#something about dr makes me want to make comic-like things like this about my playthrough

[etoilebinaire]

they definitely could’ve handled that hangman’s gambit better

[janearts]

who is going to be your canon romance in bg3 for Roisia? :0

It's still up for debate! I don't want to make any "canon" choices for my character while we're still in Early Access because we haven't even met all of the companions that will be in the full release yet.

I have thoughts--in the form of an extremely long essay--on this subject for anyone who's curious about Roisia’s perspective, but TL;DR: everything's made up and the points don't matter.

Basically, I know two things about Roisia that will influence my roleplaying decisions in-game for the final release.

The first is that Roisia has concrete goals in mind for her future, known as her List. They are (in order):

A cemetery or plot of land of her own to oversee.

“Tenants”/”Residents” (aka The Deceased) to house and tend to on this land.

To master Necromancy such that she can extend indefinitely her own life and the lives of her loved ones.

One (1) Spouse (*not of the squeamish variety)

Children (*ideally 3-5)

Roisia is open to casual sex if she desires it or wants it for herself, but she is looking seriously for her #4. This #4 needs to be able to embrace (not literally) death, the deceased, and the undead because Roisia views all that as her life’s work. They also need to be safe and trustworthy enough to introduce to her father, who is currently occupying--haunting?--his own skeleton. Oh, and they would have to like spiders because Roisia loves her spiders. Swears by them.

As for the current set of companions, I actually thought about who would be a good #4 for Roisia. As part of making this comic, I also thought about the reasons why Wyll and Gale might politely decline Roisia’s advances and, should I be able to romance them in a final release playthrough, what tensions might arise as a result of a relationship because I’m a drampire and angst and reckless melodrama feeds me.

So! Without further ado, the ranking of imaginary potential suitors.

1. WYLL

Of the companions present in EA, Wyll would likely be Roisia’s first choice for #4. He’s warm, generous, compassionate, seems to always keep an eye (wink wonk) out for others, and fiercely follows his own moral compass. The sort of person Roisia would like to bring home to her parents and the sort of person she could imagine having a family with. 10 outta 10. However, one thing that I’m curious to see in the final release is whether Wyll continues his life of heroism in the epilogue of the story. Presumably, hero-ing takes Wyll over hill and dale on marvellous adventures. Roisia is not typically the sort to travel when she is not pressed to: she likes her graveyard and her dead and that’s where her adventures lie (sometimes literally). So that would be an example of potential tension or incompatability in their imaginary relationship: Roisia wants someone who is comfortable having Baldur’s Gate as their primary sandbox and Wyll wants to continue his work far afield. I also think of Wyll as someone who is accustomed to saving people--i.e., actively preventing them from becoming a corpse--so part of me also wonders if he would be comfortable around the dead/undead (people he might have been able to save had he been present, for example) for prolonged periods of time.

2. GALE

Second choice of the lot for Roisia’s #4 would likely be Gale. Gale is charming, confident, smart, and also has a kind heart that seeks to protect others. He and Roisia have a lot in common at least on a superficial level. They’re both intellectual academics with high expectations of their quality of life and Gale seems to have been at home in Waterdeep much like Roisia was very much at home in Baldur’s Gate. The sort of person Roisia wouldn’t be ashamed to bring home to her parents and someone she thinks would be a good father if that’s something he wanted alongside his wizarding career. 8 outta 10. I wasn’t sure if they were the stuff of a long-lasting relationship in part because of Gale’s past (to put it vaguely to spare anyone spoilers), in part because I wondered if Gale would desire to go home to Waterdeep, and in part because I think Gale’s sort of magical pursuits are very different to Roisia’s. From what little I know, Gale’s magical interests sound highly cerebral whereas Roisia’s magical pursuits are more... well, down to earth. I see the difference as something akin to lab v field work, the ivory tower of academia v diggin’ around in the dirt for pot shards sort of thing. I’m not 100% sure if they would magically mesh on that level, but it’s early days yet and tbh I think I’ve missed a lot of Gale’s scenes. But if Gale wanted to go home to Waterdeep, Roisia would not want to follow. Baldur’s Gate is her home.

3. ASTARION

Third choice in the imaginary queue of potential suitors is Astarion. Frankly, the only reason Astarion is ranked so high is because Lae’zel and Shadowheart don’t seem to like Roisia or don’t like her choices, which sometimes feels like the same thing and knocks them out of the running as potential #4s altogether. Roisia sees Astarion... well, in the words of Jane Austen:

‘I allow his person and air to be good - and that his manners to a certain point - his address rather - is pleasing. - But I see nothing else to admire in him. - On the contrary, he seems very vain, very conceited, absurdly anxious for distinction, and absolutely contemptible in some of the measures he takes for becoming so. - There is a ridiculousness about him that entertains me - but his company gives me no other agreable [sic] emotion.’

This is perhaps an exaggeration of Roisia’s regard, but the gist is there: she finds him charming, companionable, and very amusing when not taken with any great seriousness. In addition, Astarion seems the most relaxed around necromancy and the dead, although that’s partially because he views them as potential mindless servants. And Roisia would genuinely enjoy the one-night stand with him in the wood. However, absolutely most definitely not the person to bring home because her mother is a worshipper of Kelemvor and a former Necrobane who will very likely try to kill him. It’s one thing to make exceptions for your loved ones--your daughter, the Necromancer, and your husband, now an undead skeleton--but a vampire spawn? Not a chance! To make matters worse, Roisia knows that a lecture would surely await her: if Roisia feels comfortable and unthreatened around a vampire spawn, than that is 1) a definite ploy by the vampire spawn for his future victims to drop their guard and 2) ridiculous because even vampire spawn are incredibly powerful and are a serious threat. So, not #4 material in the slightest. 2.5 out of 10. A long-term relationship feels like it would be a hot, hot mess. ... God, I love it. A complete disaster. Delicious.

