dragon age – News on Shuffle

Monday Musings: Welcome Back Munchkin

Hi fam! You may have noticed I’ve been pretty absent the past few months. I had a lot of plans for this year, but then quickly approached burnout and had to take a break. I was going to have YouTube focus on game reviews and my 100 book reading challenge. I was going to collaborate with friends on Twitch, start a Storyteller Saturday series, and continue my canon DA run with my favorite game in the series – Dragon Age 2. Instead I dropped off the internet to focus on getting through a pretty hectic work schedule while still dealing with health stuff.

You may also be aware that here in the U S of A we’re facing some pretty dark times. I was originally going to break my hiatus for Pride, but I’m coming back early to do some fundraising relevant to the pending Supreme Court ruling. I’m also going to try to bring back Monday Musings, and even try to not make every one of them be about politics. I wanna focus on the good in an otherwise dreary timeline.

So here’s the plan: the Dragon Age VODs I still owe you are getting edited and thrown on YouTube (one is all ready and releasing tomorrow), and I’m starting streaming again Wednesday. I had a poll going with two options and a third that said “why not both?”. Of course the chaos gremlins who follow me voted for that, so we will be splitting our time with an old classic – Civ V – and a new game to the lineup: Dorfromantik. That’s gonna start at 4pm my time. And I’ll be aiming to stream at least once a week, although not always the same day.

The only way we survive is together. I’ll see you around the internet.

New Year, New Chaos!

Happy new year, everyone!

It’s that time where we set goals for ourselves that we may or may not reach. This year I have a few new things I’m excited about here at Camp Chaos. The biggest thing is my reading challenge. Every year I slowly have increased my reading goals, and I’m finally making an attempt at 100 books in a year. I plan on documenting this on the YouTubes, although I may also share some notes here on the blog.

“What counts as a ‘book’?” you might ask.

For the purposes of this, I am counting pretty much anything I can mark on Goodreads. That means books, graphic novels, and single issue comics are all fair game. In the past I did not count single issues, but I’m realizing how many hours I collectively spend reading them, and it’s keeping me from reading more long form content. First up has been Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, a book that has been sitting on my shelf since I ordered it when it first came out. I’m about 60% of the way done with it as of the time I’m recording this. It’s been a good read but dense at times, so I have been going at a slower pace than I originally anticipated. I’ll catch back up on my goal the first day I sit for an hour or two catching up on comics, though.

In addition to my reading challenge, I also have some new and exciting things coming to the Twitch channel. The first thing is the introduction of Storyteller Saturday, which will be premiering this Saturday at 2pm ET. I have a bunch of visual novels and other story heavy games I’d like to share with you over the course of the year. First up is First Bite, a very thirsty game revolving around three vampires whose lair we discover. (I say that, but there are routes you can take that are not overtly sexual, which I like to see more games giving that as an option.)

The other big goal I have this year is I want to collaborate with more of my twitch friends. This will include discussion type streams where we talk about some of our favorite topics, as well as some multiplayer shenanigans. First of these streams will be later in the month, when I dive into some Dragon Age Inquisition multiplayer with a group of friends I will announce at a later date.

I’m trying a lot of new things this year that I’m rally excited about. Some of them might not last the whole year, others might. You never know what you’re capable of until you try though, right?

What are some of your goals for the new year? Have any collaborative streams you’d like to see? Visual novels you’d like me to tackle? Let me know in the comments.

Goodbye 2020

(cw: topics include unemployment and COVID; there’s a positive message at the end though, if you can stick it out)

Well, we’ve finally come to the end of the year that didn’t exist. It would be easy to say it was awful and we’re glad it’s over, but 2020 was a life changer for me.

In March of this year we hit Depression level unemployment rates as the country shutdown to try to keep COVID rates down. I, being in the entertainment industry, was one of those people (and probably won’t go back to work until spring or summer of this year after the vaccine is more wildly distributed). With an unknown amount of free time ahead of me, I did what I always do…. found a new project to keep myself occupied.

It started by resurrecting my YouTube channel. It had previously been a place to showcase live music videos, but had been collecting dust for 5 years. I figured I would find things to talk about amongst my many hobbies. Eventually I settled on doing recaps of the d&d games my boyfriend would run for myself and some friends via Facebook Messenger. Over time it would also include react videos to certain moments on Critical Role and shouting about Dragon Age.

