#i am So not updated i'm not okay wait help i

[lovintohatred]

— close to you

warnings: none pairing: billie eilish x fem!reader a/n: this is my first fic and is super self indulgent so sorry if it's shit 😚 only using sabrina as a fc bc it's easiest for social media but her appearance won't be referenced so imagine y/n however u'd like ☺️ also the user stillcantfindtheavacados is billie's finsta!! lmk if u guys want a pt 2 💞

yourusername

liked by gracieabrams, finneas, taylorswift and others

yourusername what a way to finish out this tour... london u were a dream 💞 thank u for all the memories we've made together on this tour, i love u all sosososo much!!! emails i can't send tour forever 💌💋

view all 7,935 comments

user1 INSANEEEE

user2 ur tour fits are always stunning omg

taylorswift pop princess ☺️🫶🏻

yourusername SHUT UP WHAT TAYLOR I LOVE U SM THANK U 😭😭😭😭😭💓💓💓💓💓

stillcantfindtheavacados prettiest girl ever what the fuck

gracieabrams it was the best getting to see u in london ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

yourusername i love u sm ☹️☹️ so glad u could make it 💘

finneas is this who you're always talking about?? @/billieeilish

this comment has been deleted

finneas such an incredible tour!!

user3 HELP AM I HALLUCINATING OR DID FINNEAS ACTUALLY JUST COMMENT AND TAG BILLIE???? 😭😭

user4 NO I SAW IT TOO ‼️‼️ AND NOT HIM TRYNA ACT LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED BY COMMENTING AGAIN NORMALLY 😭😭😭 user5 PLS TELL ME SOMEONE TOOK A SS user6 CHECK THE BILLIE UPDATE ACCOUNTS IT'S THERE

finny ‼️ - finneas

bils 🤓 - billie

bils 🤓 FINNEAS O'CONNEL WHAT RHE ACRUAL FUCK

I'M GOIGN TO KILL U

UR SUCH AN IDOIT OH MY GODDDD

WHY DID U COMMENT UNDER HER POST?????? AND TAG ME??????

this is so embarrassing i hate u

finny ‼️ BILS I'M SORRY I SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

I FORGOT I WAS ON MY MAIN AND NOT MY SPAM

it's fine though i deleted the comment!!

bils 🤓 YEAH BUT PPL TOOK A SS AND NOW IT'S EVERYWHERE U DUMBASS

finny ‼️ oh

bils 🤓 she probably thinks i'm such a weirdo ughhh

this is all ur fault

finny ‼️ I SAID I WAS SORRY

bils 🤓 WELL UR NOT FORGIVEN

finny ‼️ 😐

at least now u have an opportunity to dm her 😁

bils 🤓 shut up

liv 😚 - olivia rodrigo

y/n 😋 - y/n

y/n 😋 OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODDDD

LIV I'M ACTUAKLY HAVIGN A HEART ATTACK WHERE ARE U

FINNEAS COMMENTED ON MY INSTA POSR

BILLIE EILISH TALKS ABOUT ME

ALWAYS

I'M GONNA PASS OUT

LIV WHERE ARE YOU I'M GOINF INSANE

liv 😚 I'M HERE I'M HERE

I KNOWWW MY JAW DROPPED WHEN I SAW THE COMMENT

help him deleting the first comment and commenting again is so funny 😭

y/n 😋 FR

LIKE THEY'VE BOTG LIKED MY POSTS BEFIRE BUT RHIS IS SOOOO DIFFERENT

LIKE BILLIE TSLKS ABOUT ME

A LOT APPARENTLY

LIKE???????????????

liv 😚 u guys are so alike ur both obsessed with each other!

match made in heaven fr 😍

y/n 😋 ...olivia rodrigo pls be serious for a second bc rhis is CRAZY

like BILLIE EILISH knows who i am

oh fuck wait

what if she knows i'm obsessed with her???????

do u think she knows??? is it obvious???

it is isn't it 😭😭😭😭 she def knows doesn't she

SHITSHITSHIT SHE KNOWSSS 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

i'm gonna die omg

liv 😚 Y/N STOP

BREATHE

it's not obvious don't worry she doesn't know so u can relax and stop stressing

y/n 😋 okay ur right sorry i panicked and went a bit insane for a sec

liv 😚 a bit?

y/n 😋 ...okay a lot 😣

liv 😚 yeah ❤️

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Chapter 16

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

Hello! Another day, another chapter!

I really don't have much to ramble about today, but I am back on my tea. This is a new one from the ren faire this year- vanilla chai with sugar and milk. The cup is from the same ren faire (but purchased last year).

let's go let's let's go- I am already impatient to get into this chapter.

Last chapter we ended on a cliffhanger with Luo Binghe totally unconscious- we start this chapter with Shen QIngqiu ready to rescue his man and escape!

It's really so upsetting that he is going back to trash (two bar) spiritually energy in this body when he was so used to his mushroom Unlimited Power p65

RIP Luo Binghe's skull LOL he is really being tossed around like a rag doll. SQQ needs to be more careful. p66

MXTX said forget the only one bed trope, I raise you -> There Was Only One Coffin p67

Fuck. This is actually so scary 10/10 I would pee myself if a little skeletal arm was worming it's way into the coffin I was temporarily occupying (really anything in this book's reality would make me die of fright. as an aside I was talking to my partner about this while watching MDZS donghua yesterday, in the world of cultivators I would be a dumpling stall owner. I could never with the sword training and literal corpses). pp67-68

I CANT 'extenuating circumstances'. SQQ definitely: I just HAD to kiss his cute little forehead to save our lives. p68

i'm crying LOL "a person's abdomen is supposed to be the softest spot on their body, but Luo Binghe's was uncomfortably hard against Shen Qingqiu's stomach. The farther down he pulled him, the more he was sure that Luo Binghe had an eight-pack. Was that a rock slab down there?" p70

this keeps getting worse LMAO

OOOOO Meng Mo is back! Is it weird that I kind of love this guy? He has such a cool power and is a bit of a dick, but in the best and worst of ways. Him and Airplane give similar energy and I am not mad about it. p72

oh gosh! LBH is either "fatally ill" or "close to death" p72

wait- adding to the above point. he could also be mentally very unwell :( poor buddy -> it's likely this option. p72

so even though SQQ is processing nothing , I think SQQ admitting (not naming the feeling but admitting) that he is feeling a mess of emotions about Luo Binghe is a big step for him! p73

Meng Mo seems to have a lot of feelings about LBH. I am not sure if it's just pride or what but whatever it is he is correct here, "The way this elder sees it, he (LBH) should either kill you (SQQ) or do you!" p74

PLEASE OH NO

I AM WHEEZING

+1000 Protagonist Satisfaction Points for touching LBH's "Heavenly Pillar" p76

IM DYING OH NO

WHY IS THIS EVEN A THOUGHT IF HE THINKS HE'S STRAIGHT "He couldn't exactly help Luo Binghe jerk off under these circumstances, right?!" p76 But like if not these circumstances he is cool with doing it in other circumstances???????????

oh no! SQQ blocking the blades with his bare hand for LBH p79

Dang. the Old Palace Master has been through some shit. p80

Are we getting more of Shen jiu's story??? We have Qiu Haitang here too! p81 (just as an aside because my notes did not revisit this, we do not get more of his story just weird little hints. That I hope Shang Qinghua clears up later). p81

What a terrible combo. Old Palace master is just butthurt Luo Binghe doesn't want him as a teacher or to marry his daughter and Qiu Haitang seems to be just a vile woman with a grudge against SQQ for some reason. pp82-83

Okay but as horrible as OPM is, that cultivation he's doing with his voice is kind of cool. p85

Wait. Did the Old Palace Master have a thing for Su Xiyan? This is so fucking weird for LBH and he's not even conscious pp86-87

reading further the above point got so much worse omg :(((((((((((( I'm so upset for Su Xiyun. p87

It got even worse with the implications of what it meant for Luo Binghe in that sect. That terrible terrible man deserved that horrifying death. Fuck that guy! pp 89-90

OMG SQQ, basically half dead carrying LBH, barely got away from the death flower room, and here we have Tianglang-jun back on his bullshit. p94

SQQ is in such a bad state :o pp94-95

Is this another dime??? Our demon blood piggy bank for SQQ is now at $0.40 p97

YAY! Luo Binghe is awake! (is he going to be okay mentally though??)p 99

Why is Luo Binghe so mad? Like this man just nearly died trying to get you the fuck out of there p100

Fucking finally okay, it got better LBH is realizing what SQQ did while he was unconscious pp102-103

I'm glad they cleared that up (even though there was the other added miscommunication about LBH thinking SQQ was crying when he was actually just in a fuck ton of pain). p104

I am actually so glad that the discussion was interrupted before LBH found out about the dick touching being real LOL p108

MORE DEMON BLOOD. -> SQQ's dime bank is at $0.50

How many times does this man get kidnapped?

We really ended with him being kidnapped again and with Luo Binghe being conned by his own dad. That was so rough. -500 dignity points (not really but it sure feels like it)

[noxtivagus]

i just remembered the live letter for 6.3 comes tmrrw n i screamed

[sysig]

Goal: Be normal

Obstacle: Watching literally any interpretation of Treasure Island, apparently

[neverendingford]

.