So I haven’t figured it out yet! I think I want to do a sampler of all the current available romances (if feasible while roleplaying as Roisia) while we’re still in EA and then I’ll see what my playthrough looks like in the final release. Should be fun!

[createandconstruct]

can i ask about amarant coral? the monk in red himself~

Can you ask about Amarant Coral? *cracks fingers* Oh I insist that you do. Welcome to my Amarant Appreciation Post:

favorite thing about them: First off best thing about Amarant? His theme. The percussion and the guitar. It’s great and it captures him so well. People out here like “take Amarant out of the game he adds nothing.” EXCUSE ME? You remove the Amarant you remove the Amarant Theme my friend and that is something I do NOT vibe with. 

least favorite thing about them: I wanna know more about him. Now Amarant doesn’t need a backstory or history in the game. In a sense, he already has one that connects him to Zidane and explains his motives and actions and eventual arc. But my issue is, Square never gave him anything else. If you look at Ultimania there’s additional lore about other characters, like Steiner for instance. You learn Steiner was a war orphan who was saved by the Pluto Knights - explaining his devotion to them. Amarant though? Square was like “uh... yeah he was born....? And then he uh got famous...? Idk then he met Zidane. You figure it out.” Square. I hate you. 18 years from his birth until he became “well known”. WHAT WAS HE DOING. WHY’D HE BECOME A SECURITY GUARD. WHAT WAS ON HIS RESUME. TELL MEEEE. Like, okay, what the actual in-game canon gives us on Amarant is sort of enough. He’s a purposely written mysterious “cool-guy” character so we’re given scraps to make him unknown but come on. In the published after-game canon, like Ultimania, we could have been given a bit more. He says he doesn’t remember anything about his origins or parents, but why. Was he another victim of Gaia’s wars? Probably. Was he born on a battlefield? Fighting for his life, living without comrades, taking scraps whenever he could? Was he betrayed when he was young? Is he a supposed to be a version of Zidane had he not been adopted into Tantalus by Baku??? These are questions I deserve answers to, Square.

favorite line: “’I can't just walk away. It goes against my nature...’ You're a real simpleton. Forget it, guys. There's no stopping this fool." I love this. Amarant figures Zidane out pretty quickly after Ipsen’s Castle. Zidane is hardheaded and also an actor. He acts cool and pretends his reasons for doing things are loose but when he’s decided something it’s always for a reason. You don’t need a reason to help people, but Zidane has his reasons for helping Kuja and while Amarant doesn’t give two shits what they are he knows Zidane won’t be stopped because, despite everything, Zidane saved a loser like him. Also this line “Tell me! Why didn't you kill me!?" Because I quote it all the time and it makes myself laugh. Amarant is such a drama queen and Zidane knows it. Zidane’s like “dude... what is your damage, it’s 5 pm on Tuesday in Madain Sari. I ain’t getting blood on my gloves cause you’re having a temper tantrum.” And then Amarant runs away to have an existential crisis. He’s 26 but compared to Zidane, he’s the real teenager with angst.  

brOTP: I could talk about Zidane or Freya with Amarant but instead I’m gonna say the underrated dynamic of Amarant and Eiko (and also Vivi).  Amarant with the kids is truly the greatest gift given by his presence in the game. Amarant has never known true suffering until he became a designated legal guardian of a group of minors. It also kills me how he’s the one to volunteer to carry Eiko and Vivi up the Iifa tree. He looks at Zidane and is like “you have seriously been the ‘adult’ of this group???”

OTP: Gotta say the Freya and Amarant dynamic. I really enjoyed their unlikely friendship in the game but then the content. The fan content. The Freya x Amarant fans out there, you win. Ya got me. You captured me and I am now imprisoned by their banter and begruntled allies to lovers story. Even if they’re not romantic I love them together and really wish the game gave us more of them. But even Lani and Amarant together are valid, though I prefer them as butting head bros. Not much content for my girl Lani out there either, she deserves more.

nOTP: Nothing I can think of. I tend to like platonic pairings for Amarant. The dude needs friends because he can barely define the word friendship.

random headcanon: Before Zidane returns at the end of the game Amarant wanders around a bit, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t feel any place with the others in Alexandria, Burmecia, or Lindblum. I imagine he goes off on his own for a bit like before but this time he’s not after Zidane or a fight. Instead he’s got no particular destination. Yet he somehow always finds himself running into people just like him - or the old him - friendless lonely people who are looking for a fight. He doesn’t go out his way to find these folks he simply runs into them and decides he might as well knock some sense into them. He does however make it his business to go after any murmur of people hatching any ideas of going after the far off little village on the Lost Continent. The home of the genomes and black mages. They were so helpless, so weak that anyone who’d want to mess with them is pathetic in Amarant’s book. Until Zidane returns, no one has the chance to even look at the Black Mage Village the wrong way because in the shadows Amarant lurks, making damn well sure of that.

unpopular opinion: I kinda love that he’s just there for most of the game? While I agree he gets the short end of the stick in the same way as Freya, not receiving additional individual character spotlight (which could have very well been supplied through discoverable lore in the world/npcs or through sidequests) I never considered his “standing off to the side” as a detriment to his character. 

Many would probably agree that Amarant always felt like a bit of a parody of the loner character, or at least the stereotype of the loner character. Amarant is so easily paralleled with Squall and Cloud’s surface-level attitudes because his dialogue always felt like something to poke fun at. As the player we’re supposed to align with Zidane’s way of thinking and how he views Amarant. When Amarant loses to Zidane and pretty much grits his teeth and goes “KILL ME,” along with Zidane we’re supposed to kinda raise our brow at him and go “...really, dude?”

