#Builds in Review

[belghast]

3.23 Builds in Review

3.23 Builds in Review - This morning I continue my growing tradition of reviewing the outgoing Path of Exile league and the builds I created during Affliction.

Good Morning Folks! Yesterday was the official end of the Affliction League in Path of Exile and with it comes the quarterly job of shoving all of those “Remove Only” tabs under the bed. My strategy for the end of each league is to group all of those tabs into a folder named after that league so that I never have to deal with them again unless I am specifically fishing for an item. I do the same…

[villagesong]

people criticising the world-building in bottoms as if that wasn't the entire Point. it's supposed to be stupid and silly. the classes are 10 minutes long, their textbooks were all burnt conveniently, no-one has parents except hazel, nobody gives a fuck if jeff's car burnt down or if they killed a bunch of guys, etc etc. it's supposed to be silly in the way shitty romcoms usually are! and it fucks so

[squash1]

ok book club <3 what are we reading that’s actually good and would maybe fill the trc shaped hole in my soul???? and don’t say reread. unless you say reread the dreamer trilogy because i’m so close to giving into the urge.

please. please. give me your suggestions.

as a frame of reference here are non-trc books i love & would recommend (different content, same soul):

watch over me by nina lacour

in memoriam by alice winn

under the whispering door by tj klune

these violent delights by micah nemerever

the anthropocene reviewed by john green

summer sons by lee mandelo

a tale for the time being by ruth ozeki

i need an actual book club but tumblr took away my group chats :(

anyway love you please give me suggestions!!!!!

[tare-anime]

SxF Mission 100

(Beware spoilers)

Happy 100th chapter sxf fandom!!!

(I'm super late I know. Works get in the way. 😅😅😅)

Editor san gives the greatest gift for Endo celebrating 100th chapter, by unleashing moon man to fulfil his most desire of angst and gore, didn't he? 🥹🥹🥹(/jjjj)

This chapter, a.k.a Martha's POV during the war was so heartbreaking. 💔💔💔

I cried during the most powerfull panel of this chapter

Like....

I-.....

I've read so many awesome analysis regarding this chapter. And I agree with all of them.

The worldbuilding in this arc, the angst, the anti war message.

Yeessss!!!

So let me dissect these arc with different angle.

It's not a secret that my current fic obsession is Orpheus by @cantareincminor (Amazing character development and plot twist, and its entering the final arc!!!! *screeeeccchh*)

One chapter in particular made me realize the one theme sxf fans haven't touch yet, in regards of these past arc (as far as I've encountered sxf analysis).

That is: Forgiveness

Yes. In the theme of war and cruel world, while the people in higher positions only find way to conquer the others; either to gain resources or to defend themselves; people in the lower position or those who actually has to dirty their hands, had to bear the ugly side of war and its repercussion in full force.

Lost of their loved ones, have to numb themselves to kill the others, enduring physical and mental injuries, and many more

And yet, despite all that, the act of forgiving which leads to compassion still exist.

The way Mrs. Anabel treated injured Martha, despite the latter being an enemy country's soldier who in a way was responsible for her daughter's death.

I'm truly amazed by this act of forgiveness and compassion.

And this will spread kindness, which eventually will heal and conquer the hatred, and leads to peace.

Peace of one's soul, which eventually leads to peace of the two countries.

Now, I know we've yet to find out how Martha return to Ostania, or how the reunion between Martha and Henry will happen, but we do know that both of them forgive all the things that occured, and carry on with their lives.

This already shown by none other than Yor Forger herself.

During this convo at chp.91, we finally shown how forgiving Yor can be.

She forgives the war that took away her parents. She forgives how by raising Yuri she had to lost her childhood, and she carries on with her life.

Sylvia Sherwood finally ready to forgive herself for failing her family (and we've yet to find out what happened to her family), and finally ready to carry on with her life.

Interesting to see that our main protagonist, Twilight himself, isn't ready to forgive himself.

