world of warcraft

>cassandra/nightmare king showed up only to not make any impact or get a single word in

>dos2 lady vengeance fight did the floating boat/ballistas/dragon fight better SMH

and then after all of that we're headed straight into ANOTHER battle episode judging by the preview... and it's against the rat grinders and porter/jace! let me out I want PLOT & DIALOGUE fhjy cannot end like this (5 hours straight of battle where they just kill everyone that moves). there's 2 eps left so I really hope they do the last ep as a 4 hour long roleplay only epilogue episode because as we've all seen ending campaigns on a battle leads to frankly really rushed character and world decisions. it's ultra disappointing too because I loved this entire season so much so far. the setup and buildup and plot points and mystery of fhjy is the best they've ever done it in dimension 20 period

ep 18 fhjy battle was a letdown to me... not giving the party an rp episode after 3 hours of loredump + going straight into a final battle without being able to interact with the world after gaining info is bad. they should've had a chance to process everything they learned about house sunstone, porter's plan, the rat grinders being used as ascension fodder, whatever the whole deal behind ambrosia and lucy frostkettle and why they needed a helios cleric in buddy IN ROLEPLAY. I don't want all this stuff explained to me after the battle by brennan or in some throwaway lines in the adventuring party - I want the bad kids to talk to people! I want them to investigate! I want fig to pull some BS with porter knowing the full extent of all his plans. it really sucks for us as an audience too to be hit with all this lore and get approximately 0 time for it to sink into the implications of how the worldbuilding was shaped by it or realizations of "ohhh that's why that happened at the beginning of the season" before we go straight into killing everyone.

with the way this is going I don't have any confidence they're gonna be able to actually empathize at all with the rat grinders too before they start lopping heads off because in battle episodes everyone kind of just. becomes numbers and an objective to take out except for pet favourite npcs of the cast. and they've mostly been interacting with the rat grinders as nuisances all season 😭 I'm PRAYING to be proven wrong and the last 2 episodes of this are fantastic but it's not looking good folks

[eri-potato]

I'm done! The last fights literally took me like fucking 5h because I am BAD at this game (I'm actually idk like medium, it's dnd, I can play it without struggling too much (contrary to DOS2) because I know 5e very well after dm and playing in it a lot. Literally was screaming on the very last fight god damn. Warning light spoils ahead, only my impressions/emotions without any actual info on what caused it exactly. I am not responsible is someone puts 2 and 2 together though. I'll give more detailed thoughts when more than like 2% of players will have finished the game. I like played 80h in an indecent amount of time.

Last warning

Aight. Some of the ending scenes absolutely wrecked me! I had a good ending and that felt fucking GREAT, I like seeing people happy. Just that nearly made me cry. Some stuff happened that made me cry and I'm still like nearly crying every time I think about it.

Here I'll adress a bit how I feel about the ending, vaguely still but a bit more detailed in my impressions. Still trying not to spoil but yknow be warned.

Unfortunately the ending is a bit rushed though, especially on the companion standpoint. I was a bit confused at my last romance scene but hey apparently some people have a bug and don't get it so at least I DID get it !! Wrapping up endings well in a game like this is challenging though, but it would be my only complaint. I would of like a bit *more* ending! The rest of the story with the companions is SO GOOD. I'll have no worries imagining the life of my bean and Shadowheart, I just would of liked to see a bit more of it hehehe.

I want to play again after a break, I have multiple ideas of characters to try other paths and all. It'll be hard not smooshing shadowheart tho because I really love her and I want to hug her so bad. Romancing Karlach will help. oh also behold the achievement I have no idea how I managed but that is the pride and joy of my playthrough because I tried very hard to succeed in this nut didn't think I'd manage or get an achievement! (secret achievement)

[lehdenlaulu]

Liveblog of Act 2 continues:

Decided to skip the Mausoleum for now and woke up Art from his little shadow nap instead. Turned out to be a good idea because now I got Halsin. Who immediately gave me all kinds of wedding vows. 😂 Okay, not really. But... guess that's just how the dude rolls. Hah.

He's also a true himbo, huh? Kind of heart, jacked as hell, dumb of ass. INT 8, y'all. Took pity on his saving throws and gave him a couple of extra points. Okay, to be fair his STR is not that impressive either, considering.

Took him to look for Oliver and he and Shadowheart immediately started insulting each other. 😂

And of course half the camp immediately started going 'ooh, nice muscles' about him. 😂

He's adorable, though. And I'm honestly still so glad for both us and Dave Jones that we got to keep him

Okay, got the romance scene with Gale under slightly better circumstances, and tried to talk him out of the whole sacrificing himself thing of course, and decided to forgo his illusions because I feel like that's what Valisa would choose. Didn't expect the fade to black, though, huh.

...but of course, I had to see the illusion version as well. His tower in Waterdeep! 🥹 The book seduction from the EA! Didn't go all the way with the illusion though because, again, Valisa prefers reality in the end. Or something as close to it as is possible in a dream.