 Amarant’s a character introduced as an antagonist who has more in common with the power hungry villains of the game. Like many of the characters in FFIX, Amarant is in search of purpose in life, which he has never found, because he was always looking in the wrong places - in places of violence and power. Very toxic-masculinity of him. Amarant is “cool” on an aesthetic level but in reality he’s the polar opposite of cool in terms of what FFIX states about the need for others to be intertwined in your experiences so that you can live a full life. 

I sort of love that he’s like a grumpy pitball following a 16 year old and his friends around. Then he sits in the corner when they all meet up and discuss current events acting like he doesn’t care (not to mention he casually walks as everyone is running as fast as they can to escape Terra - made me laugh cry on my first playthrough) He is “just there” but that’s because he has no where else to be, no where else to go, he’s a man without a home. And until Zidane offers his hand, at the point where Amarant is most willing to take it at Ipsen’s Castle, he’s not truly a party member. He IS an outsider for almost the entire game but at Ipsen Castle he joins the party, becomes a comrade, and decides he’ll allow himself to change paths and start a life where he has friends and lives, as well as fights for them. Which is why after that moment, Amarant finally has a victory pose.

song i associate with them: I was scratching my head for so long trying to think of a song or track that had Amarant vibes until it hit me. Outskirt Stand by Tsukasa Tawada (from Pokemon Colosseum). Amarant is so chill, he’s not a bombastic guy, so he needs a theme that drops me in the rocky open desert of the Lost Continent like I’m just lumbering around looking for a monkey-tailed menace. Some other Amarant tunes:  Pyrite Town, The Under, Snagem Hideout tracks from Pokemon Colosseum. This post is just an elaborate call to action for everyone to listen to the Pokemon Colosseum soundtrack. Tsukasa Tawada is so great and he has a YouTube. Check him out.

favorite picture of them:

Yoshitaka Amano’s Salamander Coral. I love him. He had too much power. 

Also everything drawn by @crispy-ghee. Everything. I will think of this Comic forever until I die. Tattoo it on my flesh. The banter, the dynamics, the post-game content, the Zidane prince-consort outfit, the new Amarant outfit, the stuck-in-the-same-place relationship him and Freya have. Perfect. Go read it and consume Crisipy’s stuff. And also check them and their current art out, they just consistently get better and better. Here’s a first panel preview of my fav comic. Read it.

 @hannahlady​‘s Amarant art and their Freya/Amarant art is just ugh. *Chef’s Kiss* Here is another preview because you should go look at it.

Here’s a piece that deserves so much more love by @snackage. I LOVE how they drew Amarant. Here’s a little preview. It’s SO GOOD

Anyway TL;DR: Amarant is love and life and you’ll have to pull him from my little gremlin hands.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Which characters in v3 you would say had a good writing considering their roles and characters as a whole?

It’s kinda hard for me to just say who is good on the fly, so I’ll go over everyone instead.

Akamatsu as a narrator murderer was perfect. She managed to pull it off while still remaining perfectly heroic and sympathetic and her moments there get even more emotionally intense on a replay, specially her harsh self loathing. Unfortunately her Free Times suck but that’s not the part that matters.

Amami is portrayed as a mystery and that mystery gets an unimpressive answer. The story in his Free Times are a lot better but his ruthless manipulation there, while makes a lot of sense for the character, doesn’t fit well with his friendly personality.

Iruma is unfunny comic relief, the interesting questions I had about her character go unanswered, her unique personality is not explored (we don’t learn the causes nor she changes it in form) and murder motive is just half a line without much context. She’s more of a plot device than a proper character, to be honest.

Ouma is an entertaining antagonist with lots of layered dialogue, an amazing hero/villain dynamic with Momota, really clever strategies and is the personification of the game’s themes. I absolutely love  how he is portrayed as hypercompetent but still constantly fails to get his perfect result no matter how hard he tries. He’s a little lacking in backstory but that’s still enough to earn the spot as my favorite DR character and second overall.

Ki-bo’s writing is more focused on comic relief than on him seriously discussing his humanity, which sucks because his human themes are really good and his humor is really bad. The jokes about him being unimpressive are unimpressive,  the “haha he can’t read between the lines because he is a robot” jokes are just autism jokes by other name and the discrimination jokes are just as lame as the rest. His final role was as pseudo-Naegi, which was annoying for it’s repetitiveness of previous games, but the game later shows itself to be very much against repetitive sequels, so Ki-bo’s moment was very effective on what it was trying to be.

Gonta was charming and respectable character who unfortunately wasn’t treated well. I’m not even talking about how he was idiotified by the translation, I’m talking about his motive. For starters, we get Tsumiki’s bad “you won’t know the motive until a future chapter” thing, which kinda kills the moment in the first playthrough. But regardless of that, his motive still sucks. Gonta is very much portrayed as a sympathetic innocent cinammon roll trying to help everyone with a mercy kill, when you can’t really call it sympathetic or mercy kill if his victims are all unaware of why Gonta is doing it. This situation could only be actually considered a mercy kill if Gonta informed everyone of the situation, asked each one of them if they would rather live or die and them not kill the ones that chose to live. In a game where Akamatsu’s “Only people who know the truth can choose their own path” is one of the central quotes, it’s kinda bad that no one calls Gonta out for that decision. I understand not wanting to do it in front of him at his final moments, but Saihara or Ouma could have said something about it after his death.

Saihara is kinda basic, but he is very much the kind of protagonist I like: a character who is clearly not a self-insert and who is constantly discussing the central themes of his own story. Him being first seen as a regular character before he becomes the protagonist is a neat way of establishing as his own person separate from the player. He also gets some really intense moments in chapter 6, made magnificent by Hayashibara’s powerful voice acting.

