Diversions
Aug. 19th, 2011 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianIt is amazing how much better one can feel after a few hours of beating on oogly creatures via video games and the prospect of a lovely steak dinner later. Seriously, not to be sneezed at as a way to spend a mental health day.
A lot of it was Dragon Age 2. I finally caved last month and bought the Exiled Prince DLC (so I didn't preorder, okay? So sue me) and have been having my first playthrough in which we actually have a Sebastien. I ... don't entirely understand the fanlove and wishing-he-was-properly-romanceable thing for Sebastien. I mean, obviously it's a matter of personal taste and I don't judge; I'm just saying I don't get it. What's more, I don't-get it in an entirely different way that I don't-get the wishing-Varric-was-romanceable-at-all brigade. With Varric, I guess I could see how someone might find that attractive and he's definitely got a way with words, but ... for me, he's so much platonic BFF bro-guy that I just couldn't even imagine wanting horizontal fun there. It'd ruin things for me. (Besides, I'm very much Varric/Merrill OTP; shut up.) Sebastien ... well, I guess I could potentially see him as the less angsty option. If I close one eye and tilt my head to the right. Thing is, he's so fired up about "Starkhaven! Or ... maybe the Chantry! Yes! Devote my life to the Chantry! Unless I decide to take my rightful place as Starkhaven's ruler. But the Chantry!" that there really doesn't seem time for anything else. At least Anders seems vaguely interested in something other than the whole mage-freedom thing in the first couple of acts. Besides, plate-and-chain on a rogue weirds me out. Also, I find his accent ... not offputting, but certainly not sexy. He sounds like a bad Sean Connery impersonator to me.
That said, I actually like the DLC. Interesting bit of backstory, and puts an interesting spin on endgame. (You should have listened, Elthina; you should have listened. Wonder if Anders would have pulled his little stunt if she had, though...) I got through maybe three quarters of an act total - little under half of Act 2 overlapping to a little more than a quarter of Act 3, and then moved on for a bit.
Specifically, Warcrack. Yeah, I'm still hacking it through Outland with my poor belf pally, with one major difference - I'm finally out of frikkin' Hellfire Peninsula! I finally polished off most of the quests for that area (I think there are a few left over, but I can go back to those and a couple of them probably require higher level than I'm currently at; they do recommend two players...) and soared off to Zangarmarsh, which is a lot less barren and there are no jets of fire and no ground tilted at stupid angles, so I like it way better.
And yes, I said 'soared'. As in, on my spiffy flying mount. See, a thing I came to realise after a bit of a wade through Google is that you only need your Flight Master's Licence for flights in Kalimdor, Northrend and the Eastern Kingdoms. You don't need it for Outland. So I bought my spiffy blue windrider and while I can afford my Flight Master's Licence, I will continue to save up my gold so that I'll have a nice buffer by the time I hit level 70 and get out of Outland for good, therefore really needing my FML. (Oh, that's a fun TLA. Kind of like how they didn't really think before calling new WoD Werewolf 'The Forsaken', y'know? WTF is probably not what you want people calling your game.) Of course, by then I'll also have to be thinking about saving for cold weather flying, because apparently it's very much required in Northrend. Woo to the hoo. Yeesh.
Anyway, my last trek through Hellfire Peninsula earned me a not overly pleasant surprise. Look, there's this bunch of 'let's untaint the world' types called the Cenarion Circle and they tend to send people out to cure taints and kill blighted things. I got sent after five colossi. (Don't look at me like that; that's what the ditzy nelf NPC called them as plural!) I walked up to a colossus, made like Captain America (my shield? Meet its head) and ... oh. That's a gold dragon wound around the headshot of the mob I have engaged. That's an elite mob, that is. And it's at my level. Didn't I get my arse kicked by an elite mob four levels below me as moocow shammy? ...Yeah, well, that was moocow shammy. Belf pally is a little more resilient. I should really have realised this earlier this week when I got mugged by two NPC guards that had six levels on me, killed them both and survived. Suffice to say that it was somewhat rougher going than I'm used to (as in, I could only kill three of them before my health bar dropped to 50%) but I managed. The rest of that quest chain looks soloable no matter how much they say they suggest two players, so ... eh. Maybe I'll actually hit level 64 tonight. I haven't been levelling all that much out of sheer hatred for the zone I was in; maybe things will improve now that I'm somewhere a little less ... um ... horrible.
So yeah. That's been my day and I feel somewhat better now. I have doughnuts, and steak dinner planned, and a weekend impending. All is reasonably right with the world.