Gods, but that little relieved, slightly incredulous laugh when you tell him you're in love with him too?? 🥺🥺🥺

Now I'm here all misty-eyed because it's all so beautiful and he's so happy and she's so happy and they're so in love and even though he's now resolved to stay alive I'm not counting on a happy ending just yet. Mystra, I swear to Ao I'll punch you in the tits yet if you pull some bullshit. 😭

"I said exactly what I meant: I love you. You should never, never doubt that." I won't. 😭

I'm really glad they slowed it down from what it was in EA because it's so much more believable now, that they're genuinely in love by this point. Especially with him telling what the deal is well before things proceed to this level. So good. 💜

...huh, I got the option to 'dump' Karlach for Gale when I talked to her?? Here I thought I turned her down the first time around?? Did the game consider me giving her a hug a romantic thing?? What is this, Dragon Age?? Okay, to be fair, DOS2 kinda did that too. Wyll at least apparently took the hint when I turned him down after the dance. So maybe it's a bug.

I mean, the game still hasn't had a proper first patch yet, lots of little things that are a little off, it's to be expected.

Anyway, think I'll end this on a happy note and do all the big stuff the next time.

[pythoria]

i finished my evil playthrough in bg3 and have 252 hours on record so i decided to take a break and play divinity original sin 2 for the first time and it's kinda funny seeing the origins of a lot of mechanics from bg3. i'd say so far that the normal difficulty in dos2 is generally easier than balanced in bg3 (which is a hot take, i know, but hear me out). maybe it's just that i got used to bg3 and turn based mechanics but i found myself very overpowered for lvl 2 compared to bg3 where in my first playthrough i couldn't kill a few scuttling brains without dying. in dos2 by lvl2 i was taking on 3-4 human characters at once and winning by a Lot. i'm assuming the game picks up though, i did hear it's harder than bg3 so maybe i just haven't seen that yet. but the small things are endearing too, like the fact that some icons for things were subsequently used in bg3 like the trap disarm toolkit, the fact that they used the same barter system, the fact that the game itself works the same exact way aside from combat (which is ever so slightly different). the controls are the same, the hotkeys are (mostly) the same by default, you have the same mechanics like sneaking but they do this hysterical thing where you transform into a boulder or bush when sneaking and i love how silly that is So Much. but yeah, a lot of things are the same in bg3, but a lot of things are much improved in bg3. bg3 has more detailed options for combat (i'm only comparing the first few hours of gameplay btw, i have no idea what late game dos2 is like) and more options in general. i found myself missing the ability to jump or disengage or the action/bonus action/movement being separate and not all ruled by one stamina currency like they are in dos2, although obviously they're not going to be the same since dos2 is its own thing (larian homebrew) and not based on dnd. some stuff i found needlessly punishing but more in a roleplay sense than gameplay wise, like the fact that a guard can permakill your cat friend out of nowhere and you can't do anything but reload if you want to keep it alive. overall i love how detailed the dialogue is, they clearly took an already amazing system and only made it better in bg3. oh yeah and the skeleton dude fane is an instant hit with me, he reminds me of astarion in that he's a bit of a bitch and really whiny but i love characters like that. if he had animations to go with his dialogue he'd be unstoppable. anyway yeah that's my initial thoughts about dos2 lol i really enjoy it so far!

[mementomoriarity]

As I get further and further into baldurs gate 3 I'm getting terrifying flashbacks to divinity original sin 2's later game issues, one of them being the fact that you end up max level and with the best equipment in the game with like, 30 hours of content left at LEAST

This games not quite as egregious with that since you at the very least only reach max level AT act 3, while in divinity 2 you unlock basically every single spell by the end of act 1, but bg3 is still making some of the same mistakes dos2 made

One mistake being the over reliance on gimmick fights; the combat system is fun, but Larian in this game and dos2 starts to realise towards the end of the game you're WAY too strong, so to balance things out they'll give you fights that surround a gimmick that mostly ignores your combat prowess. 99% of the game is gimmick fights of course (and gimmick fights can be some of the best fights in the game!!!), but because it's "late game" they feel the need to make them WAY more obtuse than they should be, i.e. annoying (that stupid haunted house for example), dos2 had by far worse examples of this, but it's still apparent in bg3

Another flaw is that the game almost wants you to pretend that you don't know you're at the end of the game? It's throwing all these huge side quests with promises of great loot and treasure and story content etc blah blah, but like....I'm max level. I've got the BEST equipment for my class (the armour literally has my classes name on it and gives me extra abilities for it) and I have a ton of gold with nothing to spend it on, I don't really care what I'm promised at this point

I just really think the game couldve benefited from making exp gain slower in the 2nd act, or giving us more levels (I don't play d&d but I know you get stupidly OP as soon as you go past 12, but I assume they still could've just spaced out the abilities and stuff from 1-12 to like, 1-20 instead)

[dathemyscira]

bg3 soundtrack thoughts

(THIS IS NOT SUGGESTION THIS IS CRITIQUE. THE GAME IS OUT. IT'S DONE)

haaaate the way legacy of bhaal is used in act 1. it's fine for zhalk on the nautiloid but i really think they needed to throw in like an act 1 absolute cultist fight or something to a. properly foreshadow the end of act 2 and b. actually get a chance to use 'legacy of bhaal' in a related fight. the minthara fight would've been a great opportunity to use it as well but i understand that with the way the goblin camp is set up, it's possible to drag minthara into a different fight if you're not careful.