Shirogane is another one of my favorites. For the first 5 chapters she is just a passive but entertaining tsukkomi who just says the convenient thing needed to keep the plot moving forward or some anime joke to keep the classic tone of DanganRonpa’s humor. There’s also some clever foreshadowing here and there but almost nothing noticeable in the first playthrough of course. Come chapter 6, we get a threatening, cunning and adaptative mastermind who manages to even outperform Junko in the entertainment factor with her cosplay tricks, a fascination vision of how a “plain” standard person in the outside world’s society is like and most importantly, an always appreciated case of well-written imitation. Shirogane is a human character with human limitations trying be Junko, who is kinda beyond that. I guess my love for imitation plots fall on the same idea I mentioned for Ouma: a hypercompetent character being constantly and unable to produce ideal results. 

Shinguuji has a lot of fascinating elements to his character, but… let’s just say Kodaka missed his mark and leave it at that.

Chabashira has a few problems of her character flaws being ignored by the narrative and given silly comedic causes to serious issues, but she overall a fantastic character despite not having a narrative role outside of being a love interest for Yumeno. Her relationship is well developed, her final speech is my favorite in the game and the way her moral code and actions feel unique to her while still strongly true to the principles valued by Muromachi-based martial arts (and by extension Zen Buddhism) is commendably well-handled.

Toujou is kinda bad. Instead of humanizing her character, she just established she has no personal will of her own, we never get to know why and that only becomes a plot point with the reveal she was serving someone else instead of the characters, still 0% of Toujou’s individual non-duty-related feelings. The utilitarism motive didn’t impress and felt honestly kinda dumb, but that might be because read too many utilitarism stories already. Just to clarify, I’m not calling it dumb because of the high school prime minister thing, that kind of silliness is par for the course for the series already. My problem with it is that regardless of what the crisis is, Toujou believing the population is helpless without her is lack of faith in her citizens and believe her presence alone will be game-changing for the situation is either not thinking things through or unbelievably arrogant. Anyways, her neverending determination and the running scene resulting from it were great and it felt good to see her finally emoting, but that’s all derived from her sense of duty, so it doesn’t stop her from being one-dimensional.

 Harukawa is a character with strong emotions, interesting characterization moments and character arcs, but the culmination of her arc is poorly timed and she is lacking on the consistency department.

Hoshi has easily the strongest Free Time in the game, but centering your character around the search of a reason to want to live and having his final answer be “you have no reason to” and have him surrender his life immediately after is unarguably bad.

Momota I already talked about him just this week, so you can take the answer for him in no time. 

Yumeno had a very compelling character arc, a decent set of Free Times (although not very related to her main story characterization) and functioned very well as comic relief after she became more expressive. Nothing to complain about her. I also really love how her stopping lazy was not an instantaneous process and you can see stumbling with it sometimes and getting tired from simple things.

Angie gets some characterization in her Free Times but nothing that makes her interesting or sympathetic, the main story places her as a brainwashing strawman and she overall manages to get more disgusting moments than the non-comedic serial killer.

[simonjadis]

those of you who know me know that Dragon Age is my #1 hyperfixation

I’m aware of the DA4 “leaks” which may be real-yet-outdated but may also be someone’s ploy for attention by describing a plausible-sounding guess

unrelated to that, I’ve been wanting to do a “will this person show up” list and just talk about how likely certain companions and other popular characters are to make an appearance in DA4 and future games

I’m not going to try to guess what writers have planned, here; just which characters are and are not available

Alistair Theirin: can be dead, can be king, can have been stranded in the Fade; with this number of variables, I doubt that we will see Alistair in DA4 unless the Hawke/Alistair/Stroud/Loghain character appears and you have Alistair in that slot. you can likely expect for codexes or even dialogue to mention him if he’s king or died a hero. it’s likely that Alistair’s story has been told, so to speak [tl;dr probably not]

Morrigan: Morrigan is always alive and is a free agent and has possibly even been empowered with some portion of Flemeth’s power and perhaps even some of what Flemeth removed from Kieran, though that is speculation on my part; whether or not she drank from the Well, Morrigan could easily appear [tl;dr available]

Zevran: in worldstates where the Warden killed him instead of recruiting him or in worldstates where he betrayed the Warden to Taliesen in Denerim, Zevran is dead. iirc, Hawke has the option of turning Zevran over to the Crows in Kirkwall, though Zev could escape that. I would say that he will probably not appear in DA4, though there is a chance that popular demand (and the fact that he’s the only Origins romance who didn’t show up in Inquisition) could give him an appearance. He’s been tearing down the Crows. [tl;dr probably not, barring popular demand]

Leliana: she’s alive and an important fixture in canon, but since probably more than half of all worldstates (that’s a guess) have her as Divine Victoria, I wouldn’t expect to see her unless we meet the Divine. In fact, I’d say that chances are reasonably good that all three candidates for Divine are now retired from the game, though since Cassandra might lead the Seekers and Vivienne might lead the new Circle, they could show up. still, I feel like Leliana’s story has been told. [tl;dr probably not]

Wynne: she’s dead, jim [tl;dr not available]

Shale: Shale is wonderful, though a DLC companion and also potentially having been slain if brought to face Caridin by a Warden who sided with Bronca . . . but otherwise very likely still alive and active and, in the default worldstate of the novels, Shale was part of the initial Mage Rebellion at the White Spire. Shale’s one avenue for death could easily be written out [tl;dr available]

Sten: Sten could be dead (left to rot or if he tries to kill your Warden) but, if he didn’t die, he’s no longer Sten but now the Arishok. His chances of appearing in a future game are fairly high, though some worldstates might have a Stroud-like substitute as Arishok. [lt;dr available]

