(Sten was Jeeves)
January 17, 2011
12:00 am
Basically, I’m terrible at the “Roleplaying” aspect of RPGs and just tell people whatever response I know is going to get the outcome with the most cash, EXP, or trophies. Upon reflecting on that, I realized it basically made my Warden a racist hedonistic douchebag who had sexually harassed his entire team by the end of the game.
meta anti first post.
also, I generally read RPG strategy guides so I can get all the Items I would otherwise miss.
I’m with Coelasquid on that…I like RPing with real people, but when I’m by myself, every character turns into a total douchebag…
same here for instance in a game of fallout 3 i did every nice guy quest in megaton that i could do including the survival guide ~twitch~ and blew it to kingdom-come then proceeded to go on a mass murder spree in paradise falls – after I did the slaver quest line -, tenpenny tower – after i got the ghouls and humans to get along -, and rivet city -after I found the android – in that order then sat back and watched as The Regulators and Talon Company had a small war over who was going to kill me I won the war with my handy dandy mini-nuke MIRV Launcher went back to tenpenny tower took a nap and got the red ring of death.
Cool story bro.
Two factions had a WAR over who got to kill you?!? Holy shit…
(yes i know, it’s around two years since the orignial post was writen)
– You know, if you go back to tenpenny tower around a month or so, after helping the ghouls, they have slayed everyone. Even the nice old lady.
Guess they where evil after all, huh ;)
Fallout 3? I just do Operation Anchorage… then sorta lose interest with the rest of the game usually. It is all about getting General Jingwei’s Uniform (off his body then out of the simulation)… Everything else is meaningless.
My gaming mentality is to ignore everyone else, cheat until I’m bored, then move on.
I’ve found that stories sometimes function better when one of the characters is kind of a douchebag. In such cases, I usually just let my characters be me without a filter. This has lead to some very intersting character chemistry when playing with real people.
Skin.
Skin Everywhere.
Probably the most fanservice-y comic I’ve done yet.
The fans are not disappointed
We are the opposite of disappointed.
Does that mean we’re appointed?
Appointed?
Fappointed.
MY EYES!! The burning! The unending burning!!
Walk It off baby.
Form “machismo” to Pr0n… there’s just one single Pun
I’m gonna go with that one.
I may have to steal that.
To much skin MUST wash eyes.
I still get sad that you couldn’t romance Sten and… er… “bring him out of his shell” both figuratively and literally.
yeeeee!!!… D: some1 realy realy need to start working on a mod for that… we all love Sten <3 XD
Shell. Heh. Prawn pr0n.
I think the main reason everybody loves Sten was because he wasn’t romancable, and therefore you couldn’t sate your desire to persue a relationship with him.
That, and girls seem to dig the stoic archtype almost as much as the bad-boy archtype.
I liked that he respected backsass.
He totally didn’t. Sten never respected anything I said. This is why I usually left him to rot.
About the ONLY reason to let Sten out of the cage is to access the amazing rainbow butterfly sword from that feastday DLC thingie.
I like my women with pointy ears.
Don’t we all?
Fan service, you gotta do it at least once.
Or, in webcomics, twenty three times. :D
Me Gusta Mucho….
By the end of my DnD sessions, I find that my players do the same thing.
I’ve been told by experienced DM’s that almost every first time player just goes nuts with it.
My D&D character is kind of like your horribly racist Warden. The first campaign I took him on we went to a village and I sexually harassed the mayors wife and got us kicked out making my DM improvise the next hour.
I don’t think that this warden is a racist. I just think that he’s taken up residence at the corner or sex-crazed and doucebag.
Naw, the way it works in DA the humans are like regular fantasy Europeans, the Elves are like every racial minority, the mages are like X-Men, and the dwarves are super classist. So if you play an elf you get the option to accuse every human of the game of racism and be rude to them just because you’re an elf, or in some cases just flat out kill them for being humans. And I’ll admit I did my share of shooting first and asking questions later.
Oh my God that sounds so fun.
best description of the game ever.. lol..
Fun fact: The clan from the Dalish origin story in Origins is the same Dalish clan encountered in Dragon Age 2.
Fun fact: Once I found this out, I decided to play the most evil Dalish character I possibly could… including making her genocide another clan of her own people… mostly because I wanted to see what Merrill would say about her in the second game.
Totally wasn’t worth it. The sum total of carry-on effects from Origins to DA2 is so very minimal… EVEN as a Dalish Elf.
Meh. Whenever I DM I just provide a setting and let the players go nuts.
So far we’ve got two warforged (Pretty much machines), a guy with a contraband rifle, and a lizard riding a dog. So far they’ve hacked their way through tigers, almost triggered a war between humans and orcs, fought their was through hordes of plague rats then got their faces eaten by mind controlled sharks. Then another not mind controlled shark came by and started eating the bodies, but I somehow made it cute, so all is well.
You sir, are a credit to off the wall, seat of the pants DMing.
I usually run two campaigns. One serious “think of the consequences as if it happened in real life” and one “go crazy, I don’t care”.
One of my players however did make the obvious observation of, “How can I think of analogous real life consequences, when you can throw masses of arcane energy at people, sword fights are determined by probability, and all creatures are listed on a challenge rating table?”
Ha! Right there! Not all monsters have a CR. And furturmore, if he was referring to the suggested EXP rewards table not all CRs are listed there. Say your level one character went and fought a CR50 monster because he found the sword in the stone. That would not be listed.
And in any case, D&D battles are based on luck more than probability, which is how it is in real life. a natural 20 always hits, so even if there is no way you can beat something, you still can anyways.
Sounds like I need to play with you. Whenever I play, I always play as chaotic neutral, which really pisses off some DMs. For example, one time I went off looking for magic mushrooms in the middle of the game. Being chaotic neutral, I ate them, Unfortunately, it turned out that they were poisonous and we later used them in the quest to kill a dragon in a cave we weren’t supposed to be able to kill in the game. Then, when he created something else we weren’t supposed to be able to kill, I pissed him off because I would keep attacking it, then using the Meld into Stone spell so that the monster couldn’t harm me. I love playing chaotic neutral, I just get the feeling some DMs don’t know how to handle it or hate when you do.
