#dont get me wrong i like the romance options

[emmodii-mode]

Playing The Wayhaven Chronicles and what do you mean Verda's married and Tina's not a romance option.

[perilegs]

oh... you get to sit under the starry sky next to gale even when you're friends with him and not in a romance... karlach has been waiting all her life to touch someone, and now that she can, you can choose not to sleep with her and she respects that and your romance still continues... astarion holds your hand ever so sweetly no matter if you're a friend or a lover... i'm feeling so much love in this game

[baekuras]

Veilguard thinks its funny having me choose between 2 of my favourite companions/their factions/cities smh

Other things I've found slightly amusing is pre-launch people who had their eyes set on Lucanis, aka Mage Killer galore, ready to make mage rooks and it turns out he is actually super chill with anyone not his target or who hasn't wronged him/his

Other thing I've found bemusing looking back is people looking at Taash and going "omg butch lesbian" and rn that's very much on the brink of shifting at least from what Taash just told my Rook in a cutscene

[auraxins]

controversial opinion incoming but i think the next mainline persona game should have a customisable mc

[gifti3]

the dragon vn is starting to pull me in...!

i got the good and bad end for one character so far, and things are getting much more interesting now

also this game has the best skip mechanic of any vn ive ever played, like genuinely

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

as much as i love having a library card again and love going to the library.... it sucks so bad that the closest library to me is very small and does not partner with other libraries

[tonati143]

Anders rant

Lowkey, I need to talk about this and Im sure other Anders fans have probably talked this to the ground.

But I feel like Anders suffered so badly at the hands of the creators and its both heartbreaking and the largest reason I love him so much. We see him, easily one of the most hated characters in the fandom, and he is not handled with nuance by either fans or anti’s because the writers never even gave room for that nuance.

You either are hate him or you love him, because there was never an option presented that allowed for a grey area.

Lets talk about easily one of the most popular options (and mirror to Anders), Solas. He easily does so much worse for even less of a reason. What he tries to do in Veilguard, what he did in Inquisition. If I remember correctly, bro gives the anchor to Corypheus bc he couldn’t understand it and thought bro would fix it for him.

If this would have been Anders, there would be outrage.

But because Solas has the benefit of writers that love him in both games, he gets the benefit of getting a grey area. There is not nearly as much hate, no one sits down to talk about how secretly he is the cause of every problem here.

I cant help but wonder what Anders did to lose out on such nuance. Cullen, one of my favorites, receives that nuance, when we are well aware what can happen with his story line if we dont play our cards right in Origins and DA2.

To have a writer that basically wants you dead is so crippling.

There is no nuance, there is no forgiveness. Even the route where your Hawke doesnt stabby stab him is made to look like you made the wrong choice. I was lucky, my Hawke in inquisition does not paint Romanced!Anders as a monster, my Hawke is much more forgiving and speaks of him as someone who needs to be taken care of. But Ive seen other people talk about how their Hawke speaks of Anders.

We lose out on Awakening!Anders in a way that almost doesnt seem natural. It is like we were given a completely different character. One is capable of facing trauma, and I would even say having to give your body to a spirit holds some form of trauma as well, while maintaining core parts of their personality. It wouldnt have hurt to show us bits of that previous Anders once in a while.

Its hard to look at really, because there are things that he says in DA2 that gives us insight to what is going on in the chantry, things that gives us insight to why he is going through such lengths. But because everything is structured around the idea that you are supposed to hate him, no one ever really acknowledges him in game or in the fandom.

I saw on a comment a few days ago that states that Anders tried so hard to be heard, to have his stance listened to but throughout the game almost everyone shrugs him off. No one takes him seriously. And yes, he can be obnoxious about it sometimes, but if I put myself in his shoes, I would also be talking and talking about it until someone acknowledges me. In smaller cases where I would have things to say in places like highschool and everyone would ignore me, I would find myself repeating it again until someone would tell me “yeah, we heard you already”. Its in a way where I understand what it feels like, to have something so important to say and to be pushed to the side, I understand what Anders feels in party banter in a way that cant be said outloud without being questioned if I agree with his decision towards the Chantry.

He could have been perfect, a way to start a conversation where we ask ourselves, at what point are extreme measures acceptable? At what point can we consider what a person did to be necessary or unnecessary? Would anyone have listened to the cause if that measure hadnt been taken?