A lot of it was Dragon Age 2. I finally caved last month and bought the Exiled Prince DLC (so I didn't preorder, okay? So sue me) and have been having my first playthrough in which we actually have a Sebastien. I ... don't entirely understand the fanlove and wishing-he-was-properly-romanceable thing for Sebastien. I mean, obviously it's a matter of personal taste and I don't judge; I'm just saying I don't get it. What's more, I don't-get it in an entirely different way that I don't-get the wishing-Varric-was-romanceable-at-all brigade. With Varric, I guess I could see how someone might find that attractive and he's definitely got a way with words, but ... for me, he's so much platonic BFF bro-guy that I just couldn't even imagine wanting horizontal fun there. It'd ruin things for me. (
That said, I actually like the DLC. Interesting bit of backstory, and puts an interesting spin on endgame. (You should have listened, Elthina; you should have listened. Wonder if Anders would have pulled his little stunt if she had, though...) I got through maybe three quarters of an act total - little under half of Act 2 overlapping to a little more than a quarter of Act 3, and then moved on for a bit.
Specifically, Warcrack. Yeah, I'm still hacking it through Outland with my poor belf pally, with one major difference - I'm finally out of frikkin' Hellfire Peninsula! I finally polished off most of the quests for that area (I think there are a few left over, but I can go back to those and a couple of them probably require higher level than I'm currently at; they do recommend two players...) and soared off to Zangarmarsh, which is a lot less barren and there are no jets of fire and no ground tilted at stupid angles, so I like it way better.
And yes, I said 'soared'. As in, on my spiffy flying mount. See, a thing I came to realise after a bit of a wade through Google is that you only need your Flight Master's Licence for flights in Kalimdor, Northrend and the Eastern Kingdoms. You don't need it for Outland. So I bought my spiffy blue windrider and while I can afford my Flight Master's Licence, I will continue to save up my gold so that I'll have a nice buffer by the time I hit level 70 and get out of Outland for good, therefore really needing my FML. (Oh, that's a fun TLA. Kind of like how they didn't really think before calling new WoD Werewolf 'The Forsaken', y'know? WTF is probably not what you want people calling your game.) Of course, by then I'll also have to be thinking about saving for cold weather flying, because apparently it's very much required in Northrend. Woo to the hoo. Yeesh.
Anyway, my last trek through Hellfire Peninsula earned me a not overly pleasant surprise. Look, there's this bunch of 'let's untaint the world' types called the Cenarion Circle and they tend to send people out to cure taints and kill blighted things. I got sent after five colossi. (Don't look at me like that; that's what the ditzy nelf NPC called them as plural!) I walked up to a colossus, made like Captain America (my shield? Meet its head) and ... oh. That's a gold dragon wound around the headshot of the mob I have engaged. That's an elite mob, that is. And it's at my level. Didn't I get my arse kicked by an elite mob four levels below me as moocow shammy? ...Yeah, well, that was moocow shammy. Belf pally is a little more resilient. I should really have realised this earlier this week when I got mugged by two NPC guards that had six levels on me, killed them both and survived. Suffice to say that it was somewhat rougher going than I'm used to (as in, I could only kill three of them before my health bar dropped to 50%) but I managed. The rest of that quest chain looks soloable no matter how much they say they suggest two players, so ... eh. Maybe I'll actually hit level 64 tonight. I haven't been levelling all that much out of sheer hatred for the zone I was in; maybe things will improve now that I'm somewhere a little less ... um ... horrible.
So yeah. That's been my day and I feel somewhat better now. I have doughnuts, and steak dinner planned, and a weekend impending. All is reasonably right with the world.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 05:13 am (UTC)omg O_O
i've never before considered it but I CAN SEE IT omgI'd always thought of him as Big Brother Varric and of Carver with a terrible Merril crush but now I don't think that I'm going to be able to unsee this.
I don't get the Sebastian appeal. I've always been more than a bit forgiving to the Chantry, so he does nothing but irk me with his inaction. Also I dislike his face and his armour and I don't see anything special about his voice
and feel the same about Nathaniel for that matter.</petty>no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 02:30 pm (UTC)I never see Carver and Merrill together, so I'll have to see what that dialogue is like, but to me ... I dunno, it clinched it for me when he turned up at her house to try to prod her outside to get some air. Generally when he worries about someone and interferes in their life, he either waits for them to come to him, or he does it clandestinely and denies it later. That seemed like an excuse to go visit her and I always kind of imagine that after her chat with Hawke, Merrill turns up at the Hanged Man going, "...Sorry." and things progressing from there. There may be fic one day.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 04:16 pm (UTC)still doesn't mean that it coming from Sebastian didn't irk. Why you around mage Hawke if you don't like les magis?!Carver wants to interrupt Merrill's plans, which may or may not include keeping Hawke from losing their head to the maw of something creepy. She continues to Not Get It. I should see if there's video.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 04:27 pm (UTC)Ah, Legacy chatter. My headcanon Carver never gets that far.
*scrolls down* STILL a chaste marriage? Seriously? How do they expect to have heirs?!? Eff that!