Eh. You just have to offer something that the characters want. That is how you bend the CN ones to your ALMIGHTY WILL!!!! MUHAHAHAHA!!!
Wait, was that last sentence out loud?
Umm, what you described is just clever usage of items and tactics – has squat-all to do with being Chaotic Neutral.
SO LATE but I don’t care:
You sound like you would be a very good Paranoia player. If the GM is railroading you in Paranoia, you’ve already lost.
Warforged? You mean the race of artificial beings from Ebberon?
It would be acceptable of my first time players.
But my players who’ve been gaming for years still kill their spouses so that they can loot and sell off the wedding rings…
It’s true. I did it when I played D+D, and when I DM’d, my players did the exact same thing.
I’ll do it every so often. Although I fondly remember one campaign in Exalted where I decided my character was going to be this hedonistic man-whore. It worked out well for me, since another player had made his character with plant abilities into the “Lord of Weed” so we were sex and drugs. We basically created parties in whatever town we rolled into just by virtue of us being there. Good times, though counter-productive to actually getting anything done.
I seem to recall the other players hating us intensely…
sexually harass each other? :/ i feel like a minority now, having started off with a warforged cleric who has no idea what sex is to begin with and who is incapable of being poisoned (and therefore drugs are out).
Start with jokes about piston action, end off on a slightly confused (though thoroughly arrogant) note and let the topic drive itself.
Looks like rock ‘n’ roll is the only thing left!
The warforged are gods of METAL. (See what I did thar…?)
I hear you. My first real with-other-people-RPG character is liable to be a misanthropic omnicidal maniac who dislikes the very idea of reproduction. If he finds that Level One Slimes are so common because they reproduce by mitosis, he’s liable to break a little.
Really, though, I don’t even play games with romance options.
I laughed. I laughed hard. This also makes me want to go replay Dragon Age…
Ahhh Tabletop RPGs one of the games where I can brake the nose of one of my team mates because I want to and because I get a good roll.
Also I’m sorry if I get the “Tabletop RPG” thing wrong because I don’t play DnD I only play Warhammer 40k RPG
Nah, that’s pretty much spot on. I gave up DMing for a while because after being requested to do make a Viking/Norse campaign and give the characters backstory for them it turned into a 73 year old human druid fisting someone in front of her child and then turning into a bear.
the aristocrats!
*slow clap*
Suddenly the games I’m a part of don’t seem to weird any more.
It gets better. At one point they captured a 7 year old boy, nearly sold him into slavery, then handed him over to a temple of Hel, where they asked to give him to her.
They did this all on their own, mind you, and were offered no reward to do so.
Not to mention every single one of them is damn lucky with their rolls so they manage to get away with most things.
The description made the comic that much funnier. If only because I’m guilty of the same.
Tabletop RPGs have a really rather different paradigm to VGRPGs. In videogames, there’s no fat guy sitting opposite the you at the table, staring you down because you won’t describe the size and texture of your drow’s areolas.
ARGH. ARGH MY MIND.
…wait, areolas have a texture other than “skin”? this is news to me.
You… don’t get out much, do you?
i do my best to avoid those gaming situations. also, feeling people’s nipples.
Your girlfriend may be a tad disapointed in that regard.
I mean it’s just an idea but I imagine you have areolas too.
am i the ONLY one who was a one-playthrough-one-girl faggot?
forever alone.
still waiting for Shepard, though.
You are not alone, my friend. You are not alone.
Aww… Shepherd I love you.
awe… why did you have to do that :C
I…yeah, I did the exact same thing. (I’m also still slightly bitter that the male Warden couldn’t get with Alistair, damn tease that he is.)
You could have just used your imagination to pretend he’s a closet gay to satisfy any fantasies you had. Like me.
There has GOT to be a mod for that.
There are several mods for that.
yes yes yes yes and yea i love your comics so much and this made me love them more
creepy.
Are the two of them doing road work? Like with asphalt? That’s a nice touch, a job that some of these characters might actually be good at. :-D
Sten needs to relax more,have a few grapes and lie down for a good and deep massage 8)
Possibly some sex as well. Relieves a lot of stress, sex. Warden was practically trying to do him a favour, he’s just not cooperating enough to feel the positive effect XD
Are we going to get another sex ed lesson, Mordin?
Do you want another sex ed lesson?
I’d prefer another song, actually.
Excuse me while I molest your Warden.
Jeeves ‘n’ Wooster reference!?
^5!
You just want us to oogle Sten. I don’t normally go for big, beefy guys but I make an exception for Sten and the Commander.
I kind of floated back and forth between intentionally skewing my responses to get things and being over-overbearingly nice. Though my character would still never be a pushover. I only played through one and a half times and both times I went for Alistair.
Oh Alistair…
I’ll join you (and Warden) in the oogling. After all, there’s just so much to oogle which surely is why Warden hasn’t made it all the way up to his eyes yet ;)
The perspective and posing on those last two panels are really nice. And I love that Sten and the Commander are actually busy! The agency really works.
It’s not a comic conceit that really <i.requires you to flesh out the world it’s in, but the motions you do make towards that are so pleasing.
(cough) flesh out (cough) Niiiice.
Hahahaha
Good catch!
So the warden is like… the player character, I’m figuring.
Yes, the Warden Commander is the player character. You can play him/her in dozens of ways. The path of the Jerk is a particularly popular path. You can be a huge hero and still treat your team like disposable cannon fodder because Dragon Age doesn’t have a morality system, it has an approval system and characters will react in-character to stuff you do with/without/to/for/against them.
Yep, chosen one, can save the world or destroy it depending on what he wants. The game has a cliche story, but the delivery is what makes it fun. And the fact that if you want, the character is bi, and when you save a whorehouse, you can sleep with a woman who’s voice is deeper than a diesel engine.
She’s Larry King?
That wasn’t a woman.