Oghren: the yosemite sam of Thedas is probably alive but I don’t expect to see him again and honestly I was shocked that he had enough fans that he came back in Awakening [tl;dr probably not]

Dog: the Warden’s mabari (whom my Surana named “Jowan”) is . . . well, old. We might see a descendant of the Warden’s dog, as it is canon that your mabari was personally involved in replenishing the Fereldan mabari population

DRAGON AGE II

Anders: an extremely well loved and also extremely reviled character; quite possibly the most controversial figure in the Dragon Age franchise (yes, more so than Loghain or Solas or Morrigan) who could potentially be dead in half of the playthroughs . . . no. we’re not seeing blondie again. [tl;dr not available]

Isabela: worst case scenario, Isabela was given to the Qunari at the end of Act II of DA2, presumably by the Worst Possible Hawke. that horrible fate could easily be written away, such as with an escape. they even put her in the DAI multiplayer. it would be hard to picture a game featuring naval forces or pirates where she isn’t at least a questgiver or something [tl;dr available]

Fenris: could be dead (if he sides with Meredith against Hawke and won’t switch back), could be traded away to Danarius by an absolute monster of a Hawke. though all signs point to Tevinter for the next location in the game, writers may feel like Fenris’ story has been told or that there are too many versions of him. [tl;dr maybe but probably not]

Merrill: sweet and beautiful and clever, Merrill seems like she’ll be getting increasingly relevant thanks to certain events shown in Trespasser, though I doubt that she’d be on board. That said, because she’s a potential romance for Hawke, and because she tends to not be pro-Annulment and thus can die fighting to protect mages from the slaughter, she’s not always alive or available. [tl;dr available but not likely]

Aveline: Aveline is busy being the main character on Law & Order: Kirkwall, thanks [tl;dr probably not]

Varric: spoiler alert but he’s the Viscount of Kirkwall so he’s very unlikely to show up as more than a cameo [ tl;dr probably not]

Carver/Bethany: the fact that I am writing about them both at once, because they are mutually exclusive characters, should tell you -- too many variables. either can be alive. either can be a Warden or a Circle Mage/Templar. [ tl;dr probably not]

Sebastian: hot but probably the least popular DA2 companion; he’s the Prince of Starkhaven and shows up in the comics but as a DLC companion, plenty of people never even met him also, he has a city to run. [ tl;dr probably not]

Dragon Age Inquisition

Cassandra: as I mentioned about Leliana, Cassandra may be Divine and therefore I feel that it’s unlikely that we’ll see her unless we happen to see the Divine or maybe unless we encounter the Seekers. [ tl;dr probably not]

Varric: as I said, he’s busy Viscounting in Kirkwall and can’t come to the phone right now [tl;dr probably not]

Solas: well he’s sure as frick not gonna be a companion again but I 100% expect to see him again [tl;dr available]

Iron Bull: he’s wonderful but potentially killable if your Inquisitor makes bad choices, so between that and the fact that his story feels like it’s been told -- despite his storytelling potential in Northern Thedas -- I’m gonna lean towards “no” [tl;dr probably not]

Krem: not a companion but relevant: Krem is killable if your Inquisitor makes the same bad choice that cost Bull his life; that said, Krem is overwhelmingly popular. the devs would have to balance out the popularity of letting us see our precious son again vs the uproar over retconning his death. considering that they refuse to let us see the Warden again because some people give Morrigan the finger instead of doing the sensible thing in Origins, I sadly don’t think that we’ll get to see our handsome boy [tl;dr probably not]

Sera: unless I’m totally missing something, the worst that you can do for Sera is not recuit her or kick her out of the Inquisition, which would be a shame because she’s a (chaotic) treasure. honestly if you avoid talking politics with her she’s darling, and perhaps the most enjoyable romance in the franchise (even if you’re not into women!), so while I don’t really expect to see her again, she’s definitely around, right? [ tl;dr available]

Vivienne: again, she could potentially be busy being the Fantasy Pope and, if not, she’s leading the new Circle [ tl;dr probably not]

Blackwall: his story is told and he’s already old af and some versions of him didn’t exactly get their happy ending, so I would be shocked if we saw him again [ tl;dr probably not]

Cole: our precious ghost son! this sweet, good boy has too many variables and may have even returned to the Fade, so [ tl;dr probably not]

Dorian Pavus: there is a very strong chance, in my estimation, that we’ll see Dorian again. not only was he a popular character (even with the Hets) and a beloved romance for many, but his story is tied to Tevinter. his variables, like his relationship with his father and whether or not he’s in love with the Inquisitor, can be handled via a few dialogue items and and are unlikely to make his character burdensome for the writers or the people doing cutscenes. [tl;dr available]

Cullen: he’s been in three games despite starting off as a one-off NPC and he was a romance in Inquisition; we are unlikely to see him again in game except perhaps to deliver a quick cameo line where appropriate somewhere in Southern Thedas [ tl;dr probably not]

Josephine: despite being only an advisor, I feel like Josephine’s odds of returning aren’t low. she’s young and she’s a master of the Game and she’s supposed to take over House Montilyet, an Antivan House. unlike Leliana and Cassandra, she’s not part of the Chantry. her only real variable is whether or not she’s hooking up with the Inquisitor, which is no obstacle (as with Dorian, dealt with in a few lines about a long-distance relationship). [tl;dr available]

anyway, those are my guesses

[andrewansahartwork]

     TL;DR: I severely underestimated how much shading and blending work I would have to do in one sitting the night before turning this drawing in. This led to me finishing the drawing in a trance for several hours after the time I wanted to sleep, while shading everything sloppier and sloppier, and trying not to wake up my sick roommate with my laughter. Also I was shivering a lot because the air conditioner was running for no reason.

