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[Grieving Natashina]

Since we're getting more companion threads going, I figure this would be an excellent time to start one for Sera.

 

If you have any requests/submissions for the OP, please send me a PM.

 

Lukas Kristjanson was the author for our lovely elf.

 

 

From the poster Lightning Poodle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Hrungr for getting this action still out there.

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Sera's voice actress is the lovely and talented Robyn Addison.

 

Songs put up by Lukas for Sera:

 

Really? I mean, I'm not one to make the subtext text, but Sera is.

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I imagine Sera dancing hard to this, but she she'd do that selective singalong thing where she only knows the lala parts and "busting their noses!":

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Sera's likes and dislikes according to Lukas:

 

 

Oh fine. I suppose her Q&A was a little threadbare because she was the first out of the gate. They didn't have the format down yet.

 

Likes: cities, busy taverns, moving fast. Dislikes: Nature smells awful and is full of weird.

 

 

 

Sera's profile is here.

 

If you aren't able to get to the site, here's the article about her in spoilers below:

 

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It’s on the streets of Orlais that the Inquisition finds Sera—or rather, she finds them.

 

Sera‘s an outsider, a rogue elf, who senior writer, Luke Kristjanson describes as a “troublemaker.” She brings to the Inquisition the perspective of the little people caught between powerful factions as the world spins out of control.

 

“Sera is brash and fun,” Kristjanson says. “She takes nothing seriously until it deserves to be taken seriously, and not much does. She’s only seen power from the underside, a view that gives her an almost complete lack of respect for the arrogance behind authority.”

 

The Inquisition is the fastest Sera's ever seen someone “in power” move. She's never had the chance to get in early and make sure those heading to the top stay humble. But there are also big questions that she needs to answer for herself—“hole in the sky” big—and the Inquisition seems like the place to do it.

 

“The phrase I keep going back to is ‘she's not about what's right, she's about what's right now’,” Kristjanson says. “Doing something for the ‘greater good’ makes her angry, because she thinks that's shorthand for ‘let's hurt people who don't deserve it because it's easier.’ But she's got her own reasons for helping too. Play nice with the vulnerable and you’ve always got friends, and friends are better than power.”

 

 

 

During 18 years at BioWare, Kristjanson has written many memorable characters for nearly all of BioWare’s franchises from Baldur’s Gate to Inquisition. It’s different every time, but he says it’s always fun.

 

“Sera is raw and genuine,” says Kristjanson. “I’ve written plenty of characters who were too clever for their own good. Sera hasn’t had to test her beliefs, so she brings a level of honest discovery that is cutting and refreshing. I had a lot of fun with her voice in particular. The actor nailed it day one. From the first voice test, she was Sera. Her laugh is great.”

 

With the fate of Thedas hanging in the balance and pressures mounting, Sera’s reckless abandon won’t win over every party member she fights alongside.

 

“Sera likes people who try (even if they fail), and is suspicious of people who are so powerful they don’t have to,” Kristjanson says. “There are people she loves, people she hates, and people she loves to hate. That draws a line, in and out of the party.”

 

In short, Sera speaks her mind.

 

“She makes no secret of her feelings,” Kristjanson says. “I don’t think she could if she tried.”

 

Here is Sera's very own tavern song!

 

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Zkun0tJc4

 

I'm not sure if this was posted yet...

 

ShackNews' interview with Mike Laidlaw at E3.

 

http://youtu.be/pOf9-ZF_QHk

 

- Not a whole lot new, but Mike does talk about his favorite character in DAI - Sera - towards the end.

 

"... She's sassy, she's a little trashy. She likes the dirty jokes. But she's very distinct from someone like Isabella. She's very different. She's much more for the people, about the common good. And when you have a whole party of people that are kind of like Lords and Ladies, she has her own kind of network of spies and stuff that she relies upon that are completely different from anyone else. Meaning that her demeanor, her attitude is kinda like a breath of fresh air in the Inquisition. Everyone is like very serious and then she comes along and is like, 'I bought you a hat!'"

 

 

 

Here's his comments about the DA2 female elven archer concept art, which some made the mistake of thinking this was Sera's original art:

 

That may be, but this wasn't character design. This was an archetype for an overall game style concept. They do that so the purpose of each person in the scene is immediately recognizable. No name, no story, no nothing. Never even built the model, far as I know. She was only in mock-ups. You'll notice the accompanying party were other archetypes: "bad ass knight/warden" and "bad ass qunari/barbarian-looking dude."  And there you have the sum total of their backstories. Truly one for the ages. Kidding aside, they were interesting designs, but there's no context to return to. We could go back to the visual, but everything would still be starting fresh.