also it needs to not be the combat music for some random fucking phase spiders and the smelly hag.

the main cast need their own motifs. idk when it would come up but they need them. the dos2 cast had their own motifs! i KNOW larian can do it!

old time battles (combat version) NEEDS to be used more it's SO GOOD. i can think of like TWO fights off the top of my head (w'wargaz and ketheric thorm in the oubliette)

i'm not gonna lie i think the main theme could have more of a presence too.

with the amount of buildup the cazador gets throughout the game between astarion's dialogue and his stuff in act 3 cazador absolutely should've had his own boss battle music. it's so ridiculous to me that they just recycled the thorms' combat music (which was used well otherwise!)

the mind flayer theme had a great opportunity to be used for that fight if you choose to free zevlor in the oubliette, because otherwise as it stands the player only hears it at the very beginning and very end of the game (and to be fair, it's very striking, so the player doesn't have any trouble remembering it as the mind flayer theme!)

i don't have a lot to say about the game's ambience. it's ambient

i don't have anything to say about raphael's final act either it's perfect. the instrumental plays over all of his dialogue and then u hear it again in his fight. perfection

i think a lot of this comes down to excellent composition thank u borislav slavov and mediocre direction sorry whoever the musical director was. which could be said for quite a lot of the game tbh

like there are SO MANY combats and i feel like a lot of them could be a lot more memorable and cool if just something small (like the musical direction) was a little better!

[zydrateacademy]

Current Activities in Baldur's Gate #1

Man it's been a while since I've had some stuff to say. I never left Tumblr, by the way. Just browsed and lurked my dashboard. Per my work schedule these days I spend my time at home actually playing my games rather than blogging about them. My previous spurt of all those "current activities" archives was mostly back when I was sharing a computer and playing games on Xbox. So my brother and I, depending on some variables, would be essentially trading depending on what we were doing.

But going from a 4-hour shift part time K-mart cashier to a just almost full time produce clerk leaves me less time to just post about my gaming ventures all willy-nilly.

Anyway, Baldur's Gate 3. It's good, it's great. I've spent the post-Early Access hours mostly in character creation and getting various ladies off the beginning nautiloid. There's so many classes and race combinations I want to try so another 30 hours post-EA and I still haven't seen the second act yet. This is typical for a Larian Studios game, same thing happened to me on DoS2.

Just this morning I discovered the hag's bog area which I never actually found in EA but it was probably there. There's just so many goddamn things to do.

I plan on posting some screenshots but this is a bit of a rush-post before a workshift. I need to look up what Tumblr's guidelines are on titties these days because one of my two main characters is rather skimpy. My asshole warlock tiefling who basically has ideations of nudism, but she is still a warlock so she has a skirt and belts to carry her stuff. And a hood because it's spooky and she likes spooking people. But in camp it's all nude and she doesn't give a shit. Weighs her down.

I do at least have a headshot of her that's SFW.

She's cool. Wish the runic tattoos were all over her body.

Because I've spent so much time in character creation, my next post will be more in-depth with my various characters and my general plans with them. This includes both Dibbe and Kiur Kenneth, two of my long-time characters I typically play on a variety of games. If there's a lizard available, I'm absolutely going to be playing Dibbe again.

Odd that I never thought to do so on DoS2.

Not everyone has a screenshot available because some of them are still on the crashing tutorial ship. I get this "mood" to play certain types and right now I'm all rogue and all warlock, but I really want to play a monk because I keep finding monk-adjacent gear... which is exactly the kind of thing that I did on DoS2. I kept finding off-class gear so I'd go roll a new character with that build in mind.

Anyway the absolute scale of the game is immense. Some people have been turned off by the DnD-nature of it, the fact you can only attack once and do one utility thing and that character's turn is over. Honestly it really is not different from the action points of Fallout/DoS2, and it bears decent similarity to Xcom. Same thing on Xcom, you only had two actions or so on that as well (with some buffs with gear, tech, levelups, etc). I'd hazard to say if you liked the old Fallouts, Wasteland, Xcom... this game is still adjacent.

I'll have more to say later. Perhaps after work.

[baldinggoat]

Heyy. How's DOS2 playthrough going? I hope there are some things you like about it at least. I especially want to know your thoughts on the companions. I think there's a lot more creative freedom going into it, as it wasn't expected to be as "mainstream" as BG3. For example, I really like the design of the elves that are creepy and weird, with long necks and bark-like muscles. That might just be me though, as many people expressed dislike for the design. I wished that they made the cover art for Sebille to look like that, which unfortunately they didn't and opted for a generic elven look instead, but I guess we couldn't have everything.