[afterthatidontknow]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ 𝐬𝐡𝐡... 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞

pairing . Natasha Romanoff x virgin! fem! reader

summary . when she decides to make the move and discovers you had never experienced anything like that ever before, she plans the perfect way to put your fears away and get to see that side of yours for the first time.

warnings . smut! i am not responsible for your content consumption! — implied sexual abuse (from Dreykov), virginity loss, foreplay, nipple play, strap on usage, fingering, multiple orgasms, lots of praises, Natasha's incredibly hot russian.

notes . english is not my first language (🇧🇷) so i apologize for any spelling errors. feedback is highly appreciated! <3

divider credits: @anitalenia

you had been waiting for Nat to come home from the avengers compound all day. she had told you Tony was making some updates on FRIDAY and needed the team's opinion on everything, so she stayed there a little longer than the usual.

you had to admit — it was never the same without her in the house. wearing her clothes didn't help as much as you thought, neither did Liho meowing all day as if telling you she missed her.

so your eyes perked up to the door as you heard the doorknob turning, eyes sparkling at the sight of Natasha. she was smiling.

most of the times she came back from the compound she had bruises and cuts from missions, and looked down and tired. so knowing she had fun with her team made your day a hundred times better. even if it was already midnight.

"hey, kitten," she chuckles and crouches down to pick the cat up as she runs to her, immediately nuzzling against her and meowing. "i missed you too,"

"i missed you too." you say quietly, Natasha's eyes immediately following the voice. she drops her bag on the floor and runs towards you, sitting on the edge of the couch where you laid.

"hi, dorogaya!" she places her hand on your cheek and pecks your lips, coaxing a little sigh out of you. her mouth then travels to your forehead to plant a kiss there. "i'm sorry for making you wait. but it was so fun. all i could think about was coming home and telling you!"

you giggle, seeing her so enthusiastic. you shift to make room for her on the couch and she adjusts herself so you're leaning on her chest now — Liho laying comfortably on both of you. "okay. tell me!"

"so," she begins, taking a deep breath as she became selfconscious about how happy she was. "Ant Man was there, and he was struggling with his pym-particle blasters and he became very very tiny. more than he should. and then, when Tony opened FRIDAY's device, he decided to tease all of us and entered there, tickling the artificial intelligence! she pretended to laugh, and Tony couldn't understand why everything he was trying to do wasn't working."

her laugh was so sweet, so genuine, that a sense of calm washed over you, everything was okay now, you were both okay. and knowing Natasha, having her happy was the best gift you could ever have. your arms wrapped around her neck, and you kisses the tip of her nose. "i'm glad you had a great day with them,"

Natasha's lips parted as she felt the kiss, her gaze locking with yours. she realized she had finally gotten rid of that feeling that something bad could happen anytime. she wasn't alert 24/7 anymore. now, she was home. with you. "i did.. and i have you now."

she carefully picks the sleeping cat and place her on the little bed next to the couch, then returns her attention to you. her hands travel down to your waist, fingertips sliding under the thin shirt you wore. you gulp, fingers tangling in her red locks and pulling her closer.

"i have you, now." you repeat quietly, before crashing your lips on hers.

the russian immediately melts against you, a faint groan echoing from the back of her throat, the vibrations going straight to your core. she carefully lifts you up and pulls you onto her thigh, allowing your weight to rest on her. you usually didn't have make out sessions, since she was with the others most of the time, doing missions. but you wouldn't let that opportunity slide.

the tip of your tongue darts out and licks her bottom lip, a silent plea for something more. she was surprised. she didn't usually see you making the moves. her lips part fully, welcoming your tongue in her mouth, as she returns the action. her tongue mingles with yours, slowly, wanting to make the moment last, but it wasn't enough.

her hand slid up your back, pulling your chest flush against her own. you whimper as the kiss deepens, body shifting and molding perfectly with her. this was getting further than you thought it would.

Natasha broke the kiss with a small gasp, shifting your positions and carefully laying you down on the couch. her body hovered yours, and her lips trailed kisses down your face, your neck. your eyes widened — in surprise, but also in panic.

"Nat," you breathlessly whisper, weakly grabbing her shoulders to hold onto her. her lips didn't stop, only seeming to be hungrier and hungrier for you. "wait,"

"no, krasivaya, (beautiful,)" she mumbles against your skin, pulling your body even closer to her. she didn't want to stop. "just let me, please,"

you take a deep shaky breath to try and calm yourself down. you knew Natasha, and that she'd never hurt you, so this helped. you carefully took her face in your hands, and pulled her head which was tucked on your neck back. she took a great look into your eyes, and frowned. "what's up, baby?"

"nothing, it's just.." you sigh. her eyes narrow for a brief second, then, a small chuckle comes out of her mouth. damn it, she saw the soft pink creeping up your cheeks.

"are you shy?" she inquires, raising her eyebrow. you got relieved as she suddenly got off you and sat on the couch properly, pulling you onto her lap again and wrapping her arms around your waist.

"it's not that." you shake your head and look down, begining to pick on your nails.

it wasn't shyness. you just had a feeling that would lead towards sex. and not that you weren't ready, you just never had it before — other than pleasuring yourself — and Natasha didn't know that fact, until now.

"oh..." she suddenly realizes what's going on. instead of getting angry, a smile tugs on the corner of her lips again. she looks at your face for some good seconds, before wrapping her arms completely around your frame and pulling you to her chest.

that reminded her of all the times she was forced to do something she had no idea of what it was, all the times she felt scared, felt dirty, doing something she didn't want to. god, she didn't want you to feel like that. she never wanted anyone to feel like that, ever.

"are you a virgin, lyubovmoya? (my love,)" her voice sounds extremely calm and tender that it makes you a little surprised. "tell me,"

"yes, yes i am." you exhale and lean your head on her shoulder, eyes fluttering close.

"okay. do you wanna keep it like that?"

that. the question you've been most fearing. usually, if it were anybody else, you'd say no. but Natasha just made you feel so safe, so loved. you wanted to take that step further with her.

"no, i don't."

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

"just keep 'em closed,"

your soft giggle melts Natasha. her hand covers your eyes as her hand maneuvers you by your hip, inside the bedroom. she had decided to keep everything natural for you this day. no rushed things. but she couldn't be happier. you were trusting her with that.

"did you feed Liho?" you whisper as Natasha carefully places you on a specific spot on the room.

"i'm about to fuck you and you're worried about the cat?" she laughs, making you gasp. you playfully smack her shoulder.

"you!" you smile. her hand gets removed from your eyes. they immediately get dreamy at the sight in front of you.

Natasha was only in a set of lingerie. for the first time ever, you saw her. it was something she thought — in order for you to feel safe, she'd have to show you she felt safe with you herself. because deep inside, she was just another broken, insecure person.

your eyes scanned her body, trying carefully not to stare too hard, seeing the scars and marks that engraved her skin. your fingertips shyly reached for her, and she didn't stop you. in fact, her hands hovered yours as she slid them up her skin.

a quiet 'wow' leaves you, followed by a genuine smile of yours. you pull her closer, looking all doe eyed at her. "you're beautiful,"

"i wanna see you too," she looks down at you. "can i?"

"you can," you hum, raising your arms, a silent invitation for her to undress you.

Natasha's fingertips gently tug at the hem of your blouse, before pulling it over your head. you were the complete opposite of her. smooth skin, no battle scars like hers. she was quick to kneel down and tease the buttons of your jeans, wanting to see if you would stop her or not.

"please, Natasha."

she does as you ask and undo the jeans, letting them pool around you on the floor. she helps you step out of them, and hum as you're both now half naked. everything felt otherworldly romantic and.. safe. even if Natasha was trying her best not to ruin you right there, just by seeing you so soft, so.. vulnerable for her like that. she liked being in control for once.

so your eyes squeezed shut as she suddenly pressed her body against yours and pinned you back against the wall. "shh."

your breath hitches in anticipation, her fingertips slowly tracing up your spine and allowing her palm to rest above the clasps of your bra. Natasha's free hand moves up your stomach, her knee sneakingly trapping you against the wall between your legs. she tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. "let me, malyshka. (baby). i know what i'm doing, just relax."

"mhm," a little whine comes out of your throat, which makes her smile. she nods in encouragement and moves her mouth close to your ear, pressing a kiss on the spot under it.

"ya ne khochu, chtoby ty zhalel obo mne, detka, (i don't want you to regret me, baby,)" she whispers in your ear, and you have no idea of what it means. but something was right — the thin fabric of your panties felt extremely soaked right now. "so, i'll make you feel so, so good."

"please," you wrap your arms around her neck, pressing yourself closer. her skin felt better than you could have ever imagined against your own.

"i'm here." she reassures you, then carefully spins you around and lay you down on the bed. her hand that ghosted over your back undid the clasps of your bra, and tossed it somewhere else on the floor.

you're absolutely sure that it was not the cold air that made you shiver and that got your nipples hard. you gulp, breathing coming out in soft pants as Natasha's hands gently handled you, cupping your breasts as her lips pressed a trail of kisses on the valley between them. "you're gorgeous, my girl."

