#But that has to do with the campaigns too

[karemandohan1999]

If you see this article, share it immediately for everyone to see✊

About the most terrifying situations that happened to us at the beginning of the new year 2025 In Gaza 🇵🇸😣😖

Today a bomb was dropped in northern Gaza. The sound was heard, the ground moved, and the windows of houses were broken more than 50 kilometers away. 😖😱😱

An Israeli drone is used that makes the sound of a small child crying loudly, and when someone comes out thinking he is helping him, he is immediately shot and killed💔

We are here in indescribable horror, every day things get worse, every method is used to starve us, if you see this article I hope you help me before it is too late I have created a donation campaign so I can buy food whose price has increased Crazy,

for humanity, for everything, for my 19-month-old baby, help us evacuate to a safe place 😭😭😭💔

My whole story is here.

My campaing vetted by/ @90-ghost here @gaza-evacuation-funds here

Donation link through the campaign 👇

Or through PayPal

Do not hesitate to save a Palestinian family that needs you. Save us from this horror 🙏💔

[yencirilla]

saw a tweet about how we're looking too deep into chetney's actions and basically "he's an old man it's not that serious" and it's like...once again people are diminishing chetney's actions purely because he's old and a "joke" character. they did this for most of the campaign saying chetney was just a weird creep to fearne, ignoring all the lovely interactions because some people are obsessed with chetney just being Old. that's the only aspect of him some people see. "he knows he's gonna die soon, that's why he's doing this. it's not heroic." okay. but do you realize chetney going on what he considers a suicide mission, using himself as a shield (protecting imogen in 117, orym in 118, fearne and imogen in 118) because he thinks he's going to die soon is still...heroic? compelling? "it's not that deep" if any other character stepped in front of what is called a god eater, with a hand out, to stop them from touching fearne and imogen, i would see twelve paragraph essays on this site about what a hero they are. chetney loves his friends. he cares about them deeply. he is funny and he is old but that is not the basis of what he is. throughout the campaign he has shown different ways of caring for the team, different ways of helping them and some of you still don't see it at all and it's really sad because he's such a good character

[meanbossart]

Sorry if you’ve already answered this, but I’ve been wondering what would happen if DU Drow and Astarion were the only people in their party. If they never met any of the others and only had each other for company on the way to Baldur’s Gate.

Btw I love your art! I’m obsessed with the way you draw characters and their expressions in your style.

Ohhhhh god. I think that would be disastrous.

My personal belief aside that Astarion is by no means an idiot (not that I'm opposed to participating in the smooth-brained jokes - but, generally speaking, I think I might give his intellect more props than most), he is obviously not at his best at the start of the campaign at all. He is operating out of desperation and it's only halfway through the game that you get to see some of that emotional intelligence that I'm so fond of. And even so, he still requires a successful persuasion check at the end of his quest not to commit undead genocide (and I think he's the only companion who needs a check at all regardless of circumstance or approval).

Then we have DU drow who has no attachments to anyone around him, a penchant for murder, very little skill for self reflection and a proclivity towards latching onto one person and falling obsessively in love, assuming that the person in question knows how to play him - and Astarion would know how to play him.

Lest we forget, Astarion had practically no influence on DU drow's decision to oppose Bhaal. He just kind of goes along for the ride until you hit the point of no return, and only THEN he's like "Oh, uh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea". Shadowheart is the biggest factor on DU drow's decision to oppose Bhaal, with Aylin and Jaheira making for honorable mentions.

Ironically, DU drow's "base" personality (which he has access to thanks to his memory loss) tends to oppose religion, gods, and organized systems as a whole, but I think if it were only him and Astarion alone, they would feed each other's hunger for strength and power enough that DU drow would arrive into act 3 with absolutely no doubt about what he must do. He would very easily revert back to his old, domineering personality and do whatever he thinks he must to establish his status, and most importantly his power over his loved ones, lest what happened with Orin ever repeat itself.

This circumstance would be perfect for the eventual Bhaalist DU Drow + Spawn Astarion scenario. Which just makes it all the worse that Astarion would have had a HEAVY hand in steering him in this direction. And the cherry on top; he has no one else to turn to here.

On the flipside - this could potentially turn into a situation where Astarion keeps DU drow small enough to where he's able to Ascend, while his Bhaalspawn partner either refuses his father out of fear or loses the duel against Orin. I don't know how viable this is, since Astarion very much needs a strong and confident DU drow if he wants Cazador to die - but I guess anything is possible.

The point is, if left to their own devices there would be nothing stopping either of them from pursuing their very single-minded goals, and I don't think there's a scenario they BOTH come out on top either. Between DU drow's obsessive behavior and been-burned-before attitude, and Astarion's distrust and fear of losing control again, they would constantly wrestle for the opportunity to keep the other under their own thumbs.

And hell. All of this assuming they didn't kill each other on night two.

Thank you for the ask and for your kind words! Hopefully this isn't too depressive/disappointing of an answer, LOL.