    The assignment was to draw something that showcased the inside and outside space of a building.This is a drawing that shows off the inside of a Dunkin Donuts, but the giant windows also allow the road and the buildings across the street to be seen. I took this picture sometime last week on my phone, and have been drawing it for several days since then. I feel that the shading is fine for the top two thirds of this drawing. The bottom third is where it starts to get a little wonky. Not only that, but the perspective and size of everything inside the Dunkin Donuts isn’t the best. There is a reason for this, and it involves one of the strangest drawing sessions I’ve ever had.

     Yesterday, I was a little behind on this drawing, and I had the line work finished, and in a state that I feel was near identical to the photo I took. I didn’t include the trees and traffic cones that were present outside the building, because I wanted to have the composition get simpler the farther your eye would trail off from inside the building. Anything outside of the buildings I felt added unnecessary cluster, and I didn’t want to make it hard to figure out what the drawing is of. So, I confidently thought I would be able to get all of the shading done yesterday evening. I get back from class at around 5:30, and ate dinner and relaxed until around 7:00. After a light power nap, I was rejuvenated and ready to start adding some detail to this drawing!

     I didn’t want to add too much detail to the drawing, because I wanted it to be a simple image that clearly communicated the setting. But right before I started shading everything, I suddenly decided that I didn’t like the way the two guys sitting at the table on the drawing’s bottom third looked. So, I went back and changed them to have better proportions (they were way more stretched out due to a perspective error on my part). However, trying to fix one perspective error opened up a lot more errors. One thing led to another, and suddenly about thirty to forty minutes were gone. Not wanting to fall too far behind, I got right to work on shading (finally) until around 9:00 when I took a break to shower.

      As I continued to work on shading everything, I realized my own meticulous detail obsession was getting the better of me. When I refer to “meticulous detail” in this context, I’m talking about wanting the lines that made up every building across the street to be as well crafted as possible. Those lines were drawn lighter than everything else, so I had to REALLY focus to see it when shading in the space with a lighter graphite pencil. At this point, I’m deep into the night (let’s say 12:00), and my ideal time of when I wanted this drawing done (11:00) was but a sad unobtainable dream. The desk lamp was my greatest source of light, as it was closer than the ceiling lights, the air conditioning was running for some reason, making the dorm and the hallway colder than usual, and my roommate also got a cold, and I didn’t want to keep him up. The air conditioning would lead to me shivering pretty frantically at random intervals, it calmed down after about ten minutes, but it was still interfering with my progress! So, at this point, I’m trying my hardest to give this drawing my own seal of quality, but I also want to finish it ASAP.

     I should also mention that for long drawing sessions like these, I tend to put on Let’s Plays or Podcasts on Youtube (through my earphones of course) so I have something in the background in order to not go mad from just hearing my pencils, erasers, and blending stick rub against the paper for hours. During the hours I was adding detail to everything, I had listened to the entirety of the Stream Train playthrough of Space Quest IV. I didn’t intend on finishing the playlist of videos in one session, and the playlist also served as a timer for myself. At this point, I’m starting to panic a little (and I’m aware this sounds really cocky, which isn’t my intention, but I’m not one to stress out, at all).

     In a rush to put something on I clicked the playlist for the Game Grumps Let’s Play of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. If you don’t know, the game the two play in that particular series is an infamously terrible second party Zelda game developed for a legendarily terrible console called the Philips CD-I. So, in usual “Youtube Let’s Play of a terrible game” format, the commentators would start out calm (well, calm-ish, they knew how bad the game was instantly), and slowly lose their sanity as the Let’s Play went on. So, as I’m sitting in my chair, still shading in the drawing at around 2:00 in the morning, I was starting to get a little stupid. I attempted to contain my laughter at the commentary from the Game Grumps playthrough, and trying to speed through a shading and blending job while also trying not to make any mistakes. It devolved into madness for myself in a good hour.

     It was around 3:00 AM when I start quiet laughing at almost everything. The Game Grumps were losing their minds playing this bad game, and I was losing my mind rushing to get this drawing done. I even laughed at the fact that the people sitting by the window in the picture I took were unaware of the fact that they were causing me to lose a ton of sleep. It was the perfect meltdown scenario, but I refused to quit. I was at the bottom third of the page at this point. If you pay close attention, you’ll be able to tell I didn’t put in nearly as much care to the bottom third of the page as I did the top two thirds. I was basically rotating 2H, HB, B, 2B, and 4B pencils getting all of the shades down on the page as fast and as carefully as humanly possible, while giggling like a tired hyena at Youtube personalities trying not to loose what was left of my sanity that night. I had severely underestimated my workload. It should be noted that around 2:00 AM, my blending stick stopped working for next to no reason. I didn’t know what to do, and I was pretty emotionally compromised (or at least that’s how it felt at the time), so I used three tissues in their place.

     Upon completing the shading and blending, I noticed how there wasn’t much distinction between buildings and objects. Instead of adding more depth, I just added comic book-esque dark lines to most of everything. It doesn’t look as good as it could have, but I really wanted to sleep at this point. Mainly because I had an online test today that I could only get started on from 9:00 AM to 10:20 AM (I was able to take said test, and did well, don’t worry). It wasn’t until I stood up did I realize how much of a trance I was in. I stopped laughing, turned off the Youtube app, and noticed it was 4:20 AM. I set the mess of materials on my desk aside, and went to bed. Now that I look at the drawing, with around four more hours of sleep, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever made, but if I had budgeted my time better, it could have improved. Oh well, you win some you lose some.  

-I’ll post a better lit picture along with the reference picture eigher later tonight, or tomorrow.-                              

[operationrainfall]

Title Joggernauts Developer Space Mace Publisher Graffiti Games Release Date October 11th, 2018 Genre Platformer, Endless Runner Platform PC, Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Comic Mischief Official Website

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised I ended up being the guy to review Joggernauts. I’m a self professed platformer fanatic, and I do like simple to learn, hard to master games. My only uncertainty was whether the single player mode for this game could work well in a game obviously catered towards playing with friends. But I decided to take a chance on Joggernauts, though your mileage may vary.