"you feel so good," you breathe, subconsciously leaning towards her hands. her thumb pinches your nipple as she suddenly latches on you, slowly sucking on your other breast, giving both of them the same attention. "Natasha."

the way you moaned her name, breathlessly like that coaxed a sound of her own. your fingers tangled on her hair to makeshift a ponytail, so her hair wouldn't get in the way. she released your skin with a pop and claimed your lips, kissing you like she never did before — as if trying to pour all the love she had for you in the kiss. you slowly got a handle of the whole thing. you reached up to take off her bra, and yet she didn't break the kiss. only when you got impatient, whimpering as the ache between your legs became unbearable.

"i need you," you murmur, clearing your throat, lips tingling due the intense kissing. "please, Nat. make me yours."

god, yes. she was never letting you go. not before, and certainly not now.

"i will." she says huskily. she moves, so she's straddling one of your thighs, but not putting her weight on you. "tell me to stop whenever you want to,"

her pointer finger put your panties aside and jeez, that was torturous. you didn't want that fabric there anymore. but she was teasing. but that all flew away from your thoughts when you gasped, her middle and ring finger suddenly entering your hole — thumb lazily rubbing your clitoris, all of that with one hand, her other arm resting next to your head to support her weight on the bed. you instinctively reached out to hold her arm, eyes embarrassingly rolling to the back of your head. being masturbated by someone else was so perfectly good, nothing compared to doing it alone.

"oh, my.." you coo, head falling back against the pillow as your breathing quickly got laboured.

"you like that, detka?" she asks, eyeing you down almost possessively, silently promising herself she would never allow anyone to see you like that, touch you like that ever again. she curls her fingers against your g-spot, making you nod desperately.

"yes, yes yes." you gasp once more, biting on your lip and bucking your hips up towards her hand. she could tell you were getting close, you made it obvious. "don't stop,"

"my, my princess. already gonna cum for me?" she gently teases and increases the pace, doing her best to get through your clenching walls — getting another pleasured moan from you. "that quick?"

"i can't.. can't hold it, Nat," your body suddenly shudders forward, shuddering gasps coming out of your mouth as your juices coat her fingers, as they fuck you through your orgasm. it was nothing new, yet sharing it with her was definitely something else. "fuck, fuck.."

"good job, baby." she carefully pulls your panties down and throw them aside, leaning down to kiss your forehead. "that's it. i'm so proud,"

you just laid there, feeling the whole adrenaline from the new experience, letting yourself be pampered by her kisses and praises.

"hold on," your eyes snap open as she suddenly leaves you on the bed and grab something on the closet. you could've never had imagined she had it before, nor that she'd use it with you, in you, someday. a strap on. "i'm not done with you yet."

what was supposed to make you scared, the size, just got you more excited. watching her put it on was the hottest thing you ever saw, made your heartbeat go to the moon and back. and it was already hammering since the start.

"do you want to back off from this?" she whispers, now sounding genuinely concerned. you shook your head, grabbing onto her shoulders and pulling her closer.

"no, no. i trust you." you weakly confirms and she smiles. she takes one of your legs and presses it against your stomach, knee to your chest, revealing your totally drenched cunt to her. she grabbed your hip with the other hand and positioned herself.

the first inches were just fine, but you could saw it did hurt as much as she pushed inside you. you did your best to suppress your groans, but she saw it hurt. she knew it did. "shhh.. just a little bit more."

her stomach and breasts pressed against yours and she leaned her head down close to your own, pressing her cheek against your cheek, nuzzling gently, giving you all the time you needed to adjust to the size.

you felt so.. complete. filled up, by the woman you trusted the most. your arms wrapped around her shoulders when you got ready. you were so lubricated that it didn't bleed, it was just a discomfort that was soon over. "move."

with the green light, all of Natasha's self-restraint disappeared as her hands held your hips, then she began giving you slow, tiny thrusts. to introduce you to the whole thing — which you quickly became addicted.

moans surely echoed on the room when the feeling registered. it was good. it felt amazing.

"go faster," you plea, holding her body tighter to yours as your hips tried and matched her movements.

"so eager," she hisses and quickens the pace, to a point the headboard was already hitting the wall. her strong arms hold you in place as she fucks the little remains of purity out of you. "all mine now."

the tip of the fake cock brushes deeper each time she pounds into you, as you both discover the depths of your body together, as just as this new way of coming you never experienced before.

the familiar pit in your stomach slowly built tighter and got ready to snap, and she recognized that. her hand slid between your sweaty bodies to stimulate your clit a little bit more, and you were sure you moaned a little too loudly.

"Natasha!" your nails dig into her skin, as a toe curling wave of pleasure washes over you, once again.

"that's it, dorogaya," she nods, slowing down and allowing you to savour the feeling, watching you fall apart. your cum soaked the silicone material of the strap on, and honestly, the wet sounds it made got you a little embarrassed.

you weren't aware of your surroundings anymore, only that Natasha leaned her weight on you and held you close, still inside you. she rolled over to pull you on top of her, and stroked your hair, hearing the little moans you made.

"you're so perfect for me.." she coos, carefully pulling out of you, making you hiss as the material dragged across your extra sensitive walls. "you took me so well, my girl."

"thank you..." you mumble, shifting just to bury your face in the crook of her neck.

Natasha didn't want to talk right now. and she wouldn't. she just pulled the blankets over the two of you, giving you time — to feel, to think, to recompose. she sighed, and a wide smile showed on her face. she was glad you couldn't see it, she looked so giddy, so happy and so proud. she did something right. once.

[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.

[magicalmanhattanproject]

okay i am still not really able to properly articulate everything i want to say about the admin situation but i'm seeing a lot of doomposting and also lots of people setting themselves up for disappointment with wildly optimistic assumptions so lemme just try to hit some bullet points

adding another new creator and language in this time of turmoil is not ideal, but he was leaked a while ago that he'd been accepted and waiting to join for a while before the whole situation dropped and leaving him in limbo after he's already set aside the time in his schedule for qsmp is also not ideal

we are probably not gonna hear anything more specific than we've already heard until negotiations are finalized. inviting The Entire Internet to comment on every single detail of the negotiations at every step of the way is not going to help

everything we hear from quackity will be as positive as possible. everything we hear from the union will be as negative as possible. it is their jobs to be this way. temper your reactions accordingly

both quackity and the union want a solution where the qsmp continues and the eggmins all keep their jobs and get paid fairly for reasonable labor in reasonable conditions. the union is not gonna be gunning to take down the qsmp

a lot of the negotiations are going to be over what reasonable labor and conditions actually look like for a job that necessarily includes weird and inconsistent hours and labor demands. this is going to take a while to figure out

the other main issue is going to be backpay for the labor that the staff has already done. this is going to be a massive chunk of change. it's also going to take a while to figure out who is owed what and whether it should be paid out all at once or over a period of time

all of these money issues are going to be complicated by the many different currencies and tax standards involved.

tl;dr: this is a complicated situation and it won't be solved any time soon and we shouldn't really expect updates until everything is finished which wont be for a while, but it's actively being worked on and solutions do exist

[ghostofhyuck]

NCT Dream and their drunk voicemails to you.

AN: Mention of death in Jisung's part.

Mark Lee

"Hey babe, right now I'm at my hotel room and the kids, they wanted to have drink to unwind. Yeah we just finished our dome concert and it's surreal like...I can't believe it, another dream come true." a chuckle escapes from Mark. "Yeah I'm a little drunk right now and, I don't know how many cans I have drank but we have a flight tomorrow. I don't know I might pass out at the plane." Mark laughs once again, you can hear his frustrated sigh. "I'm seeing you tomorrow again, I miss you...damn. I'm gone for like five days and I am missing you already? But couldn't help it. I love you babe...can't wait to go home to you. I love you...again. God, I'm so drunk right now but you know what? I love you." 

Huang Renjun

"Chenle shut up! I'm trying to talk to yn," Renjun started. From the background, there's a lot of noise. A chaotic noise that deafens your boyfriend's voice. "yn? baby? I hope you can hear me but --- Haechan be fucking quiet! Sorry about that, we're in Jaemin's place and we had a little drink ---" "Hyung had two bottles of soju already!" Chenle interrupted. "Renjunnie is that yn? Tell her I miss her!" Haechan added. "Renjun, best you get out just so you can talk to yn," Mark suggested. "Yeah whatever." another voicemail was sent to you. "I'm outside right now, the boys are so loud, I can't believe it," but you can hear his laughter. "Anyways, I just want to update you about my whereabouts, I know you're busy with your work but we can talk in the morning okay? I love you baby." 

Lee Jeno

"Hey yn..." a frustrated sigh can be heard followed by seconds of silence. "I don't know why, but I just had the feeling of sending you this right now...but how are you? Damn, that's kinda stupid for me to ask after what I did to you but I can't help it. I wanted to know if you're fine, and if you're doing well. I wanted to know so that this guilt won't eat me up everyday. It's frustrating me yn, I am really sorry for breaking your heart. I know that I made a lot of mistakes and...I don't know what to say," a bitter laugh escapes Jeno's lips. "Drunk? Maybe I am, so I'm sorry for sending you a drunk voicemail at this ungodly hour. Just...fuck, this is a mistake. Sorry yn, I'm really sorry for everything. Just ignore this. Or just delete this, don't reply to me. This isn't supposed to happen." 

