#like i actually really like how the characters know theres a player

[vodkaslyme]

Friday Nights are so uncomfortable

[gothteddiesdotcom]

I think that part of what like. kills me about the whole media literacy and critical thinking aspect of enjoying media these days is that people refuse to like. contextualize that

A. Bad media can still hold significant meaning to people

B. Media made for a demographic you aren’t apart of is not inherently bad media

C. Media made for and consumed by the opposite demographic is not inherently shallow or flawed nor is it above criticism for its media tropes either.

[wheelercore]

Theory with no coherent proof on my part: brenner only visibly ages rapidly when a portal is open.

[ganondoodle]

totk is like a highly polished alpha build of a game to me

graphic- fantastic, i just love botws style of graphics, its the perfect blend of something more realistic but very stylized and timeless

visual design- great, i cant stand anything sonau (zonai), and ganondorfs concept art is better than final (and still involves lots of annyoing stereotypes) but overall still pretty solid

sound design- phenomenal, it really is, the underground, the rain on the parasail? unmatched, already loved botw but they really outdid themselves here

music- possibly best in the series to me, like ... theres so many fantastic tracks, in isolation i love so many of them so much ... which sucks bc being connected to such a lackluster rest sours them badly

mechanics- working but undercooked/unfit for the world, its impressive they got ultrahand working at all, but its still clunky/quickly frustrating and badly balanced also contributes to utterly destroying botws world design- this ability was simply not made for this world and is in the end both detrimental to it and itself, bc that mechanic could have truly shined in a game REALLY build around it (... if they could manage to balance it well and stop handing you the solution, it would be funyn if it werent so sad how many times the game literally doesnt even make you engage with its main gimmick bc it just hands you the prebuild thing) time reversal breaks every puzzle/challenge, also unbalanced, ceiling jump is the most harmless but i still think it lets you skip too much

writing- worst in the series, where would i even start with that, not a single character is written well/interestingly, most detrimentally the main characters, .. like all of them, zelda, ganondorf, rauru... and the "story", its barely even bare bones, its plain cardboard with an old divine right propaganda slogan written on, continuity in a direct sequel is non existant, there is no follow up on anything, why did they call it that when they dont seem to have any love for anything botw did given how much they trample over everything it established, i struggle to believe they actually thought this was good, theres has to have been trouble during development

world design/changes- a joke, ... i dont know how people dont feel scammed by how little was actually changed, no, a few rocks sprinkled througout are not meaningful changes, i was one of the people not worried about them reusing the world bc i loved this world and was sure theyd meaningfully change it- god how wrong i was; the sky and underground are both like the bare bones with textures and placeholder rewards/points of interest, they both do not matter at all and their potential is yet again utterly, painfully, wasted and only add more points of destruction to the map in case of the sky, and both add confusion about everything, not the good kind of intriguing confusion, the bad nothing makes sense confusion it really does seem like they put some quick changes into every main point of interest where most players would go to make them think they changed things when .. they only changed these parts, barely, either bc they knew everyone would skip around the world anyway so it wouldnt be worth it, or bc its ... unfinished

game design/structure- baffling (bad), connected to the point above, but it truly is beyond me why they repeated the exact same structure as botw while removing what made that work, why would you repeat every point of interest of the previous game, i know zelda games always have their regions and thats where stuff happens, but they REUSED THE SAME WORLD, you CANNOT repeat the exact same points in the same world, you just cant, its the same places, the same characters, the same structure (aka dungeons being less interesting/easier titans (divine beasts) with a paint job in structure), you basically erase the well integrated ancient tech civilization to replace it with another, not well integrated, more boring and overly pushed into your face, ancient tech civilization and make them the answer to everything that ever was (BORING), the same story structure (but worse, like the memory system but remove what made it work in botw)- AND THEN repeat the same points in the underground too? thats bonkers, literally baby bananas

dungeons/puzzles - worse than botw by FAR, as mentioned above, dungeons are less interesting titans with a paintjob (plus an extraordinarily awful cutscene, which is repeated like FIVE TIMES almost word for word), they serve no purpose but to act like they are totally real traditional dungeons when they are not, they are laughing at you, shrines are back with a paintjob with less interesting puzzles (if they even have one given how many just give you a spirit orb knock off) that can all be skipped, though the puzzles can often not even be called that (put log over gap WOOOAH puzzle) among many awful and unecessary tutorial ones (its not bad to have easy ones, but aside from the few ones that take all your stuff away -omg restrictions in MY freedom tm game??- which are the best ones, to have none be even a little challenging or not utterly skippable without even using glitches, its like they didnt even try to stop you from cheating, which is like being given a skip button with no strigns attached, doesnt even let you feel smart bc you dont have to try to cheat)