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The premise of Joggernauts is fairly simple. You’re a team of alien athletes who have crash landed on a strange planet. All the prestigious trophies on your ship have scattered, along with three integral parts needed to get the busted ship space worthy again. Your robotic C.O.A.C.H. cares more about getting back his trophies than anything, so it’s your goal to go planet hopping to find them all. Since you’re a team, it follows that you do so as a group. In multiplayer, you can have up to 4 players jog together, though in single player you only control two which turns out to be a good thing, since it’s not the easiest thing to coordinate two athletes simultaneously.

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I should mention that for the review itself, I only played on single player, though I did get the occasion to play with a group of 4 during PAX West. While part of me feels co-op is the way to go, it only works as intended when you’re playing with a group of friends equally talented at platforming. Otherwise, it’s a chaotic mess. But for single player, it’s surprisingly well done. You control a set of 2 athletes at the same time. It’s an endless runner, so you’ll always be moving forward. The only things you have direct control over is jumping and switch-alizing. You jump with your back jogger with the down button, and front with the B button. You can also use up or X if you prefer. But the real challenge is the aforementioned switch-alizing.

Basically, you can teleport between your two joggers at any time with a press of the Y or A buttons. This teleports them to the other jogger’s spot in the line. You might be wondering why that matters, and the simple answer is that everything in Joggernauts is color coordinated. If you come across a blue enemy, you’ll need a blue jogger to wipe it out. Likewise, if your red jogger runs across a red switch, it will be activated. It’s pretty basic at first, but the game keeps complicating the formula with little twists. One example is that you don’t always want to activate a switch, since in later stages doing so may hem you in with laser walls. A cooler example is when you’re using the switch-alizing to essentially float through zero-g environments. But that’s not all, you’ll also need to color coordinate to get some of the trophies in the game. Successfully collecting all the trophies in a stage gives you a chance to race through a bonus segment, and completing it will earn you a star on the map screen.

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Early on, many trophies simply must be touched to acquire them. But later on, some involve collecting colored keys first. If you hit a key with the wrong colored athlete, the rest of the keys in that level will disappear until you die or restart. So it’s very important to coordinate your switch-alizing to the rhythm needed to get everything. That’s both a good and bad thing. The devs themselves refer to this as “like patting your head and rubbing your belly, but you’re jogging,” and that’s pretty damned accurate. It takes some getting used to, since at first, I kept forgetting I needed to jump with my back character. Once you internalize it, it’s not too bad, though I did encounter some small problems. I should say I’m not clear if they stemmed from the game itself or my Switch, but I still need to mention them. There were times where pressing jump for my back character simply didn’t respond. Another stranger issue was that in the stages that take place in the vacuum of space, one character would jump much higher than the other at times. This drove me crazy in one of the last stages, and it was only my sheer stubbornness that kept me going. And while this last issue isn’t a glitch, it was problematic. Put simply, the HD rumble for this game is dialed up way too high. Thankfully, it can easily be turned off by going to the options menu.

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Besides the running, jumping and switching, there are a few other things I need to mention about the game. One is that all your characters share the same health meter. You have 5 hearts, and once they’re all gone, you are forced to restart. If you haven’t reached a checkpoint, you’ll restart at the start of the level, but if you have, you can restart from the checkpoint itself. The catch is that checkpoints need to be activated with colored orbs you collect. Some of the checkpoints require a lot of orbs (the max you can hold on you is 250), but thankfully there’s nothing stopping you from collecting a ton, since you’ll keep all your orbs even after you die. And you’ll die a lot, trust me. But on the positive side, you have unlimited lives, so the only thing truly harmed will be your ego. Besides that, you’ll also come across items in levels to give you an edge. The only ones I encountered in my playthrough were a shield that protected me from one hit and a magnet. The first wasn’t that helpful, but the magnets made collecting orbs much easier on harder stages.

Magnets make orb collecting much easier.

Visually, this is a wonderful game. It has bright and bold colors and a delightful cartoony aesthetic. It reminds me in some ways of a Dr. Seuss book or the style from the show, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It’s full of delightfully exaggerated details, like giant eyeballs, neon colored caterpillars and giant spiderwebs. I never encountered any slowdown either, as the game runs at a pretty brisk clip. The music and sound effects could have come from some 70’s TV show, with lots of intentional kitsch. While none of the songs are that memorable, neither do they distract from the experience.

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There’s a lot I like about Joggernauts, but now I need to mention some larger complaints. Though it’s a fun game, it’s also pretty short, only consisting of 3 worlds with 7 stages a piece. While some stages are gated by a required number of trophies, it’ll still go by pretty quickly. If you were just trying to beat the game and not collect everything, it could take you anywhere from 1-2 hours. However, most platformer fans have that completionist itch, and that’s another story. I was intending to get everything prior to my review, so I set out to collect all of the 42 gold trophies. Turns out, those aren’t the only ones. Once you get them all, C.O.A.C.H. tells you about his missing Glowtonium trophies. I set out to find them, and after searching through various stages, couldn’t find a single one. They’re that well hidden. I’m all for testing my platforming skills, but I found the Glowtonium trophies to be frustrating. Worst of all, collecting all those impossible to find Glowtonium trophies apparently just unlocks a silly ending. I just wish that collecting all the gold trophies instead did something like unlock more planets to explore.