Lee Donghyuck

"I can't believe you left me!" Haechan shouted. "Why? why!? Was it me? Just tell me what went wrong and maybe I can leave you alone now! Maybe I can get you out of my head because fuck it! There's not a day where I am missing you and wondering what happened with the two of us. I always wonder if I didn't something so stupid that you left me..." Haechan deeply sighs, trying to hold back his tears. "Hyuck stop it, you're drunk." "No! I can't believe it Renjun!" Haechan shouted. "Yn left me. She broke up with me! I can't believe it...why? Why did she do it?" Haechan cried to his friend who only nod, patting lightly his shoulders. "Hyuck wake up, you know the reason why she broke up with you, stop it." Jaemin rebutted. "But...it hurts you know? I just ---" 

Na Jaemin

"Yn~" Jaemin giggled. "How's your date with him? What's his name again? Sungchan? He's good-looking by the way," Jaemin lets out a sigh. "I'm at the bar right now, so sorry if it's too noisy. Don't worry, I can handle everything. No, I'm not getting drunk right now." it suddenly became quiet for a second. "I don't know, maybe I am, it's shitty right? But you know what's more shitty? Is that you're having fun out there while I'm here getting drunk right now because I'm jealous! Yes yn, I am jealous of Sungchan because I like you! there I said it!" you heard him opening another bottle of soju. "I like you since we were kids yn, why can't you see it? fuck...this is so embarrassing, confessing to you at my worst state well," Jaemin laughs. "I'm a coward yn, I can't even confess to you when I'm sober." 

Zhong Chenle

"Hey babe, the boys just left my place," Chenle started, letting out a small laugh. "I told them they can crash in my place but they were persistent to go back to their place, but it's obvious that they're struggling." another laugh escapes Chenle's lips. "Yeah, I'm a bit tipsy right now and I know that it's probably morning wherever you are and if you're hearing this, don't worry I'm fine." you can hear second of silence before a small bark echoed on the background. "Oh? Daegallie is here, Daegal come here~" you can hear Daegal's bark along with Chenle's small laugh. "You miss your mom? I miss her too. But she's out there having a tour in US, so let's wait for her to come home okay? I love you yn, have fun there." 

Park Jisung

"Hi love," Jisung started with a soft tone. "It's been so long right? I'm in my dorm right now, I just packed my clothes and no, I didn't overpacked don't worry. Tomorrow, we'll start our world tour. It can be tiring but I'll try to be healthy?" Jisung lets out a deep sigh before brushing his hair out of frustration. "After this world tour, we'll be having another album. It's going to be good year for NCT Dream and I know that if you're here, you'll be cheering hard. Fuck, I miss you so so much." another deep sigh exits his lips. "There's no day where I am missing you, and my hyungs, they miss you too. I just...I can't believe it's been a year since you've been gone." Jisung lets out a small choke, trying hard not to cry. "I'm sorry...I told you that I won't cry anymore, but it still hurts me love. Sorry, but I'll be going now, goodbye love, I love you." 

[bokettochild]

Linked Universe Enterence p.3

Okay! So I have thoughts!!!!

First off, does anyone remember when JoJo shared those first snippets? How there was a fun little detail that suddenly disappeared when the comic actually became more than doodles?

Yeah, I'm talking about this guy

(Not the grouchy old man being offended, the owl LOL)

I know there's a chance I'm wrong, a big one at that, but I think it would be really cool if, if only for a short while, JoJo brought him back, even if it's just for this era of Hyrule. Let Time have his owl buddy!

Anyways, to the actual comic!

I noticed that the boys are all still together, so I'm guessing they're waiting until they come to a cross-roads to actually split up like Four advised last time. So we have that to look forwards to in the coming updates!

I love that she's really highlighting the similarities and differences in this arc, showing us who knows what and what they've done, but also the little things; both with owls and the antifairy!

I adore the Owlan reference/appearance!

And Time immediately agreeing about the "long, drawn out lectures part" made me laugh. (His expression, my Hylia!!!)

That is the face of a man who kept accidentally asking to "hear it again" and regrets it with every bone of his being LOL

It's good to see more call backs to the last comics too! Having Hyrule be wary of the statue because he remembers seeing it before, and Warriors agreeing, but also reminding that it didn't cause harm. The fact that Hyrule keeps his sword pointed at it though, wary, does say a lot about how cautious he's being all the same (Wild ought to take notes)

And of course this whole panel

Twilight's awkwardly trying to assure the rest without spilling the secret, Sky laughing and turning to look at Legend, and the fact that the vet is just so entirely done with even just the thought of being a rabbit. (I love his face, omgosh).

Te way I screamed "anti-fairy!" when I saw this, and then was so, so delighted that Legend and I had the same thought (I am unwell about this man).

I'm equally unwell about the fact that Legend just has to say "ouch" (which you only say at inconveniences and not real, actual hurts) and immediately everyone's turning, weapons out and ready to help him face...whatever. Like, he's fine, guys, but it's sweet you care (now Legend, please take note and realize you belong, you idiot)

Love that Time hears "fairy" and immediately is all ears. All the more so at the "anti" part. Man was raised by fairies and he absolutely doesn't like the idea of something that would hurt them.

Meanwhile Legend is just being freaking Haku (Spirited Away) over here!

Tell me you don't see it!!!!!!

Also, his casual use of magic to purify something, to just make it no longer a threat, rather than hurting it. That need to save EVERYONE is really showing through here, huh?

And immediately, everyone is shocked that he did that, but also what it means about fairies. About dark magic. But Time and Wars especially!

Gosh, just Legend's little worried face and Time's offense at the idea of fairies being corrupted and harmed. Shows a bit about them here too I think. Time is maybe slightly obsessed with fairies (reasonably so) and hates them being harmed, but he shows his worry on the matter in anger. legend, meanwhile, becomes more sombre, quieter: it bothers him too (maybe reminds him of a certain predecessor?)

Get this man a tiara, he's a freaking Disney Princess over here, good grief!!!! He's carrying fairy food on what? The slim chance he has time to stop and feed them? Honestly, i know he's probably as attached to fairies as Time (although with a healthier relationship with them), but this is just too cute. this man is going to be the death of me!!!

Anyways, here's the bonuses!!!!

SUN APPEARANCE!!!!!!!! We have a canon Sun appearance!!!!! Like, sure, sleepy student Sky, but it's SUN!!!!

This smile. Oh my gosh I adore him. He's just so glad he got to help the corrupted little one become normal again.

JoJo was having fun with Four I see LOL

Man really said "hang on, let me check my purse, I think I have snacks in here"

Freaking Mom Coded

[evertidings]

i always start these kinds of posts by saying "time flies, wow, look how far we've gotten." and it's true, but it gets repetitive. so this is me trying to make an anniversary post without all that cheesy stuff. bear with me.

on february 24, 2021, i decided to post the intro for this story. it gained traction slowly, and, before i knew it, i was being asked when to expect the demo. it excited me, knowing that other people were excited. and it still does. to know i've created a fanbase (??) is so surreal. even if i don't post on tumblr for a while, or am silently working on an update, i know that there are still people waiting for my return. and will continue to wait, even if i take longer than i expect. i beat myself up a lot for this (if you're on my patreon, you'd know), but sometimes, it can't be helped.

this has been the case for chapter 11 lately. to say i've been swamped with schoolwork would be an understatement. i'm exhausted. i haven't been able to touch my when twilight strikes document for weeks and it pains me. but even then, many of you are kind enough to remind me that it's okay. that life gets in the way sometimes and i'm doing the best i can.

with that said, i usually post some sort of special for my anniversary, but this year, it's going to be late. i've already started working on something and don't want to scrap it, so it'll be a belated present for everyone. i'll keep you all updated as to when this will be.

all in all, this story remains my greatest and proudest accomplishment to date, and i have no plans on stopping anytime soon. i know i've been silent and mia aside from patreon, but i appreciate your patience. thank you for sticking by me. thank you for three wonderful years.

[dolene]

I AM A WHAT? ; fernando alonso x wife!reader

summary: after taylor swift's song was out, people couldn't help but link him to taylor—while he didn't know anything about the current news.

note: sorry if this is so messy, it was a brainrot 🤭 and anyway happy ttpd day for those who celebrate!

the circulating news about his unreal relationship with the international singer taylor swift is no longer in doubt. there are many people who support them, shipping them, and even created a fan account dedicated to the two of them—who are not related or know each other at all.

“heh, yeah i'm aware of it.” he snort when the interviewer asked him about the swirling news. “but either way, i know that it wouldn't be possible.” he continues, simply shrugging with his wide smile still decorating his face when he saw the interviewer's eyebrows knit.

“oh? why is that?” he finally asked which fernando answered shortly, “i've had my wife, you remember?” and the interviewer chuckled, “no but really, if you hadn't marries her yet, would you choose her?” he said, making fernando goes silent for a quick moment.

“ah, probably.” he said eventually, “if i were still as young as her... and as tall. it would be okay.” the both of them laughed at his answer, leaving the interviewer with his tons of asks to continue the interview and leaving the taylor topic alone.

