#if anyone has ever played dragons dogma

[ocrystal]

Okay guys, hear me out. Stella is Etro. Or, a variation of Etro.

[mumms-the-word]

tbh i'm actually kind of pissed at larian. regardless of if it's sticking it to hasbro or not, they're leaving the game in a potentially awful state and not delivering on promises they made, like the upper city. You also have SWEN talking about shit that could have been like ketheric's recruitment and what not, which stirs the pot even more and makes me angry. Like stop talking about it. we're already upset enough.

These are all very valid critiques, anon! I have many thoughts but I’ll put everything under the cut since I got a little long-winded because I’m passionate about video games in general.

I do play a bit of Devil’s Advocate here but please note I am not attacking you personally or trying to direct any hate towards anybody at all! This ask honestly gave me space to vent some thoughts I’ve had for months about this game. I did my best to offer nuanced perspectives and acknowledge my own biases. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, including their own disappointments and praises for Larian, Swen, the actors, and all involved in the making/maintaining (or lack thereof) of BG3.

TLDR: We shouldn’t put Larian on a pedestal as the Best Studio Ever, but we don’t have to grab our pitchforks and say they’re the worst studio ever either. If BG3 is a disappointment it might be because Larian flew a little too close to the sun trying to squeeze 80% of a functional D&D experience into a digital video game package, when (in my opinion) those two game genres are almost inherently designed to not mesh well, disappointing one fan while satisfying another.

———

Point #1, Idk how much Larian is sticking it to Hasbro but Hasbro IS a greedy corporation who has no idea how to make video games and I very highly suspect they’ve been making demands of Larian’s team that are impossible to meet without destroying the work ethic (and health/mental health/financial stability, etc) of Larian’s team. Hasbro just sees dollar signs. Larian isn’t necessarily as interested in milking BG3 for all it’s worth.

If they were, we’d be paying for Upper City in a DLC, and we’re not. Instead they’re choosing to pivot to a fresh new project that isn’t beholden to Hasbro or the demands of WOTC. Does it feel like they’re abandoning the game? Yeah, kinda. But if Swen says that his team looked visibly relieved to move on to something new, that gives me warning bells. Not against Swen, but about the crunch standard of games industries as a whole and possibly against Hasbro or WOTC. I’d much rather his team take care of their very human selves than grind themselves to ultimate burnout working on a game that is functionally complete, if buggy in places and not satisfying for some players because they didn’t get the content they wanted.

There is no perfect game, after all.

And honestly I’d say the same of any AAA studio too. I am consistently frustrated with game studios firing whole departments for the sake of retaining profits and treating their employees like content robots. Games should not be made at the expense of anyone’s physical or mental health, but unfortunately that’s The Industry Standard. (And personally I think Larian or at least Swen is uncomfortable with that.)

(Also I think people forget that making a game the size of BG3 requires the talents and hard work of hundreds of people. Larian was working with, what, 400 people? And that was after they hired like 250+ to even rise to the challenge of making BG3. Who are we even pointing the finger at for all these issues? Swen? He’s one man.)

Should they have promised something they couldn’t deliver? No. But also, I have no idea what issues led them to cutting the content, either. What’s done is done.

BG3 will be an obsolete game in a year or soon anyway, not because Larian isn’t working on it anymore, but because the games industry is just So. Freaking. Big. and pumps out thousands of games a year. Like, I hate to say it, but people are already dropping BG3 for other games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 because DD2 is shiny, new, and has a bonkers character creator.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! We’re not built to play (or work on) a narrative-focused game for 5-7 years, regardless of what any die-hard Destiny fan tells you (note: multiplayers without narrative get a pass purely because the focus isn’t on the narrative, but on collaborative play).

If a game is no longer fun to play, move on and find something that scratches your itch. Go back and play old games! There are so many things out there to explore. I have a To Be Played pile literally right now, a backlog of games I haven’t tried out yet. I’m sure many others do too.

Point #2 (and here I could be wrong, if I’m not already wrong in my opinions above), but they’re not entirely abandoning the game like…at the drop of a hat. They’re still promising at least a handful of hotfixes and at least one more patch with new evil epilogue endings (among other things).

Does that get us Upper City? Likely not. Does that add enough content to give Wyll a more well-rounded storyline, elevate all the romances to Astarion levels of cutscenes and dialogue, and finish Karlach’s questline with an actual solution for her heart? Also likely not. Is it precious to be mad about these losses? No! Be mad!! Wyll deserves justice!!!

I’d love to explore Upper City. I’m a huge advocate for Wyll getting more/better representation. If I could save Karlach without throwing her into Avernus I would in a HEARTBEAT. But these things aren’t in the game, and they likely won’t be. Larian made decisions to meet a (self-imposed? Hasbro imposed? Industry-relevant?) deadline that are ultimately disappointing. We can absolutely acknowledge that we’re disappointed.

But I don’t necessarily think Larian is just being lazy about these decisions, though. At the end of the day we have no idea what contracts Larian is under, what hell the developers have been through, either from the game industry, Hasbro, rabid fans, or excessively cruel critics, or what technical/gameplay/scheduling/financial issues they ran into at various parts of development.

Like the Ketheric thing (Point #3). Was it bad PR to bring up that Ketheric was a “kill your darlings” decision late in development around the same time you’re openly promoting the end of your relationship with BG3? Yeah. Totally. But I’m not surprised they had to cut something like that. Games, movies, books do that all the time. How many deleted scenes from movies have we seen where it could have changed the whole narrative (maybe even made it better) if it had just stayed in? I can think of a handful. It sucks, but trust me, it hurts the writers and developers way more to cut content they’ve poured money and time and heart and soul into than it hurts us, the players who would never know the wiser if they hadn’t said anything.

But also, the game is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. On PC you have to have 150GB free just to install it. Can you imagine how big it would be if they had shoved everything they wanted into it, even if they had delayed the game a while to make it happen? 150GB is a lot.

For perspective, that puts it on par with a very, very, VERY tiny sector of PC games at about the same level (or higher) of GB requirements, including Red Dead Redemption 2 (a fantastic open world game that still holds up in 2024), Microsoft Flight Simulator (which requires 150GB because it’s literally just flying through high quality renders of actual Earth), Forspoken (everyone says all the GB went to graphics here and I believe them), Star Wars: Jedi Survivor (which only has about 50 hours of playable content, allegedly), basically any VR game, and ARK: Survival Evolved which comes in at a whopping 400 GB mostly because of DLC. In other words, games that big get that big either because of graphics or like a hundred DLCs.

BG3 manages to fit in gorgeous cinematics, a super complex spell-combat system, a more or less streamlined video game build for complex D&D combat rules and mechanics, 10 potential companions, 8 romances among those companions, several large maps to explore, and branching narratives that would take you days to read every scrap of dialogue for (I’ve downloaded the datamined files for Patch6, and there are whole leagues of dialogue, encounters, and bits that are in the game, unbugged, that most of us pass by because we don’t explore enough). You want to know where most of the GB goes? It goes towards sustaining a D&D combat/narrative structure that was originally never built with video game constraints in mind.

Do you know how many conditions/status effects there are in the game? Over 1100. 1100+ unique descriptions and titles for conditions that debuff or buff your character or your enemies, granting hundreds of actual gameplay affects. Do you know how many spells there are across the 12 playable classes and all unique spells for enemies and allies? Like 400, if we’re getting picky and splitting hairs over stuff like Rolan’s Magic Missile being different than the usual Magic Missile or if we’re splitting out something like Disguise Self into its 32 different variations. Each spell needs a different icon, a different graphic effect, and it needs to do the right kind of damage and cause the right kind of condition or effect, some of which are immediate, others which linger.