Despite my issues with Joggernauts, I still had fun with it. It’s a short game for $14.99, but it can keep you entertained for 2-5 hours. I managed to beat the game with 55% of everything unlocked, but sadly have little desire to spend hours trying to find those Glowtonium trophies. Still, it’s a colorful and enjoyable experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the character of C.O.A.C.H. The domineering little robot was the cherry on top of a brightly colored sundae. That said, I don’t think Joggernauts is for everyone, and would only really recommend it to hardcore fans of the genre. For everybody else, there’s probably more frustration than satisfaction to be found here. But I still applaud this effort from Space Mace and Graffiti Games, and look forward to the next game they come up with.

If all else fails, you can modify things to make the game easier.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Joggernauts Title Joggernauts

[loveinthebones]

An Unnecessary Look Into My Youtube Habits

(Also known as: You Have Questions and I Got Curious And Spent Hours on My YouTube History)

I have an ask about what the first Phanfic I read was. 

I also have another ask from someone curious about how long I have been in the Phandom but I don’t want to publish 2 Asks so I am going to combine them!

I know for certain that I was not watching Dan or Phil from 2009-2012 for sure. I wasn’t in the group that got sucked into the YouTube void early... and when I graduated in 2011, I probably wouldn’t have been able to name a nonviral video. It wasn’t something talked about in my household.

In 2012, I was 20 so that means 2013 is when I got my apartment (I remember that because I married my lifemate in October of that year.) at 21 and that’s most likely when I really started exploring the platform.

I am about to give you way more information than you probably want and I’m sorry but now I want to see how my viewing habits have changed so I am going to good ol’ google and digging into my watch history. I’ll take it in 2 year blocks for my sanity.

The earliest I can go back is June 2014 so this is either when I finally switched to Google Chrome or is due to a number change (because I know my google account is older than that.). The original parameters I had were December 2012-January 2015.

June 2014-January 2015: Mostly music. I see Peter Hollens, Bea Miller, Sam Tsui, and Boyce Avenue. Teens React is mentioned and the Ice Bucket challenge? Was it around that time? I apparently fell in love with Yanis Marshall here.

January 2015-January 2016: I definitely started gaining interest here. I found the AH crew and Rooster Teeth. Slamacow. I tentatively began searching things like subbed episodes of Sailor V. This is also when I became fond of FNAF and picked up Mark. (Let’s appreciate the fact I thought his handle was MarkPHILier). So. Many. Playthroughs. And by extension- GAME THEORY! <3 I listened to Spring Awakening a lot. Mark and AH were definitely my favorites and I watched Felix, Wade, and Megwin TV a smidge . TheJWittz. Jack. Game Grumps. Cry! Oh, I haven’t watched Cry in ages. PvP.

November 9 is the first mention of Dan so. (This is based only off of searches...I don’t know why its not letting me look at actual videos.)

November 13 is the first mention of Phil.

I shifted from Mark and AH to Shane and Superwoman as my most watched at this time. Tyler Oakley was discovered and I binged Epic Meal Time. I’m definitely seeing Phil pop up quite a bit. We end 2015 with Jack, Mark, and Shane being the YouTubers I am engrossed in but I can see myself getting more fond of Phil (again- just based off searches.)

January 2016-January 2017: (First Half) 

We kick off the year with me being obsessed with Undertale and a surprising amount of Cry. I also got heavily into TrickyWii and Tamashii. REACT. BFvsGF. Game Grumps. But I’m not kidding about Undertale- comic dubs, songs, secrets, hacks, you name it- It’s in my history (I managed to get ACTUAL videos around Feb 2016). It also appears I listened to music quite a bit (since I worked overnight and would listen while I did sidework) so let’s throw in PTX, Ken Ashcorp, and Lindsey Sterling. I also got into cherography? Wha? Wildabeest Adams and some others. I’m seeing some Phil but not too much Dan and the gaming channel pops up every once in a while. In June, I discovered Troye, IHasCupquake, and Matthais. 

(Second Half) 

Thomas Sanders started doing YouTube videos? In July? I didn’t remember that. The Undertale craze continued and the YouTubers that I’ve seen cycle through. Libby (thedailysign) and Andy (AndySigns) start coming up so this is when i decided to teach myself ASL. Threadbanger! <3 Kyle Hanagami. WHOA. There we go...Phan-splosion in September with Daniel’s videos being favored. I eased up because I went on a Superwoman binge and started watching Nerdy Nummies. SimplyNailogical makes an appearance. Joey Graceffa, Paint, Anna Akanna, and Trisha Paytas seem to hold my attention for a day at most (though they are sprinkled through the main stuff I watched) and Ethan (Crankgameplays) comes in at end of November. Dodie. Akidearest. This is leaving out some YouTubers that are associated with Vocaloid Translyric Covers and one off videos, compilations. 

TL;DR: I am actually very sleepy or I would go into 2017 (I may on a separate post later, if it still suits my fancy.) but a brief summary of my time in the Phandom:

Discovered: I’m going to place it in late October/early November of 2015 because I think that if I searched them, I had seen their content before. 

Casually watched: November 2015-September 2016. I really seemed to start to become a fan at the start of October because they became a regular part of my YouTuber “rotation”. lmao

First Fanfic read: I actually know this! Snapchat by RickyBlitzz (LINK) in March or April of this year. On AO3, it appears to be Love ON AIR by ScientificName (LINK) on April 26. I didn’t know about Wattpad so I was consuming fics there since it was a new platform for me

(I haven’t checked out the Phan content on FF.Net at all.)

First Fanfic written: This is Our Sountrack (Link) Published: July 2017

It took me a year to get hooked and a long while for me to wrestle with the hangups I had about reading Phanfic (well, RPF in general) but once I started reading, I lasted three months before I needed to write and my longest fic to date is probably going to be a Phan piece to be honest.

All in all, I love them both and have fallen down the rabbit hole but I’m a recent Phan! XD