#Again it depends on how it's handled

[herefortheships]

Sarah Michelle will reprise her role as Buffy in a new Hulu series. It looks like she will be in a mentor role to a new Slayer, who will be the protagonist of the new show. It makes me super happy to know we will have Buffy back! At first I was a little disappointed, because I would have liked it for Buffy to be the protagonist (it'd be interesting to see how her life is like now as a mature adult), but I think I'm good with her having a smaller role, for selfish shipper reasons... I know it's unlikely for James Marsters to be in the show due to the fact that he is, well, not a vampire in real life, so our platinum blondie has aged, but I do NOT want to see Buffy with a random new, potentially human, love interest. Unless they explain somehow they "healed" Spike of his vampire curse, and is living with her as a human imagine he became a human and is living as Willian Pratt, an indie published poet, that'd be so cute, but I digress, then I don't want to see her with a love interest and I just KNOW they will try to give her one if she is the focus of the show.

I mean, it depends on how it's done, but my little Spuffy fangirl heart can't take it.

With that all said, I am over the moon with this announcement. I've been wishing for a sequel series since I first binged the show in 2017, and I feel like I'm getting my wish. But you know what they say, "be careful what you wish for", and so I do have my reservations. Mainly about how Spuffy is handled. Will she mention Spike? Will he still be around? Comics aside, I have always envisioned Spike to be the man that actually stays in Buffy's live. He changed for the better because of her, and he supports her. They fight side by side as equals, and I just love how their relationship evolved and turned into this healthy kind of relationship that I just don't think Buffy can have with anyone else, and not because of Buffy herself, let me make that clear, but because of how other men tend to become insecure pieces of shit around her because of her power and her status as the Slayer.

Spike can stand next to Buffy and be her rock, when everyone else (including friends) stand next to her and expect her to be their rock. Get it? And then there are others like Riley who felt useless because she didn't need him, like, in that she was stronger and more capable than him (and Riley missed the point so bad: she did need him, emotionally. He just didn't see it because he was too focused being insecure about himself around her, because she was the Slayer). She can be soft with Spike and she can be tough with him; they can stand as equals, and they can be vulnerable with each other, too. Buffy never even had that with Angel, who felt he couldn't be with her because of the soul curse thing; that would always be a shadow between them. Like Spike said, he saw the best and the worst of Buffy, and he was never spooked or put off; he still loved her. I think Spike loves Buffy's soul and will forever love it, and so it'd be a shame if the new show rolls along and reveals that at some point, he left her and she moved on without him. I don't want to see that. I want to see that they found each other again, and are still together. And if not romantically, then as allies. I can't fathom Spike not being in Buffy's life unless she actively removes herself from his presence for whatever reason. And yep, I do not want to see that.

[nicorobinphd]

stg, being an enjoyer of jane twdg is like being forced into an expert-level course on the way misogyny manifests in video game spaces.

god forbid a woman be complex or difficult or provably mischaracterized (see tags) at the end of her arc to service the culmination of a man’s storyline.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

You ever think about how in spite of knowing their exact locations, the game never gives any indication that templar Carver has reported his mage sibling, Merril (a blood mage) or Anders (an abomination) to his superiors?

I do think about that a lot, even though I tend to ignore the Templar Carver route because I know Warden Carver to be true in my heart and soul... but I totally get the appeal of Templar Carver within DA2's narrative, y'know?

It's so fascinating, really. I've never played a run with Templar Carver, I just can't bring myself to do it, so I know I'm missing out on smaller details of it. From what I do know, this drives me crazy in the best way possible.

Deciding whether to bring him or not to the Deep Roads is such an important choice, not only because it affects his fate, but how it affects his relationship to Hawke. He tells you that he wants to go, he makes it very clear that it's important to him that he goes, too... and Hawke can just leave him behind and it hurts him. I don't think that registers enough with some people just because of how Carver is, like it doesn't matter what Hawke's motivations are [staying behind for his safety, not wanting to bring him, thinking someone should stay with Leandra, etc] it still hurts him because it tells him that Hawke doesn't need him, and Carver wants to be needed.

And yes, there are other contributing factors to why he joins the templars, but it doesn't matter what your relationship is to him, it doesn't change the fact that he doesn't turn Hawke or his companions in.