There are at least two transvestites at The Pearl. XD
See, you had to go and ruin the joke so the slow burn never takes place for naive readers. Unhand that joke you jerk! :D
It’s like your warden had half of The Pearl’s entire staff!
Goddamn bisexuals always gotta ruin everything.
At least you will always feel loved around us.
Oh, I’m one of them, that’s how I know.
Pfft, I WISH I could have harrassed the whole team. I’d rather flirt with Oghren or Shale than Alistair.
You totally can flirt with both of them if you get the right responses. They just drunkenly pass out or turn you down.
I don’t remember that at all in Origins… was it something tacked on through a mod, or maybe in Awakening?
Nope, just the regular PS3 DA:O. Ogrhen has a couple dialogue trees that come up when you talk to him in camp where you can hit on him/he’ll mistake your male warden for a woman and you can keep the banter going until he passes out drunk. And Shale has a bit after you do her origin quest thing where she finds out she was a dwarf lady where you can make kind of a half-assed pass at her, like compliment her figure or something, and she tells you she’ll crush you if she catches you looking at her bottom. Something like that.
Hmm, I’ll have to try that … But I dunno, if I can’t get a soft core cinematic with Enya music it just doesn’t feel the same. ;3
Even though i did not know who either of them where, i thoroughly enjoyed that comic… Also, i scared everyone in by running through my house and shouting “MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!” and then diving onto the computer chair to log onto your site…
On a side note to my own comment, i know who Jeeves and Wooster are, >.>
I’ve been following your work with this webcomic for a while now. There have been a lot of moments when I laughed my ass off, and a bunch of ‘daaaawwww-that’s-cute’, and ‘holy-crap-that’s-awesome’ moments as well.
Never would I have imagined that there would be a ‘snort-while-drinking-coffee-due-to-the-completely-unexpected-reference-to-Jeeves-and-Wooster’.
Also, Wooster was never that bad.
Hey, Commander didn’t know how bad the situation was…
When I read this i almost choked to death on a Gobstopper.
At least not in canon.
This comic took my eye’s virginity
In a good way… if that’s possible
Your eye’s virginity !? You’re new to this Internet thing don’t you ? * pat pat *
You say it’s a good thing, so at least it was consensual.
Good sir, you do have a point.
I noticed the way you spent armour/armor
So I’m guessing your either British or Australian
Spelt*
Canadian.
Beauty, eh? How hard is it to stop pronouncing ‘Aluminum’?
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never made an effort to.
Coel has Canadian Super Powers! Of course being Canadian, she’s manlier than men of Alpha Flight and powered on maple syrup, milk in bags, and the NHL.
don’t forget Tim Hortons coffee, and poutine.
Just remember folks, she comes from the country that gave us Colin Mochrie!
Canadian national treasure there.
And Justin Bieber, but they can’t win em all.
Looking back on Alpha Flight…
That’s not too dang hard.
i love sten’s angry turtle mouth. loooovvvvve
I dont remember wooster being that much of a doosh though
That’s not how you spell douche.
No, that’s not how WE spell “douche”.
Ahh well, at least his virginity was taken by this and not…FATAL…
Anyways, an excellent comic showcasing the finest of choices and consequences, coela.
FATAL. Those images will never leave my brain.
In order to recover from severe mental scarring, you need to roll 20d100, divide the result by twenty, add one, and then check the result against your butthole circumference in millimeters.
Goddamned FATAL.
I was going to comment that they made it easier to disagree with companions while still getting benefits in the new game, so you don’t have to be a different person to everyone you talk to.
But then I saw Undressed!sten and warden and my mind went to happy far away land.
Pfft. Rivalry and still get benefits? No way. I mean, there are benefits, but not so much for Hawke. Like, if you’re on the Friendship path with Varric, he’ll get a trait that buffs the whole team. On the Rivalry path, he’ll get a trait that buffs only himself.
Really? I hadn’t heared that, and I’ve been obsessivly collecting all the new information that comes out.
Not trying to say you’re making it up or anything, but can I see your source? Or did you get to play it at an expo or something?
No problem. I understand incredulity. You’re wise for not believing it instantly.
Mark Darrah talked about it in an interview. http://www.curse.com/articles/dragon-age-origins/896992.aspx
“it’s actually OK not to be someone’s friend, you can actually push them to the point of rivalry, but have them still stay in your party. So with Varric; he get an ability called Authorized Biographer, which basically offers buffs for your entire party, if you’re nasty to him, he won’t leave but he’ll get an ability called Un-authorized Biographer, which basically saves those buffs for himself.”
Thank you, I hadn’t seen that! That’s pretty interesting…but at least is still better than the old way of no buffs for dislike. I think I’ll still go after the rivalry path for a few people (especially the love interested I choose….I like the idea of hatesex, so sue me), but I’ll probably go for friendship for most playthroughs.
Ps thank you for ignoring that I wrote ‘heared’ in my first reply. I clearly need to get more sleep.
So, here’s what I’m wondering. Commander runs the agency, clearly he’s the most level headed guy there.
But, is he the toughest? Could he beat all those other guys in, like, a fist fight? Kratos and Sten and Mr. Fish and all them?
Probably not, but he can deal with that. That’s how Bran-Dao works.
That’s silly. Of course he can’t beat Mr. Fish in a fist fight. Mr. Fish doesn’t have any fists.
True, we’d have to go with the equivalent, or what have you…
Cola Squid, good point. By the way, thank you for giving props to a great actor like that. To me, he’ll always be Kurtz from Apocalypse Now.
(The “coela” is pronounced “seelah”)
You have to explain this to a lot of people, don’t you?
I figure I can’t blame anyone for getting it wrong, it isn’t really a common term.
I’d have just called you Ms. Squid to be on the safe side. :)
D8 I’ve been pronouncing it ‘Callio-squid’ like a calliope!
It gave me happy thoughts of a multi-tentacled cephalopod playing
an organ like instrument.
…Now my dreams are ruined.