[wardensantoineandevka]

Yeah, I think at the end of it. I get, understand, and agree that the narrative moment we're at is "Bells Hells, feeling they don't have the resources to fight Ludinus a second time today and still uncertain about the central question of what is to be done about the gods in Exandria, move toward Predathos in an attempt to control a situation they feel is inevitable. Imogen feels she has to make the choice to accept it into herself because Predathos is still moving toward her and the Ruidusborn, tragically boxing her into this because she feels she has no other meaningful choices." Great, amazing, I totally understand this, and it is a natural beat and one that coheres as a culmination of the campaign. It's actually a pretty great beat in summary.

The frustrating thing ultimately feels to be the execution, because it constantly feels like the story is meandering from beat to beat after an incredibly long series of meanderings over the course of the campaign. It's ultimately fine the characters feel uncertain, but the storytelling itself feels uncertain as well about what it is doing and that is less fine. Every decision is made with a sort of timid "I suppose that's the thing to do, I don't really know" at the table level without a very clear sense of what they're moving toward narratively, and that's really more of the problem. It's undercutting what is otherwise a really great direction.

Decisions don't feel like they have teeth because the storytelling is so hesitant about whether it's the right direction to take, so the needed feeling of stakes, inevitability, tragedy, suffocating circumstance don't exist in the way they should to give what's happening the needed sense of clarity. It feels like we're all moving through a bog in a not fun way because the story itself isn't sure what it's moving toward even in a sense of vibes or structurally. moving confidently and toward a tragedy in a sense of trapping the characters and cornering them would've done wonders, but instead it kinda has the feeling of trying to unroll a carpet dramatically and it just kinda slowly stops. Like, it's a slow drift down a lazy river instead of feeling dragged out with the tide.

It is a really great beat to have Imogen accepting Predathos because she feels she doesn't have any other choice in the series of pressures occurring right now. But, the pressure doesn't really feel like it exists because it all feels disconnected from the moment or too gently / abstractly applied or too slow to be framed, and the inevitability aspect doesn't feel like it's quite standing because narrative inevitability comes from momentum and strong storytelling intent and purpose, and it's never felt like this campaign has had that. The storytelling is hesitant and uncertain, so the tragedy doesn't quite come through on experience of the moment, even when it does come through in summary.

And that's more the frustrating thing. It's a good beat executed a little too uncertainly. The choice itself for the character is a good one, but it — like much of the campaign — feels like it lacks a storyteller trust in the narrative or trust in the choice itself to make it really feel satisfying as an execution. I genuinely wonder if that's ultimately what I'm bouncing off of, the fact that it doesn't feel like the table is trusting in the narrative or trusting the choices they're making for the story or trusting in themselves and each other to carry through the story they’re telling, so the intentionality and purpose feel off and it's stripping a great beat of its power by making it feel hesitant at a narrative mechanics level.

[flashhwing]

my life for a Volstrucker book. we have the Caleb backstory comic but that only gives a very cursory view of the blumentrio only. I wanna see more, more of the training, the work and dynamics of full fledged scourgers. who are these guys when they're not being ~Mysterious or specifically Astrid and Eadwulf in an incredibly specific and narrow scenario that is not at all indicative of the rest of the bunch

[kudzoi]

Wijdan Jawaher @wejdan1984 reached out to me. This is the message she asked me to deliver to you, and I wish you read it in full:

”I am Wijdan from Gaza. I have five children, my husband is missing, and I am in dire and urgent need. I need these donations. I want to buy blankets for my five children. I live in a tent made of fabric, which does not protect us from the cold. It is raining and there are not enough blankets to cover my children. It is cold and bitter and my children are shivering from the cold. Every day children in Gaza die from cold and hunger. I do not want to lose one of my children after I lost my husband during our displacement and escape from the bombing.. and we have not had food for 3 days.. my children are starving... Please help me, even if it is a little, $5 or more, according to your ability to donate. It will save my family. Please do not let me down, my friend. ? The world left me and knocked on your door. Will you answer me? 🙏🥹💔

✅️Vetted by @/gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #370 )✅️”

As you can see, Wijdan and her 5 children are in a very dire situation due to the genocide and they’re in urgent need of help. Their campaign is low on funds, only €1,751 has been raised out of the €10,000 goal. Please share this post, and if you can donate too, to help Wijdan reach the campaign goal! ❤️🙏🍉 🇵🇸

[thebreakfastgenie]

I'm not anti-vote or anything, but I think some of the liberals on here greatly overrate how much damage a bunch of bored kids (most of whom probably can't even legally vote) talking shit on social media can actually do to the Democrats. So what if they turn out braindead "Genocide Joe" memes by the thousands per week? No meaningful voter would pay attention to those, and anyone who does never had a vote worth chasing in the first place.