UI/controls- awful, you cant tell me this was tested by real people playing for longer than 10 minutes at once, how did the ghosty sage control scheme and arrow/weapon fusing get through this, HOW, its unbelievably tedious and detrimental to any fun (as im doing with my rewrite, a crafting system would have been so good here ..... like a proper simple crafting system, have the materials, craft your new arrow types in stacks etc) the ghost sages are not only utterly useless in combat, but clog your screen, play distracting animations as soon as you look at a slope, you constantly accidentally activate them or the wrong one bc its mapped to the main interact button!!! if you use them say goodbye to your framerate, fights are now spent chasing after some ghost guy whos actively running away from you, they do not invoke a feeling of 'connection' to my 'friends', they are invoking feelings of hatred and frustration

performance- ... passable (if you dont have the sages out .... well, it runs better than pokemon scarlet so i guess its fine, the lag when closing and opening the menu is rly annoying, especially combined with the finger and patience breaking menues and how often you need to open a game pasuing menue, but fights with a monster horde AND the sages out? yeah no its as bad as pokemon scarlet at its worst, not to mention the chaos of having five useless ghost scramble around you getting knocked around by enemies)

price- a scam, this game is not worth 70 bucks, its just not, if you get a used copy and dont spend more time in it than it takes for you to just go straight to the main points, or if you dont care about anything else but dicking around with a clunky building system ... then you can have some fun with it yeah ..... still not worth 70 money, theres probably better building games out there for less too

it jsut feels not done, not finished, its presentation and some parts are highly polished and their marketing for it is unlike anything i have ever seen, but its so .... unfinished, no amount of epic visuals is gonna let me not think of this game being half done at best, after what, 6 years of development no less? with most assets already being there and being reused unaltered??

(i am holding tightly onto the theory of it either having an extremely troubled development that is being hidden bc of their reputation, or some sort of neglect in order to focus on other more lucrative projects, this is just all too weird to me)

[diristine]

What are your top SCP tale recommendations? Just based on what you personally liked <3

APOLOGIES FOR TAKING SO LONG WITH THIS!!!

So, for my top tale recommendations? This is very biased as a Glass, Clef, and Robert enjoyer, but I’m going to give a few tales that can help introduce dynamics and often overlooked aspects of the characters in my personal opinion!

An Apple A Day… (Glass does his job, and we will all cry at the end)

SCP-5434 (Not a tale I know, but its a very interesting anomaly and we get to see proper characterization of this man doing his job. It’s actually wonderful)

djkaktus’ proposal III (A 001 proposal, it is very well written and it gives you another idea as to why the O5s are what they are. It’s truly an interesting tale and if you manage to make the long read, theres a surprise character for you to find)

hawaiian shirts (Clef, Found Family, bro still cares)

So leave yourself alone. (ATTEMPTED SUICIDE WARNING, Clef, found family.)

Father of Lies (What if Clef was merely a concept to be passed on between agents?)

Number One With A Bullet (Another Clef tale, one where he kinda does his job and you can tell. He cares more than people give him credit for)

Icky & Ichabod (Agent Ukelele, also gives us an idea of how fucked up Lilly has him. How he’s desperate to hide his relationship with her, it’s one of the few Ukelele tales out there but it does it’s job well.)

Who’s Afraid of A Red Starfish En Blues? (Robert Carter, it’s specifically the Black Diamond Billions canon but I love him okay)

Eat Your Food! (Robert Carter, Iris Dark & Chrysophilus “Skitter” Marshall. I absolutely adore the relationships and characterization found in this really silly tale, you get to know all three heirs. While I’m not usually an Iris fan, in here? I absolutely adore her)

Happiness Can’t Come From Assignments (A Chrysophilius tale and he is baby and deserves so much better ok)

A Pound of Flesh, A Piece of Meat (A Ruprecht Carter and Percival Darke tale, and where my personal hc that all the founders of MC&D are in a complex ex polycule came from)

Now, heres some series/canons/hubs that I do recommend as well!! If you want to dive deeper into where I pull inspiration from nowadays, and these are honestly just great and wonderfully written series that I feel should be read.