I feel very stupid, since I know how to pronounce coelacanth correctly, and I made the correlation between coelacanth and Coelasquid, yet I had been pronouncing it basically as “koala-squid”… Feel so dumb, man…
When I was little, Every boy in my class wanted a coelacanth for a pet. Turns out, they’re less awesome than the name suggests.
But… coelacanths!
It’s true. At least it spurs people to go find out about coelacanths though, yeah? They need more love.
Any reason why your name means “cavity squid”? (9th grade biology woo).
Also I think that maybe the sexy companions to the warden were accidentally flipped. In panel 4, they appear to be facing us and behind him, and therefore on the Warden’s left. In the other panels, they’re on the right.
Sorry to be a kibitzer or whatever. It took me a while to figure out what was weird about it. It could just be that the sexy companions are laying back on him or something. I don’t really know.
Somebody already gotten on me about it somewhere else in the comments. Yes, I do know they’re backwards, I tried flipping some of it before I inked but I wasn’t content with how the art was balanced and I couldn’t be assed to recompose it all to something better. Yeah, it’s wrong, but honestly I have a life and a job so there’s a certain cutoff I have to put on the effort I put into a free internet comic about video games. Just pretend they shuffled around when Sten barged in or something :P
The root word of Coelacanth and coelom translates to something more like “hollow” than “cavity” from what I’ve heard. The word “coelacanth” refers to their hollow, liquid spine.
I always envisioned your name as “Cool-Ass kid”. You know, like cool as fuck kid.
… I don’t know.
Your name makes me giggle.
I’m not sure how assholy i might come across but i was rather surprised that people couldn’t make a link and pronounce the name. People don’t read hard enough- a quick scan may look like cola squid but that’s just lazy
Look up Coelacanth pronunciation for a simple guide to lead you in pronouncing Coelasquid.
also; is it Bran-Dao or Brawndo – The thirst mutilator?
show some respect.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000008/
He’s… name number #8. Holycrap. Now I have to go find out the seven or eight people that made it higher than him…
Wait, it’s alphabetical… wait, what? How is there nobody with a last name that begins with “a” in acting… hmm, it may be by time period, then alphabetical, because it looks like 1-10 are all really old movie actors… IMDB, you confuzzle me…
My current DA playthrough is the stories of a bald dwarf named DUMLOIN, and the adventures of his massive nose. And yes his name is all caps. It makes it seem like he always yells his name. He’s also basically a hyper hedonistic douchebag. Rascist not so much
I had another thought. (I have a lot of thoughts, my brain’s really good at that.) Would the Agency be able to help Epic Beard Man?
Epic Beard Man is an a**, dude. He’d just go around making racist comments with Link all day.
I’m not sayin’ it has to be you! It could be a fish-head doin’ it!
What are they doing in the second panel? Paving the road? It seems rather strange.
It looks like they are sweeping the street to me.
This made me laugh way more than it probably should have, probably because your logic towards it reminded me of my old pimp dwarf.
To be honest though who doesn’t end up making a murderous super-powered racist ultra pimp in Dragon Age at some point?
Uh. Me. I mean, I had a murderous super-powered racist, but you can leave the “ultra pimp” part out.
Look at all that man-flesh!
My characters always end up as manipulative… I just think to myself “How do I maximize profit here?” And then something along the lines of “Maybe if I kill everything that moves.”
Debauchery and Grapes
Attorneys at Law.
That was so epic.
Sir.
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/435
/epicjar
Anyone else getting tired of that joke? It feels like the poor thing is being beaten to death.
Much like the word itself.
A question: Do you have to put a dollar in the Epic Jar every time you say “Epic Jar”? Do I owe the Epic Jar Two dollars now? Er… Three dollars now?
It’s a brilliant plan. I shall drain my unborn kids’ allowances with this endless cycle in the future. *evil laugh*
First the Stenromance bit and now this. You really, REALLY wish Sten was on the menu, huh? I can’t blame you. I don’t swing that was and I kinda do too.
What’s this about Coela being pronounced Sheela, by the way?
It’s not “Sheela”, it’s “see-lah”, as in Coelacanth or Coelom.
I’ve always read it like “Co Eh Lah” (mostly because I speak Spanish), I had no idea. I don’t know if I should be glad or mad I learned something on my break. Thanks nonetheless!
Regarding the Mass Effect comment below: You should give it a go, I’m not into Sci-Fi of any flavor and I enjoy everything else too much to pass it up.
If that was your Warden, then how was your Shepard? Or your main Shepard. Assuming you have a Shepard at all…
Haven’t played Mass Effect yet, it’s hard to get me into Sci Fi that isn’t Sci-Fi Horror.
Mass Effect was pretty Sci-Fi Horror……ible imo.
Ahhhhahaha….I need to stop laughing at my own jokes…
Aww, I liked Mass Effect. I liked most of the characters and those that I didn’t like I’m assuming are still in the middle of their character development arc. I do know Miranda’s is most visible if you take her with you to the final battle.
Sarcasm aside, there were some pretty freakin’ scary moments in ME and especially in ME2.
ME2 was supposed to be more of a psychological thriller, methinks. I didn’t care much for it either way. I’ve had plenty of way better FPS’s along the way, and “scary” stuff doesn’t do much for me… or to me. *shrug*
Been reading a while. Figured this amazing page was as good as any to say excellent comic.
I just might have to go harass Sten in game now… Always was sad he wasn’t a choice to sexually harass-I mean woo.
So, was that a Dalish warden?
yeah.
You seem to use Sten in your comics quite a bit Coelasquid.
I think someone has a crush…
Your husbando perhaps?
I’ve put like 70 hours into DA, I just have a lot to make fun of. I have way more Kratos jokes but I force myself to limit them because I would just turn this site into “thepunchlineiskratos.com”
But I thought Kratos was a punchline anyway? Y’know, in that greek comedy, God of War.
i feel abit sorry for Sten, Warden really feels like that creepy friend you don’t want as a roommate, the one that maybe secretly inlove with you or like always doing something to torment you by making you try to find your clothes everyday.
I didn’t understand this comic having not played Dragon Age but all of these MAN RUMPUS PICTURES gave me a good laugh anyway.