The problem is that it's not just a bunch of bored kids. It feeds a larger social media ecosystem. Remember "cancel culture?" Remember how that became a right wing talking point that conservatives whined about in mainstream settings? That has its roots on tumblr. If you ever doubted that fringe social media movements affect mainstream politics, 2024 should have been the final nail in the coffin. JD Vance has very signifcant (and, frankly, underreported) ties to online far right communities (known as "groypers" to the terminally online) and it absolutely influenced his campaign and now he's bringing those interests to the vice-presidency. Elon Musk (the owner of twitter) and Vivek Ramaswamy want to run a government office named DOGE after a meme. We're sharing the internet with the people in power; we're all playing with live ammo. It's often a ripple effect or butterfly effect, so it's very difficult to predict what memes and posts from "bored kids" will make it to real life politics and how they'll be transformed along the way. Because it's so hard to predict, we need to be aware of the possibility and act with care. "Genocide Joe" memes contributed to a general feeling of dissatisfaction with Biden that, intentionally or not, played into the Trump campaign's "everyone hates Biden" narrative. A similar thing happened with Hillary in 2016.

Elections are also won and lost on the margins. Campaigns spend billons on ground games that persuade a very small percentage of voters, but it's better to persuade that percentage than not to. If you don't know if something is going to make a difference, you act as if it is when the stakes are high. Is the drag from a constant negative social media narrative going to hurt a campaign? Maybe, and either way it's definitely not going to help, so it's better not to have it. 2016 and 2024 were both very close elections.

Liberals also tend to interpret bored kids' posts as statements of action. If someone says they don't want a Democrat to win, will try to stop it, and will tell other people not to vote for that candidate, liberals are going to object to that.

It's usually not "meaningful voters" who decide elections. It's low-information swing voters who make up their minds on the way to the voting booth. These voters are, consciously or unconsciously, often influenced by perceived popular opinion. A lot of people don't have deeply held values that they've spent time examining, but have moral compasses more akin to "if everyone I know thinks this, it must be right." The danger of social media is that is also distorts the meaning of "everyone I know." Your meme about how you hate Joe Biden finds its way into an algorithmically-generated bubble and someone says "gee, it seems like everyone I know hates Joe Biden, I generally trust my social circle, he must be really bad." And it's self-reinforcing. They start sharing it or making similar posts of their own and it spreads to their contacts in their own bubbles.

I don't think the exact mechanisms or limits or this phenomenon are fully understood yet because social media is still too new, but it's very real.

[utilitycaster]

feel free to ignore if you feel like it's too theoretical/parasocial/etc. but: I see how the campaign as a whole is off because of how lack of prep influenced the cast to create somewhat unfit characters, but as someone who got immensely annoyed by this episode, I'm wondering why has that throughline carried out for so long. why haven't the cast decided to start playing their characters in a way that leads to a more cohesive and satisfying story? is the hesitation and bizzare opinions on gods a very dedicated RP choice or do you think the players themselves are also at a loss? I'm honestly very confused about that, given how driven and decisive they played VM and M9 during their oneshots. I don't want to feel like I'm singling anyone out to hate but e.g. the way taliesin plays caduceus vs ashton is particularly puzzling to me.

Hey anon,

This is all highly speculative (as, to be fair, was the original idea the cast was given very little information, and that turned out to be right) but I think it's the far-reaching consequences of that initial lack of prep combined with the fact that it's been a very central-plot focused campaign that failed to allow the characters to develop into more decisive people. It also, I think, centers the Ruidusborn such that I suspect a lot of the rest of the table is taking their lead.

The Mighty Nein, we know, involved a lot of prep with Matt specifically offering feedback and vetoing certain aspects. Every character came in with pretty clear goals, and because it was a character-driven campaign we got to see those goals change as they learned more: Caleb and Fjord notably abandon their original goals in favor of new ones. Veth and Caduceus achieve theirs; Jester as well, and she develops new ones as she becomes less sheltered. Beau and Yasha's exact goals were much more nebulous, but they have the opportunity to confront their pasts at length and find new purpose and peace throughout the narrative. I don't think it's productive to rehash everything every time but: lack of pre-existing long-term relationships and more work on the short-term friendships that existed, the fact that Beau and usually Molly due to Yasha's absences (and later Caduceus) were free agents who didn't know anyone prior to their meeting, and the fact that the party had like 2 gold to their name and had to double up in odd configurations plus their willingness to engage in conflicts led to a fairly quick and deep bond, which also influenced their goals and dynamics.

Vox Machina were initially very generally sketched out characters, but after they began doing more there was a similar effort put into to backstories, and I think going back after they'd already played a bit meant they knew more about who they wanted these characters to be. The pre-stream plot, as we can tell from the origins comics, was also heavily backstory focused; the Briarwoods arc is when most people feel the streamed campaign really takes off.