We can speak with dead with hundreds of characters. That’s a lot of dialogue. We can talk to ANY named NPC. That’s a lot of dialogue! We can talk to any animal, with or without speak with animals enabled. That’s a lot of dialogue!!

A single playthrough where I try to explore as much as possible takes me 150 hours or more. I have 500 hours in this game and I’ve only got 4 characters and I’ve only finished 2 of them. This game is mind-bogglingly big. Even if it’s not the biggest game in history ever, or even the biggest game by the time of its release, its BIG.

The biggest critique I would have here is one that I’ve had since I first started playing the game, and it’s that D&D systems and video games don’t mesh comfortably well. I think that Larian got distracted trying to make the ultimate D&D experience, catering to a demographic that is known to ignore plot and pursue shenanigans, and Larian felt the need to build in a lot of shenanigans.

I think they got a little overzealous about it, and that’s where we have missing content, and a lot of fluff that isn’t always plot-relevant. If the game feels unfinished, it’s because Larian started too many threads, and while there are endings to all of those threads, many of them feel rushed or unsatisfactory. Why do they feel unsatisfactory? Because we’re offered so much freedom early on, only to be pulled back into the much more limited narrative constraints of a video game at the end. Because the game has to end eventually, unlike a D&D campaign which could go on or explore many other possibilities. But by act 3 in a 150 GB game, we’re running out of time and space.

And yes that’s disappointing as hell and Larian could and arguably SHOULD have made different decisions on what to focus on.

But ultimately, you just can’t fit a full-on, any-choice-goes D&D experience in a game that needs to be packaged neatly enough to run on most PCs or consoles, and Larian was ambitious as hell to try. Contrary to popular belief, I think they did pretty freaking well given the challenge, and no, it isn’t perfect, and no, to confess to my own bias, I don’t have the same complicated history with the game that early access or release day players have because I bought the game like 2 months after it was out and patched twice. But they’ve clearly built a game that people love so much they’re upset there isn’t more of it, or at least upset it isn’t the best it can be.

But sometimes we have to be realistic too. I can only imagine how many more bugs or render issues we’d get if they did try to shove in Upper City at this point. Games can only be so big before they start to become too much for the systems that try to run them and I don’t want the games industry veering towards making games an elitist hobby for only the rich and elite who can afford expensive rigs and $100 games.

(And also, I’m not at all upset that for $70 bucks I got 500 hours of gameplay and I’m not 100% sick of it yet. When EA and Activision are getting players to pay hundreds in micro transactions and DLC and dangling extra maps and new missions behind paywalls? Bish, please, I’m good. You want to talk about an unfinished experience? Dragon Age: Inquisition made us pay for our epilogue content as a DLC. At least Larian built theirs in for free from the start.)

Anyway.

All that said, I’m sure if Larian could turn back the clock and start over, they’d make different decisions about what to keep, cut, and refine. But we’re here now.

If I want to see anything from Larian right now, it’s a dedication to fix ongoing bugs that make the game unplayable or that block the narratives that they have built so that they play correctly (like with the Minthara romance). IDEALLY I’d like to see them add more content for companions other than Astarion, to equalize the romance experiences, but I’m not holding my breath (again, considering things like game development, actor schedules, contracts, etc).

While I’m sad about the permanent loss of stuff like the Upper City and disappointed by all the rushed questlines, I’d rather them fix the bugs that make the game un-fun to play and bow out gracefully once they’re sure the game won’t need constant supervision.

Besides, they’re working on cross-platform mod support, and mods are gonna add and mess with the game for many years to come, so we can pivot to support them instead while Larian works on its next game (and hopefully learns from its mistakes with BG3).

[korppuhiiri]

so i've been having a ton of fun with the new dragon's dogma!

like the first game, it does feel super janky and lacking in a lot of aspects outside of the combat and exploration, and this one in particular has some pretty glaring performance issues and such, but i've been enjoying it a lot regardless!

i have some more thoughts and screenshots of my characters under the read-more:

here's my main character and main pawn! i greatly enjoy creating cute and small male characters (and big, butch female characters to contrast) whenever games have the option to do so, and i'm glad that you're able to do just that even with the newly added beastren race! (the previews for the game only ever showed us huge male beastrens and much smaller, more dainty female ones, so i was a little afraid that the customization for them might be more limited in that regard) so much like i did when playing the first game, i have a twinky little dude as the arisen, and a big tough lady as the main pawn.

also, my pawn's ID should be 2YSNV29SKMIX, if anyone wants to look her up and hire her in-game! (i'm playing PC so i think she's only available there?)

something i was very pleasantly surprised by is that none of the game's more revealing outfits seem to be gender-locked or change appearance depending on your characters gender and/or bodytype (at least from what i've seen so far?). this means i've been having a blast hiring buff cat men as my support pawns, and dressing them up in the most revealing outfits i've been able to find.

(the game also lets you give men absolutely huge butts, which i mean, god bless.)

finally, here are some more screenshots i've taken so far! (i do wish they would let you freely control the camere during photo mode though – it's hard to take good pictures when you can only rotate the camera around your character...)

[triptrippy]

have you ever played dragons dogma? i never played da so i dont know if theyre alike at all but i think its a good game

i never played dragons dogma i dont even know if i know anything about it past a quick google search, but if anyone here has comparative notes on the two series id also love to know how alike they are cause i always like to pick up more rpg games

[bees-tes-blog]

is there any chance you could give a brief break down on your dragons dogma characters?? sincerely someone who’s never played but is intrigued by mati

to be completely honest I’m still figuring it out myself but I’d absolutely be happy to share what I have so far! in fact I might take the opportunity to get it all written down before I forget anything

my arisen, jesse (the one with the red hair), is currently a weird combination of the arisen’s canon background/traits + some of my own traits. the first character I make in an rpg tends to just be a vessel through which I do whatever I want but I’m trying to move him away from being Literally Me.

to recap, he was an orphan taken in by the village chief and raised as his own. he cares for his village very much—enough to take up arms against the attacking dragon without second thought. as a young man jesse’s not quite as outgoing as he was in his childhood, but he’s still motivated to protect the people he loves more than anything, though he tends to toe the line between brave and foolish.

mati is jesse’s main pawn—a support mage. I’m very fascinated by the idea of pawns as an extension of an arisen’s subconscious and how that presents itself in their creation (ex. how the arisen savan’s pawn looked like his dead father, who he was seeking revenge for), so I’ve been thinking a lot about what might’ve been on jesse’s mind when he first summoned mati. him being a healing mage is definitely at least partly influenced by jesse’s childhood friend, quina, who is a talented healer and knows him better than anyone. I think more than anything, far from his home and about to start down an unknown path (and as much as he wanted to believe he was strong enough to go it alone) what jesse desperately needed was a friend, and that’s what he got. idk yet where mati’s appearance came from!

mati is cautious and level-headed—two things his master is not. he does his best to keep jesse out of trouble, but sometimes the man sets his heart on something and just cannot be stopped. even so, mati is ever-faithful and always at his arisen's side ready to heal his wounds.