 

No connection between her and Merril (I'm not seeing any carry over there, actually). And no, never the same as Sera. I didn't pitch the Sera character until well after DA2. I believe I once said Sera could have hair like that if they wanted. That's about all they ever considered using. There's offshoots and relative one-offs like this all the time when concepting. The stuff you don't see get's real interesting, but also includes lorebreaking stuff. Pitch meeting stuff, not intended for you guys.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Sera was confirmed as a lesbian romance as of E3.

 

Photo courtesy of Jessica Marizpan

 

 

 

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By Quendri

 

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Art by the wonderful Lady Aimo.

 

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Affectionate jokes about Dorian

 

 

Thanks to thejosmy65.tumblr.com

 

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Art by: A Fragment Cast Adrift.

 

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Art by: Velvetrue

 

 

 

 

 

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Art by: Heilila

 

 

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Art by: Nug Inquisitor

 

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By Felitomkinson

 

Sera's Card!  

 

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[

 

By our very own CheshireKat, here on the forums!

 

More fanart!

 

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Art by Dwarf Vader.

 

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Art by: Aethyta

 

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By Frafi.

 

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From http://dragonaging.t...age/83751750875

 

 

 

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By Cactus-Sama

 

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Art by Arteantiquis.

 

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Art by Sashaza.

 

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Art by Merwild

 

Character Kit 

 

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The link to Sera's character kit is here.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afs-5nnEbhY

 

A sample of her personality.  

Modifié par Natashina, 11 mars 2015 - 12:04 .

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Carver, I liked... Aveline, I hated.

I'm the opposite. I loved Aveline and despised Carver.

Mission accomplished.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

According to Gaider, he was also responsible for this bit:

I also would have accepted "to blame." I felt somewhat drained after writing the qunari plots, and I figured Hawke might be feeling similar while mired in them. The humorous dominant tone would vent a little, especially if suffering the isolation imposed by a player determined to self-limit by playing solo in a party-based game. We call that mode "crazy-naked" because who knows what other arbitrary limitations they've got going on?

 

tl;dr: Man, was I tired.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Thank you Lukas and to David as well for creating that little scene.  I didn't know about that scene until later, but many of those things Hawke says during that bit was going through my mind my first time playing.  

You're in good company. Dave and Mike didn't know until it showed up on youtube. Must have slipped my mind to mention it.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Funny how 1/4 of a second can decide plans for an evening.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Why must you post blatantly anti-Canadian videos!

 

I cant even watch it.

Anti-Canadianism is just mean!

I hear ya. Short form, DAI related appearances relevant to this thread. That's plural.

[Allan Schumacher]

Despise elves by not letting male elves be with female elves and have them slowly commiting genocide to themselves by being with shemlins.

 

I'm going to interject here by pointing out that a single pairing is not going to be a factor between whether or not a species goes extinct or not.

 

I'd prefer to not continue down this path of thinking that we're anti-elf and facilitate their genocide because we don't let one particular character romance one particular elf.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think it's understandable for people to be disappointed, but maybe not so much if they're swearing off elves and refusing to even talk to Sera.

 

Set sexualities are a good thing, they're good for representation. Happiness. Pats on the back all round. Let's not fight about it. 

 

I do want to echo this, despite what may seem like some callousness on my part in other discussions.

 

But I think it's akin to being disappointed because we're not going to Nevarra because you really, really want to.  Doubly so because those lucky fans of Orlais will get to wander around the place that they like so much.

 

Hoping for content, and not getting it, is (for better or worse) a pretty common thing.  I always hope for a whole heck of a lot out of games I look forward to.  The trick I developed for myself is to still be open about what I actually do get in my games.

[Allan Schumacher]

I would rather for them to put it in there instead of having to mod, but alas, playersexual was ruined by the vocal groups. I feel it's just an artificial barrier to have set sexuality,

 

Just to note, all bisexual characters would mean less total romanceable characters.  Which means that people that would get romances they want now would not get them then.

 

I think you also overstate the influence that "vocal groups" had on us doing something like this.  Because some people happen to call for something, doesn't mean that it was their influence that caused us to do said thing.

[Allan Schumacher]

I really dont follow that logic at all.

 

The bottleneck for creating characters is less writing, and more cin design.