Actually wait, there isn’t a single manbutt shot in the comic.
You don’t even really need to play the game to understand he was harassed away from his home by a self-indulgent douche.
I am an avid reader and fan and proponent and recommender of your comic, and I love everything about it… except that Brando crap you spout all of the time. You know he was a douchebag right? That he used to write his lines on his scene partner’s foreheads because he was too cool to learn shit; that he was kicked out of several movie projects because he was such an ass to work with? He got kicked out of college for riding his motorcycle through the hallways (yeah, that sounds badass, but remember that these were students in an acting college at THAT time, let alone ours, and that everyone there was spending money they really didn’t have). Its hard enough for men these days to have decent masculine role models; choosing to honor a man who was so despicable is not the answer.
Truly the manliest man ever was Abraham Lincoln; professional boxer and lawyer and president during a flipping civil war, he also made the hard choices, and lived with them. His cabinet was made up of heated opponents on purpose, because he knew that even though it would mean every single cabinet meeting would be a battle that they would keep him and each other honest. Plus, 0% douche.
Robert E. Howard > Abraham Lincoln
It seems that about once a month someone gets their undies in a bunch about the Brando thing and writes me an angry letter about what an asshole he was or leave a long angry comment berating me for respecting him. I’m getting tired of writing the same essay on his personal life time and time again, so I’m just going to leave you with some quotes and remind you to bear in mind that no one does what they do without a reason, and you really do need to read more than just the sensationalist slants of a person’s life to understand their whole story.
“I put on an act sometimes, and people think I’m insensitive. Really, it’s like a kind of armour because I’m too sensitive.”
“Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.”
“You can say something in a certain spirit, with a smile, but when it appears in print, there’s no smile.”
“Regret is useless in life. It’s in the past. All we have is now.”
“I don’t know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I’m going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass”
“Would people applaud me if I were a good plumber?”
“The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them”
“If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors on television talk about their personal lives”
“People ask that a lot. They say, “What did you do while you took time out?”, as if the rest of my life is taking time out. But the fact is, making movies is time out for me because the rest, the nearly complete whole, is what’s real for me. I’m not an actor and haven’t been for years. I’m a human being – hopefully a concerned and somewhat intelligent one – who occasionally acts”
“That’s a part of the sickness in America, that you have to think in terms of who wins, who loses, who’s good, who’s bad, who’s best, who’s worst . . . I don’t like to think that way. Everybody has their own value in different ways, and I don’t like to think who’s the best at this. I mean, what’s the point of it?”
“What do I care? I’ve made all the money I need to make. I won a couple of Academy Awards if I ever cared about that. I’ve been nominated I don’t know how many times and I’m in a position of respect and standing in my craft as an actor in this country. So what the hell, I don’t need to gild the lily.”
“It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek…. Acting serves as the quintessential social lubricant and a device for protecting our interests and gaining advantage in every aspect of life”
“Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coarse guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can’t help it, but, it is troubling.”
“people often spoke about that, “Oh, my God, what a wonderful scene, Marlon, blah blah blah blah blah.” It wasn’t wonderful at all. The situation was wonderful. Everybody feels like he could have been a contender, he could have been somebody, everybody feels as though he’s partly bum, some part of him. He is not fulfilled and he could have done better, he could have been better. Everybody feels a sense of loss about something. So that was what touched people. It wasn’t the scene itself. There are other scenes where you’ll find actors being expert, but since the audience can’t clearly identify with them, they just pass unnoticed. Wonderful scenes never get mentioned, only those scenes that affect people.”
“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.”
“Everybody ought not to turn his back on the phenomenon of hatred in whatever form it takes. We have to find out what the anatomy of hatred is before we can understand it. We have to make some attempt to put it into some understandable form. Any kind of group hatred is extremely dangerous and much more volatile than individual hatred. Heinous crimes are committed by groups and it’s all done, of course, in the name of right, justice.”
“Homosexuality is so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing”
“I know I’m not an easy person to get along with, I’m no walk in the park”
“The good directors that I’ve worked with will say I’m a good guy. The other fellows will say I’m a bad guy.”
“I had a great deal of respect for Don Corleone; I saw him as a man of substance, tradition, dignity, refinement, a man of unerring instinct who just happened to live in a violent world and who had to protect himself and his family in this environment. I saw him as a decent person regardless of what he had to do, as a man who believed in family values and was shaped by events just like the rest of us”
“I had signs and cue cards everywhere — on my shirt sleeves, on a watermelon and glued to the scenery. Not memorizing lines increased the illusion of reality and spontaneity.”
“Everyone on a movie deserves an award – not just one person”
“I hated authority and did everything I could to defeat it by resisting it, subverting it, tricking it and outmaneuvering it. I would do anything to avoid being treated like a cipher.”
“People will like you who never met you, they think you’re absolutely wonderful; and then people also will hate you, for reasons that have nothing to do with any real experience with you. People don’t want to lose their enemies. We have favorite enemies, people we love to hate and we hate to love. If they do something good, we don’t like it. I found myself doing that with Ronald Reagan. He is anathema to me. If he does something that’s reasonable, I find my mind trying to find some way to interpret it so that it’s not reasonable, so that somewhere it’s jingoist extremism.”
“I’m not going to lay myself at the feet of the American public and invite them into my soul. My soul is a private place. And I have some resentment of the fact that I live in a system where you have to do that”
“Most people want those fantasies of those who are worthy of our hate – we get rid of a lot of anger that way; and of those who are worthy of our idolatry. Whether it’s Farrah Fawcett or somebody else, it doesn’t make a difference. They’re easily replaceable units, pick ’em out like a card file”
You’re free to think what you please of the man, but he is the sort of person that I respect.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WIN WALLTEXT OF THE YEAR AWARD
And it is only January.
Congratulations, you win the whiner of the day award.
And it is only 10AM.