I know i post negative stuff a lot but thats just bc im better at writting down criticism, but i wouldnt play it if i hated it, and i wouldnt have bought dos2, so yeah there are some things i really love about both! I like the humbleness when it comes to exploring/crafting, theres something kinda peaceful about gathering shells and finding milk and bread in rpgs. Idk. So far what i like about the writing in their games is the raunchy and dark humor, i just wish it wouldnt vilify queer-coded language/mannerisms. Like for example i loved the skeleton dude in the dungeon with the purge wand that was like “show me your...pecker” and then called ifan daddy, but i hated the one guy in the dungeon who was a sadist with the face ripper and uhhh was apparently inspired by the transphobic character buffalo bill so 🙃

I have been really really curious about how much power WotC might have over bg3 because i do feel like bg3 is “holding back” and making everything more generic when it’s coming to design and writing. I dont think common elves in dnd were ever really spectacular in design, but bg3 they do feel like “just humans with pointy ears.” It wouldve been cool if astarion had more of a silvery/blue complexion, and halsin was more dark olive one with like, leaves and moss growing on him. I also wish tieflings had a more diverse selection of demonic traits like goat pupils/legs. I do love the elves physical design in divinity (lanky and weird/alien), but i do have to point out i hate the bad appropriation of indigenous cultures for their clothing/writing. but like...thats every fantasy games problem. But yeah the weirder the elf the better honestly!!

Im barely into act 2, and i didnt realize whoever isnt in your party dies, so idk when ill get around to knowing any more about the red prince and beast. but im playing as lohse so i’m really enjoying all the wlw content in the writing for her! I even like how your able to change how she looks when you play her too! They all do look really different then the cover art, ifan is so much more tan in the game, i thought he was going to be some boring white dude with a missing/dead wife/kid but fane turning out to have the missing/dead wife/kid was infinitely funnier to me. I also really liked how sebille is sympathetic, she was the only one who didnt want to kill tarquin. I bet people were/are expecting astarion to be more sympathetic, but like...he really hasnt at all and hasnt shown any sign he will. I just think hes going to be bringing out the worst of the worst fandom, if you catch my drift? But anyway i do think your right and bg3 is suffering from being “mainstream”, i bought dos2 to sorta of look into more of larian’s writing to see what to expect and im noticing the difference right away!

[felassan]

i really hope da4 isn't co-op cause cause playing co-op games on singleplayer sucks, like idk if you've played it but divinity original sin 1 is co-op for two players and playing it alone is so bad

Hi Nonnie!

I hope not, though I think the devs know that DA is a SP game franchise and that a SP-first RPG with a strong story and good characters is what their playerbase and this niche of the market want and are interested in. They’ve made comments about DA4 saying stuff like “[we’ve been working on it] for quite a while now with an eye to what the fans love about DA” [source]. In contrast, Anthem was always intended as a social, online game. 

Haven’t played Divinity: Original Sin so can’t really comment on that. Turn-based combat and such an isometric view aren’t my thing. It sounds like the game has an interesting premise with two customizable Player Characters..? DOS2 has a big long story-campaign that can be played SP or co-op, is playing it alone any better there? I’m not opposed to something like that being an option as long as it isn’t the focus and as long as it doesn’t detract from or impact the SP design or subsequent SP experience. Baldur’s Gate had a type of drop-in and drop-out co-op iirc.

Although a different thing to drop-in/out co-op in SP, I liked DAI’s compartmentalized co-op MP, although it wasn’t as good as ME3′s. Some insight into DAI’s development from dev Luke Barrett recently explained that for DAI, most decisions weren’t made with the MP in mind and indeed instead, SP needs were dictating MP.

On DA4, there isn’t much to go on on this topic and related ones right now, info-wise. “Live service components” can be any one of a number of different things.

Schreier’s article had this to say, emphasis mine:

We’re not sure about all the details, and in fact they’re likely still being decided, as the game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumor among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description. “The idea was that Anthem would be the online game and that Dragon Age and Mass Effect, while they may experiment with online portions, that’s not what defines them as franchises,” said one. “I don’t think you’ll see us completely change those franchises.” [...]

If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself. (Diablo III, for example, is online-only on PC yet can be played entirely solo.) One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that the goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content. [source]

Only a small fraction of players stick around with a singleplayer game like DA and actually buy post-launch story DLC content, sadly. On the EA-stuff front lately, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a SP game and quite a big success, which I hope EA takes note of.

Anyway around the time of that article fwiw Casey Hudson tweeted,

Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about 'live' it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story." [source]

[blackdogblues]

i'd love to hear more about ur dos2 character and the relationships w the origin characters! initial thoughts about each other, if they end up liking each other, what YOU think each character does after the game bc the ending slides were kind of meh, that sort of thing

PREPARE YOURSELF CUZ THIS IS A LONG ONE

My godwoken is a human witch/necromancer named Alex! Her most obvious personality trait is her sense of humor--she's snarky and silly and doesn't outwardly appear to take much seriously, but beneath that she's an interesting melty-mix of a scoundrel with a spiteful streak and a family woman with a heart of gold. She started out running an apothecary with her two little sisters Rose and Ruby, who she raised on her own after their parents died of an illness. The three of them struggled to make ends meet, but were happy... until someone tried to hurt one of the girls, and Alex's source magic manifested by making him, ah, bleed pretty much all the blood he had in his body right out of his faceholes. Fun stuff. Sure enough, magisters came running, and Alex was carted off to Fort Joy, thus triggering the events of the game.