I think jesse feels kinda weird about commanding pawns. despite being the adopted son of the chief, he's never quite seen himself as leader material and doesn't like to issue orders. he treats his main pawn more as a friend and equal, and is loathe to let mati put himself in harm's way for his own sake. mati, being a pawn and Number One Following Rules Fan, isn't entirely sure what to do with this, particularly at first. he still calls jesse "master" most of the time as a polite gesture and is conflicted when he has to make choices for himself. over time though I think jesse rubs off on him and he learns to be a little more bold.

I think that's all I've got...feel free to ask if anything doesnt make sense—I'm not sure how much you know about the game, from my own ramblings or otherwise ^^' thank you for the ask!

[grungost]

Hiiiiiiiii :3 (again)

Haha, I would *never* stop posting for almost three quarters of a year... Anyway, Senior years almost over, whatever, more importantly Dragon's Dogma 2 was released and is absolutely incredible. Once again breaking out the superlatives: one of my favorite overall games. Ok, I don't think I even want to go into that, so what am I writing about here? This is basically public journaling, or would be if anyone really read these. I'm not complaining, though, it's pretty much fine. I started watching House MD, another absolute banger show, scratches a similar itch to SVU, but instead of being about cops its about doctors and occasionally disparages cops (edit: obviously a positive, just to make that clear). I read Roadside Picnic, the book that Stalker is originally based on, that was super good. I don't read as much as I used to when I was in grade school or whatever. I started reading Gardens of the Moon, first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series; haven't gotten far, but its cool. Uhhh, I don't think there's much else really. Still like magic; I didn't even read everything I wrote in my last post, but I saw it was about some magic stuff and I still think that stuff's neat. Oh, there have been a bunch of really good original songs from some of the Hololive JP members (I don't think I ever mentioned that particular interest of mine, I'm pretty into both JP and EN vtubers), Suisei's "Bibidiba," Kobo's "Help," and Marine's song that I don't remember the name of. Whatever the latest one was. All of them bangers.

I don't think I ever mentioned that I got really into Fear and Hunger in the past year. Oh wait, that happened after my last post! Man, that was back in October and my last post was in August. Anyway, Fear and Hunger; what a difference between when I first found out about it. When I first played it, it had such an oppressive atmosphere, genuinely upsetting at times, if only on account of the fact I'd never played a game so visceral, bodily, and sexual; pretty unique experience. Once you get into the swing of things though its just a bunch of fun. Oh, it was incredible though, making it to Mahabre for the first time; I was sick for a significant portion of the summer, had a hacking cough and a persistent headache or something (wasn't Covid, thankfully), and when I first went there, the music, the bizarre underground sunlight, the feeling of digging into the secret and divine realm that undergirded everything I'd been through to that point, all of it was heightened by my dizziness. It was pretty worrying at the time when I was so tired and had a coughing fit long enough that I passed out for a minute or so, but in retrospect it totally enhanced the experience and I can't help but appreciate how the experience as a whole positively affected my perception of the game. I won't talk as much about F&H 2, it wasn't as good. I appreciated that it was going for something else, but I much prefer the straight up fantasy setting of the first one. don't get me wrong, still a great game, just not my favorite.

I think that about wraps it up. I'm not gonna promise consistency again, but maybe I'll keep my page up in a tab and it'll remind me to write sometimes. Maybe if I had a topic... Maybe I could write about Fox Junction, a PS1 JP-only roguelike that isn't especially fun but has such an incredible atmosphere I can't help but love it. Maybe I could write about Tunic, my favorite game of all time (I still don't remember, but there's a good chance I already did in my previous post on account of how similar the subject matter is re: synchronicity and a spiritual world). Or maybe, just maybe, I could write another long, rambling post about nothing in particular. Who's to say what I'll end up writing about, there's simply no way to be certain. Alright, later!

[woolishlygrim]

I really can’t overstate how utterly fascinating I find Ex-Arm.

It’s like - we’ve all seen bad shows, probably worse shows than Ex-Arm. We’re familiar with the reasons why: Low budget and no idea how to stretch what little budget they have, incompetence, lack of interest or inspiration from the creative team, executive meddling, what-have-you. It’s old hat by now.

But Ex-Arm is just endlessly interesting to me because it’s an animated series where the director decided he didn’t need any animators. As other people have pointed out, it’s not like Ex-Arm is cheaply made, it’s got what is probably a very impressive budget! And it isn’t like the director is necessarily wholly incompetent, he’s directed several live-action movies and dramas! And Crunchyroll, who deal exclusively in anime, must surely have some idea of what does and does not make a good anime!

And yet, multiple people signed off on this animated series whose staff did not include animators.

If you ever needed a more perfect crystallisation of the idea of high-prestige and low-prestige work in entertainment, and the idea that the industry elevates individuals in managerial positions while devaluing the teams under them, just - just think about that. Think about Yoshimatsu Kimura, who has never directed an animated series before in his entire career, declaring that he was just going to hire his usual live-action team, and multiple producers going “I see no way this could go wrong.”

It sounds absolutely absurd, like a parody of the industry’s devaluation of certain workers, and yet it actually happened, and then Kimura declared that Ex-Arm was going to be the best science fiction anime ever created and make every other work in the genre look like trash.

I don’t understand how anyone could find that less than riveting. 

But it doesn’t even stop there!

So Kimura, the music director, is a guitar teacher and part-time DJ under the name SIGMA X81. He’s never worked on an anime before, and his music is ... pretty terrible, to be honest. Not the worst, but, like, if you listen to it, and then you heard ‘And this was composed and played by a middle-aged guitar teacher who is also a small-time DJ,’ you’d go ‘Yeah, no, that tracks.’

Tommy Morton, the writer, is also a first-time writer, and appears to not ... actually ... speak Japanese? Like, anime adaptations that utilise a Japanese animation team but which are initially written in English and dubbed into Japanese after the fact aren’t uncommon these days, especially on streaming platforms, that’s what the excellent Castlevania was and also what the equivalently terrible Dragon’s Dogma was. But there’s two differences here: Firstly, Ex-Arm is adapted from a manga that hasn’t been localised into English yet, which means that Morton was either translating as well as writing, or that he was working with a translator and writing based on their work, neither of which is ideal. The second difference is that Ex-Arm wasn’t scripted and recorded in English and then dubbed into Japanese, but rather seems to have been translated from the manga, scripted in English, translated back into Japanese, and then recorded in Japanese.

And as you can probably tell by now, Crunchyroll’s seeming intent here was to give first-time directors (for anime, at least), composers, writers etc a platform to get their names out there, which is very admirable. Unfortunately, they picked a director who didn’t think he needed animators, a composer who’s a middling DJ, and -- I mean, admittedly, the writing is the most competent part of the whole production here, even if it’s not that great.

Just ... fascinating. If we emerged from the hellscape of 2020 for one thing, it was so we could bear witness to Ex-Arm, and I say that without even a hint of irony or sarcasm. They say you learn more from failure than success, and Ex-Arm is a masterclass, far and away the most interesting anime of the decade from a production standpoint.

The only real victims here are HiRock and Shinya Komi, the writer and artist of the manga respectively. I’ve never read the manga, although the art actually looks really good, but it was well-received enough to get a sequel despite being in a pretty competitive magazine. I can only imagine that they are horrified by what became of its adaptation.

[cainite-bite]

7, 20, and 22!! for the video game asks!

7: A game you’ll never forget?

There's a lot of them on that list for sure. You have things like Dragon's Dogma which is one of the funnest fantasy games I've ever played. the Final Fantasy series which has had such a great impact on my childhood. Things like Deadly Premonition and Harvester which are so damn goofy and absurd that it makes itself hard to forget. And ofc my one true love of a series; Myst.