 

DA2 had 2 player models and 4 love interests, meaning custom cinematic scenes (required if you have intimate touching) required 8 scenes (assuming you only need one).

 

DAI has 8 player models.  If we have at least 4 love interests (I suspect our minimum), that takes 32 scenes (assuming we only need one).

 

Alternatively, if we were to have no bisexual characters, we could use 4 (one gender, 4 races) per pairing, and we could have 8 love interests in the game with not tooooooo much extra work required by cinematics (writing would need more, but if it is determined that they have the capacity and cin design does not, then it's not a net drain on the overall timeline).

 

 

Now lets say we have those 8 love interests, and we mandate that in order to be fair they must be bisexual.  Now we have 64 scenes to make.  Lets assume a scene takes a cindesigner one day to make.  We just added a full man month of work to the cindesigners.  John Epler would be very, very sad

[Allan Schumacher]

So what do you think of Sera, Allan?

 

She's probably the companion I know the least about, unfortunately.  I enjoy the base concept, in that she's someone that feels action is prudent and that friends are more important to her.  She strikes me as social and someone you can depend on, assuming she doesn't think you're an ass that doesn't deserve her support.

[Allan Schumacher]

Not disagreeing with you, but most bisexual romance scenes are very similar to each other, and some are just palette swap, so they would require less resource than creating new romance altogether, no? 

 

They are absolutely not just a palette swap.  "Palette swap" doesn't even make sense in the context that you're describing.  (I'm actually not sure what you're referring to specifically... I'm assuming you mean model swap and am going with that....)

 

If you're lucky, you can just swap out the character model.  You can't with our characters.  Unless you want that gentle touch on the shoulder to be a horn in the eye if you're a Qunari, or a dwarf groping the genitals instead.

 

 

I'd argue that most of the work is in the fine tuning, rather than setting up the base scene.  It's relatively quick to say "I want you to stand roughly here."  The fine tuning comes in making the characters interact because computer graphics gives absolutely zero concern that you're about to clip that 3D mesh into that other 3D mesh.

[Allan Schumacher]

In that case may a follow up with another question.

 

Will there even be any bisexual options at all? If its that hard, i would expect that its an absolute impossibility.

 

There's nothing stopping us from making bisexual options.  It's still the same rough amount of work for cinematics, and it DOES save on writing.  We very well could have gone with 4 romance options and made them all bisexual.  But maybe it means we wanted to mix things up a bit.  It means we've created romance content where otherwise there wouldn't need to be.

[Allan Schumacher]

whats another month, ya'll pushed it back a year anyway

 

Contrary to popular belief, we do have a preference to "put in as much content as we're able to."  So if we spend a month working on that, it'd come at the expense of working on a month on something else.

[Allan Schumacher]

Before the game was pushed back for a year, David Gaider mentioned not liking NPC romance, but Cullen is now a confirmed romance, so the NPC romances were added, but I'm sure the core romance with the companions would still remain the same like Sera and Cassandra. While I'm glad NPC romance was added to compensate for the set sexuality, it may also mean that the companion romance's "playersexuality" was changed because of it. Unless there is another set of male or female among the companions, we're basically exchange the playersexuality for companion romance for a pair of NPC romance. IMO, I have to see how they handle it to see if it's worth the trade-off.

 

I know definitively that Cullen was not added because people were asking for him to be a romance.  There are people, internally, that like the character too and wanted to do more with them as well you know.

[Allan Schumacher]

Im not a fan of arbitrarily restricting romance options. They can say its "More realistic" all they want, bisexual people do, in fact, exist.

 

You are currently speaking to one. (Though i prefer women, hence my frustration at these turns of events)

 

Indeed.  No one has said that there's no bisexual romances in DAI either.

[Allan Schumacher]

General post, please do not taunt people for not being able to romance someone, no matter how much schadenfreude you are feeling.  Please do not attack people because they are given a romance option and you are not.

 

I appreciate that some are happy because they assumed that Sera would be a different orientation based a variety of reasons.  Rubbing it in people's faces is, in general, unacceptable and is a problem regardless of how romance content is broken down. (i.e. people mad because Anders was a romance and Varric wasn't, and so forth).  I can understand that some are upset because people had their hopes up.

 

If you're seeing people being unreasonable because Sera happens to be a lesbian, please report the posts but do not escalate the situation in response.  Or at least keep it off this board.

[Allan Schumacher]

Oh Allan, a personal question if I may: Are you naturally a night owl?  I either see you posting pretty early in the morning or very late at night.  We're on the same time zone, I think.