[Redacted]'s still has that tiny space of forgiveness inside of him, as seen by him sparing Franky during their first encounter. But, as soon as Franky pointed out the odd of propaganda, he retaliated.

And it seems that Twilight is not ready to forgive himself, as seen by so many denials he did up until the recent chapters/arcs.

He is getting there bit by bit with the help of Anya and Yor.

And only after he forgives himself, he will start to heal, and finally he can start to carry on with his life.

And obviously we as the fans will cheer when that happen.

Maybe in another 100 chapters???? 🤣🤣🤣

Anyway, happy 100th chapter!!! Thank you for this amazing work, Endo sensei.

Here's for another 100 chapters or more !!

Cheeerrss!! 🍻🥂🍻🥂🍾🍾🍾

[rotten-hearts-sharp-teeth]

Someone You Can Build A Nest In:

I have never once annotated a book before, but I was struck with the inspiration while reading this one. I planned to only annotate when something caught my attention, and well... it got out of control pretty fast.

It was a beautiful Sapphic ACE horrormantasy told from the POV of the monster Shesheshen. Parts of the story are cozy, but it also contains graphic body horror/gore throughout and massive family abuse with broken characters. If you are a fan of tentacle, shape-shifting inhuman monsters, check it out!

Edit: I forgot to include mentions of oviposition and vore. Which I love but I know is not everyone's cup of tea

[shepherds-of-haven]

Happy New Year, everyone! I thought it would be fun to do a little retrospective on the game's progress over the last year... Shepherds of Haven has grown so much from the little demo I posted in January 2018, and it continues to steadily build and flourish in so many different and exciting ways! Here's a look at just some of the things we accomplished in 2023!

I added 143,151 words to the game (2.5 main chapters, 8 new character interludes) in 2023: the equivalent of writing the longest Lord of the Rings book in one year! We also broke our huge 1 million word milestone—without including code—meaning Shepherds of Haven is now officially twice as long as War and Peace, and almost as long as the entire 7-book Harry Potter series... and all in a single game!

A lot goes into game creation behind the scenes, including the coordination and creation of visual assets for the game—like character cards, codex entries, maps, portraits, and backgrounds—fun stuff for the fans (like the MC info template we created), and songs for the official soundtrack. As the game creeps slowly and determinedly towards its initial completion, that also means learning new things as a solo developer to prepare for the future, like learning to build an official website, researching business and tax practices, and beginning to think about how to conduct testing, publishing, and marketing down the road. Much of what I enumerate here hasn't been made public yet and will continue to cook in the background for a while, but I'm very proud of the work I've gotten done this year and will be excited to unveil more in the future!

And of course, for even more Shepherds of Haven content, I've added and completed even more stories for our little library on Patreon (which also has sizable word count at this point): The Bridge of Bones (a Trouble and Riel murder mystery), O Happy Dagger (a dark adventure featuring Briony, Chase, and Red), and The Hunt (a wild tale involving Tallys, Halek, Shery, and new kinds of spirits, fey magic, and Elves) were all serial stories completed in 2023, while Some Kind of Virus is a cyberpunk zombie apocalypse AU that will continue to be updated with new chapters monthly.

A full list of the Shepherd short stories and serial novellas (with links) can be viewed here!

I hope you enjoyed this session of Shepherds of Haven Wrapped! Honestly, this doesn't actually cover everything I've been working on, but some things can't be packaged and listed out neatly, or otherwise won't seem very interesting to anyone else but me! 😂 As we inch through Chapter 9 and get more interludes done (only a few more main chapters to go), I'm hopeful that I'll also be able to find time to work on my next novel, but we'll see if the Shepherds schedule ends up ramping up or settling down as we work steadily towards finishing the main story!

One important thing before wrapping up is to acknowledge your guys' role in this wonderful, wild journey. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you for your invaluable contributions to the development of Shepherds of Haven. Whether you took the time to share links to the game, supported its growth on Discord or Patreon, left encouraging messages or asked interesting questions, reported bugs, or showcased your remarkable works of fanfiction or fanart, I am sincerely thankful for the unwavering support from this amazing community! Your collective efforts have played a pivotal role in shaping the world of the game into what it is today. Words cannot adequately convey my gratitude for your support, and I am truly blessed to have such a passionate community surrounding this project.