20: What was the first video game you ever played?

Funnily enough it was FF2. I was just a really small toddler and had to be set on someones lap while they translated it into english (the version they had was in japanese) and I would just hit the buttons. I got really good at casting fire

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do?

Oh man that's a hard one... mostly because there's just so little you can get to in a day? Maybe morrowind. I'd probably just try to go on a short adventure, learn a little magic, explore and old and abandoned dwarven fortress, have fun getting to swing some swords and shoot some arrows again, and go on a skooma binge and likely get pecked off by the dang cliff racers. That or Katamari Damaci. You know what anyone would be doing in that.

but thank you so much for sending!

[thedinanshiral]

Magic, mages and more

If you’ve played the Dragon Age series you’ve probably noticed some differences here and there. Origins was heavy on tactics, something Inquisition lacks considerably, and Dragon Age 2 allowed for blood magic, which Origins had little of and Inquisition barely mentions. All lore aside, we can experience magic in Thedas more closely through our mage companions in each game ( or your character if you chose the mage class).

First, i’ll discuss briefly how magic spells have changed throughout the games, then i’ll analyse a mage pattern and how it broke. And finally i’ll entertain some future over the top possibilities.  

Origins and DA2 were designed primarily to be played on PC, and we see this more clearly on Origins through its tactics-heavy gameplay. Spells in Origins are more suitable to a carefully planned combat strategy, with passive and status-inducing spells presented in a variety that didn’t survive into the following games. DA2 also allows for tactics but the combat system is more dynamic, it’s not necessary to pause/unpause 5 times per second, one can do battles in real time and as a result spells were considerably reduced, prioritizing active/offensive spells, and almost entirely eliminating status-inducing and supportive spells.

Unlike its predecessors, Inquisition was way more console-friendly and all but eliminated the tactics system from Origins; now combat was fast, direct, with a tactical screen capable of basic commands and overall limited, and spell trees were reduced to the bare minimum, with elemental attacks, and very few defensive spells, having completely eliminated healing.

So, in short, summonings disappeared after Origins, as did most of the Creation, Spirit and Entropy trees. By Inquisition, none of the glyphs or hexes survived. Some spells icons from DA2 reappear in Inquisition, but most from Origins never made it past it, and some spells changed name or spell tree between games. There’s a gradual simplification of spell trees from one game to the next, adjusting combat to a more straightforward style, with less support or status-inducing spells and an increasing concentration of active spells with enhancing passive ones. On the other hand, Healing all but disappeared from Inquisition spells, “spirit healer” not even surviving as a specialization, with the only healing spell available being Revival which as the name implies you can only use on an already fallen party member. Surprisingly, Dispel made it through all three games staying in the same spell tree, Spirit, and elemental spells remained the same across all games, with minor changes.

Now let’s take a look at all our main mage companions.

In Origins we have Morrigan (apostate, shapeshifter), and Wynne (circle mage, spirit healer, vessel for spirit of Faith). In DA2 we have Merrill (dalish, blood mage), and Anders (former circle mage turned apostate, healer, vessel for spirit of Justice/Vengeance). In inquisition however we get three mages: Dorian (Tevinter pariah, pyromancer, necromancer), Vivienne (circle loyalist, icemancer, knight-enchanter) and Solas (apostate, electromancer,rift mage).

Just in case the pattern isn’t clear enough..In both games we get an apostate and formally educated and trained mage, a mage who lived in the wild and a mage who lived in cities, a mage who dwells in obscure or forbidden magic used for offense and a mage dedicated primarily to healing and support, a mage who deals in dangerous magic but remains their own and a mage who despite dealing in safer magic harbours a spirit within (by Chantry dogma, an abomination).

This pattern is broken in Inquisition; while we still get an apostate and a circle mage, we also get a mage that while not from the circle still isn’s technically an apostate (Dorian), we also get no healer but we do get a mage that specializes in obscure magic (necromancy), and we don’t really get a mage that has lived in the wild but one who’s lived outside of Thedosian society (Solas, being who he is and having recently woken up from the longest nap ever). And instead of getting a mage sharing their body with a spirit of the Fade, we get an ancient elf who secretely is an elvhen god and the creator of the Veil. Solas breaks the pattern (as well as everything else, apparently).  

I’ll focus on Inquisition from now on and leave Solas for last. 

Auto-level evidences the default element of choice of each mage. Solas is an electromancer, Dorian is a pyromancer, and Vivienne is an icemancer. Dorian preferring fire makes sense as a Tevinter who constantly complains the South is cold, implying his homeland has a warmer weather he sorely misses. Vivienne choosing cold spells goes perfectly with her personality, presenting herself as an ice queen.

Here is where it begins to get a bit tricky: Specializations.

Dorian’s is Necromancy, which would make a lot of sense...if he was Nevarran. Being a Tevinter it’d make more sense for him to be a Blood Mage. But Origins and particularly DA2 already exposed blood magic, painted it in all its evil colours, made it pretty clear it’s the wrong kind of magic to use for all the dangers it entails. By the time we get Inquisition, we face an actual Magister Siderial and Tevinter is painted as this degenerate empire full of evil blood mages, so getting a blood mage specialization was out of the table. Therefore our Tevinter ally got the next most questionable line of magic, necromancy. Because nothing says “almost evil” as raising up the death to fight for you and draining lifeforce from your enemies.

Next we have Vivienne who specialises as a Knight-Enchanter (KE). She’s a Circle mage, a Loyalist at that, and KE is a path reserved for Circle mages allowed to engage in combat when requested. But we learn from Solas that the powers used by Knight-Enchanters have their origin in the Arcane Warriors of the ancient elves. Vivienne has no known connection to anything elven, so her being able to become a KE is just another example of the cultural appropriation of elven elements and knowledge done by humans and the Chantry. 

None of the specializations are entirely new, as already stated KE takes from Arcane Warriors, much of the Necromancer tree comes from the previous games’ Entropy trees, and the Primal and Force trees lend some spells to the supposedly brand new Rift tree. 

Then there’s Solas, who is the default Rift Mage once specializations become available. The Rift spell tree is a post-Breach occurrence, as it was developed by mages studying the Breach and resulting rifts that appeared all over Thedas. It should have unique spells yet it recycles old ones: Stonefist no longer deals physical damage as it did in Origins and DA2 when it was in the Primal tree and meant hurling rocks at the enemy, but spirit damage as it now involves summoning a boulder directly from the Fade. Similarly, DA2’s Force spell Fist of the Maker and subsequent upgrades, Maker’s Hammer and Maker’s Fury, described as “slamming enemies into the ground” with some invisible force became Veilstrike in the Rift tree of Inquisition, there described as “smashing nearby foes to the ground” by “recreating your own fist from from the essence of the Fade”.

Knowing what we know about Solas, his specialization makes sense, he’s responsible for the Veil’s existence so of course he’d know how to manipulate its properties. He’s Fen’Harel, after all. 

Still with me? Good, because this ride is about to get bumpy.