Onto her #skwad...

ALEX AND FANE

Fane is Alex’s love interest, closest confidante, and my favorite character! At first they don’t really get along very well, seesaw-ing wildly between Alex making fun of Fane nonstop to get a reaction and Fane constantly offending Alex with her, shall we say… disparaging views of the mortal species. They’re both very prideful and this causes them to clash, but at their cores they are two lonely, lost people trying to find their loved ones and save a world they didn’t ask to be made responsible for, and that’s what brings them together. Alex comes to realize that Fane isn’t just talking the talk and making herself out to be a bigger deal than she actually is, and that she actually knows her shit--and she starts to respect her for her knowledge, and to understand that she isn’t trying to be mean; she’s just stressed, alone, scrambling to put the pieces together and is dealing with an immense amount of confusion and culture shock. Fane, meanwhile, realizes that Alex isn’t just some moronic little shithead who stands for nothing and falls for everything--she’s searching for her family, too, and understands more about what Fane’s talking about re:magic and the SeCrEtS oF tHe UnIvErSe than she lets on. In each other they find intellectual equals, kindred spirits, and pretty rad girlfriends.

ALEX AND IFAN

Alex and Ifan are two peas in a pod with their gallows humor, down-on-their-luck backgrounds, and willingness to sometimes do the wrong thing to get the job done. He pretty much won her over immediately when he loosened her source collar and offered her a spot in the Kill Bishop Alexandar Party, and he also gets bonus points because he’s a little older than her and has been around the block a few more times than she has, which is something she finds incredibly soothing, as she’s gone so long trying to work things out on her own without the help of a parent or an older benefactor. She views him as a close friend and, if pressed (and pressed and pressed and pressed) would admit he’s something of an older brother to her.

ALEX AND LOHSE

If Ifan is Alex’s older brother, Lohse would be another sister. They get along FAMOUSLY and are constantly fueling the little jokes and skits the other comes up with--if Alex didn’t have her sisters to go back to, she’d seriously entertain the idea of traveling with Lohse once their adventure is over. They belong on a stage together, those two. Alex, while obviously outclassed by Lohse in this department, has also spent most of her life touched by the darker side of magic, and tries her hardest to be understanding and a grounding presence for Lohse as her battle with the demon inside her head grows more intense. She’s promised Lohse over and over again that if push comes to shove she’ll put her down, but what Lohse doesn’t know is that Alex is only saying this to comfort her. She fully intends for Lohse to make it out of this alive--no matter the cost. No matter how dangerous she gets.

I can’t talk about ending slides yet unfortunately as I’m only in Act Two (wweh) but I will definitely be sharing my thoughts as they come!! Thank you so much for the question ♥

[motheatenscarf]

DOS2 catchup thoughts, Reaper’s Coast edition because the entirety of that giant map is a fucking blur, mostly good, but my god, I did not have time to stop and talk about every fucking quest or I’d never have gotten through it, it took me like.... an entire weeks as is. But here’s companion stuff that mattered that I have like, emotions about!

I really liked the quest with Sebile and Ifan where you’re going to go kill the leader of the Lone Wolves, that did a lot for unraveling the mystery and I liked that we got to reconnect with that nice blind elf girl from Fort Joy who helped!

Sebile’s backstory gets sadder and sadder the more we get revealed, apparently she’s the single most important elf in the world upon whom all elvenkind relies upon for their survival after Ifan got tricked into delivering the doomsday weapon that annihilaed the elves! 

So... yikes for both of them, her for the identity crisis, and Ifan for the crisis of conscience of realizing what he was tricked into doing by the Divine he pledged his loyalty to. 

Again, I wish the companions were more vocal and would like... talk to each other, because I’d love to hear what Sebile and Ifan had to say to each other about these revelations, but given that you can play AS these characters, maybe you have to play AS Sebile or Ifan to hear their thoughts on the other’s backstories :T

I actually got taken out of it a little bit when Ifan was genuinely surprised that Lucian knowingly unleashed the deathfog on the elves, I figured that was the reason he’d lost his faith, and it made him seem... a lot more naïve than was really believable, but it illustrates the point that he’s loyal and believes the best of those people he pledges his loyalty to, almost like some sort of extremely sociable pack bonding canid, so I guess I get the reason for that.

But re: believable “I fucked up” backstories and feeling REALLY BAD for characters, holy shit, Fane ;__;

I know I already spoil everything, but no seriously, spoilers re: the entire game and p much the entire Divinity series because FUCK, DUDE.

Dialogue with him and his backstory made it pretty easy to figure out that the 7 gods of Rivellon were the 7 advisors he mentioned he gave his research to, but OOF, to find out they took his research and then condemned his entire race to save themselves and remake the world in their own vain image... blows. It’s all his fault, technically, because he stupidly assumed they’d be as devoted to knowledge as he was and not take the power for themselves. He never could have fathomed a.) what horrors lied beyond the veil he discovered (surprise: it was the void), and b.) that the 7 would have turned on their own kind like that.