As we step into 2024, I am filled with anticipation for the developments awaiting Shepherds of Haven. Big things are on the horizon, and I am so excited to share these experiences with you! Thank you for being an integral part of this journey, and here's to the continued growth of our shared little world. Cheers to 2024—may it be a year filled with creativity, adventure, and joy! 🎊

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

From the title alone, I suspected that Someone You Can Build a Nest In was going to go over huge with you folks, and a couple of chapters in I'm more convinced than ever. This is charming as hell, with a casual horror and inhumanity that is somehow endearing. Stay tuned for more

[gofancyninjaworld]

Meta for the Ninja Arc (so far)

I thought about reviewing the chapters 195-202 (fan numbering), but summarising the action was annoying me, so let's just skip to the good stuff! This arc has been a grower: what it lacks in up-front showiness it makes up for in depth once you take the time to reread and think about it. I'm just going to pick up on a few things.

Recontextualisation

I have been thinking a lot about how much what we make of the information we receive depends on what we already understand [1]. I've written a bit about ONE's use of salience within the story. This arc though, I'm going to talk about recontextualisation and how important it is to be able to look back and understand events and even people anew in the light of new information.

This has been a huge thing for Flashy Flash. Many years ago, he and Sonic sneaked into a forbidden section of their village and saw many strange things that made no sense to them at the time. It's only very recently, after hearing about the enemy that is 'God' and Blast's efforts to counter him (chapter 173) that things started to make sense to him.

It's only after seeing Gale Wind and Hellfire Flame, not as monsters, but as the former security guards who had trounced them for trespassing that 'where' he'd seen the cube before came back to Flashy Flash, as did the significance of the sights they'd seen. And then it all started to fall into place, reinforced by his going back to the Village to find it destroyed in what he had now come to recognise as Blast's signature attack pattern.

Of course, Flashy Flash has terminal Main Character Syndrome, so he's tried to organise things so that he's the one who takes down Empty Void and reaps the accolades. It's kinda backfired but we'll come back to that in a bit.

There's another bit of recontextualisation that is not so explicit but I think is just as important. It's clear that the Tenninto were no match for Flash and that he could have killed them any time. It's also been established that Flash has never hesitated to kill anyone who came after him. It's been his policy after all. So what gives in his sudden rush to mercy?

As the chapters have gone on, it's become clear that Flashy Flash has come to see the Tenninto as fellow victims of Evil Void's dehumanising process intended to turn them into potential vessels for 'God'. Something else that Flashy Flash is probably responding to is that rehabilitating Village members was once Sonic's dream, and there's a part of him that would love nothing more than to help make it happen. Of course, if you point that out to him he'll tell you to stop being stupid.

It's amazing but Flash is outraged at the way he and his fellow victims are seen as things to be used, abused, and discarded as Void pleases, and he's looking to get justice for all of them.

Ah yes, Sonic. It's been clear that Sonic has been a much better friend to Flash than he has to Sonic, and yet, yet it would seem that Sonic is the one person he cares most deeply about: anything bad happening to Sonic would devastate him. He just has a funny way of showing it.

An irresistible vision. To think that in his heart, this is what Flashy Flash most wants.

We hope he comes to do better.

Insight

Let's talk about Sonic now. For many years now I have been hoping that something would happen to shock Sonic out of his futile rounds of attacking Saitama, being beaten by Saitama, training maniacally, attacking Saitama... his world has become very small and circular, like a round circle.

I had fantasised about maybe Genos grabbing him mid-attack and stuffing him into a narratively-convenient bin without so much as breaking stride. Something so outrageous that he could no longer ignore the need for him to change. The webcomic has sidestepped solving this problem by gifting Sonic some magic scrolls and a sword and just not having him cross paths with Saitama again. The manga is tackling the problem head-on.