A YEAR LATER...

being chronically online in social media gave him a lot of benefits to offer. from not missing up with the latest news and trends makes him quite popular in his daily social media life as a trendy man on tiktok. but that also doesn't rule out the possibility that sometimes he is still left behind with other news that is not included in his list of interests. whether it's because he's not interested and allows himself to be left out of it, or he doesn't know about it all.

and having a wife who is also a journalist gives him many benefits, and one of them is not missing in any trending news that he doesn't even know it exists;

“ooh, i see that you were trending on twitter today.” you said as you walked to the counter to take a glass of juice from the mini refrigerator.

“twitter?” he asked from the bathroom, his voice echoed, and your uh-huh answers his question. “i haven't checked my twitter in a day or two now,” he said as he continued to brush his teeth, “so i don't know what am i even missed so i could be on the trending topic.”

“d'you want me to check it out for you?”

“mhm, sure.”

you immediately opened your twitter again after hearing his approval, searched for his name in the search column and finally found the topic you were looking for. lots of it. a lot of them were tweets about him and taylor swift with her new album.

you were silent for a moment, as you were getting too preoccupied with seeing what people were talking about about your husband and taylor swift, that you forgot about fernando who had been waiting for your response in the bathroom.

“so what is that all about?” he questioned, after he's finally came out of the bathroom, immediately standing next to you to peek at your phone. “apparently it's your gossip with miss swift.” he let out a loud laugh and stood up from his previous position as he walked towards his suitcase to look for a clean clothes for him to wear.

usually you are quite updated with the latest news, especially about taylor swift because you are a swiftie. but strangely enough, you don't know about this either.

“i haven't heard about the lastest album.” you said, and fernando hummed. “so you didn't know about the news, then?” he asked, and you answered, “no, i don't.” okay he said as a respond.

but after some time of scrolling through your twitter page, you finally find out what they mean about it. and you can't even deny it, you were also late in digesting the information.

MEANWHILE TWITTER...

“ooohhh, so you are taylor's car.” your face was still focused on your phone screen when fernando looked at you with a confused face. “i'm her what?”

“her car. and look, your relationship gossip with taylor is up again.” you giggled but didn't told him about the detailed things that you've been said to him earlier, making him keeping the confused face on his face longer.

“cariño, ¿de qué hablas?” he shakes his head, finally letting his desperation wins over the the lack of clarity in the information you gave him. you smiled, approaching him who was sitting on the bed, his mouth pouted with his lower lips is pushed forward—just like a 10 year old child whose parents weren't allowed to play.

“okay so, on her newest album, taylor wrote in the lyrics ‘i'm an aston martin’ and maybe that's why the public started to brings the taylor rumors again.” you said, and he nodded. “then you are her car, right?” and he finally get rid of the pout that he has on earlier as he slowly laughed. a breathy one, before he finally stops in a current slow motion.

“but that still doesn't answer your lack of clarity earlier!” he insists, but his face is still smiling from his laugh earlier, his eyes looking at you. “i already explained it to you!” you chuckled and his eyes lit up as you looked back at him.

there was a silence filling up the room for a moment after you said that, until he finally broke it; “you know, even if someday i could be with taylor, i wouldn't be with her.”

“really? and why is that?”

“because i could only be your aston martin.”

“oh my—” and before you could even rolled your eyes or completing your sentence, he had already pulled you in for a kiss first. luckily he's your husband.

taglist: @seasonswinter @haikyuen @callsignwidow

translation: cariño, ¿de qué hablas? = baby, what are you talking about?

[lowkeyrobin]

Hello! I was wondering if you could write a James Hook x Reader. She’s Hans’ daughter but her relationship with him is complicated. Since he couldn’t become king he wants the reader to marry a prince so she can be a queen in the future. She tells him no prince would ever fall for her bc she’s a VK to get him to stop pressuring her. But the truth is she doesn’t even want to marry a prince bc she likes James.

Although she’s Hans’ daughter she’s friends with Bridget and Ella bc she’s nothing like her father personality wise and doesn’t want to be ever. Which is why James became intrigued with her and flirts. She’s always standing up for Bridget.

Anyway at the end Hans somehow finds out what’s going on between reader and James. Later at night he confronts the reader about it stating that she will marry a prince. But she finally stands up for herself. You can decide what he says but then he leaves and she breaks down but James comforts her bc he heard everything. You can decide the rest.

Sorry this is long thank you in advance!

oooo okay okay I can try! ; just so yk I only do gn / they/them readers but I usually keep gender pretty ambiguous lol ; thanks for requesting, hope you enjoy! ; also this gives pink pony club and I need someone to agree cause I feel crazy for thinking it ??? ; update on that I listened to ppc and it's now heavily influenced on that last part

JAMES HOOK ; complicated

summary ; a vk who acts like an ak catches his attention, fascinating him

warnings ; language, use of gorgeous but in a gn way who cares about societal norms

word count ; 1.5k

masterlist

"That boy, uh... Prince Charming, at your school, why not marry him?"

"Oh my fucking Christ, Dad" You groan. "One, I'm a VK, two, he doesn't like me, nor do I like him, three, stop with this conversation"

"What about that Snow White girl?"

You grumble, stomping away to your room to get away from your self projecting father. Every day for the past God-knows-how-long he'd keep bringing up you marrying into a royal family. Just because he lost a girl by being a douchebag apparently meant he had to project his insecurities on you.

You weren't like him at all, nor did you ever want to be. He was a complete asshat from what he's told you, thinking he was always in the right. You were a VK gone soft, or a VK with morals and a good heart, whatever floats your boat.

Your best friends Bridget and Ella were AK's who'd welcomed you into the good side with open arms. They were quiet and sort of shy, too scared to stand up for themselves. But that's why they had you, because being born as a villain kid meant you could be mean, you could use your voice to get what you wanted, or at least try.

"Go away, Hook. Leave her alone." you call, walking up on James and Maleficent picking on Bridget and her bright pink flower themed cake.

"Or what?" He questions, leaning away from Bridget, turning to you as you stand in front of her. "Gonna walk the plank for me?"

You roll your eyes. "Are you looking for a fight? What do you guys get out of doing this?"

He shrugs deviously. "Entertainment, darling."

"Go away," you order, "Unless you really wanna put your Captain title at risk." You turn around, pulling Bridget away from the duo.

"Confident, are you?" He laughs. "Wait and see, gorgeous," he turns around, pulling his partner along.

Maleficent hisses, watching as you and Bridget walk away.

"What's with you and that fake VK?" she asks him.

James shrugs.

"Well, hello again, darling"

"Don't you ever go away?"

"You've got a mouth for an Auradon Kid, don't you?" He chuckles. "Wait... you're not an Auradon Kid. You're a VK."

You roll your eyes. "Just cause I was conceived by a villain doesn't mean I am a villain"

He sighs. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

You turn around, seeing him still standing over you. Can't a person get five minutes alone in the library?

"What do you want?"

He shrugs. "Wanted to ask why you've joined the good side. You're always defending those girls. It's weird"

"How is having morals weird?" you ask. "Genuinley. Sit"

He glances around with furrowed brows before joining you, taking a seat beside you. He sits sideways to face you, resting his hooked hand on the table.

"What makes you think harassing people is fun?"

He shrugs. "It's funny, entertaining."

"Sadly, I can't control your actions." you speak with a light sigh, turning back to your book.

"Why do you defend them?" He asks rather swiftly.

"Because they're my friends?" you reply.

He tilts his head. "You're fascinating"

You groan. "I'm a normal, not evil person"

"And I'm not?"

"No, you're a bitch"

"Hello, love"

"Piss off"

"You should be nicer to me. After all..."

"Close your damn mouth. There is nothing going on between us"

Bridget and Ella, wide-eyed, turn to you.

You exhale through your nose, slowly closing your eyes to find yourself and to not freak out. You look at them, a kind smile on your face.

"There is nothing going on between us" you repeat.

"I'd beg to differ..." James mumbles while Morgie giggles.

You turn to the girls. "Go to class, I'll be there in a minute"

They nod, walking to the classroom just down the hall.

You cross your arms, waiting for James to speak. Morgie stands beside him before he's shoo'd away, making the conversation private.

James smiles, pulling a sandwich bag out of his coat. Inside rests three slightly crumbled cookies that he'd made just for you. He holds them out to you, a cautious and slightly concerned look on his face.

"Sorry your dad's been... y'know"

You shrug, accepting the sweet treats. "It's fine, just pisses me off. Thank you, though"

"Anytime, darling"

"You need to stop with that. Someone's gonna catch on that there is actually something going on between us"

"Eh, I'm alright with that"

"See you later, pirate boy"

"Hook you later, love"

You press a chaste kiss to his lips before running up the front steps of your house, opening the door with a small smile on your lips. You close the door behind you, watching through the window as your little love interest walks away.

You walk into the living room, saying hello to your father, backpack slung over your shoulder. "I'm home"

"How was your day?" He asks, flipping the TV to another channel.

Your ears painfully vibrate due to the sound of your father sharpening a knife in his lap. God, he couldn't pick a better time?