Unfortunately, its answered for us, it ends the conversation before we can even have it. It tells us what is supposed to be the answer. It tells us it is wrong, it tells us that this is a black and white conversation. What could have been a legitimate substantial conversation cut short because of their efforts to make the fandom hate Anders as much as they do.

And I mourn that ever since 😔

[narfin-frood]

I'm dying to know what 'The Date' episode would be like in your Au!!

ive been thinking about this for a while now bc this is a fairly old ask, but i still can't decide on anything that makes sense to me...? because. ok. i've been dissecting hater (and my swap hater) under the michael scope in my brain during my free time at work and thinking really hard about Why he acts the way he does (i have a lot of thoughts but to keep this relatively on-topic i'll try to just mention what's relevant to Why he's so bad at dates)...rambling under cut

mr meteor and lord hater are like At their cores the same person, but the main thing that sets them apart is how much slack they've historically been cut for just being themselves. like lord lackadaisical started at the top and hasn't been really. excluded for acting any certain way. like he's never been told that the way he is is embarrassing or wrong, or at least not by anybody he really cares about, so while he still wants to be cool and awesome, he's not constantly wedging himself into the Bad Boy Archetype he thinks he's supposed to conform to and actually finds joy in who he is. ANYWAY

lord hater's....everything...is very performative, and the way he treats people & expects the world to bend around him if he uses enough brute force is because thats the only option he sees (with his awful case of tunnel vision) that doesn't make him cry all the time because nobody likes him.

all that to say mr meteor doesn't really neeeeed to find a date? his self worth doesn't hinge on whether people like him unconditionally or not, so there wouldn't be much conflict between him and a prospective date. he's still pretty callous and insensitive, and he probably still actively wants a girlfriend, but rejection wouldn't drive him to blow up the planet. if sylvia and meteor managed to go on a date together, it'd probably be a fairly neutral thing? maybe they'd get along, sylvia would start to be convinced that they're not a threat, they part on good terms, little to no romance at all. and also little to no conflict or Things happening. boooooring

and for swap wander, i dont think there's a way to mindgame some sense into setting him up with a date, as fun as it could be, because wander's not an active pursuer of romance. in that way at least. like he doesn't typically involve himself as much as he just wants everybody to love each other and get along and be nice? so again anything 'romantic' or any comedy coming from the date itself would probably get completely sidelined in favor of the foreboding part of being on a date with a thousand of the same guys while trapped in a walnut. i feel like it's just such a weird fucking setting for any serious dating to happen without it getting supremely weird or awkward? and again, wander doesn't have a record of being really invested in his own love life beyond just. loving in general

i think the funniest plot with the most slapstick you could get is a blind date between peepers and sylvia where neither of them know who they've been set up with until they meet and it's immediately and forever a competition between them. and they keep physically beating each other up over really petty little things like stepping over the line while bowling or not opening the door for the other. just real nasty to each other until at the end theyre reunited with their respective idiot and they part on. terms. very specific terms. and they hate each other even more but now it's Personal

[dolls-self-ships]

related to my last post (on Ford's sexuality/romantic orientation)

ok, this is going to sound really stupid so please, bare in mind that I am aware that this is a fictional character and he isn't real and even alex hirsch himself said that anyway a fan might resonate with a character can be true to them. With that being said, I personally don't love the headcanon that Ford is gay. I myself am aroace, and a lot of what he seems to experience in terms of romantic relationships and his feelings on them seem to align more with my own and lots of other aroace people that I know. And idk why but fandoms and esp just the lgbtq community in general seem to be really dismissive of aroace people (some don't even consider us queer but thats another post), and idk why but it just bothers me that anytime a character in canon expresses little to no intrest in romance it becomes almost automatically fanon that said character must be gay and not know it, as if being aroace just isn't an option. Because, I feel like those are two different experiences, not completely but, different enough since one can still feel romantic attraction and one feels little to none of it. I also think it's over looked/never discussed how much of Ford's struggles with romance can also come from trauma (being ostrochized, bullied, dont even get me STARTED on it post Bill, etc.) which I also relate to, as someone who for mental health related reasons hasn't dated in years. And I've met lots of people, including men, who have struggled with the same thing. I've had my best friend suggest to me multiple times that I might be a lesbian since men seem to scare me (I've tried, I am not one) and idk I just wish there was more space in fandom to discuss how trauma and being nd or even just being on the aroace spectrum (or all 3) might affect someone's dating life instead of just coming to the conclusion of "oh he struggles with women so poor guy must not know he's gay". Not saying if you headcanon Ford as gay that you're wrong, he can literally be whatever, he's not real. I just wish I had more people that shared this point of veiw on his character with me because I resonate with those parts of his character just in different ways.