Ressurection (A Canon Hub, that focuses namely on Clef and Alpha-9. Honestly for recommending tales I could have put most of the tales in this canon in there. In fact a few are from this canon, its my favorite iteration of Alto Clef and the one that mine is based off of!!)

Wills & Ways (A Marshall, Carter, and Dark series, only 4-5 short tales long. Its found easily in their GOI hub. It’s a good basis to go on if you want to dabble your knowledge of the players at hand. This is where a lot of my own MC&D things are based out of. The lack of information made it super fun to interpret what goes on)

The Black Lotus Series (Its a tale series thats hidden in the Orneroi Collective Hub, and it has bits and pieces of a darker side of Glass we usually never see. Bits and pieces of my Glass are constructed from this series)

Black Diamond Billions (It’s a canon hub thats just surrounding MC&D, what makes it very fun and interesting is how the characters are portrayed. Its very different than how my versions of the heirs and their parents are, however, it is so well written and I truly adore it. I honestly intend on drawing more inspiration/things from this hub as well as Wills & Ways)

The GOC Casefile Series (Ive never read it, but @clefrot enjoys it so I think its a series people should read. Including myself)

Now for a few honorable mentions that aren’t pivotal to anything that simply make me giggle!

Clef Goes to the DMV

LTE-7433-Goodrick-Kringle— “Serial Teleporting Ursine”

12 angry penguins

Scenes from a Comprehensive Clusterfuck

Therapy for the Lizerd

Mary Sue Who

Micky D’s

[drunkrabbitsobs]

so, what the fuck was that shit.

the finale sucked i just started writing about the season, heres my barely spell checked thoughts.

this season had many issues but the mains ones are this

flanderization

no consequences

no follow through

disjointed storylines

whatever the fuck carols story was

poppy oh god poor poppy im so sorry the writers did this to you

let's start at the top, flanderization. it was real bad this season. though it effected rachel the worse.

Season 1 Rachel is a well meaning leftist test player who wants to ask out the girl she likes but is too nervous.

Season 2 Rachel is a well meaning leftist test player who wants to ask out the girl she likes but is too nervous, but then does it anyway awwwwwww. Then she and her partner end up working directly with Poppy and Ian each.

season 3 Rachel is a well meaning leftist... who doesn't have a job, ends up being given one cuz she's magically good at monetization now.

season 4 Rachel argues before congress for child labor.

the fuck happened here. how does one go from awww shy leftist wants to ask out her crush, to child labor? well you start with a character who only existed to be in a relationship and you have her keep existing afterwards. the writers didn't know what to do with dana and Rachel, so they made Dana an over-righteous dumbass and rachel fucking this.

it sucks, it's bad, it's not the only flanderization this season. brad, who before this points biggest manipulative move was *checks notes* buying a mug that said 'battle royal' on it,

tries to burn down his house

breaks into people's cars and moves stuff around to "take away there sense of safety"

almost embezzles from the company stopping only at the last second.

I like Brad being evil but this just isn't in character. His motivation over the whole season has been muddy and unclear. though this does lead us right into

no consequences

There are no consequences for anything. Rachel argues for child labor In Front of congress, she's a bit bummed for a couple days. carol fucks the testers, she had a dream. Brad pretends to be David's friend for 6 months, literally nothing. theres no stakes, i dont buy that naything bad can happen cuz theres ni fucking consequences.

no follow through

Dana is shown up by a younger coder so she... hmm, uh she.. makes a new game, but then that turns into brads plot and she gets fired and he... doesn't? She says she's her generations best coder cuz she made a roblox game, and then in the finale she is working at mythic quest again.

Besides the proposal (which was more about Rachel anyway) this is all Dana does this season.

brad he uh, is hunting himself? maybe? first couple eps i guess. he meets his ex they fuck. hmm, he tries to scam david but gets caught in a pretty good ep. but then like its just fine again afterwards. then finale he's head of monetization again? somehow? and like he just throws away the thumb drive and it means??? i guess he chose mythic quest over anna, but like why? Is he still working for dana? Are both him and Rachel head of monetization? did she actually get fired and they just needed to shove more carol plot in there so they cut it out. ??????????????????????????????????????????

david, i dont even fucking know man. he wants friends, he makes them, there both conservative and progressive. like there really into the long hair and stuff idk. he has the whole beach ep, the joke of oh it sounds like he's asking ian out. really what has he done this season i can't think of a thing.