"Fine," you wince. "I'll be in my room. I have homework"

You quickly walk away before he can speak anymore, knowing leftover dinner was in the fridge for you to access. Having homework wasn't a lie, but you were definitely lying about doing it.

As darkness fell, and after you'd dropped multiple hours cleaning your room, you opened up your window, allowing the fresh, cool air into the stuffy warm room. You lean against the window sill, awaiting your dumb love, the breeze brushing against your face.

You knew this was wrong, all of it. You'd been having wicked dreams of leaving Auradon, hearing new, distant lands calling your name. You'd never make your father proud. He'll see his baby and scream, 'God, what have you done?' as you wave goodbye on a ship with James, dressed to explore the world.

You had dreams, he had expectations.

You imagined a wide open sea, James Hook at your side, the salty air against your face. It was a daydream, one that could be accomplished. You imagine a whole world to explore, all the things you'd never seen, you'd be able to experience. From waterfalls to exotic animals, you wanted to see it all, you wanted to see all the sunsets and cultural differences. You wanted it all.

"Hey!"

"Hi!"

You watch as Hook climbs up the tree in your front yard, then use your little zipline connected to the roof to enter your room through the window. You grab his hand, pulling him into the refreshed bedroom you called home.

He rests his hands around your waist, his signature smirky-smile upon his face. "I missed you oh-so dearly"

You scoff. "It's been like, five hours"

He pulls you closer, smashing your lips together like this was some romantic romance movie where the two main characters had to leave each other in the end. He shoves you to the bed, allowing you to sit on the mattress as he stands over you, his hook lightly tracing your jawline, his hand resting on the nape of your neck.

Your door flings open, the two of you jumping in fear, eyes glued to the room's entrance. James quickly scrambles out the window, leaving you alone to deal with your father.

"Are you kidding me, Y/n?! First you're kissing a boy outside, then you're sneaking him into my house! For the last time, you'll be marrying into royalty, not sneaking around with some pirate wannabe!" Your father shouts. "I'll be boarding up your window from now on and I'll be taking this damn door away too."

"Just because you have a soft ego and are a narcissistic piece of shit doesn't mean you can force your insecurities on to me!" You yell. "My love life has nothing to do with you at all. I'm not going to be some teenage newlywed so you can ruin a whole kingdom's worth of lives through me. I am not you and I will never be you!"

He's too stunned to speak, surprised that you've talked back, the words leaving your lips like you had them ready to use. You stare into his soul, heavily breathing, fists clenched as you stand in front of him.

You rush to the window as he leaves, slamming the door behind him, not sure how to approach the situation. You slide out the open window, holding back tears.

James quickly wraps you in a hug, allowing you to crumble in his arms.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" He whispers, holding onto you tightly.

"It's fine" You shake your head with a grumble. "Fuck"

His hand rubs your shoulder.

You sit in silence with him for a few minutes, carefully listening as your father stomps around the house.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, love. Do you need somewhere else to stay?-"

"I'm fine" You reply. "I'll be fine"

He's silent for a moment. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you here"

"He won't hurt me. He's a wimp with an ego." You shrug.

He nods. "Yeah, that's true"

You quickly look up at him, a random thought in your brain. "Have you ever seen a flamingo before? In real life?"

"I've conquered the seven seas, babe. Of course I have"

"Cool"

[thetriumphantpanda]

i only wanna worship you | javier peña

Take The Weight Off His Shoulders - Chapter Seven

Chapter Summary | When a promising lead for your story turns to dust, you find comfort in the only person you know can make you feel better these days.

Chapter Warnings | mentions and discussions of drugs, drug consumption and the drug trade, swearing, flirting, explicit smut, oral sex (f), protected piv sex but nothing else.

Pairing | dbf!Javier Peña x F!Reader

Word Count | 4.4K

Authors Note | GUYS I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. Thank you so much for being so patient - my new job and the festive period kicked my ass, but we're back, and it's the one you've all been waiting for! I'm having so much fun weaving in the story along with these guys' relationship, and I hope it was worth the wait for you. If you're enjoying this then reblogs and comments really do help and if you’d like to support me further, please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi. 

I no longer use taglists. Please follow @thetriumphantpandanotifs to be notified of new updates.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi | Series Playlist

You’ve been sat in the parking lot for what feels like ages. Turning up at the office that morning, you’d stared blankly at the article you’d written, listening to your managers voice in your head telling you that you could go and get your story, swirling the dregs of your coffee in your mug. It was almost like a switch had flicked in your brain and before your head could catch up with you, you were stuffing your supplies into your bag and swiping your car keys off the desk.

Now, your car is surrounded by others in the parking lot of Laredo’s biggest factory - one of the towns biggest employers of people who hadn’t gotten sick of it and left for college and never come back - waiting for Tyler Johnson to appear out of the front doors for his lunch break.

You watch the clock on your dashboard, counting exactly seventeen further minutes until his tall, lanky frame comes through the door. He’s fishing in his jeans pocket, pulling out a cigarette. He leans up against a brick wall just down from the front door, lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag. It’s now or never.

You get out of your car, deciding against taking your notepad and pen, you don’t want to spook him before you’ve had a chance to talk. You can feel the familiar nervous bubble in your stomach, something that hasn’t gone away when you blindly go up to someone to interrogate them.

“Tyler?”

He turns his head towards your voice as you come to a stop a few steps away from him.

“Depends who’s asking,” He looks you up and down, “But for you honey, sure thing,” He puts the cigarette into his mouth, reaches his hand out for you to shake which you do, “What can I help with?”

You take a deep breath, the speech you’d rehearsed in the car suddenly blanked from your mind as you try and figure out how to explain to him why you’re here.

“This is so strange, but can you remember hosting a party a few months ago?” You ask, “It was in town?”

You watch him think for a second, taking another drag on his cigarette, “Yeah I think so, was pretty wild if I remember, were you there?”

You reply with a nod, “Yeah, with my friend Liv,” You sigh, “Listen, I’m not trying to pry or anything, but you know that place was raided a few days ago, right?”

“Whole place knows it was raided,” He shrugs, “Been the talk of the town.”

“Right,” You’re thinking, how can you catch him in the act? “So, why were you hosting a party in a house that was empty, that was then raided for drugs?”

“Family own it,” He shrugs again, “Guy who rented it died and it needed doing up before we could get someone else in, so seemed like the best place to do it.”

“And the drugs?” You push.

“Listen, lady,” His tone sharpens but he doesn’t move towards you, you don’t feel threatened, “I haven’t got a clue as to why there were drugs there, okay? I haven’t been there since the party.”

“So you have no idea how they got there?”

“Not the faintest.”

“So it wasn’t you?”

“What the hell is this, twenty fucking questions?” He sighs again, flicks his finished cigarette to the ground, stamping on it with his boot, “I don’t know anything about the drugs, I’ve never taken drugs, I can’t even if I wanted to, we get tested here for them.”

“When was the last time you got tested?” You ask, eyebrows raised.

Tyler snorts at you, “You and everyone else in this fucking town are so predictable,” He shakes his head, “Just because I’m not a golden boy like my brother means I take drugs?” You’re about to open your mouth to reply when he started talking again, “I got tested about three weeks ago, and then probably six weeks before that too, clean as a whistle, always have been.”

“Do you have the test results?”

“You think I’m gonna show my drug test results to a random girl?”

You nod your head because it his trepidation makes sense, “I’m a journalist,” You finally let on, “I wrote a story about the drug bust but figured there was probably more to it than first meets the eye so I’m just digging around a little,” You shrug, “If you show me, it puts you in the clear though, means people’ll stop talking about you.”

Tyler rolls his eyes but starts walking towards a car. You follow behind him, waiting as he unlocks it and looks through the glove compartment, pulling out a couple of pieces of paper. He hands them to you, which you look through and just like he said, there are the result of his last three random drug tests, everything negative. Fuck. You try not to let your disappointment show as you hand them back.

“Sorry,” You mumble, “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”

“S’alright,” Tyler responds, putting everything back in order to lock his car back up, “I know how it is, but just…” He trails off, “Be careful, okay? I don’t know what’s happening either but this could be dangerous.”

“I’m a big girl,” You counter, “I’ll be fine,” You take a few steps back, “Sorry for bothering you though, I hope the rest of your day is alright.”

There is a part of you that would love nothing more than to roll over, push your face into your pillow and scream. When did having meltdowns like that become frowned upon? You’re sure when you were little they were cathartic, but what use was that at three years old? You needed to be able to scream at this age.

Instead, you lie on your bed, staring at the ceiling, frustrated that the one lead you had turned out to be a dead fucking end. Were you wrong about this whole thing the entire time? Were you barking up the wrong tree? Did you just need to cut your losses and publish the story as is, without needing to dig around further? You had no fucking clue.

Before you can think about what you’re doing, you reach over, pluck the phone off your nightstand and press the redial button. You don’t even need to tap in his number anymore, he’s the only number you really call these days. The phone rings three times before he picks up.

“Hello?”

“Javi?” You ask, although you don’t need to, you’d recognise that voice anywhere.

“You alright, cariño?” There is just a sigh that you let out in response, then his voice is back in your ear, “I’ve had enough bad days in my time to know that sigh, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Is your response, you know you can’t tell him what’s really up because you know the deeper you dig into this, the more dangerous it’s going to get, “Just work stress.”