We have seen the backstories of the characters of Bells Hells, but a lot of them are deeply tied into a long-running main plot that doesn't really allow for the same development over time. Like, Percy, for example, actually does his "plot" about quarter of the way into the campaign; but this kickstarts his development. Fjord is rather similar; he learns the source of his powers quite early on, but grapples with them until the halfway point and then the rest of the campaign is him embracing something new. To compare, I suspect Laura envisoned Imogen's story as being not dissimilar in the sense of "learn what my powers come from, find a way to better control or perhaps get rid of them" and so upon finding out this is the lynchpin of the entire plot, Imogen never has that post-resolution time to cook, essentially. Even for those who had slightly more rewarding plot beats they kind of felt like "let's address this problem so we can get back to the moon stuff" (Chetney, Laudna) and in some cases, I think it felt to the players, rightly or wrongly, like those plots were actively rushed to the point that they couldn't explore them (I suspect this happened for Ashton during the solstice split). There's been a hurry-up-and-wait sense of urgency over the whole campaign because it's a plot that was introduced very early and has never let up. There's been no "what do we do" type breaks and I'd be shocked if there are. We've sort of run out of plot because we've speed run everything that would have been a plot in a different campaign.

So I think the players don't know how to evolve their characters because there's been no in-world impetus to evolve, really. Now, as someone who prefers to play people who are already decisive, the fact that most of the cast went for kind of indecisive/impulsive types isn't my bag, but that is valid; but it means no one's really had the chance to organically move from that.

I also think that the fact that there's one big plot that really centers the ruidusborn is another factor. Even if Orym, for example, were the type to shut down the party, what is one person who can't reasonably stop two spellcasters from going into the Hallowed Cage going to do? I think this post makes a good point; I think putting the pressure very heavily on two players who (very understandably! for a number of reasons!) are among the most averse to making a hard and potentially alienating or unpopular choice has sort of prevented anyone else from taking a wild swing. The other campaigns had a much more even distribution of who could make decisions within the party, and I think that reflects that. I also think this is uniquely an issue for longform campaigns; I haven't seen this hesitancy from Laura nor Ashley in Candela, Downfall, nor in the various Daggerheart one-shots and miniseries, since you have to swing big there.

I do want to cover one point specifically, which is that I actually find Ashton to be one of the better played characters. I disagree with them, to be sure, but like, Caduceus is a character who can be arrogant in his fairly limited worldview, but who is also consistently very empathetic and kind. Ashton has that arrogance, but without those priorities. Caduceus isn't really invested in hurting those who hurt him; he's interested in stopping those who would hurt his home, family, or friends, and if that requires hurting them he's okay with that. Ashton really does want to beat up those they deem responsible for their own pain, justified or not. I think taking the shard was a great move and stand by that [though, admittedly, it and the bit about Predathos needing a vessel just now have me like. the consequences have been conveyed in a crystal clear manner to ME and somehow the cast is not getting Matt flat-out saying in game THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN, so idk what's up with THAT.] and my issues stem specifically from his decision to claim to speak for the weak and then immediately accept the titans saying that a remade world in which only the strong survive is fine. Like, I don't think there is a problem in how Caduceus is played vs. Ashton, in that I think they are both internally consistent as characters; I think it's just. Caduceus is someone who tries to make decisions that minimize broad harm to that which he deems good, and Ashton is often, by their own admission (episode 78), selfish and conceited. Like, Taliesin is just. Playing someone who is often not a great person this time. And that's a valid choice. But I think it's in a narrative that didn't really permit enough time and space for characters to change meaningfully so Ashton is a bit stuck there whereas, while Caduceus didn't have nearly as much of a gap between who he already was and the hero he needed to be, he had far, far more room to grow.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Throughout the years, every civil rights movement has had a slogan, a catchy one-liner to summarize the need for equality, respect, and safety for marginalized communities. But the fight against antisemitism never had such a slogan beyond the IYCSTTKUFLFMTWBG acronym (If You Could Stop Trying To Kill Us For Like Five Minutes, That Would Be Great).

Here in Jew-quarters we realize that that's quite the mouthful, so we decided to embark on the path to find a new leaner, slicker and cachier motto for the movement, to help promote Jewish people's well being around the world in the hopes of making non-Jews stop trying to fucking kill us for like five minutes.

Unfortunately, our focus group has revealed to us that that bar is way too fucking high, so instead we lowered it down to hell and revamped the entire campaign to focus on making the people who have dedicated every single moment of their lives to the annihilation of the Jewish people, their culture and their history, actually admit out loud that they fucking hate us.

And so, we are proud to present to you our new slogan - "Just Say Jew, Boo!".

The Zios get you down? An evil Cabal is controlling your government? The Elites are spreading empirialism and colonialism and capitalism throughout the world?

Just say Jew, boo!

We already know what you fucking mean, so just say the quiet part out loud, it is so much quicker! Think of all the time and energy you'll save to actually do literally anything with your life that isn't harassing Jews online and in real actual fucking life. So just say Jew, boo! Maybe once you stop pretending like you have any morals or ideology we could all move forward as humans to a better and brighter world where maybe, just maybe, you could stop trying to fucking kill us for like five minutes.

Wouldn't that be great?