Something I have loved, loved, loved about ONE is that he hasn't hesitated to give characters what they've earned. There's been enough morons bellyaching about the two not being neck-and-neck in skill like they were in the webcomic. Sonic's not weak in the manga -- Flashy Flash has experienced more battles and has had to struggle and learn more and so he's been able to progress to the point that he's left his friend in the dust.

Translation: The Back Of A Friend I Once Stood Shoulder-to-Shoulder With. There'd have been a lot less bellyaching if the translators had translated this bit.

That's the shock Sonic needed to open his eyes to the stupidity of his actions. More than that shock, seeing what Flashy Flash has been able to achieve has given Sonic the inspiration to strive for, achieve, and surpass what Flash has accomplished. His fire is back in a good way.

More than that though, the disrespectful way in which Sonic was offered more monster cells rather than a more interesting vision peaks to two things, external and internal.

Externally, it speaks to the way that we tend to think that people are only what they first show us while we understand ourselves to be complex creatures with many competing moods and wishes. Empty Void had heard that Sonic had once reached for a monster cell and assumed that he knew the sort of guy Sonic was: someone whose inferiority complex was such that he'd reach for any offer of power. But of course, that's not Sonic. Sonic has been the stubbornest person ever, who has been able to keep his sense of self despite the Village's best efforts. He reached for a monster cell because even the strongest person can despair, at least for a while.

Internally, man, the bleakness of Sonic's life is such that he doesn't have anyone to offer him a nice fresh monster cell and the monster cells must perforce cook themselves to offer themselves to him... he looks to no one and believes in none. That's painful to see.

When we think of how close he and Flash used to be, the bitterness of his mocking the prisoners for depending on each other grows sharper every time we learn a bit more about him. I don't know if he'll ever forgive Flash for betraying him.

Yes, there's a betrayal right on screen now: that of Blast by Empty Void. Blast thought they were in the business of putting God out of business but Void was using him to obtain cubes so as to raise an apostle of God.

Longer Blast: I'm not mad. I'm just very, very, very disappointed.

That said, I'm not going to let Blast off the hook entirely. He has some explaining to do!

Complicity

Blast has a lot of explaining to do. Sure, he's been refreshingly honest about what he's been doing with monster experiments, and his link to 'That Man'.

I have a feeling that Flash has been too quick to absolve Blast of blame.

We know that Blast and Empty Void went back at least 20 years. And yeah, we can just about buy that he didn't know his partner was fixing to betray him. However, given that we know that the Village takes young boys and that there were at least 43 graduating classes before Flashy Flash escaped years ago, that means that the Village had been a thing for at least 50 years. How long has Blast known about Empty Void's activities? Did he turn a blind eye to it? Or was it not a problem until it bit him in the ass? [2] What else is Blast permitting that shouldn't be?

We need answers.

I am very invested in seeing how this arc ends and what else it'll lead to.

Asides

[1] A very neat non-fictional example: this man escaping from his pursuers by lying down and thus changing their understanding of him to 'homeless guy'.

[2] A part of me notes that Blast falling out with Empty Void and beating the shit out of him coincides neatly with the time Blast's son was born. Maybe shit became a bit too real for him to ignore.

[30sims4ever]

30+ Sims4Ever Save File

30+ Sims4Ever is a group of adults aged 30 and up. The group was created back in May at the request of a Redditor. The group has taken off since then with 165 members with the anticipation of more leading up to the drop of our save file.

We are looking to release 4 worlds as early as December 1st and as late as December 31st:

Willow Creek

Magnolia Promenade

Newcrest

San Sequoia

Willow Creek (Heavily inspired by Georgia)

Lore:

The biggest industry left in Willow Creek is tourism, and even that is beginning to fade. Desperate to revitalise the city, the mayor relaxes several local restrictions to allow more fishing, and restart the previously decommissioned riverboats. Meanwhile, he heavily advertises to the movie industry, leading to a surge in movie tourism after a major period drama is filmed there. Overall, the plan works, and Willow Creek begins to distinguish itself as a destination, but the costs are high. The historic downtown area is cleaned up but also gentrified, and many workers can’t afford to live nearby, being pushed to the outskirts of Newcrest. The fishing and riverboats have brought in tourists but also gangs of environmental protesters, angry at the pollution and habitat destruction. But hey, the money has been good, and construction on the mayor’s new estate has finally finished.

