Ironically, Spiders @companionquest - Tumblr Blog

short comic set to “King” by Florence and the Machine I did last year for To Be Belief: A Gods of Spyre Zine. junior year lore my beloved

companionquest

Btw, here’s the link to the general D20 Zine Jam 2024 page on itch.io, plus To Be Belief specifically!

#the jposter #d20 #d20 zine jam #dimension 20

dragon-age-tournament

What happened to Clan Lavellan at the end of the war table mission line?

They survived, I didn't use a guide

They survived, I checked a guide

They were killed

I didn't do the missions

Remaining time: 2 days 6 hours

dragon-age-tournament

Census Survey Results, Pt. 1 - Intro & General Demographics

We're finally here! Because of how lengthy these posts will be, I'm going to have to split them over multiple posts. The plan is to have this intro, posts focused on each game and its main responses, and then a further few posts dedicated to each game's responses on the optional opinion section along with a selection of the free-response text box answers. They'll all be tagged with '#census survey', and once they're all out, I'll link them all in the pinned post so they're easy to find :)

Here is a list of pretty interesting patterns and findings I got from the results before we dive into the answers themselves!

When it comes to the free-response section, Veilguard inspired far more writing than any other game, with the highest comment count, response rate, average word count, and total word count

Solas inspired the largest number of people to say something, with the highest raw comment count and highest response rate. Cullen, Loghain, Anders, and Oghren also all broke 200+ optional text responses.

Sigrun had the least text responses (though she was rated positively by 85.2% of respondents and negatively by virtually nobody), with all the Awakening companions getting between 80-100. The non-DLC character with the fewest responses was Inquisition Leliana

Josephine inspired relatively few and relatively short responses, but 94.7% of respondents rated her positively

Taash generated the most intense free-response engagement, with the most total words and average words per response

Anders was the character who inspired the least indifference - only 1% of respondents selected "I'm indifferent" for him

Cullen was the most polarising, with his ratings fairly evenly distributed. He also had the highest negative percentage, narrowly ahead of Oghren

Oghren had the highest percentage of "mixed/conflicted feelings"

Tallis inspired the most indifference, with 43.5% of respondents selecting "I'm indifferent" for her. The next highest result was Sebastian at 25.4%

The top five characters with the most "I love them" responses were Dorian (75.4%), Zevran, Morrigan, Merrill, and DA2 Varric. Dorian was the most overwhelmingly positively rated, with 94.2% positive answers, 0.8% negative, and 1.4% indifferent

Vivienne, Sera, Taash, Harding, and Lucanis all had very positive ratings as characters, but their free-response text boxes were generally criticism-heavy, with people citing issues with their writing and storylines

Opinions on Oghren don't differ by gender - men were slightly more likely to be mixed rather than negative, but otherwise percentages were broadly the same across the board

Opinions on Taash differ pretty clearly between cis and trans/nonbinary respondents. Trans and nonbinary results are almost identical, but cis people were broadly less positive on Taash. 6.4% of trans and 5.6% nonbinary respondents rated Taash negatively ("dislike" or "hate") compared to 16.8% of cis respondents. 38.5% of trans and 38.6% of nonbinary people specifically selected "I love them" for Taash, compared to only 22.8% of cis respondents.

Men were substantially more likely to love Anders - 41.2% of women loved him vs. 61.5% of men.

Women were substantially more likely to love Cullen - 28.9% of women vs. 13.1% of men - and men were substantially more likely to hate Cullen (10.1% of women vs. 25.3% of men).

Sera was loved by 52.6% of men vs. only 35.3% of women

Some other interesting patterns: Neve was more positively rated by nonbinary people and men than she was by women, and Iron Bull was much more positively rated by nonbinary people than by either men or women

People who like Solas are almost twice as likely than others to also like Blackwall

Anders and Fenris fans aren't generally opposing camps, though Fenris fans are more likely to dislike Anders than Anders fans are likely to dislike Fenris. Among people positive about Anders, 97.2% were also positive about Fenris.

Ace-spec respondents lean slightly more positively toward Lucanis, but the difference isn't statistically significant

Older respondents (for this purpose 36+) like Cullen more than younger respondents do, while they like Loghain significantly less. Older respondents are also notably more likely to like Lucanis, Emmrich, and Aveline. Velanna, for some reason, peaks significantly for 23-27 year olds

Bellara was rated positively by every single person who said Veilguard was their favourite game

People who romanced Alistair in Origins tended to romance Fenris in DA2 and Cullen in Inquisition. People who romanced Leliana in Origins heavily favoured Josephine in Inquisition. Merrill romancers strongly gravitate toward Josephine and Bellara. Isabela romancers overwhelmingly favour Neve in Veilguard. Zevran romancers favour Dorian and Lucanis. Blackwall romancers divide strongly between Emmrich and Davrin.

The most common favourite romance pipelines were Zevran > Fenris > Dorian > Lucanis and Zevran > Fenris > Dorian > Emmrich

The fandom is very consistently pro mage, with 97.8% siding with the mages in Origins, 95.6% in DA2, and 89.7% in Inquisition. Only 1 respondent out of the 760 who answered the question for all three games chose the Templar option in every game.