[danwhobrowses]

Critical Role C3 Ep 118 - Initial Thoughts

Well guys I maaaade it

It's 8am (well 9 now) and frosty in England and I had like, 1 hour light snoozing, I'm currently basking in the delusional energy being sleep deprived sustains until the inevitable crash but for now, an episode happened!

First of 2025, first I could watch in full thanks to PTO and willpower, shivering with nerves all day so let's cover the thoughts I remember at least (was staying as still as possible to avoid making noise for the others sleeping, so couldn't do the clickety clacks - and as you can tell by my use of 'clickety clacks' that my verbage may be as loopy as a rollercoaster at times)

Spoilers for the episode

Adorable abnormally named animals that looked more like a pupper and a gerbil, Bandit was true to his name

Oh geez more fucking monologuing, even Sam had the cup thing for it XD

Remember that fanart of Laudna, Orym and Ashton kicking Liliana after verbally dressing her down? Well that but this time with Ludinus, loved the pressing

Got some mini Ludie backstory and it was 'my family died as collateral in the Calamity', it's so hilariously basic at this point he deserved every bit of Ashton's 'get the fuck over it'

Part of me also couldn't help but think of Istho, the reluctant to die Paladin of the Lawbearer imprisoned at the Bloody Bridge literally a year ago, they had the same mantra

Would've been cooler to get a bit more Lawbearer sauce before in this campaign but fairs enough

Fearne just wants to give everyone cupcakes and candy and treats being the vessel of the God Eater like winning the lottery and I love her for it

It's not lost on me as an Ashton fan that Ludie never asked them what they wanted. There's a gist yes of controlling your own fate but still, got a lil' under your skin didn't they?

Chet no, don't try to open the cascade of sigils!

HA! Poofed out of his second monologue

Braius don't call him, you're gonna call him aren't you?

FUCKING LYING WHORE CHEATER BITCH Azzy, how's the family?

Brennan is untouchable but Matt's Fucking Lying Whore Cheater Bitch Azzy M still gives me the feeling of 'you know all the right things to say but I can still hear your manipulation'

Family, Braius, is right here! I get he's been around longer but first it's 'chase away and I'll remain' now it's 'don't let it out', mixed messages

I probably would've laughed to death if Ludie got distracted by the toy, though I do wish it was an Intuit Charge

RAVENOUS VOID OFF THE FUCKING BAT?? I was literally looking at that spell a few days ago

The aoe and save was so fucking high too, and I could've sworn Ashton can't be moved in Titan form, and resists all but Force Damage

Oh shit the neck! The neck comes back around!

God the cast rolled so badly for so long, and he kept saving and using his resistance

Not the neck ladies, the body, da body!

PATE I LOVE YOU

Pate noooo!

IRAAAAAAA I LOVE YOU!

MISTERRRRRR! I LOVE YOU!!

ASHTOOOOOOOON I LOVE YOU! That is my motherfucking barbarian tank killing the concentration

OH MY FUCKING DAYS POWER WORD STUN IMOGEN I FUCKING LOVE YOU!

I was counting the damage, once you knew it was below 150 all it needed was the math

Bless Ashley for wanting to go big but couldn't because of aoe

It had to be Orym, IT HAD TO BE ORYM, how's that for resolve?

Ira laughing in Ludie's face was cathartic too

'I don't want to hurt anyone, or kill anyone' - SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE ASHTON HATERS IN THE BACK!

We were so fucking close though, so close to the 'we can't absorb it but it can't stay here' point, we could've had an option C like sending it to a Demiplane

Surprised me how much Laudna pushed for pro-Predathos, given Imogen's reluctance, and Orym just unable to argue it because it's been argued to death

Oh god is he not dead? Fuckery duck, Laudna you have that ghost tracking thing right?

'What did you do to me, I used to be fun' - you still are you just have mushrooms planned with Fearne for after

Imogen you talked a lot about being free to decide your fate and now you're literally walking towards what 'fate' planned out for you

We are LITERALLY approaching what Ludinus wants to do

Child's voice is a nope, like an absolute nope

Like a 'Guys did we not learn from the Dominox?' nope

Because GUYS DID WE NOT LEARN FROM THE DOMINOX??

Orym insight checked a God Eater, got a whisper, stepped between it and the Ruidusborns, and that was not a red flag??

The collective 'ohhhh' though

Like, I get hearing it out, trying to see if we've simply been misinformed, but the proof is kinda in the pudding and it is dessert time

It knocked Chet into a wall for opposing, that's a nope

Hey Matt don't you think the Primordials partly responsible for this cage would have some resonance with it since we're getting clips of Tengar and Orym's Wildmother vision for all to see?

Imogen and Fearne NO

Predathos the nice hot faun lady told you to wait

Fearne YES but IMOGEN NO!

Fearne Yes! ...right? Answer the question cliffhanger! RIGHT?

I mean she heard her, that's something, are we gonna have to give Imogen her first death in the campaign? Can that staff factor in at all?