Newcrest - 90's Time Capsule (Heavily inspired by Maine)

Lore:

Newcrest has a reputation as a quiet bedroom community. The schools in the area are some of the best in the country for beginning and intermediate education. One such school is Newcrest Charter, a well-funded private school. The reputation is glossy on the outside but there are cracks.  The police chief and Charter administrator have a deal to keep both their kids out of trouble - one with the law and one with their grades.

Mayor Azalea Simmons is oblivious to this scheme, and likely any others in the world. Unlike her surrounding politicians, Azalea doesn’t get wrapped up in legislating mumbo jumbo, she’s too busy keeping Newcrest affordable, and pleasant to live in. Which in her mind means - keeping it 1996 forever.

Magnolia Promenade (Heavily mixed with Georgia & Maine)

Lore:

Many of the buildings in Magnolia Promenade are old. Once historic structures like schools, warehouses, and homes, many have been converted into businesses. Maerina Walsh owns one such business in the prestigious shopping district - a quaint bed and breakfast. She has a reputation as an absolute nightmare of a boss. It's said to be lucky if she fires you on the first day, as she punishes others with impossible or gruelingly menial tasks. There is a longstanding rumor among locals that the ghost of an employee she once locked in the basement now haunts the establishment, though older residents say the ghost dates back to the original building. Maerina is well aware of the rumors but hasn’t disputed them, because as many people as they scare off, they also attract potential customers looking to catch a sight of the ghost.

San Sequoia (Heavily inspired by San Francisco)

Lore:

Ricky Pyler has grown San Sequoia into a major contender in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. Many large companies, production facilities, and conventions have relocated to the city, bringing a boom to the economy. Pharmaceutical companies have manipulated development deals, health information, and begun to illegally dump their waste in the river that runs downstream to Willow Creek. Zara Marquez, has been a nurse in San Sequoia for decades. She’s noticed an uptick in certain illnesses that are symptoms of this pollution which has brought her to run for Mayor herself. Another campaign opponent comes onto the scene in the form of Caleb Vargas - a rather young man from the business sector. Nobody really knows who he is, but he is extremely and strangely well funded. In reality he’s starting to bribe and bankroll many of Ricky’s old contacts with the intention of using them for his own devices

The contributors to this save file are as follows:

mstyBL95

s0pran0d1va

Nowheregirl94

Kylynara

Rieche

sabrinaakayy

whiskyrick

phronetiq

sparkersims

Tatselk

prncssHermione88

southernpeach

*More contributors will be added to this in the coming months as we update as we have left lots open for monthly challenges to our discord memebrs. If you are over the age of 30 and would like to be apart of our save file please join our discord server here: https://discord.gg/3552rQ7r

Important to note:

As we move closer to the deadline for the release of the save file a release of which simmers worked on which lot will be released

A list of all expansions, game, stuff and kit packs will be released advising what was used for the save file. There are no pack restrictions for contributors

All townies will have base game outfits so that no single townie is walking around partially naked

All townies have been assigned careers, children have grades and everyone has a relationship with their current houehold and others

Ghosts will be available in game

Townies will be added to clubs

Newcrest is a 90's time capsule

All lots that have additional structures were built in mind that if the structure differed from the lot type it would not impact the overall gameplay. (this means that a lot set as a Resturant with a resturant and movie theatre does not impact the overall function of the lot)

All lots have been game play tested

There will be a tool mod version of this game

Any simmers who are not comfortable downloading a tray file or those playing on console will be able to follow a legend to download from the gallery to upload lots and families

What to Expect in the coming months:

As we move closer to deadlines we will have more members submit. From the time members submit the lot is play tested by a second person to ensure that everything functions correctly and the lot has met minimum requirements. Once that is completed we have the file upload to the save.