He’s silent for a moment, “What can I do? I can listen.”

“Can you come over?”

Even over the phone, you can hear him thinking it’s a bad idea. You can hear him thinking about how weird it will look if your parents find him in the house with you on your own, how you’d explain it, even if they didn’t necessarily catch you doing anything.

“They’re out at the moment,” You offer, “Dinner with some people on the force, and I won’t make you stay long, I promise.”

You can hear him do that thing he always does when he’s thinking - clicking his tongue against his teeth. He’s done it for as long as you can remember - a real tell that he’s battling with something in his head.

“I mean, you don’t have to,” You hasten to add, “We can just talk like this if you’d rather.”

“Need someone to make you feel better, huh?” His tone is lower now and it makes you squirm, all you can reply with is a small mmhmm sound, “I’ll be there soon.”

Then all you can hear is the dial tone. You lie there for a moment, listening to the sound through the phone, then glance around your room and panic. You slam the handset back onto the receiver and hop out of bed, dragging the sheets up to make the bed properly, aimlessly throwing abandoned clothes into the laundry basket, shoving half-read books back onto their shelves and generally tidying up enough so as to not look like a total slob.

Once you’re sure there’s nothing on display that you wouldn’t want Javi to see, you pace around the living room, drawing the curtains a little whenever you can see headlights bleeding through, until one set of those headlights are Javi’s truck. He pulls into the drive and sits there, before he’s reversing back out and driving off. Your heart sinks a little, until you can see his frame walking back up the street. You let the curtains fall back into place and stand by the front door, smoothing your hair and your clothes when he knocks twice. You don’t wait, just tear the door open.

“Waiting for me, huh?” He asks, stepping across the threshold, one hand slipping around your waist, the other letting the door close behind him.

“N-no, I was just by the door when you knocked.” You breath, so close to his mouth.

“That so?” He asks, eyebrow raised, “Someone else looking out the curtains then?”

He doesn’t give you the chance to answer. Instead, he dips his face to yours, lips pressed softly to yours. You can feel the aches and the stress leaving your body as he does, you bring your arms up to wrap around his shoulders, as Javi’s palm on your lower back presses you into his body fully.

“Y-you wanna m-maybe go upstairs?” You ask, lips still a hairs breadth from his, you don’t want to look at him whilst you ask.

“Is that what you want?” He asks, free hand cupping your cheek to make you look at him.

“I think so, yes.” You breathe.

“Well then, lead the way cariño.”

I don’t deserve this, is all Javi can think as your hand is clutched in his, leading him into your bedroom. He doesn’t deserve the flutter in his stomach when he looks at you, or the way your eyes look at him like he’s the best thing the world has ever offered you, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the opportunity to do what he thinks you’re going to let him do in the next few hours. All of the bad he’s done, veiled as something good, all of the shit he’s fucked up before, the people’s he’s hurt, the people he’s killed, whether at his own hand or as a knock on from his actions, he doesn’t deserve someone as good as you.

You’re stood at the door to your room, back pressed up against it, hands clasped behind your back as he stands in the middle of your room. He knows you’re nervous, you always are around him, and he wishes he could say something, express that he feels exactly the same around you, that you make him nervous too, but he thinks it would sound wrong if he tried to explain it, so he doesn’t, just holds out his hand and beckons you over to him.

The warmth of your hand slipping into his, the way he knows those hands feel when you touch him, the way your lips are soft when you kiss him, all of it makes him a weak man, a man who knows you need someone with less baggage, because he can’t say no to you, he doesn’t want to say no to you.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks, manoeuvring the two of you so you’re sitting on the edge of your bed.

He watches as you shake your head, “No, it’s honestly nothing, it’ll be fine.”

“What do you want then?”

You lift your head, flash those beautiful eyes at him and instead of fighting the strength to stay upright, he takes a single step towards you and drops to his knees, settled on the floor with your thighs spread to accommodate him. He puts his hands on your knees, looking up at you, and spreads them a little wider.

“This what you want?” He asks, trailing his hands up to your thighs, pushing the hem of your dress up with his hands as he goes, “Something to take your mind off things for a while?”

“Y-yes,” You gasp when his hands hit the material of your underwear wrapped around your hips, “Yes please.”

Javi hooks his fingers into the band of your panties, watching as you lift yourself off the bed a little so he can pull them down. He’s slow with it, making sure that the hem of your dress keeps you covered as he can. It strikes him now how much he wants this, how much he’s craved the opportunity to get you like this so he can really hear you, really see you for once, without having to worry about getting caught.

“You wanna show me that pretty pussy, hermosa?” He speaks lowly into the skin of your thigh he’s nuzzling at.

He watches from between your thighs as your cheek drops to your shoulder, trying to hide how bashful you’ve become, but it does nothing to help the growing bulge in his jeans. Javi lets his fingers push the hem of your dress up your thighs, pooling at your waist, your legs widening.

Javi thinks he might audibly gasp at the way you’re already glistening for him. He leans forward, puckers his lips and presses a single kiss to your clit. It’s gentle, he revels in the small gasp you suck in, then he’s on your properly, tip of his tongue flicking gently against that little bud. He can feel your hand gripping at his hair already, hips moving in time with his mouth, and he wonders if anyone has ever blessed you like this. He needs to know.

He pulls away, letting his thumb gently replace his mouth, looking up at you, “Anyone ever done this for you?”

You shake your head, “No, but even if they had,” You’re biting at your bottom lip, “I don’t think it would have felt like this.”

He can’t help but smirk as he brings his mouth back to you, suckling your clit into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it, listening to you the way you whine for him, the way you start moving your hips in time with the movements of his mouth again. You taste divine, he thinks, as his tongue drops a little lower, drinking up the slick you’re creating for him, dragging it back up to run over your clit again.

“T-that’s so g-good.” He hears you moan.

“Yeah?” He replies, barely pulling off you.

He hears a noise in reply, lets one of his fingers trace up the skin of your thigh until he’s slowly pushing it inside of you, amazed at how easily you let him in just like he had been in the alley. He slips another in, curls them up gently, moves them until you tip your head back and really cry out for him this time. Javi can tell you’re close - he’s made enough women in his life feel good this way to know the signs - the way you’re tightening around his fingers inside you, the way your hips are moving but your thighs are starting to tighten around his shoulders and the way your moans are louder but more breathy, he’s addicted already, he knows it’s bad, but right now he can’t find it in himself to really care.

“J-javi,” You breathe, fingers gripping at his hair, “I’m gonna-”

“Go on, cariño,” He urges, “You can come for me.”

And you do, God alive you do, and it’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever been party to. Your cunt goes tight as a fist around his fingers, slick drooling down into his palm, he can feel the way you flutter around them as you say his name over and over again in some sort of fucked up prayer, and he thinks about how it would feel around his cock. Your entire body convulses as he works you gently through the aftershocks with his mouth, fingers slipping from inside you to rest, wet and sticky, on your thigh.

All of a sudden, he can feel you gripping his shoulders, pulling at the material to try and drag him up to you.

“Slow down, baby,” He says, but he moves anyway, pushing you back onto the bed, settling himself between your thighs, “We’ve got all night.”

“Javi, please,” You beg, and he doesn’t think he’s heard anything nicer in his life, “I want you,” Your fingers are fumbling with his jeans, trying to move his belt, “Inside me.”

Javi moves, taking your wrists in his hands, pinning them above your head, letting his hips grind into your own, front of his jeans grinding into the soft wet of your sensitive cunt.

“Do you have anything?” He breathes right into your ear, teeth nipping at the lobe.

“Top drawer.” You say quietly, whining when he pushes himself up onto his knees to reach into the draw.

Javi fumbles around a little until the familiar crinkle of foil hits the tips of his fingers. He pulls it out, places it into his mouth as he works to undo his jeans, pushing them down only far enough to free his aching cock. In an ideal world he’d strip the two of you off, but there’s something about this image of you, laid out on the bed in your sinful little sundress, tits heaving as you breathe, that means he just can’t wait.

He almost cries when you reach up, smooth palm stroking at his cock, so slowly he thinks he might die. Tin foil packet between his teeth, he tears it open, rolls it into his cock like it’s muscle memory. He leans back down, feeling the head of his cock nudging at your aching pussy, gathering your wrists back into his hands to pin you down again.

Javi is looking right into your beautiful eyes now, looking at the very soul of you as he stills. He’s damning the both of you to hell with this. He thinks if he’d been stronger, he could have stopped this - sure your mouth around his cock in the bar had been like silk, and the way you’d let him touch you against the brick wall had him seeing stars, but he knows, once he’s sunk himself deep inside you, he won’t be able to come back from this.

“You sure?” He asks, lips pressing softly to your own.

“Please.”

And it’s all he needed to hear to start slowly sinking into you. He watches closely as your eyes flutter closed, head tipped back, throat exposed to his mouth. He listens as he inches in slowly to your panting breaths and your little moans, until he’s buried fully inside you. His hands are gripping at your wrists tightly as he stays still, your hips wiggling underneath him.

“Hermosa,” He pleads, warns with his tone, “Don’t m-move, please.”

