#early morning rambles

[puddleonthefloor]

what if victim left chosen with the memory scanner in the box

and chosen was just stuck there with a memory paused on dark lord

his bestfriend(or lover whichever u hc) who was probably dead

for hours maybe

alone

[brekkie-e]

I have like five posts marinating in the fridge about how truly disappointed I am in the character dynamics outside of romances in BG3. But they're also annoying me because wow. It's 2023. Bioware just laid off a ton of writers. And I'm stewing about how much better at a "complete" narrative they are. But fr even SWTOR, which I would not place anywhere near the top of Bioware's writing game, has better friendship dynamics fleshed out. Characters that exist in the narrative that develop meaningful dynamics with the player that don't have anything to do with sex.

Where's BG3's Mordin Solus? No. Wither's doesn't count. Where's the inter party drama like Sera and Solas? Beefs that don't have sexual tension undertones. Where's the Wicked Grace scene where you get hit with the fact that this rag tag group of people have come to care about eachother?

It just feels so empty outside of the romances. And idk. I didn't want a dating sim with a side of dnd. I feel like you actually get more emotional investment out of characters like Rolan and Barcus than unromanced Gale or Wyll.

[lilysaus]

guys the cutest thing about me and my boyfriend is we took the same language in highschool, which means i could randomly send him "je t'aime" or "je t'adore" and hed immediately respond with "je t'aime aussi" or "je t'adore aussi" and it has me giggling with happiness

[dat2ndaccount97]

Everytime I see Taylor swift all that comes to mind is the one or two songs I know and the thought of "I wish they would make a new taylor swift doll". Because she's gorgoeus and has a lot of amazing outfits. I have one the old dolls from her country music days but it barely looks like her imo. I would love to see someone take another crack at it and hopefully do her justice.

[funkymbtifiction]

Can intuitives that are E6 be more optimistic and naive than other sixes? Being an N means that you have this sort of idealism in you, this hope for a better world or a better future, this optimism that things are going to be fine in the end. So, can an N who is also a 6 oscillate between this optimistic, idealized, naive way of thinking and a more down to Earth, overthinking, pessimistic view upon society and future in general?

Optimistic and idealistic, yes... but not necessarily naive. Naive means a lack of wisdom and that's more of an individual trait than a collective one for a particular type. Wisdom grows with experience for the person willing to learn from their mistakes. Intuitives can do this as 6s if they learn to think productively (what has this taught me, and what will it change for my behavior in the future); they are not doomed to forever be "had" because they are idealistic.

For me, being an intuitive 6w7 is like having a split personality. One of them is grumpy and fearful and suspicious and keeps people at an arm's length as specimens to view with skepticism and distrust; the other is a happy, cheerful "it will all turn out okay" person. But for me, I would say the balance is on realism more than fantastical thinking, because I do have Te in the mix. As an ENFP, I often hope for the best but reserve any kind of judgment out of a desire to "wait and see," unlike the judging 6s I have interacted with online and in person. I am comfortable with a certain amount of uncertainty and okay with allowing things to play out when I can't predict the end -- and unfortunately in some cases, being an intuitive, I am rather good at guessing where something is going (negatively). The struggle is between deciding if this is actual Intuition (an unemotional reading of the situation and predicting what will happen as a result of it) or fearful projection (6 coming up with worst-case scenarios). Which one it is often comes down to whether the facts fit my assumption or not.

For example, a friend's husband is in the hospital right now with a serious infection. Another 6 immediately leapt to the conclusion that he's going to die; I pointed out that he has survived against all odds before, there's no reason to think that THIS TIME his body is going to quit on him in his battle with cancer over the last six years. The facts support this conclusion and indeed, he has started to improve. But in the process of scanning him, they found a growth in his brain similar to the one that killed someone I know two months ago. And this is a case where I know he won't be here long. In the short term, he will be fine; but it's more than likely that he will fade in the next few months. Do I want to be optimistic about it? I do. I chose to be optimistic about his brief hospital stay because I felt supported in it by his survival against odds that would have killed someone else, thus far. But as a 6, I'm also rational and practical when I know what's coming.

As a 6w7, it's like I live my life as a fearful person who is staring into the darkness, but a large part of me wants to avoid those fears through ignoring them and choosing to see the bright side. I am never so 7ny that I am no longer a 6. I feel like a rubber ball bouncing between extremes. But I would say that all 6w7s are like this; you don't have to be an Intuitive to want a better future/life. It's just that intuition + 6 can cause you to worry about different things, and the temptation is always there to abstract away from a fearful situation and start speaking in generalized terms rather than specific ones.

I caught myself doing that this morning -- someone brought up a specific incident to me to talk about and my brain kept floating out and generalizing it as a way to tiptoe around it, cuz I don't exactly know what to say about it. What do I mean? Something like this: "My dog is dying." "Oh, it is so hard to lose a pet, they are so much a part of us, and yet we keep choosing the pain of loss for the temporary pleasure they bring us." It should be, "Oh, I am so sorry. I know how much Max means to you."