Sure, the meta reason is it's a video game and you're playing the main character. You're never in any actual danger of being captured by templars, and you're not going to lose your companions to them that easy.

But if we look at it through the narrative and Carver's character, that's when it gets interesting. You can max out his rivalry and be an utter asshole to him [there's a point where you can call him a brat and mock him for being stuck in your shadow, like Hawke can be real cruel about it] but it doesn't matter, you're still his sibling. He even makes a remark about how you might not know what that means [referring to leaving him behind] but he does. He refuses to kill Hawke in the end when Meredith makes the order, too.

Which can I just point out that Hawke has the option to let Bethany die in the end if she's with the circle and they side with the templars? Just saying, Carver NEVER does that no matter what, but Hawke has the option to betray Bethany like that and it's fucked and interesting and it makes me want to eat my chair-

As for Merrill and Anders, I think he knows that if he turns either of them in, then the chances of Hawke being brought in as well skyrocket. They're all friends, they're in the same group... bring one in, and you'll probably get the other two.

I also think Carver just genuinely likes Merrill. Yes, I'm a Carver/Merrill shipper, so I have a bias, but even if you remove anything romantic from their dynamic I believe that's true. Of all the companions, Merrill is the only one who doesn't make fun of him, or find him annoying, in party banters. He never snaps back at her, like he's never defensive with her, he's just a little awkward and nice.

Like, HE'S SO NICE TO HER! He tries to find common ground with her! She asks him about "swording" and he's taken aback by her saying he's good at it, but you KNOW that if someone like Anders asked him the same question, he's be all, "shut up, you're stupid, stop talking to me >:["

Think back to that banter Carver can have with Aveline post-act 1 where they're talking about how the guard wasn't the right place for him [hard disagree with you there, Aveline] and Carver says he was a bit of a tit, wasn't he.... and every companion will agree except Merrill. She doesn't say anything, whereas other companions like Anders will be like "ugh maker YES" and if you have a purple Hawke, they'll go on to other ways Carver was a tit like?? I think Carver and Merrill got along and he doesn't want to turn her in because she was nice to him! And she's a blood mage! He knows what will happen to her if the templars get ahold of her! He doesn't want to see her made tranquil or killed!

At that point, he's witnessed what bad blood mages can do, assuming you've brought him along for those quests, but even so. He knows Merrill isn't like that and he likes her, so of course he's not going to turn her in despite that being his literal duty.

Then there's Anders who Carver doesn't like. If you're in a romance with him, Carver will tell him that's why he doesn't turn him in but c'mon Carver, you know that's not the only reason. My theory is Carver may not like Anders and he knows the man's got a spirit of justice inside of him... but Anders also runs a free clinic. If he's ever taken in by templars, then so many people [including a LOT of Fereldan refugees] will be without free health care and will suffer for it. I think in Carver's eyes, Anders might be irritating but he doesn't more good than harm. Carver knows first hand how shitty refugees and poorer people are treated in Kirkwall. Anders' clinic is the one place they can go for help and actually get it, and he's not going to be the one to take that away because the templars say "magic bad."

So yeah, I'm not as informed about the Templar Carver route, but I do think about how if I did do that route, he wouldn't betray Hawke or their companions no matter what and what that says about him.

[icewindandboringhorror]

currently at That Point which occurs once every few months where one briefly begins pacing around the house teary eyed contemplating selling their own organs or becoming an online scammer or getting on anxiety meds so you can bear the risk taking required to be a hitman or so on and so forth.... why must everything so Expensive... Surely all would be healed in life if only I had one big plate of lasagna and a simple loan of $40,000 ... auoughhh....