Streetview pictures

Pictures of the lots

Picture and bio of the contributors

Lot details - Member, traits and pictures

World map overview filled in

Townie pictures and global lore

A list of all packs used in the save file

[dailyanarchistposts]

Legitimacy in the terror age: counter-insurgency

Legitimation, winning the consent of the population for rule, has always been the basic task of governance. But the techniques and methods vary greatly. This essay’s contribution is to give us some sharp analysis of contemporary legitimation techniques in the age of terrors.

First of all, as we shift from a state of peace (i.e, war is “elsewhere”) to a state of continual terror-war, the whole of society becomes militarised, transformed into an “armed camp”. In fact, with direct combat now increasingly carried out by mercenaries or drones, this doesn’t mean mass conscription but rather “a matter of inducing the population to identify with a certain kind of order, the imposition of which takes place within the national borders as much as outside them” (quoting CrimethInc). This is an order in which, as a population at war, we spy, police, grass on ourselves, accepting every demand of the war-spectacle and war-economy: “militarised thinking spreading through life” (quoting some German anti-militarists).

To understand how this works, a useful lead comes from studying the field of “counter-insurgency”: specifically, ideas and techniques developed in the US (and elsewhere) by military and political strategists, and their academic collaborators, in response to insurgencies both at home (e.g., the black power and other domestic rebel movements of the 1960s) and on the colonial battlefields.

In essence, counter-insurgency means identifying “(nascent) social tensions” within a population that could give rise to rebellion, and then heading them off by: (a) targeting “(suspected) dissidents”, making predictable and undermining their actions, or removing and destroying them altogether; while (b) co-opting the majority, where this means “convincing people that there are avenues to address their grievances; if they were only to put their energy into trusting or adjusting the system as it exists, that would be the entity which can best care for their needs.” The basic principle, then, is “to restructure the environment to displace the enemy from it”, and so to “COIN a passive population”.

The role of intelligence is clearly paramount. There is a very interesting discussion on the US “Human Terrain Systems” (HTS) programme, in which the US military employed ethnographic researchers in Iraq and and other warzones, applying social network analysis to map the “human terrain” of the subject population, its connections, allegiances and potentials for submission or rebellion. In fact the basic ideas developed in the 1960s in response to domestic unrest. Once mapped, state agencies can intervene in the terrain in various ways, from funding NGOs to provide welfare services (e.g., replacing the social programmes “that combative entities such as the Black Panthers briefly pioneered before they were smashed by the State”), through feeding in drugs and weapons to exploit internal tensions, to radioing in the “airborne armed response team”.

[dragonkid11]

In this episode of Lancer Custom Werks, Stortebeker, a frame that seeks to shoot and slash through it all with truesilver piercing their armor, what can you do with this mech?

[abirdie]

Gael García Bernal in I'm with Lucy (2002, dir. Jon Sherman)

(these gifs also feature Monica Potter)

Gifs are all 540px wide so you can click to see larger.

[other gael filmography gifsets]

[mfjenks]

I really love this mutual respect and warmth between Oliver and Maxine. He really values and cares about her opinion that he even invites her to sitzprobe, which "is never done", scares Donna and Cliff and actually is done at Oliver's own peril. Maxine is critical, vitriolic, true to her own opinion, but still attentive to Oliver's feelings, she sees and sincerely appreciates his passion, she wants to see soul put into the production which is really there in the musical version and which is actually an essential part of Oliver's personality. According to what we have seen and heard, Maxine is really what critic should be: picky, discerning, but compassionate and giving a value to this "singing", a soul And this interaction just proves Oliver to be competent as a director, unsecured, caring about critics, lovable and ultimately passionate, which makes people who really know him to actually value him and follow him (as Charles said, "The world needs Oliver Putnams")

[tare-anime]

SxF Mission 90

(Beware spoilers)

It's Yor, Anya, and Bond's day ouuuttt!!!