I also want to preface that it gives me the personal ick that whenever a male character is more effeminate/eccentric people think that it's an automatic precursor to them not liking women. Like, idk I really hate that it's 2024 and people still base their hcs off of that. There are (very few but they exist) straight drag queens. Femininity is not inherently connected to being attracted to men.

[kithj]

the more people complain about genderlocked characters i feel like the more stubborn i get about it...

i just feel like. there's a fine line between wanting to see yourself reflected in the art you engage with (everybody wants this to some extent) versus just straight up refusing to engage with any kind of art that you can't personally relate to.

and sure you can argue it's not that deep when we're just talking about romance games i guess but usually this extends beyond just IF romance games, i see it on bookstagram or in mainstream video gaming circles, too... and particularly in IF & gaming it tends to lead to this very entitled attitude where if the thing doesn't appeal exactly to what you personally want, then it's Bad and Wrong.

i definitely understand in some instances, as a butch lesbian there is like... no game even off the top of my head that i can think of that actually has someone that looks like me in it (except for the stuff i've personally written. lol) and i do really like the gender-selection mechanic for this reason. most of the time it's the only way we get sapphic ROs. but to me that's just a band-aid and not a real solution, especially when a lot of authors tend to lean on bioessentialist ideas to depict the gender-selectable variants, and most of the time don't even seem to be aware that they're doing it.

i would much prefer actual female characters, or actual trans characters, over gender-selectable characters. because the other thing we see is that a lot of the time the male variation is the most popular, and is seen as the "default." this is through no fault of the author, really, it's just how the cookie crumbles, i guess.... i don't really know what the solution is but i do really wish people would be more mindful about... well. all of it. authors and readers alike. and maybe broaden your horizons and read something that's different for you, or write something challenging outside of your comfort zone. i get that a lot of these games are pure wish fulfillment, and that's fine, we're not all going to like or want the same things. but when most games don't include people like me, i'm forced to pick from a much smaller pool of fish than everyone else, and i don't agree with that. both in that i wish there were more options for me, obviously, but also that i shouldn't only limit myself to games that "represent" me and am still willing to reach for something different and still give it a chance. both things can be true.

now when a game is intentionally excluding entire groups of people, of course that needs to be called into question. because then it's just bigotry, and we all know bigotry is bad, yes? a game that... let's say. only allows white mcs. is going to attract a particular kind of audience. we know this we can acknowledge this. but i do also kinda think it's a waste of time to try and appeal to authors like this... i'm not against offering feedback but at the end of the day these authors excluded these people for a reason and they have no interest in us. don't bother. there are other authors out there that are writing women and trans people and poc that you can read instead of trying to get a misogynist or a racist or a transphobe to write about people they clearly don't give a shit about.

and i really feel like that encapsulates why i both like and dislike the gender-selectable mechanic... again it's just a temporary band-aid. it lets me play a sapphic mc for a little while. but the larger problem still remains which is that there are no depictions of butch lesbians (or lesbians in general) in most of these games, and there are not a lot of authors out there willing to even try. there are a lot of instances where i feel the gender-selection mechanic is just... a cop out. there's no thought or effort put into it.

i dont think every single author needs to start genderlocking or anything (that would be stupid) i just wish it was something both authors and readers would spend more time thinking about, rather than just automatically defaulting to gender-selection. people approaching Blood Choke and then complaining that it's all genderlocked but... the story is About being a lesbian. it would not exist in any other way. and the beautiful thing is that you can still read it even if you're not a lesbian! in fact i wish more people would. again, reach for something different and you might find that you actually like it. you might even connect with it in a way that surprises you. meanwhile The Northern Passage has a lot of options for the mc both in the character creator and when it comes to romance options. i have a gender-selectable character there, and a lot of people enjoy that, and i do too. and i also chose to lock Clementine originally because i knew i wanted there to be a nonbinary RO that could not be ignored (and then the other two followed shortly after once i started writing).

there's Nuance. there are lots of reasons to genderlock and there are lots of reasons why someone might not. there are games out there that let me play with an all female cast that i hate, other games with a mixed, genderlocked cast that i love. there are authors out there that do handle their gender-selectable characters well, some of my favorite games utilize it! and there are genderlocked games that are all just skinny white cis people that make me recoil. there are downsides to both. this is not an either-or situation. it's just something to think about, both when creating a character as an author and when engaging with a work as a reader.👍