 

Night owl.  I'm crashing soon though.

[Allan Schumacher]

I feel your pain. Having a big imagination but little drawing talent sucks. It's why I need to capture meet a nice guy who's artistic, so he can be my artistic minion.
 

 

Have you seen my art? >.>

[Lukas Kristjanson]

I wonder if they thought about making her hair like this but blonde
 

Thought about? Sure. But they just didn't fit. The middle one predates DA2, and was part of a proof of concept style thing. None of that party even had names other than "elf", let alone defined personalities. Cool, though. The far right actually is an early Sera concept, but before Rhodes had a handle on her. Never really suited her, though. We went back and forth for a while. I was fine with any number of hairstyles, so long as it stayed simple. Sera doesn't have patience for complicated.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Anyways, do you see Sera more of a reactionary - she knows there are problems and haphazardly helps or sticks it to the man - or more of an actual revolutionary with a coherent concept of what's wrong and a vision for a better world?

 

I think the angry or concerned face she had in the trailer is not the most accurate impression, making her seem very serious. She's reactionary. With the good and bad that brings, the whole "what's right now" bit. Like I noted in the written character teaser stuff, she wants things back to normal for her own reasons, which isn't compatible with a hardline change activist. And she'd have probably gotten frustrated and leaped out a window or something halfway through yours or Eirene's posts above.

[Allan Schumacher]

Considering those are DA2 concepts, I doubt it. Even her earliest concept art showed no signs of it.. but maybe.

 

 

They actually started as concepts for a game titled "Dragon Age: Inquisition" that originally started before DA2 (Dragon Age: Exodus) started up.

 

It's part of the rather fluid nature of how games are created, I have learned.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Okay, what do you all think of a lesbian being written by a guy?

I find I'm doubtful.

While I disagree with the implication (that you cannot successfully write a character unless you are yourself their mirror), if it helps, I didn't attempt to write her to be an example of what a lesbian character should or should not be. I wrote her to be Sera, and she happens to be a lesbian. I tried to take the same approach with Aveline. I didn't write her to be a strong woman, I wrote her to be a strong character. That she was a woman was part of her character, but not what wholly defined her.

 

Like Aveline, Sera has her flaws. I expect some will like her, and some will hate her, and that's expected. Hopefully because of her opinions/actions and not due to an expectation of what she should or should not represent. But I can't control that, so we'll see how it goes. I've had my hits and misses before. Fun every time.

[Allan Schumacher]

Okay, what do you all think of a lesbian being written by a guy?

I find I'm doubtful.

 

 

After reading some of your exchange with Luke and a few others, I'll take the approach of... admitting that I don't understand your perspective (and possibly never fully will since I'm not).

 

However, I know I was once someone that tried to be "colour blind" before I realized that it wasn't really appropriate either, so if I may do you mind sharing some?  I can understand the idea that if I were to "just write a character" I'd probably include things heteronormative aspects that I may not be aware of, or just assume "everyone is like this and shares in these experiences" because hey they are my experiences and things are pretty good for me right!?  I don't consider my sexuality to be "a big deal" but the reality is that almost no one else does either because it's the default.

 

 

I know Patrick shared his stories for Samantha, which draft 1 was basically an afterschool special.  So he tried to write "a character first."  I know he's happier with it, but he probably has some of the trappings as well (though I'm making the assumption that "Afterschool special" type wouldn't be appealing to you either)  So yeah, any thoughts?  I won't pressure if you'd rather not but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

[Allan Schumacher]

For me, my gay friends are not different from my straight friends.

 

See, I think I'm starting to understand some of the issues since I have said stuff like this in the past, and I think we have to be careful.  Just looking at your sentence, there's a paradox.

 

Your gay friends are different from your straight friends.  They're gay and not straight.  Does this have a big influence on their personality and whatnot, I couldn't say.  I'd like to think it's not a big deal, but that's my perspective.  But I think I can better understand now that some can get frustrated when I say to them "oh yeah well you're just like me!"  Because they technically aren't.

 

I also understand that even by writing this there's probably mistakes that I'm making that while supportive of someone like Maria or other lesbians, is still "someone that isn't is talking about what it's like to be."

 

 

I don't get the impression that Maria is trying to say "Sera needs to advertise to the world at all times that she's a lesbian" or anything like that (she's free to correct me if I'm wrong).  Just that there's concerns that some aspects of it that won't work as well for her.