Finaaaalllyyyy!!!

I've been wanting for this for so loooonnggg!!!

Thank you Endoooo!!! 😭😭😭😭

It's really nice to see Yor act as the awesome mother that she is. And how she shows compassion to other people, and in a way, teach Anya to do the same.

At the same time, we are shown that having a mind reader ability can be useless if the person is having dementia. Aside that Anya is still to small, and doesn't know how to comprehend complicated information.

Maybe, when one day she has become a true psychiatrist, then Anya can really help these elders 🥰🥰

Such a wonderful warm chapter.

Details:

1. Bond really needs to do more workouts to boost his endurance 😅😅

2. Endo just loves to slip in angst anywhere anytime eeehh?? 😭😭😭

Grandparents for Anya is canon! Buuuutttt.....

Nooooo Yoooorrr!! 😭 Notice that once again Yor is shown to be so selfless. She knows that what it's like to not have parents nor grandparents, but she doesn't want Anya to experience the things she did. 😭😭😭😭😭

3. Propaganda is a scary thing indeed

How this children can easily point fingers at strangers and judge them as spy? And how scared the elder is? And then, how PROUD this children is for doing "something good" for their country!! Oooffff kinda like Yuri, eh? Scary.... scary things....

4. Ostania is also a victim during the war

At the end, no good results will ever come out of war. There will always be victims everywhere. Trauma. And destruction.

Ouch. A subtle yet powerful reminder that will always linger throughout the story. How Endo will always emphasize the importance of peace.

Wonderful warm chapter!!!

But will this be the opening of new arc, or be a stand alone chapter? We shall see!

Last but not least, TwiYor should really learn from this elderly couple, that it IS possible to have a happy long lasting relationship with your other half 🥰🥰🥰

[unalloyedmiquella]

i just cant believe how low peoples standards are when they think dav is objectively good bc it has trans characters. as if trans people dont deserve good portrayals and good writing

like i truly dont care if ur media has “representation” if the representation is bad, and the writer and lead dev need to tell you what to think when to think it. no one here should be using therapy speak. no one here should be mentally stable enough to name their emotion.

taash should have been nb from the get go, their companion quest is half baked garbage as is most of the writing in this game

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

Some thoughts after reviewing Fontaine AQ act 1 one year later

I adore Furina's characterization and gameplay to hell and back but I think that sometime fans are so eager to defend her that they start to ignore or even reverse moments where the canon points out the flaws in her reign as the archon.

Act I of the Fontaine archon quest shows us the status quo in Fontaine: there's a national crisis looming on the horizon, human trafficking is running rampant, people have resorted to relying on NGOs like the Spina or even shady foreign organizations like the Fatui for aid because they don't feel confident that their god would do anything substantial to help. Navia even asks the Traveler if they think it's right for trials to be presented theatrically, and the Traveler answers "not really, doing so makes it easy for the truth to fall by the wayside./Something serious like a trial shouldn't be treated like entertainment."

While the game never presents Furina as being directly at fault for these situations, Lyney's trial in Act I shows just how much she contributes to Fontaine's current state: she focuses on winning over the crowd and maintaining her images (for understandable reasons), and when things progress outside of her carefully constructed script there's very little she could do beyond letting Neuvillette direct the course of investigation. Furthermore, it's clear that Navia doesn't trust Furina (and by extension the Court of Fontaine) to continue investigating the serial disappearance case and takes matters into her own hands, an attitude shared by Lyney and Lynette, who are both victims of human trafficking that the system failed to protect.

This is NOT to say that "actually Furina is a BAD person and you're WRONG to like her" or that "actually Furina really is a stupid baby". Rather, takes like "Furina has ALWAYS been a capable ruler" or "the people have ALWAYS respected Furina" ignores the nuances being set up at the very beginning of the archon quest. Furina IS highly perceptive and a master of improvisation within her field of expertise, but being a dependable ruler in a time of crisis is demonstrably NOT in her field of expertise, and that is where other Fontaine characters get to shine.