[watchyourbuck]

it's just to me a bad sign on how things will go moving forward especially if the buck/tommy ship doesn't go away come season 8 like you are all clearly thinking it will or if it does but they revisit it later. eddie isn't confirmed to be queer in canon yet, he might never be so what's the plan? shitting on the canon romances buck gets and/or patronizingly praising them as long as they serve buddie endgame?

babe you went on a TRIP. ok so im not sure which answer you want me to give you here. fandoms work in specific ways, and this fandom has always been primarily buddie. granted, up until 7x04 they only dated women, but alas, they havent dated each other is my point.

its only natural that people who ship buddie endgame may like to partake on Buck's newest relationship but only as a relationship bound to break to make space for buddie - because thats what they (or we, i guess) ship.

i dont know whats gonna happen next season, or god, this one, but i know ive never taken a shit on any of their partners unless they have done something wrong. never liked taylor bc she was so selfish and played dirty, but lucy and ana and shannon i never had any trouble with, i just didnt see them as that character's forever (and marisol i dont like bc of the actress, but we can get into that later).

thing is, people are gonna ship whatever they ship. you cant change that. im not exactly sure why you went on the bisexual tangent, but as a queer person i can tell you its got nothing to do with sexuality. my advice to you as a person who curates her fandom experience is to blatantly stay away from blogs, fics and fanons you dont enjoy. fandoms are optional, this is supposed to be something that you do in your spare time and love, so why go meddle where you know you dont feel comfortable?

personally, im riding both trains right now, and i enjoy fanfics in most of their forms, so im gonna write/read fanfics where tommy isnt his final love, or some where he is, or threesomes where they end up together (all of them), or where they dont. its fiction! it can vary and spiral and - you get it.

about canon queer eddie, its not something i have the power to decipher. if you follow me, or if youve seen my posts, you should know i think hes queer, but im not gonna go down that road right now bc technically, that doesnt matter for the question. if he never becomes canonically queer, then, well, sometimes we lose. not for that im gonna "shit" or "praise patronizingly" any of their love interestes as long as they are good people who make them happy, whatever gender they are.

[lordedlady]

HOT TAKE!

does anyone main portia? by that i mean : think portia is their favourite *LOVE INTEREST*.

not favourite character, favourite TO DATE/FLIRT WITH/MARRY POTENTIALLY (??)

'cus, dont get me wrong, portia is an absolute gem in other routes... but that' s the thing.

in other routes.

i haven't currently met anyone who likes portia's route as their best, or even top 3. personally, the route isn't ALL bad, its cute, quirky and it's not too out of character.

however, it feels less like a romance and more like a platonic. sure, they get together in the end -- but it doesn't really feel all too established, aka i feel like the route is rushed.

i feel the same for muriels and a little for lucio's as well, though i think that (COUGH COUGH dorian COUGHGHG) did portia the most dirty, which is a shame, cus i definitely would've loved her if they established a bit more of her personality, and less on tasya.

cus while the plot is important, we haven't really seen anything like it in other routes (where the M3 where the same), and this caused alot more building to be on plot than a romance option

... which could've been EASILY fixed if her route was as long as the M3 (asra, for example)

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK 🤍

i'd love to hear ur opinion, darlings!

xoxo,

lordedlady

[jackass-jones]

But really, it’s like. I don’t want to be so obsessive over something so trivial cuz it really just causes shitty discourse at the end of the day. I’m just really really into queer analysis of shit I like and put waaaaay too much thought into it so when it seems like others don’t do the same, or that they’ve done it completely differently than me, it’s like. I get way too hurt by it agdjskl

I think I get way too like. Obsessive when it comes to gender/sexuality hcs for queer characters and I think it all started with people saying Marvin from falsettos is bisexual representation

[rjalker]

its certainly not everyone but like the insistence of using those designs specifically when sphere and square can look however you want its a public domain book. nothing wrong with enjoying shipping but idk i think some of the personalities they attribute to sphere and square are far removed from the source material, perhaps because its filtered through the movie idk. like everything aside i dont get why youd limit yourself to those designs when its not necessary. i love drawing square and sphere but i have my own design i go with

yes. A lot of people thankfully have gotten the memo that the creator of those designs is a bigot and have done the right *AND FUN* thing of creating their own designs. But then a lot of them are still using the exact designs from the films, and defending people who do so.