Uh… no offence, and I dont have any particular grudge against Brando either, but… all that does kinda make him sound like a dick. “Yeah I act like a prick, and here”s a list of reasons of why I get to act like that without getting my teeth punched in…”
Not that he’s the biggest asshole in media, not even close. Hell, he comes off downright mellow compared to Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise. Atleast Brando isnt a drunken anti-semite.
I have more respect for a person who has strong beliefs, accounts for them in a rational manner, and doesn’t apologize for them than I do for people who try to be everybody’s friend. Personally, I would rather befriend a person who insults you to your face than behind your back.
But hey, like I said, that’s the kind of person I respect. You’re free to find your own role models.
I agree. I can respect a guy that has the guys to insult you to your face. Shows he’s not cowardly,that he’ll speak you up,sure,but if you screw up,he’ll tell ya. He tells it like he sees it,no bull.
Actually, when he went to school, average tuition in the state was around $30/semester. His was not a time of student loans averaging hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I don’t think you know how monetary value works over the years. 30 dollars per semester is a ridiculous amount of money for the 40’s.
The motorcycle thing was in Highschool, by the way.
People are just mad Brando rolled Renegade Shepard and still managed to be a hero and save the universe.
Proportionately, it’s still less money than tuition is these days. American tuition can be more than a year’s salary these days depending on where you go. (and I guess what your job is) $30 was worth more back then, but it wasn’t the $18,000 to $43,000 that college runs you these days.
But yeah, I think the motorcycle thing was when he was in military school wasn’t it?
“Brando had been held back a year in school and was later expelled from Libertyville High School for riding his motorcycle through the corridors. He was sent to Shattuck Military Academy, where his father had studied before him.”
Amazingly I found that in Wikipedia.
I’ll hafta double check those numbers later…
The average yearly salary in the United states in the 1930’s was $1,368. If you assume tuition costs $30 a semester/$60 a year, that means it’s about 4.4% of your overall yearly income.
The median American income is currently around $32,140 per year. If you assume university costs $10,000 to $43,000, that’s anywhere from a third to 133% of a person’s entire salary for the year.
Tuition rises faster than inflation, basically.
Wow, can’t possibly argue with that. That was entirely edumacative, I gotta admit I am surprised. Thanks.
edumacative, a perfecly cromulent word.
How can you say that Abraham Lincoln was the manliest man ever when Teddy Roosevelt is sitting just 10 presidencies away?
I must say, that although I nearly worship TR as though he were a brazen calf, AL had far, far more to overcome to achieve what he did.
I find it funny how someone actually complained about this.
Silliness.
Lest we forget th’ truth o’ th’ Bran-Dao:
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/323
HIS LEG MOVED. THAT IS ALL.
Wow I didn’t notice until now.
HOLY SHIT IT’S ALIIIIIIVE.
This is irrelevant, but I’d anyone else surprised hellboy hasn’t appeared in one of these?
Eh… I’m not surprised. He’s kind of an interesting character, but… he’s also very “blah”. He’s very cliche, which is weird, considering what he is… but, yeah. I think that’s probably why. His personality is essentially, “I love cats, I love a good cigar, and I love killing big nasty things.” Meh.
He’s more interesting in the comics.
That’s a relief. I liked the movies, but only for the fact that they really took some interesting angles on mythology, but didn’t really care for Hellboy as a character. I might have to start reading the comics…
Yes. The comics are fantastic, and I kinda liked the movies. Sure,they’re not as good as the comics, but I filstill.like them.:D
And who couldn’t love a samurai haircut? XD
How is he cliché? Personally, I thought he was a fairly original character . Because even though he’s an ‘superhero’ type character, he acts realistically, and by realistically I mean he would act as anyone would if they had badass abilities.
That red-headed elf guy instantly made me think of Lampwick from Pinocchio.
You should totally try Mass Effect 1 & 2. There’s some great characters in there!
Dear God, I’m missing out on these tabletop RP’s… I don’t think I’ve ever played one.
Dragon Age is a video game, not a tabletop RP.
I think he was referring to all of the D&D talk earlier in this line, and in fact, over many of the comment sections for comics…
sorry coelsquid, he’s right.
uh… I don’t know why that merits a “sorry” but okay, whatever…
Lol, as in ‘sorry but you’re wrong. ha HA!!” sort of sorry… and I have the strange habit of adding sorry to just about everything. People are so sensitive sometimes, and you never know when people are going to freak out about your posts.
In the words of 2 the ranting Gryphon “Suddenly bunny bits” watch “apocalypse of cute” on YouTube if you wish to get that joke.
On Roleplaying:
The last time I tried to roleplay on D&D, I ended up making a psychotic Elven Wizard whose goal is to kill the Sun God. Worst thing she did was keep a Goblin skull as a trophy, to the disappointment of the Party Paladin (who at the time gave my character a warning about her behavior).
With Video Games, I guess I mostly try to find a balance between finding the most profitable choice and not being a petty asshole. I’ll try and get people to see things my way with my awesome talking, but I’m not gonna go “BWAHAHA NOW YOU DIE” after I get paid.
I think I might’ve been pushing the idea of “Have Fun With It”.
i allways just be SUPER NICE lawl
Am I the only one who’s noticed that the fourth frame is flipped? Like, its really starting to bother me the more I look at that.
Yeah, I was aware of that, but compositionally I hated it flipped because it cramped the art and messed with eye direction so I just went with it. Pretend they all scuffled around when Sten charged in.
I was blushing too hard to notice something like that.
God…
Please tell me I’m not the only one who wishes sten was romancable
and hey
the night after you ‘join him in his tent’ you could have one of those small red ‘injury’ boxes
ya know, cause sten likes it rough
(if you don’t get this, you’ve never listend to him talk to morrigan and you should, it’s funny as f***)
He is a snuggler! That’s why you need the crowbar, red hot, or he’ll never feel it.
What Ho, Coelasquid!
Pip Pip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-BAUG97gZo
Mother doesn’t like me saying “what ho.”