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[kittykatninja321]

People latch on to and project onto Jason as The Black Sheep in a toxic family dynamic, likewise people latch on to and project onto Dick as The Caretaker in a toxic family dynamic

[irritablepoe]

Why can't I have friends that want to talk to me?🥲

[nico-the-overlord]

¨what ppl think acting is like (FAKE tiktok acting) vs actual REAL acting¨ look I´m not an actor, but depending on the situation/character I know that either type of acting can work so stfu

[britneyshakespeare]

this afternoon i saw the closing show of nick dear's frankenstein at the seacoast repertory theatre in portsmouth nh and i had a glass of wine at intermission and being the rarely-drinks lightweight i am i definitely had a different.... attitude, towards the second half of the show. obviously. but i wasn't like that far gone that i wasn't paying attention or anything. and i don't think a lot about frankenstein all the time; i've read it twice (ten years ago in school and then reread it about five years ago). it's like not my favorite but i like it; it's just more of a philosophical novel than a oh-i-love-the-plot-and-characters sort of thing in my opinion. doesn't really matter that's just my two cents. i certainly have thoughts on the way it was adapted for the stage bc nick dear made some creative choices that i wouldn't have, but obviously that's all well and good.

but when the show ended and my wine was chugged and the lights went up i sat there in between my two friends for a second and we exchanged words i just said: "everyone always argues about who the 'real' monster in the story is, but victor frankenstein and the creation... belong together" and this lady walking in the aisle beside us said "i thought the same thing too." she's right too and i'm glad we're both right

[swordmaid]

thalia is so growing on me i love my rich woman who has Problems.. i gave her ice powers for like. the elsa vibes.

[loumauve]

I snapped today at work, and by snapped I mean I politely commented on a help desk ticket by summing up an mess of an (type of) issue that's come up for at least the fourth time in the 2+ months I've been managing user accounts, and asked the person responsible to fix it (himself for once) because last time I fixed his mess-up it took me two whole days to work out the details with at least four other colleagues from different departments and I really don't want to do it again. there's other shit that needs doing, I've been working 10+ hour days for most of this week already, so I need to cut down not add on more.

(good thing tho - at least we managed to fix the issue where the dataset of a newer employee got mixed up with another one of the same name and therefore wasn't able to apply for any of the access/accounts she needed. technically not entirely my area but it does impact us not being allowed to create an account for her so I figured I might as well track that issue down. took three days and at least three other people, but hey - it should all work out now. yay for that)

[ratatatastic]

if you think mikksy isnt a competitive little shit i think i need to remind everyone that when playing a dumb little newly weds-esque game once asked about each others eye colour (they both were told to close their eyes for this question) he immediately put his hand up to block luostys view of his face when it was luostys turn to answer as if the mere concept of luosty staying honest and true was completely out of the question and he would in fact cheat to win a dumb little game that had no prize at all except bragging rights (yes luosty did keep his eyes closed which makes this even more comical ALSO YOU HAVE A HAT YOU NERD. WHAT IS HE GOING TO SEE???? YOUR FACE SHROUDED IN SHADOWS????? ALSO YOU HAVE MAGICAL COLOUR CHANGING HAZEL GREENISH EYES??? EVEN IF HE DID PEEK HE WOULD ABSOLUTELY GET IT WRONG JUST FROM THAT ALREADY)

[rimeiii]

I know I just made a post about the complaints but what do you fucking mean the new rateup gacha is paywalled. I know PB is new to this sort of gacha game but at this point, I really do think they need to do some more research and look at how other gachas manage their own rateup gachas as well as their game balancing, because this is getting fucking ridiculous.

Several issues I have with this:

(Rant post again, feel free to skip over. I'm tired at this point.)

It's giving Pokemon Unite new character being paywalled vibes. And people complained HARD about Unite because new characters are often busted while shifting the meta greatly, which is like. Really Fucking Bad for Ranked!!! You can make the argument that WHB is a PvE game but still, not a wise decision when PvE meta and viability can change over time. Look at how, in Arknights, the standard DP generator combo became the Flagpipe combo the moment Bagpipe was released, or how people started using GoldenGlow over Eyjafjalla for her global range. You can clear stages with other units, it just becomes much more complicated. And this game's current meta for easy clears is L-rank skill spam, so if this trend keeps up...

The amount of communication regarding patch notes is atrociously low. Early on, there were some ninja patches without any prior notice as to what they're for - the last time I've seen this happen is on Brave Frontier (which is where we used this term most anyways), and they've stopped doing sudden patch fixes without any announcements after their servers have mostly stabilized (which was around Zevalhua or Alfa Dilith arc iirc, this was nearly a decade ago). Even GBF announces major patch notes like the raid instakill after Belial raid implementation exploit, only doing stealth fixes for things like fixing skill descriptions (and EVEN THEN they still announce what they fixed). Some days after launch I've tapped into WHB only to be greeted by a ~400 mb size patch, which is really fucking draining on standard shit SEA net, and often with no discernible reason behind the update at all. Which often leaves me wondering, what the fuck were they fixing to warrant such a huge patch - especially when there wasn't any obvious difference between patches?