I'm really tired of fandoms always being filled with bigots who don't actually care about the harm they do to real minorities. How can you prioritize fanart for a known Conservative bigot after you find out how horrible of person he is? When the characters are public domain and can look like literally everything?

I understand a lot of people simply do not know that Ladd Ehlinger is a Conservative. That's why I've made so many PSAs about it and made so many of my own original designs for the characters public domain, and why I've been asking people to stop fucking recommending his shitty film.

But so many people are aware and they just don't care. They'll admit it's a bad adaptation but insist it's still a good film and still something they should encourage people to watch. And not even for the purpose of disecting and analysis, they literally just want more people to join the fandom for the bigoted film on purpose.

More people need to make PSAs about the creator of the 2007 film than just me. More people need to push back against the idea that Ladd Ehlinger's designs for the characters are more important than actual real minorities.

The Gravity Falls fandom at least took my post aimed at them and helped spread the word. But not enough people are aware. And part of that is because of so many stans of the movie refuse to drop it even after they find out how horrible of a person the creator is.

If you're reading this post and you care about minorities in real life, stop supporting Ladd Ehlinger by creating fanart for the 2007 Flatland film. You are doing free advertising for him. He makes his money from youtube. He is literally a Conservative. You can google "Ladd Ehlinger" racism. He thinks that all trans people are pedophiles, and that if anyone respects a trans kids' pronouns, that makes them a pedophile too. He thinks Black people are all violent killers who HAVE to be jailed a disproportionate rates to keep white people safe. He thinks that taxes paying for free school lunches for children is the same thing as slavery.

The actual book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, and the translation into 2024 English to make it easier to understand, are both completely and utterly free to read literally everywhere.

There's literally so many public domain designs for the narrator and the sphere. And you can literally create any design you want for them that you can imagine.

Here's a post of public domain designs for the narrator

Here's another one of designs for the narrator and the sphere. And another

And another one with a public domain design for the narrator and sphere

Here's another public domain design for the sphere. And another. And another (1). And another (2). And another (3). And another (4). And another (5).

Here's another group of public domain designs for the sphere. And another (1). And another (2).

And there's probably more I'm forgetting to link because I've made so many of them. There are literally infinite options for designs for these characters that don't do free advertising for a Conservative bigot who gets his money and attention from Youtube.

Here's an Internet Archive compilation of all the public domain designs.

[life-winners-liveblog]

Agree with Frista friendships are the best kinda ships (qprs too, but mostly frens)

Romance is a plague and im immune to the sickness but its still annoying to see all the infected peoples acting like its romance is the only option (im maybe a bit salty about romance being everywhere, dont get me wrong i dont mind shipping or couples most of the time, its just that when its always there at all times its easy to get annoyed)

9.2

I know right?!? I mean, its everywhere movie cartoons... I mean It's funny sometimes like the whole ranchers situation but still It's annoying.

...

At least if It's of any confort you don't live nextdoor to the literal god of romance so-

You called?!? Oh Drista!

NO! Go away, this is my thing! I am doing it not you!

...chill... anyway-

Velvet 2 deities are perhaps already enough I don't think theres a need for you to be here as well.

So yeah you can go-

But I want to help out with the dandelion husbands pining!!!

...ok he can stay.

What? I tought you disliked him?

As much as I REALLY don't want...him...here, Scotts and Jimmy's denial is going to phisically hurt me.

Yeah!!!

BUT don't be weird, or I'll ask Kristin to kick you out of this world.

*gasp* When have I ever been- nevermind... I promise to dial it back is that fine?

...And don't talk to me.

It's not like I would want to anyway... I am not even going to be here that often don't worry.

Children *sigh*

[waterfall-ambience]

nghm okay my take on the neuvillette 'ships' is that they're...all kinda boring? theres a lot of interesting dynamics to explore dont get me wrong but for all of them romance is the least interesting option lol. first is because i dont think he's romantically-inclined by nature (aroace king) but also he intentionally tries to keep people at arms length because of his position as iudex (so even if he has friendly connections i cant see anything 'more' than that actually working out) .

however the most interesting juxtaposition for his character imo is being so filled with love for the world and the people around him and simulataneously not experiencing 'love' in the way a lot of people traditionally understand it. he loves people so deeply no he does not want to pursue any of them romantically. it doesnt even have anything to do with him being a dragon, he's just like that.