[catboynutsack]

I remember being small and my mother telling me that to not have to use a children's car seat anymore I'd have to be 8 years old or 80 pounds. and of course being a small child I lamented not being 80 pounds bc I hated my car seat and my mother was like NO!!!!!! IF YOU WERE 80 POUNDS YOU'D BE CHUNKY!!!!!!! and I was like. A child with no sense of fatphobia. and I could not fucking wrap my head around why being chunky would be a bad thing. after all I wouldn't have to be in the Dreaded Car Seat Anymore so like. I'm all for it. but my mother insisted that It Was Bad even though she literally could not define why. And I never fuckin understood her disdain towards the concept of me being fat.

anyways guess who's a fat adult and loving it and has zero contact with their mother

[kelddaa]

mornings in the desert

[lazylittledragon]

isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day

[shibusawaz]

crying because "a shallow bond" is exactly what caused fyodor's own downfall.

his lack of trust in nikolai, shown by not just taking the antidote right then and there. shown by being cold towards his friend and simply getting in the helicopter with no further words. the fact that, if he had stayed outside with nikolai or even beckoned him in the copter, he'd probably still be alive.

fyodor called dazai & chuuya's bond shallow but never faced the fact that his bonds are shallow as well.

dostoevsky's downfall begins with his sentence, "are you unfit to utilize a gravity manipulator?" with this sentence about chuuya, fyodor sums up his relationships with everyone who cares about him most. he sees them as tools to be used, not people he can rely on.

with ivan, who would literally give his life for him, fyodor brings him into battle once and casts him aside (which, by the way, stupid move fedya. ivan could've saved his ass too!)

with karma, who was nothing more than a boost for fyodor to get back on his feet.

with nikolai, who saw something in fyodor nobody else did, a friend. who tried to form a connection, to see beyond the "demon" in dostoy. who got cast aside anyways because fyodor doesn't see the value in other people's love.

fyodor's lack of trust makes his bonds shallow, which in turn makes him "need" to manipulate others so that he still gets his way. it's a vicious cycle for him, with the path of "trust" and "faith" in anyone else being too long and winding for his ambitious heart. once again, the path straight forward has nothing at the end.

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

The thing about Jon that a lot of people forget is that he is actually a rather well known figure all around Westeros. I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that he’s Ned’s most famous kid by a large margin, and perhaps even one of the more famous teens in Westeros; especially now that he has become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and his reputation has began to stretch to a different continent. Because of his very unusual origin - being honorable Ned Stark’s bastard son by an unknown woman - his name has been passed around in noble houses across the entire continent. He’s not some random kid from the North that no one has heard of. The majority of people may not have seen him, but they have at the very least heard of him.

I bring this up because people tend to act as if Jon would be automatically scoffed away by just about everyone if his true parentage ever came to light. After all, they say, why would anyone believe that some random kid from the north is a Targaryen prince? But this is not really true. Jon is not a random kid. His father was one of the most powerful men in the entire land. And not only that, but Ned’s reputation as an honorable man with no fault ensured that the scandal of begetting a bastard was known by everyone who is someone. The thing is, readers tend to ignore a very large gaping hole in the story when it comes to public perception of Jon’s parentage. People all over Westeros have been talking about Ned and his bastard, but no one can agree on the mother - this is actually important!

Most people would not have questioned Ned to his face, but they too want to know who Jon’s mother was, even if it’s just for a little bit of gossip among nobles. Jon’s parentage is a mysterious puzzle that a lot of people have tried to solve themselves. Catelyn hears one answer in Winterfell, but Davos hears another on his way to White Harbor. Edric Dayne from Dorne says a different name to Arya, while Cersei and Robert (who both live in KL) hear different things. That there’s so much variation all around Westeros is actually proof that a lot of people are talking about this one issue. And Ned’s refusal to name a woman may actually end up having unexpected consequences when someone finally mentions the name “Lyanna Stark”.

So I would like to push back on the belief that no one in Westeros would care about the R+L=J reveal or that they would immediately write Jon off. GRRM deciding to keep Jon’s mother an in universe mystery that is the topic of constant conversation will have major payoff. While I could see some being incredulous, it’s absolutely not a foregone conclusion that most people will choose not to believe it. And it’s not a foregone conclusion that this reveal will only matter to the Stark kids and no one else. Sure GRRM is playing with fantasy tropes, and Jon squarely falls under the hidden prince/king. But something that makes Jon quite different from a lot of his genre counterparts is that he’s not an unknown figure who shows up at the last minute to claim the crown. Jon is not an unknown entity. He is well known, it’s just that very few people have dared to think too deeply about the very large elephant in the room regarding his origin. But I’d imagine that if R+L=J was to be revealed, it wouldn’t be too shocking for a lot of people. It’s not so far fetched that honorable Ned Stark actually chose to protect his sister’s son.