As the default Rift mage he can use Veilstrike, recreating his “own fist from the essence of the Fade”,  but Veilstrike is actually a rename of Fist of the Maker…So what Solas is really doing whenever he casts Veilstrike is casting the Fist of the Maker. By recreating his own fist..It’s all in the name. Fist of the Maker pre-dates Rift magic, but its rebranding as Veilstrike is post-Breach and named after the Veil and not the Maker, possibly because the one who introduces us to this particular spell now is not Andrastian but the ancient elvhen god and creator of the Veil.  Technically speaking  we could say Solas, having created the Veil ages ago and therefore being the one responsible for the present reality of Thedas, is then, in a way, its maker. It’s a wild idea, I know, and there are some bits of lore scattered around that could support it, but i’m not jumping into that abyss yet-

In addition, let’s go back to his auto-leveled spells. At first sight there’s no basis for Solas being an electromancer. But like his Rift specialization, his magic preferences are lore/plot oriented. To consider:

Solas prefers the Storm tree. Skyhold is, by its very name, the place from where the Veil was installed. Some codices found at Skyhold mention electricity being used in unknown rituals at Skyhold’s location. Solas was responsible for creating the Veil.

With this in mind it can be concluded that Solas has always been an electromancer, and even used his electric powers in some way to help put up the Veil in the past.

tl;dr Solas was originally an electromancer and is a Rift Mage because he created the Veil and knows it better than anyone else. Also, he may be the Maker. (loljk or am i)

Now what would you say if I told you Solas possibly also does blood magic? Too much of a stretch? Maaaybe..Except maybe not. He’s not against it, thinks of it as simply a means to an end, and doesn’t disapprove of it unless it’s done in excess for all the wrong reasons (as they do in Tevinter) or is used to limit freedom like when used to bind unwilling spirits or control people’s minds. It’s just an idea, but there must be an explanation why blood magic and lyrium (titan blood, so, still blood magic) can be used to tear the Veil open. The Magisters did it before, and a second time when Corypheus sacrificed Divine Justinia in a ritual that also involved...Solas’ Foci. That is, Fen’ Harel’s Foci.

From Tevinter Nights we learn Solas is after the red lyrium idol (again, titan blood) which he claims belongs to him and is a necessary element for the ritual he must perform to take down the Veil. A ritual for which he’s willing to destroy Thedas as we know it, regrettably causing the dead of thousands. For all we know, those deaths are a necessary sacrifice because they are part of a massive blood magic ritual, Solas’ own death may also be part of it. If the blood of a Divine could be used to open the Breach, what could the blood of Fen’Harel be used for?? Solas’ new powers as Fen’Harel are, frankly, terrifying*, and he’s decided to do whatever it takes to see his mission through, sadly.

And all this leads me to future possibilities..we can imagine with Solas actively trying to take down the Veil there will be places where the Veil gets super thin or begins to disappear. Pockets of space where reality no longer respects natural laws of physics or logic. The Fade is fluid, ever changing, with the right power it can be reshaped at will and i imagine some of that may begin to leak into the physical world, so we may get mage (or spirit! )companions with skills capable of taking advantage of that. 

Lastly, i may add, right now and as far as we can see, Solas is OP as fuck*. He can kill you in your sleep from within your dreams. He can turn you into stone with just thinking of it, which means in a way he can bend the laws of nature of the physical world like he can do in the Fade, If in the future we get close to him,if we get our hands on artifacts or intel.. it won’t because we gathered the right people and resources, it won’t be because of clever tactics and espionage, it won’t be at all because we did anything right. It’ll be because he allows it, because he let us get that far. 

If we stop him at all it’ll be because he wants to be stopped.   

(Apologies in advance if some of this is poorly written, i revised it so many times words no longer look like words. Also half of this is just wild speculation on my part and nobody has to agree with me, after 5 years i may be connecting imaginary dots but hey, it’s fun! If you read this far...i am so sorry, thanks)

[invaderkyuubi]

Am I still playing Dragon's dogma on ps3 cause I'm lane and cheap? Hell yeah, will I change over to switch? Not for a good while. Will anybody ever use my pawns heck no, has anyone ever before, maybe like one time, do I care? Okay I do a bit, but not enough to buy another copy right now. Did I accidentally teach my pawn to play catch with me with live animals, yes yes I did.

[fallingcrimsonstar]

The one thing I really like about Dragon’s Dogma is the ability to look around in Photo Mode and hide your character. (wish it could hide the pawns too)

For many games that are in third-person, you never really see some of the enemies close enough to see their details. While DD doesn’t have the most amazing models and graphics. (I really like them, just wish they didn’t have that slight blurriness, though) They make up for it in some small details.

Anyone who’s played Dragon’s Dogma has killed many Harpies I'm sure. The Harpy design in DD is interesting compared to most other games, considering they are literally “birds with tits”. I only found out not long ago that their elegant faces change into something more monstrous when they attack and...roar at you?  I just think it’s neat. It’s over in an instant when they do so, most of the time you aren’t paying attention to really ever notice. So the fact that they did add it is a nice little detail.

I might post some screens of some enemies you don’t get to see much details on. Unless you go into photo mode and look at them. It’s fun if you are a screenshot junky. :3

[namesisfortombstones]

The article about Destroy All Monsters in the most recent G-Fan was an improper draft with many mistakes in it. This is the version I turned in to be further refined for print. If you don’t know, the editor’s notes are not meant to be included in the text, but more of a warning sign to the author. The Secret History of Destroy All Monsters

By John LeMay            

           Fan dogma has usually assumed that Destroy All Monsters was created as the grand finale to the Godzilla series due to Son of Godzilla’s poor performance at the box office with a record low 2,480,000 admissions. [editor's note: rewrite a new opening completely; no they don't and ticket admissions are irrelevant to a film's success] 

          However, a first draft script for the 9th Godzilla film was submitted on November 22, 1967, before Son of Godzilla had even been released in December of that year. Furthermore, several sources attest that Kaiju Soshingeki/Attack of the Marching Monsters (the Japanese title of Destroy All Monsters) was announced alongside of Son of Godzilla, possibly as a competing project! In either case, Toho’s inspiration for their grand monster opus was probably the Monster Boom of 1967 in which Shochiku, Nikkatsu, Daiei, and even Keuk-Dong Entertainment (in association with Toei) in South Korea produced at least one giant monster movie and Toho felt they needed to up the ante to prove that they were still masters of the genre.

           On the other hand, many believe Tomoyuki Tanaka planned to end the series due to rising production costs and the advent of television drawing potential ticket buyers away from theaters. In the book Godzilla Days, effects director Sadamasa Arikawa is quoted as saying, “They were going to end the Godzilla series then. Producer Tanaka figured that all the ideas had just run out.” However, the commentary track by assistant director Seiji Tani for Destroy All Monsters' Japanese DVD release denies that the film was ever meant to be the final Godzilla movie at the time

           Kaiju Chushingura ("The Treasury of Loyal Monster Retainers", a title which would hold little meaning to anyone outside Japan), the earliest version of what would eventually become Kaiju Soshingeki/Destroy All Monsters, was titled after the famed Japanese tale of 47 Ronin (the Kilaak aliens are named after that story’s villains, the Kirakozukenosuke). Supposedly in this version, there was to be included every monster suit in Toho’s arsenal, even King Kong, Sanda, and Gaira. In fact, in an interview with David Milner, Ishiro Honda even said, “The original idea was to show all of the monsters.” Of course, this statement is open to interpretation as to what “all of the monsters” really means (is an H-Man a monster? Is the Human Vapor a monster? Or Matango?). In any case, this idea came directly from the Toho brass.