Like the devil himself, you don’t listen, and when he pulls his face from the crook of your neck, you’re smirking, you know exactly what you’re doing.

“Javier,” You use his full name and he swears he feels himself throb inside you, “Fuck me.”

He should have known the whole time that this wasn’t going to be a shining star performance, it’s been too long since he’s felt like this, felt the warmth of someone like this, but he knows this is different, he knows that look in your eye, not quite love, definitely not quite love, but it’s something different to the girls of Colombia. He can’t offer you a lifeline, he can’t offer you money to get yourself out of a country that’s trying to kill you, they needed him for something, and he needed them for something in return. But here, he just needs you, no whistles, no bells, just you.

Pushing himself up a little, letting go of his grip on your wrists, he puts his palms on the backs of your thighs and pushing your legs back, folding you underneath him as he starts moving a little faster, fucking you a little harder, you let out a proper moan into the air of the room and he finds himself smirking.

“That what you needed, baby?” He coos as he fucks you, feeling himself reach the very end of you with each thrust, “Just needed me to fuck whatever was in that pretty head of yours away?”

He can feel you tightening around his length, can feel the sweat sticking his shirt to his back, and that tell-tale tightening he feels when it’s almost time. He wishes he could hold on, wishes he could string this out, make it better for you, but god he needs to feel you again, he needs to feel the way you come around his cock.

“Touch yourself,” His tonne is demanding, but he watches down at you as you smirk, bringing your hand to your pussy, finger circling your clit as his hips start to falter, “Come on baby, one more just for me.”

It happens all of a sudden, the way your body snaps under him, and that feeling he’s been chasing, the feeling of you clenching around him, arching your back into him. He can feel the effect it has on him, just seconds later he’s following you over the edge, stilling inside of you as he finishes, banishing the tiny thought in the back of his head that says he wishes he was filling you up without a barrier between the two of you.

Once he’s caught his breath a little, he pulls out of you, groaning into your skin, listening to you whine at the loss of him. He takes off the condom, ties a knot in the top, wrapping it along with the packet in a tissue to put in the bin. He puts his clothes right, before crawling back onto the bed with you, pulling you into his chest, sighing at the feeling of your arm draped over his stomach, your leg entwined with his own. He presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“Did that help?” He asks quietly.

“Yeah,” You reply softly into the material of his shirt, “Thank you.”

“You feel okay?” He’s slightly worried he was too rough, maybe that you didn’t enjoy it, “Was it okay?”

You move your head, looking up at him with sleepy eyes, “Javi, please,” You whisper, “Stop worrying, it was perfect.”

He lies there for a while, wishing he could strip the two of you down, press your warm bodies together and fall asleep like this is all normal and you aren’t younger than him, or the daughter of one of his closest friends.

“I should go,” He muses, “Not that I want to,” He adds quickly, worried you’ll think he wants to make a quick escape, “Just need to leave before any eyes are around to ask questions.”

You move slightly, letting the warmth of your body drag away from his own, “One day we’ll be able to do this properly, I hope.” You say, pushing yourself up on your palm as he rises from the bed.

“I promise the next time I have you like that,” He’s looking at you now, chin held in his hand, “I’m going to strip you down, take my time and fall asleep next to you, I promise.”

He kisses you then, slipping his tongue into your mouth and it takes every inch of his strength to pull away.

“Go on,” You smile at him, “Before my dad comes home and shoots you.”

“He wouldn’t shoot me baby,” He smiles back at you, “He wants me back on the force too much.”

“Before he gives you a black eye then.”

He can’t help but laugh at that, giving you a small salute as he turns to leave, but there’s something niggling at that back of his mind as his hand reaches for the handle of your door, something he needs to ask before he leaves, “If something was bothering you,” He asks, turning back to you, “Or you were getting into something at work, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

He’s looking right at you as you answer, searching for anything that says you’re not telling him the truth, and as you answer, he doesn’t find a reason to doubt you, “Of course I would.”

When he’s gone, twenty minutes later your parents are falling through the door, laughing at each other, too many glasses of God knows what over dinner have made them jolly and you find yourself smirking, biting at your bottom lip in the dark, that the two of them have no idea that Javier Peña left just twenty minutes ago after fucking you better than anyone else ever had.

It’s something that keeps you smiling, even as you fall asleep, eyes closing, any thought of work and dead-end leads forgotten and replaced by dreams of what else that man might be able to show you.

[lilybug-02]

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to The Chara Timeline ✨

I FINALLY made drawing references for you guys, yippie!✨

It’s wild how long I’ve been working on this comic without reference sheets. I’m never that consistent with my art style, so I figured it was a waste of time 🫥💀😔 this is my first full comic okay…

Thoughts and Feelings About the Comic Below ❤️💖💕💞

Wow. It’s been 2 years??? I thought I would be done with this comic in 2 months! I don’t know whether to feel worried or accomplished!!

(With months between each update, I understand why it’s been 2 years. I’m a slow writer and artist and well- many things have come up in my life that had to come first, like my sisters wedding! 💞 and college 😅)

I want to thank my family and friends (WHO DO NOT READ THIS COMIC- THANK GOD) 💕 AND I want to THANK YOU! The readers! 💐💐

You guys are relentless! I’m as impatient as traffic and yet you guys wait for weeks or months at a time for like 4 pages?! You guys don’t even complain!!! I truly want to thank you all for that ❤️ it helps me so much. Being busy and getting burnt out are common and it helps me feel relaxed that i'm not on a timer. Literally tho- you guys keep this comic chugging I swear. Tysm 💐

Unorganized rambling about the comic ahead :) ⭐️🔥

—

My feelings with this comic are actually so complicated. On one hand I hate looking at my older art because GOD IT LOOKS SO OFF I want to stab it, and then on the other hand I am so so proud of myself for even continuing it this far. Ngl the weird route has been one of my favorite parts of this comic. It took me FOREVER to figure out an ending, but damn do I still get chills >:) hehe.

I’m still miffed that I named this project “Deltarune: The Chara Timeline” I could have gone for something so much COOLER. Doesn’t help I use like 7 different titles for it either. We got Deltarune the Chara timeline, Deltarune chara timeline, THE Chara timeline, chara timeline, Ct??? Man,,, I’m crazy. I take after my family so hard. We have 3 names for each of our dogs 💀.

Comic/Animation Tip i have learned. It is VERY GOOD to make the character relatively simple in design. Shape language is also super important, ((but I never really got around to doing that before I was half way through the comic, woops.)) These things can make ur process go by so much faster. This whole comic has been a HUGE learning curve. LIKE OH MY GOD. I had to learn how to draw backgrounds, write dialogue, plan a story, learn how to draw fast and draw noses (which god damn I really still can’t). And I had to learn how the heck to squeeze art into a tiny page and make it not look grainy. It's intense!

Anyways.... this has been such an awesome opportunity! Thanks Toby Fox!

I totally ran out of “art time” for my iPad and wanted to finish this today. So it’s a bit rushed. I’ll add weapons and possibly the other characters later :)

Oh shi- I forgot to add this grainy image of the next few pages lmao

[mygnolia]

INCEPTIO DE AMORE : ENHYPEN MINISERIES

୨୧ -› the beginning of love: a wonderful thing, truly, to catch such fleeting, powerful, intoxicating feelings. hey, what type of magic did you cast that makes my heart only burn for you?

pair -› enhypen x reader | genre -› highschool crushes!

REN SAYS... inceptio concept tew good

orange creamsicle !

in which your school newspaper needs to be printed, someone's broken the same reliable printer you've been using all school year. who, if not to blame, than master procrastinator park sunghoon? [idiots/enemies to lovers]

'you're going to break the copier, sunghoon!' - coming soon!

be my slime !

your mom invites jake over to help take care of your cousins- and somehow ends up with hearts on his face and washing glue and borax out of your hair in the sink. [neighbors to lovers]

'i'm trying my best to get it out, okay?' - coming soon!

zoo animals !

during volunteer service you’re tasked to decorate a kindergarten room with animal stickers and trees, so how did they get on sunoo’s face? [friends/classmates to lovers]

'wait, let me add some too!' - coming soon!

word love search !

jay decides to be cryptic this valentine’s day, and promises he’ll reveal his plans, just over a couple hundred letters and lots of circling. [situationship/friends to lovers]

'so much work for you to ask me on a date!' - coming soon!

passing notes !

your new seatmate needs a bit of help, but the room is just so quiet- how else is heeseung supposed to answer question 7 and confess his feelings if not through doodles and paper from his notebook? [classmates to lovers]

'pst...help? please?' - coming soon!

card tricks !

pick a card, any card! and when you’re able to see how he pulls the red card from your hair, you snatch it, and not just the five of hearts was taken- his was too. [strangers/classmates to lovers]

'how did you even do that?' - coming soon!

stop snooping !

jungwon realizes you've forgotten your notebook at his house, and in desperate need of math answers, he thumbs through. what he doesn’t expect his hearts, his name, and your initials in the footnotes as well. [friends to lovers]

'hey, you weren't supposed to see that!' - coming soon!

send an ask to be on my perm taglist or this fic taglist specifically!

this will be updated when i have no writing juice :(( i am sorrey if ygs are looking forward to it i have too many wips rn