To back up the common complaint in the free-response boxes about Veilguard forcing a harmonious team with no ability to disagree with companions, Rook was dramatically more likely to get along with everyone. The percentage of people who said their protagonist genuinely got along with every companion was 28.9% for the Warden, 22.1% for Hawke, 28.3% for the Inquisitor, and 72.2% for Rook. The most common sources of friction: For the Warden, Oghren, then Wynne; for Hawke, Sebastian, then Aveline and Carver; for the Inquisitor, Vivienne and Cullen, then Sera and Solas; and for Rook, Lucanis and Taash, but at much lower rates than any previous game's conflicts.

Certain pairings of characters were very often loved by the same people; some examples were Aveline and Cassandra, Morrigan and Isabela, Velanna and Merrill, Isabela and Neve, Isabela and Sera, Zevran and Fenris, and Nathaniel and Carver.

Cullen fans were more likely than other players to dislike Velanna, Merrill, Sera, Vivienne, and Isabela.

Inquisition players who chose the mages usually allied with them, but players who chose the Templars usually conscripted them.

Tag list: @songofamazon, @soldiermom1973, @jellyeliart, @jadesabre301. @limastockholm, @nico--reinhold, @huntrixdyke, @championofdogs, @kirkwallsbane, @kolimachris, @aw-reginum, @illcarxd, @i-crave-boi-juice, @mint-chip-superiority, @softforalistair, @oxygenforthewicked, @mylosingdogs, @captainlavellan, @howdy-do-da-day, @tarasmom, @dreadknightcassandra, @kingmalowe, @whimsyswastry, @firstwardenevka, @dragon-age-sideblog, @thatrandomfeministgamer, @loquaciousquark, @danzadair. @azeroths-andrastian-simp, @cooncannibal, @nightswatchyaoi

How old are you?: 28-35 (48.3%), 23-27 (24.6%), 36-45 (18.4%), 18-22 (6.3%), 46-55 (1.9%), 13-17 (0.3%), 56+ (0.1%)

#data I love you #fav

sisterdomina

something else with the Dragon Age Tournament blog's tumblr census results that strikes my personal interest is how the gender + sexuality demographics looks... because again, it matches up pretty neatly with every other fandom survey/census. Biggest slice of gender demographics is cis women, but biggest slice of sexuality demographics is bi/pan people. And for this census, also interesting that straight is the next-to-least selected sexuality (gay coming in last)

their graphs:

"What's your gender identity?: Cis woman (48.2%), nonbinary (31.5%), trans man (10%), cis man (2.3%), trans woman (1.9%)"

"What's your sexuality?: Bi/pan (48.9%), ace-spec (39.5%), aro-spec (19.1%), lesbian (14.6%), straight (9.1%), gay (6.9%)" + 4.9% total other write-in responses

So the largest demographics of Dragon Age fandom on tumblr (represented only by this census, but no other conflicting sources afaik?) are women who are not straight; so you would think, from this, and from other various fandom polls/censuses/surveys, that tumblr tags and ao3 would be heavy on women player characters/self inserts, but a fairly equal spread of love interests + general characters who are focused on. And yet

And yet

A lot of times, when the subject of women characters being underrepresented or ignored in fanworks comes up, there's a response of "What, so you just want everyone to write/draw/enjoy the characters you like instead of what they like?" but come on! by all metrics available, these are all characters everyone should be want to interact with. They're all great characters from the same media franchise, who should appeal to self-professed majority bi women fandoms romantically, sexually, and platonically.

Really, I don't doubt that the people responding to these surveys are being honest. Rather than dishonesty, I think this apparent mismatch of personal identities versus action/attention in fandom just indicates, once again, that a lot of people have a lot of internal biases and misogyny.

This also isn't getting into the issue of race and fandom.

Which similarly, fandom is so generally accepted as being a cozy liberal safe nice space, this should be shocking; but it really isn't. The Dragon Age Tournament census didn't have a race demographic, only location (USA and Europe being the huge majorities at 61% and 31% respectively) but fandom is a very white (esp. American, British, northern European white) space. We know this data-wise from other similar fandom polls/surveys, and anecdotally from using our eyes and brains. This feels different from the misogyny issues, which is predominantly women continuing to propel fandom misogyny via character treatment, because this is really white people making fandom spaces unfriendly or downright antagonistic to fans of color while also ignoring Black and non-white characters.

I don't have any great solutions. IDK. I just wanted to talk about this, since these are more self-reported statistics that align with and add to what we already have and know about fandom demographics and problems.

cucurb

hey guysss so unfortunately the rumors are true and im leaving the narrative. Buttt the good news is my absence will create such a gaping hole in your lives that it will become a sort of presence itself, and so in a way it will kind of be like i never left! But i am. Leaving just to be clear.

mooreaux

Smooches 😘

mooreaux

Happy Valentines day y'all. Fictional spouses ftw

#swashbuckler #anders tag #blood of the first #lyrium ghost

irnhero

my mum's name was ayda aguefort, too.

i bet ayda was one hell of a mom. it’s no wonder garthy is so sharp, she must have taught them everything she knew. no crumby leviathan schools for her kid. she must have been terrified of messing it up, but i bet she loved caring for this scrappy orphan the way no one did for her. i bet her journals from the years garthy was growing up are the most detailed ones she has. she wouldn’t have ever wanted forget a moment of it. garthy must have loved her so much. they must miss her in a way that no one can really understand. ayda aguefort is still here, but garthy will never see their mom again.

ref ref

#mistress of the compass points