           The first draft script, Total Monster Attack Directive, by Kaoru Mabuchi submitted on November 22, 1967, included a confirmed roster of Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan, Varan, Mothra (larva), Manda, Baragon, Kumonga, Ebirah, and Magma. Everything presumably plays out just as in the finished film except that Magma and Baragon guard the Kilaak base and Baragon actually attacks Paris. Also in this version, Varan teams up with Rodan to take on King Ghidorah in the final battle. [Editor's note: you can't just drop that on us and walk away. How do they team up? We readers demand details!] Ebirah would have most likely stuck to the water and it’s presumable the scene of Godzilla destroying an ocean liner at sea in the finished film was meant for Ebirah. However, a Japanese website dedicated to tokusatsu scripts, cyberkids1954.com, seems to imply that Ebirah would have made it onto land for the final battle. The author of the website writes, “Apart from the smaller number of monsters, it is a very well-written script.”

           How the second draft script differed is unknown, but the monster roster of the third draft script, submitted on January 9, 1968, is known to be Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra (larva), King Ghidorah, Baragon, Varan, Manda, Kumonga, and new additions Minilla and Anguirus. By this point, Ebirah and Magma were discarded… or were they? There is a curiously written scene for the very end battle that says Godzilla leads a charge flanked by Rodan, Anguirus, and Mothra and behind them is Baragon and Manda, plus more monsters making for exactly a dozen earth monsters (who are never named in this script) against King Ghidorah!

           The listed monsters only number six, and if one adds in Varan, Minilla, and Kumonga, that ups the number to nine. Naturally, one can speculate Gorosaurus is among the unnamed monsters, but his was a very last minute addition—more on that later. As this script was post-1967, King Kong was no longer a candidate for consideration at this point and was probably dropped by this time. The gargantuas, or possibly just Sanda, were a possibility. Frankenstein, being free of copyright unlike King Kong, was another possibility, but still very unlikely. Second rate kaiju like Kamacuras, the Mondo Island Sea Serpent, the Giant Condor, and the Giant Octopus are also possibly candidates, but those were probably never seriously considered due to the required extensive wireworks. As it was, Kumonga and King Ghidorah alone were nightmares for wireworks, so the Toho special effects crew likely shot down any more heavy wireworks monsters (look carefully when Kumonga's onscreen and you'll see that very few shots feature all of the spider's legs moving at once, as they had in Son of Godzilla). The likeliest candidate for one of the other mystery monsters was still giant walrus Magma; cyberkids1954.com features an excerpt from the third draft script that mentions the beast:

#93 Scene of Security Headquarters/Liaison Conference (between Director Sugiyama and Moonlight SY3 Captain Katsuo Yamabe) Director Sugiyama: “At Izu all the hot springs are dried out, the same situation as in Monsterland.” Katsuo Yamabe: “Is it also proof that it is Kilaak?” Director Sugiyama: “I am checking the underground monsters at Amagi.” Katsuo Yamabe “Magma...”

           In the finished film, this line was naturally changed to Baragon, and it’s possible the mention of Magma (who guarded the base in one earlier version) was just a mistake. As stated earlier, Baragon was initially supposed to attack Paris but his ears proved too difficult to manage (actually, the ears may have been in danger of being damaged) and so the part was taken over by Gorosaurus towards the end of production. However, there curiously do exist storyboards of Gorosaurus emerging from under the Arc de Triumph! Since his 1965 debut in Frankenstein Conquers the World, the Baragon suit had been loaned out to Tsuburaya Productions and converted into new monsters. They did this by removing Baragon’s head and placing new heads on the body creating Pagos for Ultra Q and Neronga, Gabora, and Magular for Ultraman. After that, the suit was kept at Tsuburaya Studios until Toho requested it back for Destroy All Monsters. As to why Toho had even bothered to repair the suit, chances are it was because Baragon was a very popular kaiju and toy sales of the beast were high. Sources say a new head was created just so the monster could have a cameo, but the body of the suit couldn’t be repaired because, supposedly, too much money had already been spent repairing King Ghidorah and Kumonga, in addition to creating new Godzilla and Anguirus suits. [editor's note: only Godzilla and Angilas are new costumes. All the other suits or props are from previous films] As it was, Haruo Nakajima crawled into the Baragon suit for scenes on Monsterland that play in a Monsterland base monitor as well as the shot in the final moments. As Baragon is still blamed for the attack in the finished film, one can assume that despite the storyboards, Gorosaurus’s attack on Paris was a last minute change. Perhaps the storyboards were drawn on set?

           Other mysteries concerning Destroy All Monsters include why recent creations Minilla and Gorosaurus, whose suits were in pristine condition, weren’t included in the first draft. [editor's note: Minya is NOT in pristine consition. You can see the suit falling apart in stills] Equally curious is why Sanda was axed, though supposedly, the third draft script featured Sanda hanging around Monsterland (likely glimpsed in a monitor early on), but he doesn’t partake in any of the action afterwards. As for Anguirus, his inclusion is slightly more surprising since, at least in part, this film revolved around using existing monster suits. Naturally, the 1955 suit had now deteriorated—not to mention behind the times—and a new suit was constructed. The new suit would pay off for the studio in the 1970s when the monster replaced Rodan as Godzilla’s main battle ally.

           The film’s manga adaptation could shed some light on early script concepts as well. At the beginning, Minilla can be seen holding up a giant shark he has caught. Manda’s attack of London is shown and considering it is mentioned in the final film’s newscast, chances are high the London sequence was meant to be filmed as well. Other notable differences include the Fire Dragon resembling an actual dragon! And naturally, Baragon destroys Paris. Most exciting of all, Manda wraps himself around King Ghidorah’s wing during the final battle and Baragon and Varan also participate.

           As fantastic as the finished Destroy All Monsters is, it’s too bad Toho didn’t produce it when they still had rights to King Kong. Fanaticized artwork of King Kong vs. King Ghidorah has appeared in at least one Sonorama book, and had he been included in the film this fantastic battle could have finally taken place. It would have also been interesting to see Kong team up with his old enemy Godzilla. Coincidentally, a European release of Destroy All Monsters renamed the film The Heirs of King Kong and features a giant ape on the poster.

           Another concept dropped to the wayside in one of the later scripts was that of lunar colonies and interbreeding the monsters—Ishiro Honda’s ideas. What these creations would have looked like was anyone’s guess. Specifically, Honda told David Milner, “We then started thinking about undersea farming... You see, we imagined that undersea farming would be required to feed all of the monsters. I very much wanted to explore that idea but because of financial constraints, I was not allowed to do so. Only the idea of an island of monsters survived.” Another, even more in depth quotation from Honda exists telling of his original hopes for Destroy All Monsters:

“[Kimura] and I... agreed it would be crazy to make each of the monsters just somehow appear. Eventually, we came up with an island on which all of the monsters had been collected for scientific study. We imagined that undersea farming would be required to feed all of the monsters... What would happen if that got developed on a super scale? I thought about the idea of a marine ranch... Scientifically, it would be what we now call aquaculture... From there, we started to develop the storyline. Initially, I had a lot more underwater scenes in the script. I was going to use special effects and set filming to depict them. But because of financial as well as time constraints, what you ultimately see is what we were able to do, the bare minimum. In a way, those things [that I could not do] were the scenes I wanted to film the most. Back then, the notion of aquaculture and biotechnology was already there, and we knew that things were going in that direction in the future.”

           One concept that most people think was abandoned, but in fact survived, was Honda’s idea of the creation of new sea life. The evidence is the strange whales with odd fins that Rodan attacks and eats. [Editor's note: wait, they're just ordinary dolphins, aren't they?] In later years shortly before his death, Honda would reflect that the film had the same premise as Jurassic Park (the book, of course, as the movie didn't come out until after he'd died) and this included an unused idea of raising the new crossbred monsters on the island. These crossbred monsters wouldn’t be due to forced mating of the monsters, but biotechnology!