Definitely peeved that Imogen went and pulled a Frodo right at the last moment, but like the One Ring in Mount Doom she is being lulled by Predathos muddying her instincts, so I can kinda see why she thought it the kindest option, also le drama I suppose, Laura Bailey had to put her own third wedding one-shot in jeopardy

I have to be at work next week and there's a likelihood that the worst ending happens and Ludinus didn't get his ancient elf ass handed to him permanently ;_; so the stage is different, the health and spell slots are lower, but the fear is the same and I can't stay up for it

Contrary to others though I do still want a happy ending, the Hells aren't bad or evil for what they were attempting; the intentions was still good it was just not right. Someone else would've come, if not Ludinus then someone else with the same plan, but this is why we should've discussed alternatives earlier, this is why a united goal is important and why the Arch Heart fucking up the plan with his visit rubbed me the wrong way

At least now the Hells are gonna be on the same page with Predathos, it's about saving your people - so, save your people

[anim-ttrpgs]

Who is Yvette and may I please know more about their streaming career? 🙏

Comtesse Yvette Preux is, for lack of a better word, one of the ‘iconic’ investigators/PCs in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. She appears in a lot of art in the rulebook, as do many of the PCs of the A.N.I.M. team and our friends.

(both by team artist @chaospyromancy)

She’s also the first ever monster PC to ever be played in Eureka, back before Eureka even had official monster PC rules. The incredible success of that campaign is what set the precedent for what monster PC gameplay would come to be in Eureka.

You can read a bit of an origin story for her in this post

In the 2010s and 2020s, she has a fairly successful twitch streaming/influencer career, with her gimmick being that she claims to be a real 800+-year-old vampire, and allegedly never breaks character. Her twitch and YouTube channels cover competitive gaming, challenge runs, advanced math, firearms, and urban exploring.

In-person she is.. a little harder to get along with. She’s.. old-fashioned, and her values are very distinctly those of someone who grew up rich and Catholic in the 1200s, which ironically means she has little in common with a modern “tradcath.”

The contrast between the modern world, the modern world’s pop culture idea of the Middle Ages, and the actual Middle Ages is a major theme in the parts of her story where she’s actually integrating into the society of the 1990s and 21st century.

Many would expect her to be virulently and openly hateful, but that’s the pop culture Middle Ages. The actual Middle Ages were oppressive in different and more interesting ways.

I’ll give a few interesting examples

In the Middle Ages, women were considered the more “lustful” and “sexually aggressive” sex, a bit like men are thought of today. It’s women who were considered basically responsible for lust in the first place, to the point that it was considered a public health issue. Lust with no outlet was thought to be detrimental to one’s overall physical health. Sex or even masturbation was sometimes prescribed by doctors to combat this.

This is a comedic exaggeration/oversimplification but in the medieval world being around women would gradually fill up a Dark Souls-style Lust meter and if you didn’t do anything to reduce it it would take a chunk out of your health, making you sickly and prone to other health problems. Women were more resistant to this because they’re the source of lust in the first place. Medieval women covered their legs and their hair in particular for everyone’s protection.

This manifests in Yvette as her not caring at all about being naked in front of female friends, but being careful not to look too sexy around male friends. And then awkwardly telling them to masturbate later if they need to because it’s better to sin and live than to avoid sin to the detriment of one’s health. (In fact, knowingly damaging one’s health is a sin.)

In the art, you can see her not only wearing pants, but even wearing pants that show her ankles and legs, and wearing her hair down. It took her a long time to get comfortable wearing anything but full-length skirts around men, but these risqué (to her) outfits are symbolizing her character growth from someone who is accommodating to others to a fault, to prioritizing her own comfort, even at cost to others.

In the Middle Ages, they did not conceptualize homosexuality like we do now. No one was gay, and neither was anyone straight. Attraction wasn’t a trait of an individual, it was a fact. Homosexuality wasn’t really considered a thing that you were, it was a thing you do. It’s really hard to explain so I’m just going to hope y’all get it along with the example. Sodomy was sodomy, and that was considered to cover basically any irregular form of sex. Irregular sex between a man and woman was as much sodomy as sex between a man and another man. This also means that there was no presumption of homosexuality in the Middle Ages. You didn’t have to say “no homo” before you touched your same sex friend’s hand. Close friends would kiss each other on the mouth and stuff, and that was considered normal. (Though something you would want to avoid was spending more than a few minutes alone with an opposite-sex friend, because that could be used to call the woman’s virginity into question, which could hurt her eligibility for marriage.)

As Yvette understands it, in the 21st century, people have constructed entire communities around their enjoyment of sodomy, like how she’s a member of the gun club. She has complex feelings about that but it isn’t like she’s never engaged in sodomy before either. (She brought this to confession and did her penance so it’s fine.)

What really aggravates her is how she can’t touch or kiss any of her friends in the 21st century without it being considered sexual.