And now he’s utterly disillusioned and absolutely despairing and doesn’t see the point of anything because his people are all condemned to the Void and I think maybe ARE the Voidwoken?? So they’ve been turned into monsters... and he had a wife and child??????? And he keeps not mentioning them, aside to say that they always came second to his research, and I feel kinda bad continuously reminding him of them in dialogue because it seems kinda like he’s Trying Not To Fucking Think About That so as not to collapse into utter despair, and also because I’m pretty sure that’s gonna bite me in the ass! If I keep reminding him of them, he’ll only be all the more determined to undo his mistake! Which means he will for sure be dead set on becoming Divine!

And I don’t even wanna be Divine, I WANT TO KILL THE GODS, but I haven’t gotten to the point where I can craft the godkiller sword yet >:T

So if it doesn’t let me kill the gods and try to un-break the world, or at the very least let me fucking talk to Fane more, I can see this betrayal coming a mile off. It’s gonna be Solas all over again. 

And that’s fair, tbh, I don’t blame him, but GOD I wish there was more dialogue with him!!! Just the chance to talk to him and show him the world that exists as it is so he can have a chance to have an actual connection in this world. 

The point of RPGs is to make friends and kill gods, and I’m at the point where it’s pretty late in the game and neither seems to be happening and it’s a huge bummer but I’m trynna stay positive. I know for sure how to win Ifan and Sebile’s friendship (killing Alexander and The Master respectively). Here’s hoping Fane’s goals align with mine and he’s down to kill all gods. Cuz if he’s not that’s gonna suck. 

[kunstpause-archive]

2019 Writer’s Round-Up

@elveny tagged me in this and I have an equally hard time calculating things like word counts. There was a time when I kept track of it almost religiously but that somehow stopped sometime in 2018. It’s especially useless when writing so many things together - there are chapters by now where I honestly can’t tell anymore who wrote what paragraph. Plus we edit each other... It’s hard! But I’ll try my best. 

tagging @curiousthimble​ @captainderyn​ @tishinada​ @illegiblewords​ @midnightprelude​ @anchanted-one​ @defira85​ and everyone of my followers who is a writer - I always forget someone bc of squirrel brain - please don’t feel excluded and feel free to tag me back

Word count

So this is going to be a bit of an estimate.

I saw from Julie’s post that we have written about 422821 words so far on our long fic - some of it is obsolete by now bc we re-did so much and some of it is in very early planning.

And apparently we’ve written another 134024 words for our DAI OT3 Adriene Hawke/Amara Lavellan/Iron Bull and for the Hawke Twins in Skyhold. We actually had a quite laid out plan for that story and I love what we have so farbut we changed soooo much in den DA2 story and went into different directions with basically all characters that we will have to redo most of this when the time comes... (A reason why we both promised ourselves to write more chronologically - we got tired of rewriting our own stuff constantly...)

On my own I did some AU stories (namely the coffee shop au (10k) to the DA2 story and a crime/spy au (currently 60k) which I have stopped posting bc I need to change something towards the very end and I kinda feel I need to redo more chapters before that slightly as well. It is almost finished though. I guess it has about 4-5k words missing and is on my to-do list for 2020).  I also re-wrote a part of my DAI story, We overcome the night. (Inquisitor/Iron Bull) which is basically a small prequel for that DAI story with elveny. (35k)

Then I started an swtor story that isn’t published yet that sits at 10k

And I dipped my toes into some Dos2 and FFXIV (the latter one isn’t really published yet, also it isn’t done.)

Together with prompts and the fictober bits and small things here or there I think the stuff that I wrote on my own sits at about 200.000 words, give or take. together with the shared stuff I’ve written somewhere between 450.000 and 500.000 words this year in total.

Number of smut scenes

I wanna say “not that many” but then I went an had a look... About 25 - not all of them published yet.And most of them are very story driven, there is only a handful for the smut itself.

New things I tried this year

I went into the realm of Coffee Shop AUs for our DA2 story. And I had loads of fun with it. A follow-up for the DAI characters and a sorta side story for my Warden/Leliana OTP from DAO is loosely planned. Elveny wrote a very sweet roomate au in the same setting. (We can’t even AU on our own!)

I tried out some horror and psychological stuff in our Fictober AU as well as wrote quite a few different characters for the first time.

And I went into totally new fandoms this year, namely Dos2 and FFXIV. Though especially with FFXIV it feels sorta like tip of the iceberg. I will definitely plan and write more for that.)

Favourite thing I wrote this year

This is really hard. Because I am really happy about several things. But a few that I am especially fond of:

This short fic about Fane from Dos2

This chapter from the Fictober AU where I went totally out of character from my own writing both style and topic wise

This little fan-fanfiction I wrote for @elveny ‘s Lyssa (again, experimenting with another style)

Favourite fic I read this year

Family is what you make of it by @elveny - It was so sweet an humorous - I adored every minute of it

The wrong Warden by @curiousthimble - I am still not caught up bc I had a period of about 3 months where I couldn’t concentrate on reading anything but I am more than halfway there and I love this story. The characterisations are so spot on and the dynamics between the characters are wonderful. Not to mention a really great and interesting OC

Moments in time by @captainderyn - LOTRO! One of my very original internet fandoms and her stories and ocs are so damn lovely! It was surprisingly easy to get quite invested into both her ocs - the one shots range from funny and fluffy to sad and there is so much feeling in it.