Related to the above, one of the things that I feel pissed players off about this current banner is the fact that there was no indication that it was going to be a paid gacha. The prior announcement only mentioned the usage of Solomon's Seals, which people naturally assumed could be purchased using Guilty Gems. Having separate gacha materials for a time limited banner would make sense to most seasoned gacha players - this system is used in many CN games like Honkai Star Rail and Arknights to differentiate between banners. In HSR it's to differentiate between permanent items (Regular Warp) and new/limited items (Event Warp), while in AK it's to differentiate between older units (Kernel Headhunt, up until Suzuran's banner) and newer units (all other Headhunts, including Limited Headhunts). In both of these cases, you could use each game's respective Guilty Gem equivalent (Stellar Jade for HSR, Orundum for AK) to grab these gacha items. Which, again, is not the case in this new banner.

Another thing that pissed players off is the monetization. Now, me and a friend have both voiced out our gripes with this game in our GBF crew server, and it's mostly related to the gacha rates and scarcity of resources. Solomon's Tears, Greater Key and Lesser Key rates, how little Guilty Gems we get? All discussed by us. It got to a point non-players end up getting interested to listen to what we have to say about this game. And recently, after finding out just how expensive the Solomon's Seals packs are (if they're really $30, then they're the same price as a GBF Suptix for a 10-pull, and a Suptix is a 10-pull PLUS a unit of your choice from a given pool of units), it got to a point where we're just not surprised. It's insane how much we've grown tired of the constant bad decisions.

Even though I'm against harassing the devs, it's decisions like these that are VERY worthy of criticism imo, and very understandable for it to be the reason why one might choose to drop the game. I understand that you need money, but the monetization practices and gacha mechanics being introduced are not F2P friendly. In fact, I doubt they're friendly for dolphins, either - only whales and leviathans can reasonably benefit from them. And I've talked extensively about the game design choices that confuse me at best and piss me off at worst. Me personally, I've definitely reached my limit on leniency for the devs, and I've been lenient on other games as well, notably Limbus Company. Look, as much as Project Moon fucked up with how they handled the Vellmori situation, LCB also had a very rocky launch with worse stability issues than WHB (I nearly couldn't beat Kromer bc of them), but I still stuck by it because it was F2P-friendly, had a super engaging world and characters paired with a superb story, and the devs were communicative about everything (roadmap and emergency updates included). It got to a point I was about to willingly drop money for the paid battlepass if Gregor had a paid EGO reward (AEDD Gregor ended up being free but I bought some Google Play credit just in case - which was diverted to Muse Dash in the end) if not for the controversy. The monetization and paid gacha being the rate-up in WHB is definitely the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

As for what I'm going to do with my WHB account? The fan server I'm in was compiling the bugs they've found as well as other concerns regarding the gameplay and gacha mechanics in particular, to send an email to the devs. I might help around with these efforts if still required and see if there are any positive changes (especially in terms of monetization). I've stopped playing regularly for now, and I feel like this is a game I'm likely to drop in the future. Which is a shame, because while I find the premise interesting, to me it isn't enough to justify the shoddy game experience. Especially when I have other games on my plate - chapter 12 H stages are coming in AK, and Lone Trail is next week btw!

I'll just vicariously enjoy the plot through other people's playthroughs, mostly because that's what interested me about this game in the first place. I'm sorry, I just can't force myself to play the damn game at this point.

[widevibratobitch]

.

[kittykatninja321]

red hood: the hill is literally giving me everything I could ask for in a Jason story we’ve got:

-Jason in a separate part of Gotham away from the bats

-Rhato original gothamite characters and villain

-Teaming up with and connecting with people he knew pre-Robin (Dana Harlowe my beloved)

like literally everything I could’ve asked for if it’s bad I’m killing myself in front of dc headquarters