And in regards to GRRM playing with fantasy tropes, Young Griff always comes up in conversation as Jon’s foil. People say that he will be the one to be believed because he looks the part of a Targaryen, whereas a random kid from the North won’t be believed because of his brown hair and grey eyes. Jon doesn’t look like some random unrecognizable Northman. He very specifically looks like a Stark! And anyway, is Jon’s story - that Ned took him in after his sister died and raised him as his own under the protective banner of House Stark - any less believable than Young Griff’s - that Varys had the foresight to save him and whisk him off to Essos before the Mountain bashed his head in? Until now, people have never heard of Young Griff so they’ve never had the opportunity to ruminate over and gossip about his origin story. But they know Jon. And they know about Rhaegar and Lyanna. And Jon looking so very undeniably like a Stark (like Lyanna Stark!) could perhaps work in his favor.

[thoughtsthatstayedwithme]

[foldingfittedsheets]

I went and stood in front of a judge who said congratulations and got my name changed. Now I have to wait two weeks for my social security appointment before I can change my ID or passport, but I did the first step!

[eiraeths]

ghost and soap retiring and have a baby, and someone tells ghost that the kids gonna be just like him. he hates it, loathes the idea of his baby being anything like him. soap catches onto this quick, and over time manages to convince ghost this isn’t a bad thing, and he’d love their kid being just like him. eventually, ghost settles on the bittersweet notion that he’s going to do the best for his baby no matter what. if they turn out like him then he’ll get to see what he would’ve been like if he grew up in a happy home, and had a wonderful childhood.

[karniss-bg3]

The Tragedy of Faith

So between tumblr and twitter I've read various takes on Kar'niss and what draws people to him. For some it's the monster fucking appeal, for others it's the desire to fix a clearly broken individual. There are in-betweens and of course this is subjective and depends on the person. Act 2 spoilers ahead. Where my personal interest comes from is how good Larian communicated the tragedy of faith and what a cult can do to a person. Kar'niss is a creature that has been broken by not one God, but two. Lolth broke him physically, the Absolute broke him mentally. His entire identity has been lost to a deity to the point he raises her in his speech. Referring to her as "Majesty" and "Queen", two terms you don't really hear anyone else address her as, he has elevated her to his final savior and leader. He also often refers to himself as "we" and "us", cementing him as part of the hive mind rather than holding any individuality of his own. When he does refer to himself as "I", it's mostly to show further loyalty to the Absolute, to maintain a position of importance in his fractured mind. Cults are notorious for targeting the most vulnerable in society as they are the easiest to mold and manipulate to their doctrine. The fact that goblins are one of the main races that fall to the Absolute's influence is telling in that regard, as they are often dismissed by the other races. Kar'niss was ripe for the picking, an easy target to lure into her arms. No doubt he was found shortly after Lolth twisted him into a drider and banished him, he didn't stand a chance.

Not even taking those elements into account, Kar'niss came from a society that is infamous for cruelty and violence, especially toward males of their species. Drow greatest hits include, but are not limited to: -Killing their young if they are not aesthetically pleasing enough. In other words, ugly. -Sacrificing every third born son to Lolth.

-If a male finds the favor of two competing females, it often doesn't end well for the male. The rival woman will kill the male and chuck his dead body into his opponents bedchambers, just for the sake of being petty.

-Love and emotions of any sort are in short supply, if not outright unseen as a general rule. The nature of drow to backstab and seek to rise in the ranks makes it near impossible to be anything other than fierce and domineering.

With these things in mind, it's easy to assume that Kar'niss had a turbulent upbringing and likely suffered untold abuse from many around him. It's not to say that good or reasonable drow don't exist, it's just not commonplace in a Lolthite society. Unfortunately, the game doesn't give us a great deal to go on as far as his past. What little he reveals only happens after he's dead, and even then its really a cliffs notes version. What we do know is that his devotion is intense and unwavering. He's willing to die for the Absolute because in his mind the Absolute are the only ones who care about him. We even see fellow followers talk down to him, dismiss him, and verbally eye-roll the guy. To them, his fanaticism is over the top and they follow the same God he does.

All told, this leads me to the conclusion that Kar'niss has never, or rarely, known true compassion in his entire life. He's been used as a puppet for one deity or another, and likely mocked or cast aside even when he did everything right. It doesn't surprise me that there are folks who desire a romance option, or barring that a side venture to break him free of the Absolute's hold. We don't know if Kar'niss did terrible things in his past, or where his moral compass sits as his entire personality revolves around God. But I'd love to know, and I crave more background on him in one form or another.

I've spent too much time thinking about different paths that could happen in-game. I also understand it's incredibly unlikely he'll ever become a companion. The sheer amount of time and resources needed to give a character a satisfying arc is likely more than Larian can do with other constraints, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. So Kar'niss lovers, platonic, romantic, or everything in-between...I gotchu fam. We stan the spooder bby. Someone get that man a blanket and a nice mug of hot cocoa. And a cult de-programming kit, one of those would be good.

[themintman]

was it casual when you stayed up all night researching and brewing potions, trying to find some way to bring my undead body back to life?

[beetlestarshine]

So in love with him it makes me look stupid