Little known fact:
The vision of grace and beauty, Aveline from Dragon Age 2 has the exact same voice and voice actor as Sten.
http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/17200000/Aveline-Vallen-Concept-Art-dragon-age-origins-17269124-900-563.jpg
I totally didn’t even just make that up right now. In any case I look forward to sexually harrassing all the dudes of Dragon Age 2 to make up for the fact that Zevran was so lame and I had to spend so many multiples of 40 silver in the Pearl to hook up with a dwarf.
Y halo thar Brienne of Tarth.
Little known fact: Sten’s VA is Heero Yui and Terry Bogard.
Heero? Really? That’s… that’s awesome. *has a striking urge to go watch old Gundam Wing episodes… then dub the soundtrack over Dragon Age machinema*… wait, that might be awesome.
…
I just made the Warden a male dwarf for eyecandy. Plus if you give him the “Suave” voice, on rare occasions he says pervy things in battle.
Jesus fuck, you thought Zevran was lame? He’s my favorite. My all-time favorite.
Psh, my Dragon Age character is a total pushover, I work overtime at making everybody happy.
So like…when I get round to playing Dragon Age, is this the kind of awesomeness that I’m going to experience? XP; I really love Sten from these comics, but I have no idea if this is exactly how he is in the game.
If you don’t go out of your way to spring him from jail at the beginning of the game, you can assume that he just dies when the darkspawn trash the city.
Otherwise, yeah, people seem to love him or hate him, he’s the big stoic no nonsense platoon commander who occasionally goes on tangents about baked goods, kittens, and kinky sex. The only way to get his approval up is by backsassing him and giving him paintings. He doesn’t like doing anything that diverts from the main quest and flirts back and forth with the stone golem sometimes.
…Kinky sex? Huh. Never played the game, but still.
â– Morrigan: You seem so deep in thought, my dear Sten. Thinking of me, perhaps? The two of us, together at last?
â– Sten: Yes.
â– Morrigan: I… what did you say?
â– Sten: You will need armor, I think. And a helmet. And something to bite down on. How strong are human teeth?
â– Morrigan: How strong are my teeth?
â– Sten: Qunari teeth can bite through leather, wood, even metal given time. Which reminds me, I may try to nuzzle.
â– Morrigan: Nuzzle?
â– Sten: If that happens, you’ll need an iron pry bar. Heat it in a fire, first, or it may not get my attention.
â– Morrigan: Perhaps it would be better if we did not proceed.
â– Sten: Are you certain? If it will satisfy your curiosity…
â– Morrigan: Yes. Yes, I think it is best.
Sten: Grrr
Dog: Grrrrrr
Character: ~back away slowly~
How has nobody else noticed the female Qunari? This is the first I’ve seen of one ANYWHERE, and it’s totally amazing.
They have horns and look disappointingly generic. Fukken retconari.
Am I the only one that thinks the dwarf woman is hot? I like a woman with a more realistic body and doesn’t look like she’d snap in half.
The dwarf women in DA:O were adorable, that one looks a little like a Rocky Horror transvestite dwarf to me.
The female elfs face also looks like the face of those blue furries from Avatar. Look in your heart, you know it to be true.
…Odd… I expected dwarf women to be bearded…
^That, so very very much, made me laugh histarically. If you don’t get it, go read up on your LOTR… now.
You gotta admit, whatever you’re feelings about the changes, though that the concept art for the Qunari Mages look pretty Boss, makes me want to give the poor tongueless bastard a hug
The biggest impression I got from the promo screens of the Mages was that Qunari architecture seems to have been retconned from the Mayan style it was claimed to be the first time around to something much more European.
I’m not talking about the screens I am talking about this concept art:
http://bioware.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/quanari_lineup.jpg
Also, almost all the screens we’ve seen have been from Kirkwall, not Par Vollen or Seheron so I fail to see where Qunari architecture has been retconned.
They essentially made them a partial rip-off of WoW’s Draenei, and a partial ripoff of generic Fiendlings from D&D. I.E., Tiefling, and the like… it’s really suck, actually, because up until the retcon, the Qunari had their own flavor. Then they decided to genericize them…
Really? The Qunari were essentially Semi-giants with bronze skin, pretty generic if you ask me.It was there philosophy and culture that made them unique, not their appearence IMO, so the Horns don’t bother me either way
Not many fantasy series have seven foot Turkish elves with violently bright eyes and customarily cornrowed white hair.
Almost everything has some variant of draenei or whatever their D&D predecessor was. I have never seen a character who resembled Sten. I have seen a million things that look like the concept art for the new Qunari. It looks like they just pulled the wings off a Disney Gargoyle.
Elves? Ok…
I’m not saying the new design is unique by any stretch of the imagination, but these way they do actually look like a foreign species/race. Before Sten and the Qunari looked way to human to me.
Eh, I see we’re not going to agree on this, so I’m just going to drop it and continue enjoying your work.
This* way
too*
… dman my typing seems to have gone down hill recently
Ah man! I played like a good little rper the first go around and was too nice and I ended up dying… plus I was getting ticked off at everyone looking down on me for being a castless dwarf… So I went back and basically slaughtered, slept with, and pummeled people with heavy innuendo and spent a lot of time makin “friends” with my party members just so I could hear they’re funny convos while we walked! XD
Funny. I thought replying however gets you the most EXP/Cash whatever WAS being good at RPGs. ‘least you’d think so considering how the “experts” talk about them.
It’s good at winning the game, it’s not good at the role-playing aspect so much.
Been reading for a while and never had the ambition to say anything. But I figured now would be as good a time as any.
Either way, there’s a couple quick things I want to say:
1) First and foremost, this comic is AWESOME. With a capital AWESOME… I never dreamed that any of these classic characters could be so downright silly. I commend you for doing a better job than most at making not only great jokes but great artwork as well. Most comics aren’t this high quality, even the ones with lots of funding. So, keep up the good work.
2) You’ve got another recommendation to play Mass Effect. The original is cheap at this point, so you don’t have a lot to lose. Actually, I like the original better than the sequel anyway.
3) From earlier, a dental cavity is a tooth that’s getting hollow, which is why they fill it in. Hollow = Cavity.