Stalemate by @illegiblewords - I did not see those feels coming. Especially not with such an absolute rarepair and in a way I never even considered before. Single-handily opened my eyes to an amazing dynamic and just made me yell at my screen with emotions.

Writing goals for 2020

So many... Finally finish the crime au thingy. Write more FFXIV stuff. Continue on Precipice of Change, potentially finish it. (Which will be hard bc I love this universe a lot.) Write the very intense Tranquil AU to that universe. (Parts of it exist already) Write more for DAO. Get better and or consistent with answering prompts. (They are usually so much fun but the right headspace... you know?) Experiment more with style. Write something that makes @elveny either laugh or cry - both fine by me.

Words of Thanks

The most important ones have to go to Julie/elveny - for being my constant writing companion, for being my best friend and overall one of the most amazing people that I know. You encourage me, you give me ideas and you take my own ideas and make them better and I am so happy you are in my life! To many more years together!

Thank you for all the amazing people who beta (or have beated) for me or us. @edencalder @knallbart @curiousthimble and @cornfedcryptid as of late

And special thanks to @anchanted-one for going over something for us and for always leaving encouraging comments and @captainderyn for the really heartfelt feedback

[alxx-lee]

  I’m playing dos2 again, my first run through was me playing as the Red Prince but this time he’s my companion since I wanna see how his story progresses without me at the wheel and how a romance between Fane + Red Prince would be.

I’m not even off fort joy and already Red Prince as a companion is surprising me.

Sure he’s still an asshole that needs a good kick in the ass for some stuff he says but that’s beside the point. He’s not an unbelievable asshat all the time. He’s actually pretty nice and down to earth. He’s arrogant about his abilites not for the dumb reason that he thinks he’s good at what he does, it’s because he KNOWS he’s good and deserved the right to gloat. The difference between thinking your good at something and knowing your good at something are two different things. It implies he worked hard to get the level of mastery he has.

He’s also doesn’t believe the legend about his birth, he honestly thinks that if he wasn’t born a prince then he would have just been killed as a baby for his unique skin tone. He also really isn’t all that religious, he doesn’t buy it because he thinks those that are just hold themselves to a level of self-importance. He’s also really pragmatic about things too. You can really tell he has a mindset about practically of things. When witnessing Atusa’s execution he remarks that she was a magister and that would be appropriate punishment for disobeying an order.

And when looking into those soul jars at the vault on the island he notes sympathy for several of the individuals as well as chastises one of them for living selfishly which is the opposite of a lot of the companions had.

And with that encounter with the voidwoken Deepdweller in the marsh, he simply tells you to breathe and not to dwell on your weakness. Not to be condescending but something else. I honestly chose to see it as him acknowledging the fact that if you percieve yourself as weak then it will only be something your enemies use against you which makes sense with him.

Honestly, I was not prepared to like companion Red Prince then I already do but I suppose that’s the beauty of Dos2. The characters aren’t what you expect they’d be. Sure they fit into archtypes but they grown out of that in some way. Man I love this game.

[deadlyessencewhispers]

Writerblr Intro?

Hey everyone, I’m not a super active writerblr but I do want to become more active. I’ve written for as long as I can remember and I don’t want to give that up now. @abalonetea has been insisting I get more involved in the writerblr community, because a lot of times I only share my stuff with her - so I guess here it goes. (Reblog so I can follow you??) 1. I do love and am always open to brainstorming and helping develop and offer ideas for plots and characters. Abalonetea comes to me a lot for help with that kinda stuff, so maybe I’m good at it? (Of course I go to her too, she’s amazing). 2. I technically have a couple of current WIP projects,  (and one isn’t even a story its a game world and story I’m writing for DOS2 campaign) but I have really really old WIPs that I want to start back up and churn out because I love them and never really forgot about them one even has a book cover and 50k word crappy manuscript. But they definitely need tons of work because they’re old and from when I was less.. just less. xD A little bit about my projects: ( a lot actually)

Rising Tides

It’s actually a really convoluted, weird story about 2 assassins- I’m getting ahead of myself.

It’s set in the not too far future around 2050s and humans have pushed their limits for decades and it has resulted in abilities of sorts. People who can run super fast, or lift more than we thought possible. Bio-luminescence has even come about (did you know humans are naturally faintly bio-luminescent?) and a bunch of cool other things. No one can like throw fireballs (yet) but they could in theory create sparks or tiny flames.

But also,the world is falling apart? We’ve pushed our environmental limits for too long and the earth is literally fighting back- hurricanes, tsunamis, natural disasters galore, and diseases. Temperatures in the extremes, etc. 

Vegetarianism is the norm because its too taxing on the environment and there are too many people in the world to think about farming enough cattle for such a population?

Also those who are very spiritual have realized they’re stronger than before? The energy that flows through the earth has been granted to some individuals in hopes they will stand up and defend the planet. 