While I was slowly building my YouTube empire, I had also been watching a friend stream on Twitch. We’d talk about how I should stream too, and after a couple months I finally got myself a headset and had my first stream: playing Civ 5 for what I assume was one or two people. I never imagined it would become my whole life for the rest of the year.

I have now been streaming for 6 months, made affiliate after 3 months, and have more of a community than I ever imagined I would. I found some great streamers who helped me get where I am (and will list some of them at the end of this post so you can go check them out). Beyond that, I made lasting friendships with random people on the internet who, in some ways, I’m closer with than my IRL friends now. What was meant to be a way to fill time and maybe make a few dollars while out of work turned into an important part of my life that I plan on keeping even when things “go back to normal”. I even got to participate in Stream Around the World for Dragon Age Day this year, and became part of the DA streaming community. So, as much as I understand wishing this year never existed, I can’t help but be grateful that it did. I hope you can also find a little joy in this darkest of years, and that we all have a much better go of it in 2021.

There are too many great, supportive people I have met on this journey, but these folks helped me the most to make affiliate: wordfangirl (and the humans at Jabroni TV), Cafe 3G, SmexyBuu & the Gaming Fool crew; special shoutout to NerdiNik, who is one of the first DA streamers I ever followed and introduced me to a great community of humans.

Dragon Age Day 2019

If you frequent Twitter, you may have noticed #DragonAgeDay has been trending. That is because today is the unofficial holiday fans of the video game series celebrate their love for it and what it means to them. I tweeted a little something myself and have been sharing other people’s posts, but I actually need way more characters to express my love for this series than Twitter will allow me. Which brings me to the rare and mystical blog post you never expect from me anymore. I always say I’m going to try to be better at posting and never do, so I’m not going to do that this time. I’m just going to talk enthusiastically about a video game for a few minutes then say see you again in a few months, probably when the new season of Doctor Who starts.

My Dragon Age story happens a little out of order. My partner and I were looking for games to play together, but a lot of multiplayer games we are into are online and not split screen, and since we live together and share a tv and console that doesn’t really work. He knows I’m super into fantasy (seeing how my other obsession is Critical Role), so he wanted to introduce me to Dragon Age. In an effort to still be able to play together, we have a system where he does the fighting but we make choices together. He started me on DA2 and I immediately fell in love with every single companion I met. The story is great, the banter and dialogue is fun, and the world completely sucks you in. I romanced Merrill and struggled with every choice I made involving her story (I’m going to try to keep this as spoiler free as possible just in case someone hasn’t played the games but I make no promises about my comments section). I’m currently on my second play-through and romancing my pirate queen Isabella this time. No matter what my main story will always be the same – pro-mage until the day I die.

My play-through of DA2 the partner had already played the game, so he knew what happens and just didn’t tell me. Inquisition we both played for the first time together. We experienced every up and down not knowing what would happen. He chose a Qunari because it was the first time Bioware made it a playable race. I’m currently starting my second go round and playing an elf mage. Planning to romance the heck out of Dorian, but the first time I didn’t really romance anyone. Dorian was the only character I super loved, and he only likes dudes, even if my female Qunari was super buff and could kick most guys collective asses.

There’s so much to do in Inquisition it’s hard to focus on anything other than what the collective fandom is obsessing over – that ending and what it means for DA4.

While we all patiently wait for the new game to arrive, I’m just grateful that not only did the series give me something to share with my partner, I was also able to pass that joy up the latter to my dad. I grew up playing games on the computer with him when I was a little girl. He recently started getting into everything Steam has to offer and asked me for suggestions. I immediately told him to go download Origins (which I skipped over, but I promise I went back and played it eventually and yes of course romanced Zevran). This Thanksgiving, while visiting my parents, I asked Dad how the game was coming. He’s still working out some of the fighting mechanics and was stuck on the fight when the Crows ambush you. I gave him a few pointers and helped him pick the best equipment and party possible and he finally made it through. Enjoy hanging out with my virtual boyfriend!

This very long post was mostly to say thank you to everyone at Bioware who made this game that I get to enjoy with my family. Thank you to DA twitter for sharing your art and enthusiasm with me. And thank you, dear reader, for letting me ramble about one of my favorite things for a few minutes. I promise I’ll update you when DA4 finally comes out and tell you who I romanced.