4) Brando wouldn’t be a religious figure if there wasn’t at least some debate on whether or not he was so great. I mean Jesus was crucified because he was so controversial at the time (never thought I’d talk about Marlon Brando and Jesus in the same paragraph, and pardon if I offend anyone by doing so)
5) I only created one bad character for D&D, and that was AFTER I’d played so many better ones. He was a cleric Asswipe (pronounced as-weep-eh) and he had charm, command, and every other manner of control spell to make sure that they erm… took it. Goooood times….
I know what they meant by “cavity”, but in my mind “hollow” and “cavity” have slightly different connotations.
I will admit that the primary reason I like the second one better is because you get to hit on Garrus and Tali. I always found them more interesting than the humans and Liara.
I lol so hard that now everything hurts XD… and im 100% agree with you my warden too end as a douchebag who had sexually harassed his entire team, and even more since i get the “free love” (no jealousy.. woohoo!! :D) mod XDXD
Its my experience that any good partnership can be branched into being f***buddies
…yeah, no matter which gender actually XD
I can’t decide what I appreciate more, the fanservice or the Wodehouse reference. :D
How appropriate, i just preordered Dragon Age II today, thank you for making me yearn for the new levels of douche baggery that will hopefully be attainable in the upcoming release.
I told you that you were supposed to pre-order before the 13th and it is not my responsibility to remind you.
-Emily
Mmm… One cut of the string… >:D
I always start off with good intentions in a game. ” I’m going to be great! And loved! And save the world! Yeah! And I will do it the honest way! ”
Then I hit level 10, get my good skills, and forget all about that. Mmm. Money.
Lest we forget, should you find yourself naked by the time the joining ritual comes around…
Okay, much though I love reading through this massive amount of comments for every comic, you really need a forum, Seely.
Who knows bro.
Ironically, this site was tagged as “video game pr0n” on stumbleupon. there are going to be a lot of disappointed Stumblers.
Are you implying seeing Sten in his underwear didn’t turn you on? I think it’s faptastic so stumbeupon was pretty accurate. No homo.
what are they doing to the road? are they sweeping it?
Resurfacing it, I think. like spreading out the asphalt or something. I dunno, I see road crews doing it sometimes.
after the road crew makes the asphalt more or less level, the steam roller flattens it down to pavement you can drive on.
some places used to just drop bricks of tar on the road and cover it with gravel, then leave the cars to drive over it. ask your elders about that some time, roads are much better now.
they still do that in rural places in america. tar bubbles are fun to pop.
Where I grew up, whenever our roads started falling into disrepair they just tore up all the pavement and replaced it with gravel. It was a northern swamp town with permafrost, so paving that in the first place wasn’t the best idea, you just end up with a ripple chip after a year or two. Some of it they tore up because it was making everybody motion sick to drive over.
Is that a dwarf in the back?
Dwarves are the sex :D
…Re-reading this, I gotta say I love how that elf dude looks like a really pissy elf Jimmy Olson. It gives me weird ideas.
…Guys like Warden kinda creep me out.
Wow I read this one multiple times and just noticed that Sten had his head-cancer cured! (And I’m regarding this comic as inbetween DA1 and DA2 because the female Quinari in the harem thing has horns)
If the Qunari are skilled at one thing, it’s Retcon.
…Is there something wrong with being a total slut for swag and achievements? I thought that was the point!
So i most definitely show your comics/website to all of my friends, and i check every day to see if by some miracle you updated another one. this week more than ever I’ve clicked my little bookmark for this website to show someone who’s peeking over my shoulder the webcomic that i hold in highest regards. They are then treated to the visuals of multiple ripped and scantily clad, banana hammock wearing strongmen. So now my friends question my sexual orientation. They dont even let me show them Jared and Mr. Fish being kings of everything :[
Hey, there’s chicks in there too….
what exactly are the commander and sten scraping and or sweeping and or washing? (my first choice is scrapping) it looks like asphalt.
Because it is asphalt.
Jeeves and Wooster!
that made me so happy. my mom, sister, and I are watching through them.
those buck teeth. @_@ It’s like staring into the abyss.
OMFG that WAS my warden!!!
THAT’S NOT WHAT TEH GREY WARDEN LOOKED LIKE! RAGE!!!
lol. Kidden’. I actually tried RPing all of my Dragon Age characters… Anytime anybody watched me play I always got yelled at. :/
The comic’s awesome, but what’s a bit disturbing to me is the fact that your Warden looks almost exactly like my Dalish Warden D: Kinda freaky.
Did we just miss a parade or something? where/why are they sweeping?
bWAflmao gold!!!! pure gold!!! XDDDDDDDDDD i knew the warden was an asshole! where is dunken when you need order?
so hilarious! Is the warden an OC character or is he from a movie/game?
It’s just the Grey Warden I had in Dragon Age, So he’s original in the same way a Sims character is, I guess…
You just know that Warden used the Anvil of the Void to make Hedonism bot.
What? Not one of these people mentioned Girl Genius? When half the comic references Girl Genius?
WHY MUST I BE A NERD?!
I’ve never read Girl Genius in my life.
….I can’t believe it took me so long to find this comic. I played through DA:O and DAII an insane number of times, with different characters. But my sex-crazed warden/Hawke was always a must. -w-
I’ve settled atm though on my timid yet horrifically powerful Amell mage Hyraxe, who is running around in the hills with Zevran blood magick-ing anyone in their way.
As for Cydden Hawke, he’s still jumping Fenris on some isolated mountaintop no doubt 8I Mind you this is only because the Arishok wasn’t romance-able. Or Nathaniel… TT_TT
I would totally read a Jeeves and Wooster esque spinoff of this.
Whenever I play any game with choices of morality (with or without a morality system) I am physically unable to be anything but a goddamned saint. I have no idea why.
I have to use guides to make my Warden seems like a hero to all. Pretty sure that if I didn’t, then he would be a psychotic, sex-crazed, homocidal monster.
I actually had a character named Jeeves, but he was straight. The bi character of mine who flirted with Sten and everyone else was female. And a mage, so she had NOOOO business in Seheron.