I Would Prefer Not To

That ask got me reminiscing about Dragon Age, so I went back through my tag and started to remember how... weird and specific some of the Discourse got around those games. 

My inner gossip got curious about how some of the old pot stirrers were doing so I typed in some old BNF urls to see if they were still around and sure enough, they are... exactly the same. I don’t believe in cringe but uh... wow, some of them... some of them test that.

It's not usually a matter of who I would romance if I could so much as who the game will LET me romance based on my character.

I don't dislike playing male PCs, but it's not my first choice, and usually fem PCs also have the better voice, with the exception of Hawke, but every companion in that game is bi so it... doesn't matter lol.

You can't romance Morrigan or Dorian on a fem PC, which like... I very much GET for Dorian, I respect that, it just makes me sad because he's the best character and I love his story the most. I have made a character for him, but it was very much clearly not intended for me, and that's an instance where I'm okay with that, I even think it’s a good thing, not everything is FOR me, and I can appreciate that.

An instance where a romancable character was very clearly not made for me and it kinda grosses me out is Morrigan's romance. I similarly tried to make a PC for her and uhhh, I hated that to the point where I bailed on that game forever. The way she praises his "performance" and goes on and on and ON about Warden "Stamina" was just clearly written with flattering the player in mind and not characterization and was just clearly a male fantasy gratification encounter and it just reminded me of those borderline satirical late 2000s games like Assassin's Creed 2 and whicever God of War game lets Kratos fuck Aphrodite or whoever with how eyeroll inducing it was. It was clearly not a dynamic written with people who thought Morrigan was an interesting character in mind and it infuriated me.

And of course then there's Varric, who I actually don't WANT to romance on a new PC in Inquisition or DA4, I want him to be with HAWKE specifically because they have such good chemistry on the friendship path, especially if you play the sarcastic personality Hawke. But, y'know... Bianca, I guess.

Now, I'm FINE with the choices I wound up with. Alistair is a great lil guy, Fenris is a great lil blorbo, and Solas is narratively interesting and significant grade A bastard, but like... I was SETTLING each time and I felt it lol.

I AM THE BEST FUCKING INTERNET DETECTIVE!

Okay, that’s a lie, I’m actually oblivious, but if you’ve known me long enough here have probably heard me talk about my white whale, Tron Cat.

So, aaaaages and ages ago, my brother was trying to get me to play the Exalted TTRPG game with him and his friends and invited me to hang out with them for a weekend. We stayed at his friend’s place and said friend had a room mate who had basically done all of the decorating.

One of the paintings this woman had proudly put on display was of this robotic looking alien cat with glowing lines all over its body, which my brother’s friend group had affectionately dubbed “Tron Cat.” And like, it's kinda tacky, but in a really fun “old school sci-fi novel cover” kinda way that’s actually kind of awesome and just fun as hell because who wouldn’t want to forsake “good taste” and just hang an electric space cat on their wall? Everyone loved that picture, but me and my brother in particular were the most enthused about it. 

Well, eventually the room mate moved out and for some reason left that priceless painting behind. My brother asked if he could have it, if his friend didn’t want it, but the friend didn’t want a blank wall there and promised that once he moved out, he’d let Jake have it. 

He was in that apartment another couple of years, and by then everyone had forgotten about that because they’d kind of stopped playing as much, so Tron Cat was left behind. Jake didn’t find out until several months after his friend moved and was HEARTBROKEN because there were like three degrees of separation between us and that painting’s origins. Nobody knew the name of the painting or the artist or where and how they found it, and it was now in the hands of strangers who would never fully appreciate it. Tron Cat was lost forever.

HOWEVER!

Cut to like a decade later, I’m sitting here today trying to preserve pictures of my dad and my pets by going through my family’s ancient camera and making sure to back up all of the pictures onto a thumb drive and WHAT DO I FIND?

A picture I took of Tron cat! And in BOLD lettering I see “MONT” big glare blocking out some letters and then “BANO” underneath the glorious image of Tron Cat.

I can figure out that must be “Montalbano”, google search “Montalbano cat print” and BOOM, there it is, I found Tron Cat!

His name is Sevin, he was painted by Gary Montalbano, and he is glorious.

You know the date on that picture? You wanna know when that picture was taken? Fucking March 18, 2011.

Finally found out what it was on September 09, 2022. Eleven and a half years. If I’d remembered I’d taken that picture, I would have been able to find it a lot sooner, but there were years between when I first saw it and when taking it home was a possibility that was lost forever, but I fucking found Tron Cat.

In theory you can order prints off [this guy’s website] but it looks like it hasn’t been maintained in a few years and the store function says it’s “coming soon” but in the meanwhile you can “contact them” about which print you want and they’ll tell you how to order it which... hmmm.... don’t like that, but I think if in a few months his website still doesn’t have a functional store I might break down and try anyway because my god.... I’ve waited long enough.