She argues it’s not “gay” for her to feel attracted to women either, it’s normal. Women are naturally attractive to everyone.

Where it really gets abrasive though is probably the classism. She’s from the noble class and still considers that to really matter, it makes her a little bit better than everyone else, and more qualified to be making decisions for people.

She does love commoners, though. All her friends are commoners, and she’s very protective of them. She’s too autistic to get that noblesse obligé wasn’t supposed to be a real principal she lives by and even back when she was for-real managing a fiefdom she was an advocate for the comfort of the peasantry.

I'm gonna have to stop listing all her quirks here because if I don’t stop then it’ll go on forever. If you want to read some short stories that feature her, subscribe to our Patreon.

I’ll segway by saying that two more major aspects of her are generosity and power. She revels in power in all forms, including the power to solve the problems of people who are helpless to solve them themselves. Like I said, she takes noblesse obligé very seriously. Jesus Christ had the power to multiply the fish and bread for the hungry, so he did. She can help, so she will(whether you like it or not). She hardly even considers it a “duty,” it’s more like why would she ever do anything else? Sometimes this means giving away staggering amounts of money, other (more exciting) times it means getting involved in a Eureka adventure/investigation, the more challenging and dangerous the better, because it makes her even cooler. This is what gets her into Eureka adventures. She’s going to help the helpless, what does it matter if it also fuels her ego?

I also just realized I’ve said very little about her actual twitch streaming career. Like I said, her gimmick is that she’s a real vampire. In the 2010s and 2020s, she is more or less “out” as a vampire, openly identifying herself as such and doing almost nothing to hide any aspect of her vampirism(except the part where she sneaks up on people in the night and drinks their blood, but she doesn’t hide that because it’s a vampire thing, she hides that because it’s an assault charge). Most people just think she’s weird, or really really dedicated to the persona. And if somebody does actually see her not reflecting in a mirror, or some other unexplainable proof of vampirism, what are they going to do? Go online and say “hey everyone I think that this popular e-celebrity whose gimmick is that she says she’s a vampire actually is a real vampire!”? Vampires aren’t real, idiot.

If you want to read short stories about her, you can get them with a $5 subscription to our Patreon,

and she and her exploits in Eureka campaigns are also talked about a lot in the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club.

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook will also have a section that will probably be called “the making of a vampire” that will detail some of her actual living life and shine a little more light on how a vampire actually comes to be in Eureka’s world.

[detectivehole]

also i've been holding this one in since i saw it cause i couldn't figure out how i wanted to complain about it but whatever; Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) was one of the most casually homophobic pieces of media i've seen in ages and most of the stuff i consume was made before 1995. im not trying to cancel it on that merit, it wasn't malicious, and i'd honestly bet this was unintentional- but it was still constant and egregious and there is no good excuse

deadpool has been making fruity jokes for decades, and to positive fan reception most of the while (myself included), but i'm sure we can be objective for a moment; aforementioned jokes were not kind ones, usually- they're not malicious, i promise i know it's not that deep, but the punchline has still been "crazy killers also a bit of a fag," and later more "wacky ol' deadpool makes fellow be-spandexed men uncomfortable with casual homoerotic sexual harassment!" and while the comics have since changed and kinda embraced his identity more positively and canonically*, none of the movies have yet done so

*i think?

each of the three deadpool movies have included this type of comedy in them, and in increasing amounts, as studios seemed to notice that again, fans react positively to them, and that they were safe to make them without alienating audiences (most people don't really think about it, homophobes register it as a joke, and fandom has always loved crumbs)

im not here to complain about the first two, because while they were crude and stupid, they were... par for the course? ignorable at worst and funny in a cheesy way at best, i guess.

but Disney doubled down hard on them for deadpool 3- it felt like they were fired at the audience nonstop, and it was a major (if not The major) point of reputation and marketing for the movie. idk why, maybe tests showed the comedy is profitable rn, maybe they wanted to lean into fandom, maybe it was part of the running bit about proving they'd let him stay rated R, probably some other thing. i don't think it was meant to be anything at all, it was played off casually in scene and again Disney doesn't want to lose any ticket sales to controversy

but the thing about having your ostensibly straight queer-coded Clown make non-stop inappropriate homoerotic innuendo and burlesque sexual advances is that it's literally just homophobic caricature. you're just doing blatant homophobia. you may not be meaning anything by it, a little can be written off as poor taste or rude fun; but 2 hours and 7 minutes of it is too fucking much and what you meant is worth jack compared to what's actually being done. genuinely offensive? not really, but it was genuinely and viscerally uncomfortable to sit through in fucking 2024, certainly. in a goddamn Modern Movie

but it's not just that it's like this! there are thousands of movies like this new and old! it's that the Yaoification was the only thing people talked about! it was the entire marketing campaign! i didn't believe everyone my expectations were on the floor i promise but it was so fukcing strange to hear how well fandom felt it was being fed and then to sit through a movie that felt like it wanted to call me a slur "as a joke" but would then be confused and upset when i didn't laugh

the dissonance between the way people, not just on tumblr but in general, spoke of deadpool and wolverine vs the movie i actually saw is still a specter on my shoulder

[artsynerdwithasword-takecover]

4 years of art improvement! (2020-2024)

I make a lot of D&D characters (most of them just for fun) but they are not all created equally and I do have my favorites. These three are my most beloved fictional children, and I've drawn and worked on them for many years. Had a good art day today and drew the trio, and figured I'd put them side by side with the very first drawings I've made of them.