 [Editor's note: that's it? It needs a proper ending. A conclusion wrapping things up]

[fredyates1992]

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[ed-edward-blackbeard]

@rootingformephistopheles posted a looooooooooong list of fanfiction questions right here.

I answered every damn one of them before I realized it was probably meant to be an askbox thing.  SO, here you fuckers go.  (it’s five pages long, wtf.  so it’s under a readmore to save your dashboard)

Fanfiction Questions

Fandom Questions

 1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Xenaverse, including Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.  I did PBeM (play by email) role play, and then moved to fanfic, and then slash fanfic.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I have three, technically.  Doctor Who, Hannibal, and Gotham

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Hannibal.  Fannibals are the best, by 100 miles.  I’m sure there’s bad parts of the fandom, I’ve just never yet run across them.  

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

As far as the people go? Highlander.  There was a lot of overlap, at the time, with The Sentinel, both shows I enjoyed.  I just feel like there were a lot of assholes in the Highlander fandom who disliked me and my writing because of the people I was friends with, not because I sucked (and believe me, I did.  I have the fic to prove it.)  

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

From my AO3 dashboard:

Smallville --  The Sentinel -- Hannibal (TV) -- Doctor Who (2005) -- Supernatural -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Veronica Mars -- Stargate SG-1 -- Actor RPF -- Charlie Countryman/Spacedogs -- Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling -- Adam (2009)/Spacedogs – Brimstone -- Supernatural RPF  -- Stargate Atlantis -- Yami No Matsuei | Descendants of Darkness -- The Fast and the Furious (2001) -- Sherlock (TV) -- The Blair Witch Project (1999) -- Star Trek: The Original Series -- Sense and Sensibility (1995) --  Law & Order: SVU -- Lost Boys (Movies) -- Watchmen (2009) -- Lost (1) -- Smallville RPF -- Marvel Cinematic Universe (1) --  Gargoyles (TV) -- Dogma (1999)

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Oh my fucking God. Okay, here goes:

Xena/Ares and Xena/Autolycus, Xenaverse; Clark/Lex and Lionel/Chloe, Smallville; Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg, the Sentinel; Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, Hannibal; Doctor/Rose, Nine/Rose/Jack, Doctor Who; Dean/Sam, Supernatural; Buffy/Spike, Giles/Ethan, Spike/Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars, John Winchester/Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars; Jack O’Neill/Daniel Jackson, Stargate SG-1; Ezekiel/Lucifer, Brimstone; John/Rodney, Stargate Atlantis; Muraki x Tsuzuki, Yami No Matsuei; Dom/Brian, the Fast and the Furious; John Watson/Sherlock Holmes, BBC Sherlock; Nigel Lupei/Adam Raki, Spacedogs; Kirk/Spock, Star Trek; Christopher Brandon/Eleanor Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility; Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson, Law & Order SVU; Elisa Maza/Goliath, Gargoyles.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I don’t really have NoTPs in the fandoms I’ve written in.  I have a few NoTPs in general, though, although I’m not listing them here because wow, would I cause some hurt feelings.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

I saw the gifsets from The Wrath of the Lamb, and I saw the name Hannibal Lecter being bandied about, and I fell in love because I’ve loved Hannibal Lecter ever since Red Dragon.  I don’t know how I missed out on hearing about the show when it first came out, but holy hell, am I sorry.  I’ve been a Fannibal ever since.  It was the same story with Gotham.  I’d actively avoided Gotham because of the debacle of Smallville, but it was the Nygmobblepot gifs and Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin that finally drew me in.

 9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Fannibals are fucking awesome, yo.  They’re the best thing about the fandom; hell, they *are* the fandom.  I love them all, every one.  From well-thought out meta to cracked out gifsets to the supportive fanfic community.  It’s amazing.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Because I write, I try not to read a lot, because I don’t want to accidentally crib from someone else’s story, or steal someone else’s idea, because I know what it’s like to pour your life into things.

 Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

 11. Who is your current OTP?

Hannibal/Will, Doctor/Rose, and Oswald/Edward

 12. Who is your current OT3?

Nine/Jack/Rose. That’s pretty much it.

 13. Any NoTPs?

None I’ll share.

 14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Jim Gordon/Harvey Bullock, and I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of right now. 

 15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

I think I’m probably the only person who actually ships it, but John Winchester/Veronica Mars.

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Destiel.  I dislike Destiel with a passion.  Ditto Barisi.  That’s about it.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Ares/Strife.  They’re not my favorite by any means, but I still have a huge soft spot for them.  

 18. What ship have you written the most about?

uh, probably Clark/Lex or Jim/Blair, just due to the length of time I was in both fandoms.  

 19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Destiel and Barisi. They’re popular ships shipped by some people I really like, but I just can’t get behind them.  It’s a knee-jerk thing.  I can’t even really voice why I dislike them as much as I do, I just do.

 20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Nygmobblepot, actually. I didn’t think I was going to like anything in Gotham, much less the Penguin and the Riddler, but damned if I don’t love it so much I’m actually writing about it as we speak.  

Author Questions

 21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Detested Sport, it was from a Shakespeare quote, I think, and it was Ares/Strife. I think it’s lost to the world, thank fucking God.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Writing?  No.  Sharing? Yes.  It’s called “My Soul’s Imaginary Sight,” and it’s the first time I used an OC, Meravin, who has gone through about a billion evolutions since, and has ended up as a Star Wars OC named Sheridan.  I wish I hadn’t shared it, because while it was a definitely needed step in my development as a writer, it’s such a blatant self-insert Mary Sue that I really regret sharing it.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Shoah.  It’s a Sentinel fic, written for one of the “Many Faces Of…” edition of My Mongoose e-zines.  I think it was MFO Jim.  But it’s an AU set during the Holocaust, in one of the concentration camps.  It’s not a particularly cheerful story, and the writing process was terrible.  I did so much research trying to make it honest to the experience that I spent whole evenings crying in chat windows with my friends Lisa and Patt, who basically hand-held me through the worst of it.  But I’m inordinately fond of it, because of the work that went into it, and of how it came out.  It’s not my best writing, by a long shot, but I think it’s probably my most emotional and evocative.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

Pretty much everything prior to my Doctor Who fic.  I’m very critical of my earlier works.

 25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

A recent one, Consortio, an ABO Hannigram sort-of Medieval-ish handwavey AU.  

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

Quotations, song lyrics, poetry, Shakespeare, sometimes pulled out of my ass.

 27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

SUMMARIES, JESUS CHRIST, SAVE ME FROM SUMMARIES.

 28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Dealer’s choice, really. I’d just be thrilled for anybody to pick SOMETHING.  

 29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I do not, although I fear I need one for Gotham.  It’s more a personal choice than anything else.  I’ve got a particular style that doesn’t always mesh well with taking concrit, and while my grammar is very… erratic, at times (stuff it, I love my commas as you can tell), I feel like I should be the arbiter of what I create.