There are also dwarves that live underground; Elves that have clipped their ears to hide their identity and druids. 

Political stressors are rising and contract killing has become the norm ? So popular in fact that contract killing companies have taken up endeavors of kidnapping children to raise them as killers. That’s where our assassin MCs come in. 

SO! That’s too much info about one story. 

My second WIP is actually for Ethos the game adventure I’m modding.

It’s just something I’ll explain later I guess.. But it’s kinda cool. It has elves, dwarves, humans, lizards and undead. The undead are revered for their knowledge. Technically there is no MC because the player would get to fulfill that role (maybe I may change this up) but the main person I develop is a summoner who is the antagonist who doesn’t have a name (I think)~

Then my two old WIP I want to revive:

Dementors (with cover art)

A half shapeshifter half demon has to blend in with the shapeshifting community because he father (the leader of the demons) thinks its too dangerous for her to run with them. There’s also a crappy prophecy. The demons are actually not an evil species, but they are hunted for the magical properties of their horns. u.u They’re just misunderstood since they look evil, and intimidating. Some demon factions are actually evil though.

Either way, demons are going extinct because of the hunt. They are also typically, publicly executed when caught and/or mutilated for their horns. Though few demons live without their horns.

Elves have a couple of elemental abilities. Humans have super advanced technology in a futile attempt to stay on par with those who have powers.Nymphs exist as creatures that have powers that center on nature and growth, the seasons, water or earth elements. Seers are rare race that typically run with the demons for protection but also to help keep the species alive since their downfall could lead to all kinds of chaos in the world.

Dementors are the evil race in the story (not like HP? At least not the apperance of?). they are essentially an evil embodiment on magic. Anyone can turn into a dementor by drinking the black blood of one, or eating it’s flesh. The person then appears hallowed out leaving a husk but their abilities are strengthened and they can acquire new ones based on their old race.

Dementors is set in the world of Consreane where I created a conlang, and I uh, wanted to write short stories based on the world I had created. ;-; Demons are actually called “Lekúru” which is the consi word for demon. u.u

Villain Academy 

obviously, an academy dedicated to creating villains. 

The Academy is called Mori Arts Academy ( wink wink ).  The whole world is kept in balance by people called the Overseers, Two reign the natural world, and the other two are split between good and evil. The overseers take care of a fragile balance and seek to maintain it regardless of consequences - because if it falls out of plan then chaos and destruction will ensue.

Soul Energy

Every person’s soul energy is monitored and if it is good they are recruited to be heroes, and bad to be villains, and everyone else is just the average joe.Those who are admitted due to an exuberant level of evil soul energy are the ones who are inherently evil. All inherently evils are accepted before those of threshold level are sent their invitation. 

Anomalies During shortages of evil; If a person is not as outwardly evil (but meets the minimal evil threshold on soul energy) and they are unwilling to complete the villain academy they can be possessed, cursed, etc to be inherently evil and fulfill the balance needs.

Some are Rejected:  the rejected are a set of people who fulfill the requirements for admission into the academy but the balance of the world is not ready for them

Common Core Classes:

Manipulation/Torture Monologues Common Evil Mistakes Grouping Villains (How to work together) Spying 

[drathe]

I hope at some point, when I don't have to work so much, I can also contribute to the art community of DOS2, and I would like your advice. I want to... see shapes the way you do, if that makes sense? Whenever I try to... deviate from standard norms, like exaggerate features (because I LOVELOVELOVE stylized differences between characters) I just think it looks wrong, but you have this awesome "I can bend it THIS way" thing going and it WORKS. How do you do it? I practice, but can't seem to get it

Oh shit man, I think I’m not really the right person to ask art questions. To be perfectly honest I don’t know what the fuck am I doing and how - my style has changed so many times, from wanna-be-realistic-but-is-just-a-parody to heavily manga stylized stuff to manga-but-more-realistic, and noooow we have this, kind of comic-y shit? I kiiiind of try to look at face or body as a big ass piece of simple shapes, like triangles, squares or circles. It’s easier to bend the rules when you have those simple shapes before you.

All i know about art is that I learned stuff by watching people way better than me do it, so maaaaybe try checking out youtube tutorials? Or like, a livestreams of your fav artists? I was lucky enough to have very patient friends who let me watch and even gave me tips ( @airagitt is one of them, absolutely fantastic artist and person).

Ive also seen my other friend’s approach to art - always trying to focus on details and instead of trying to look at bodies or other forms as simple shapes, she had a hard time painting anything really. Just let yourself do the simple things. Draw faces, facial features, take references, dont shy away from being inspired by your faves. Study their art and learn through it.

For example, I had a VERY hard time drawing a turian. It was IMPOSSIBLE for me. To draw new forms, I need to practice. I tried drawing something from the reference, but it still felt wrong, so I started to give them different, easier shapes I could actually see.

Sorry Garrus! But you see it’s all simple shapes, and this could be applied to any face or any body - you just have to be patient and not give up if at the first time its not coming out like you want it to be.

I’m sorry im not that helpful but I DONT KNOW WHAT TO SAY XD