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[swordy-da-goat]

Here’s my DnD character, Milk Bucket, a human skeleton artificer (battlesmith) whose steel defender is a 4-4-0 Standard Gauge Forney. A steam locomotive engineer cursed into a skeleton and craves for any calcium high foods (like milk).

The best character I have ever made.

Edit: The loco got the wheel configuration updated.

[fadebolt]

I'm guessing this is about the character, and not the region, judging by the fact that you used 'him' instead of 'it' on the poll, and by the things said on the other reblogs. I could almost definitely do a full character analysis on the guy, but honestly, I don't feel like there would be of a point. The characterization of Five Pebbles has already discussed to death by the community, and I don't think I have anything to add, outside of maybe commenting on the readings of others.

And this poll isn't really about that, anyway. But instead, it's about how much we enjoyed him, as a character. And the fun thing about that is how there isn't a consistent metric for it. We all have our list of requirements, that need to be fulfilled, for us to fall in love with a character - and that list is completely different for each of us.

Mine is... certainly on the more unusual side, as I almost never get grabbed by the popular central characters, but instead, the one that really catches my eye is that one neat side character not many people cared about. (The most recent example would be Arcane, and how I wasn't overly invested in CaitVi, but got super excited whenever Singed showed up. And believe me, this happens in like, every piece of media I consume xd) But the weird part is that Rain World is the one thing that is completely exempt from this. Sure, with ships, I always had a preference towards the less popular ones - but if you're looking at just the singular characters, my favorites were actually the important central ones that most of the community also cared about.

Five Pebbles is undoubtedly on that list, and that is due to a combination of two things - the way he was framed, and the compelling, yet nuanced characterization. The game did a lot to make him seem godlike, and boy, does it work phenomenally! He's enormous. He's practically immortal. He's incredibly knowledgeable. He wields immense power. He talks in a very inhuman way, and makes it clear he sees you as someone who is beneath him in every way. And if you annoy him even just a little, he won't hesitate to just effortlessly kill you in a snap. The point is that this guy has an overwhelming presence, far above anything you've ever seen before, or since. And this only gets hammered in more, as you learn about the lore. As for the characterization, I'm gonna reiterate that I really don't have much to add, except for the fact that I personally found it quite compelling. The base game didn't show too much of him, but it did establish him as a bit of a flawed/morally grey figure. He's made mistakes, and is not exactly the most kindhearted fella, but he still wants the best for everyone, and is willing to assist both the Survivor/Monk in their mission for ascension, and the Hunter, in their quest to restore what's left of the group senior. Downpour did expand on him a bit, though a lot of what we've seen were things we could easily infer. Of course there were three things that stuck out - some of the pearl readings on Artificer's campaign, the sacrifice on Rivulet's, and the sheer extent of his collapse on Saint's. Some people understandably didn't like how the DLC humanized him, and heavily reduced how 'distant' or 'godlike' he felt. But honestly, I like that we got to peer into him a little more, and see what's beyond this outer layer that the base game presented us with. (And frankly, this is pretty much the direction I would have taken him, too..... okay, the Spearmaster outburst is something I almost definitely would have written differently, but that's about it) However, in spite of all of this, he... didn't really make it into the list of all-time favorite fictional characters - the kinds I would think about about on a daily basis, for multiple years. And why? I'm... not quite sure, actually. Because in theory, he should be up there. The only thing I could really note is how I don't think there's anything more I could add to him. Everything is already so well tied together. We got to see both the prelude, and the conclusion to his story, all the while his personality was completely fleshed out as well. And this is a really rare thing, actually. Usually, there are always some holes left to fill, but for Five Pebbles, I frankly don't see any. So I'd rather think about characters like Saint, who are practically nothing, but a bajillion holes, on top of a really intriguing premise (that's drastically oversimplifying it, but you get the point). But this is really not a bad thing, and is actually quite a breath of fresh air for me, after World of Warcraft's inconsistency, in regards to the execution of character conclusions, or the lore of Runeterra setting up a boatload of interesting things, only to never properly expand on them. Five Pebbles is how you do character writing right. And while you could argue that he lost a good chunk of what made him so memorable in the base game (even if you discount all the memes, and catboy stuff, and other fandom nonsense), what we got was a compelling, and absolutely devastating journey that undoubtedly stuck with me. So yeah. He deserves a 'love' for that. He technically ain't a brainrot of mine, but he doesn't need to be <3

maybe been done

Thoughts on Five Pebbles