 30. What inspires you to write?

Practically anything. Songs, less often.  TV shows of the source material, obviously.  Movies, sometimes.  Random quotes, what ifs, conversations with friends, AU lists, prompt lists, sentence starters…

 31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

It’s from a writer named Mysenia on my fic Consortio:  “All the kudos! Just re-read this story, and I loved it every bit as much as I did the first time :D”  Because that’s honestly the first time anyone has mentioned re-reading something of mine in the comment, and it made me so happy for DAYS

 32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Actually, it depends on what I’m writing.  If I’m working on writing sex, then I need dance music, which I usually abhor.  I find the Matrix soundtracks work really well, as do Rammstein albums.  If I’m doing emotional/angsty things, then Meat Loaf is my go-to.  Otherwise, it’s kind of a mish-mash.  My music folders are here, on my Google drive, if anyone is really interested in anything I listen to.

 33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

Mostly one-shots, although I’ve been known to do a chaptered fic/series once in a while.

 34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

7,706 on “The Masks We Wear.”  I’ve got a series of fics that is 35,498, over about fifteen different stories.  Consortio and Kastytis are both chaptered, so they don’t count.  Consortio is 23,088 and Kastytis is 24,706

 35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Strictly 100 word pieces? Not any more.  I used to write for drabble challenges, but I can never stay within the word limit any more.  If you mean 200 words or less drabble-ishes, then yes, I do write those.  About a lot of things, really.  

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

I’m kind of fond of first-times, although that’s not a given.  I don’t tend to stick to any one given genre.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third, unless it’s some VERY special occasion.  First person drives me nuts.  I love the Hunger Games books, but seeing things as Katniss gives me hives from time to time.  

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I’ve done both, actually, although 99% of my OC writing stays private.  Which is sometimes a pity, because I think I’ve written some pretty good shit with some of my OCs.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know that I really have one.

 40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Staying in character, finishing what I start.

 Fanfiction Questions

 41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

I’m not reading anything right now.  Except Stephen King’s IT

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Just five?  @slashyrogue, @damnslippyplanet, @granpappy-winchester, @mummyholmesisupset, @moku-youbi

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

@bonearenaofmyskull, @crossroadscastiel, @bu0nanotte, @granpappy-winchester, @moku-youbi

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

All of them.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

Home and Dry by @moku-youbi

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Consortio, or Kastytis. They’re both Hannigram AUs, and I feel like they’re the best examples of my writing style.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

AO3 and Wonderful World of Make Believe, where I am woefully behind.  But AO3, because I enjoy having everything in one place, easy to use dashboard and posting interface, and it’s pre-sorted for me.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Mostly I do, because I know how valuable the reviews are to writers.  I try and speak to what I liked best about the story, or how it moved me.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I don’t want to care, but I do.  I want the validation, dammit.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I eased into it by way of RP.  Play by email was my thing, and I loved reading threads strung together, which was basically fanfiction.  Then a friend of mine introduced me to Ares/Joxer slash, and I’ve just gone from there.  I’ve always written it, as long as I can remember, even though I didn’t know that’s what it was called.  

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

The one thing I hate in the world of fanfiction is the kind of elitism that is absolutely bullshit. As a writer, if you don’t write the pairing du jour, or the kind of thing that the fandom at large is clamoring for (RPF, AU, ABO, ten thousand other different things) then you don’t get a bit of recognition no matter how good you are.  Hannibal fandom is the first time that I’ve not seen this.  This is the only fandom that I know of where an author can write what they want to write and still be recognized for it.  

[wearethegladiators]

BUCKLE UP KIDS BC THIS SHIT IS WAY TOO LONG BC I HAVE 0 SELF-CONTROL: A WYNONA EDITION

URFFFF D’ABORD GROS LOVE SUR TOI CIMER JME REMETS SEULEMENT A ECRIRE ET C’EST PO FACILE SURTOUT QUE JDOIS FAIRE PLEINS DE RECHERCHES POUR WYN ET AEFRFSJFSHFSHFSHS *sends virtual hugs* *sends FRENCH hugs oh ptn !!!*

ANYWAY ça commence à devenir un peu plus clair dans ma tête où en sont Wyn et Lily. J’ai refait le tour de mes threads et IT’S A MESS so let’s wrap this up a bit.

Wynona is… not doing much tbh. Not seeing anyone besides her trusted circle. Officially off the radars since a year or so. She’s just doing her own shit, pretending like everything is normal. Probably working on her dissertation thesis. Trying to learn how to RIDE mofo dragons, also. Ah yes, btw: she’s now BREEDING dragons. Like before the shitstorm, she was taking care of dragons, just heading a sanctuary for them (since, as everyone knows, breeding is illegal). But now she just does not care anymore, she has an actual motherfucking élevage. What for? Hihi who knows. And she’s also the engineer of the Muggleborn Resistance, ofc. AND hopefully, at the time of Incendio, she should be back in the great game. Either because Edan is back OR because someone asked her to work on something for the Rebellion.

Random bullet points:

·         CANON: before going rogue, Wynona DID play the pureblood game of thrones. Went to the meetings and pretended to be the nice little heiress that would not apply the “blood must have blood” dogma (see next chapter hihi). Managed to secure some cool lands, where she installed her kids and dragons and used a Fidelitas so the other purebloods could no longer have access to it hihihi and if they manage to dragons are waiting in every corner so :’) They must be so mad, she really played them all :’) (see next point tmtc)

·         CANON: after the massacre, Wynona wrote down a list of all the people she wanted to kill (have I seen too many Arya Stark fanvids? It’s a yes.) Her couple of years as a terrorist certainly helped to greatly diminish this list. Did they really think she would never come for those who have killed her parents?? She could not apply the doctrine AT THAT TIME because she needed to protect the kids, but now? Blood must have blood bitches.

·         NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: who EXACTLY is on that list? Is Kieran on it? How many purebloods? Did she actually organize a terrorist attack during one of these pureblood galas thingy??

·         NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: during her years as a terrorist, has she used dragons? Seems complicated because she was still figuring out how to deal with her legs, but… the potential for destruction is quite astonishing. Maybe so much so that she refused to use any dragon YET. Tbd?

·         CANON: Red is/was Wynona’s BFF. Wyn went after Kieran when both Edan and Red were taken, hoping to save them both from the Ministry (oopsi). Win is very good friends with the McFusty and that freaked out the pureblood council. Win also got along pretty well with Carmen (when they were not physically fighting each other). She has not spoken to her in years, maybe they’ve met on some cool terrorist events but that’s about it. HOWEVER, she’ll go to her the MINUTE she is contacted by the Rebellion because she has no idea what to do about it.

·         NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: the circumstances in which Wynona left the Rebellion. Was she expelled, was there some sort of a trial? Because it was so fucked up. Did Nathan make the call? She probably hasn’t had a proper talk with Nathan in YEARS, and God do they need to talk some stuff out

·         NEEDS MORE THOUGHT: I really, REALLY like the American branch. They’re like so fucking scary. Will they ever come?? Especially if there is a conflict between Wynona’s branch and her cousin’s??

·         CANON: I feel like… Wynona is sort of this split personality for Sacha?? Like you know the bad guy that takes over to protect its “host”? Like Mr Robot and Elliot??? Because MDR there is literally a chapter in Wynona’s story in which she learns about what Kieran did and goes to kick his ass/try to strangle him before Lysandra intervenes?? (I don’t know this girl but I love her ok) And she leaves saying something like “the next time your sister is away… will be the last time you see the light of the day”?? IS HE ON THE LIST

·         I’ll go back to the relationship between the Ryders and Wyn in my second post promis promis (and WYNONATHAN OMG) (and the Blackbirds before Wyn was in charge! ALLIANCE WITH THE LESTRANGE MUCH???)