jo, she had like the start of an arc, like looking for a purpose. only to conclude her purpose is being an assistant. and now she has this job and like.... why? why'd they give it to her? why didn't they actually show us her doing... anything? She had the beginning and the end of an arc but no actual arc part.

disjointed storylines

In the finale the a and b plot never once interact. throughout there's this issue of there's the grimpop storyline and then there's the rest. everything else is secondary to these 2 characters. It kinda feels like you took 2 different shows, mythic quest the workplace comedy with an ensemble cast and a slow burn romance dramedie and just smashed 'em together. it just doesn't fit, Ian and poppy dont fit.

whatever the fuck carols story was

God, what was that and why did we spend so much time on it?

idk if i'm reading too much into it but like, having a black woman fantasize and dream about doming 2 white men and making them kiss... idk it feels racist. like that + the guy in the finale saying dana had a mean face, which like her whole thing originally was that she was chill (right im remembering that correctly. That was her thing) idk carol and dana definitely played a lot more into the stereotype of mean black women this season.

poppy oh god poor poppy im so sorry the writers did this to you.

where to start

before this season poppy was a virgin, she was a fucked up little goblin who ate from the trash and couldnt hold down a friendshipoutside of mythic quest nonetheless a relationships. Now she's... really good at sex and can handle a fling.

couldn't handle condoms through cuzs she's pregnant. and... she keeps it. why. like genuinely why would she keep it, poppy doesn't like kids, she's focused on her job, she's not even dating storm. she has no reason to keep it beyond "of course i'm keeping it, it's amazing when you think about it," poppy keeps the baby cuz its a sitcom and they refuse to consider any other option.

ian. ian who was poppy's childhood idol, ian who was her first and only boss, ian who made everything about him in their 15 year partnership. Poppy decides she is done with him, but comes right back. season 3 was right in the end i guess, "it is what it is" they kiss. Poppy kisses the man who controlled her life for 15 years, the man she almost escaped, and the credits roll. I don't know what's next for Poppy, but I do know this.

they cant have them be romantic, it sends the message that they are a good couple. The relationship is incredibly unhealthy and built upon ian seeing her as a surrogate mom.

they cant have them be abusive cuz its a sitcom and Rob McElhenney isnt gonna write his own character as abusing a pregnant woman.

idk what they do, but ill i can think is, what happens when the baby comes. ian wont change, the ending was them deciding not to. he will want poppy to be with him at all times all her focus on him, it'll be like when a 5 year old gets a baby sibling and they hate them cuz they used to have all the attention. but ians a grown man with more power over poppy than I could ever describe. 

[omgwhatchloe]

What is the biggest rdr theory that pisses you off the most

oh god i have a few

so firstly, i hate theories that basically grab the canon/implied rockstar gave us and stamp all over it because it could technically be possible that something else MIGHT have happened. for example, rockstar gave us a canon rat which was micah yet we still have full force rat theories everywhere against every character in the fandom that isn’t micah, which is really weird. rockstar wrote for the whole rat plot to go like this: we don’t know who it is, then we think its molly, then we know its micah. i really dont think they planned to have people actually debate over the storyline. its the same with who jack’s dad is. it’s really obvious in rdr1 that the game was written/designed so that, despite dutch and bill trying to get under johns skin with comments about abigail, it was obvious those comments were false and jack was literally designed to be johns biological son. like written, designed, animated to be johns son.

secondly, i hate theories surrounding something that technically COULD be possible but PROBABLY ISNT, just a waste of time in my opinion. like pregnancy theories. like yes karen did have sex with sean and so TECHNICALLY its not impossible for her to be pregnant, however nowhere in the game was that implied to be something that was happening. its obvious when you play the story that no writer, no one behind rockstar was even thinking of adding that to the story, theres nothing to imply it, theres no hidden details suggesting it, theres no benefit to the story or player by having it in the story and so rockstar never added it. its not impossible, but also it really isnt there in my opinion. the exact same with molly’s, yes its not impossible but at the same time its not there, you wont find any details or suggestions to it. what i mean by “its not there” is: you can say dutch is secretly a blonde and dyes his hair and while that theory isn’t impossible technically, its also just not there. just so obviously not written to be in the story despite the fact its not impossible.

honestly i hate all the theories involving the women. like how molly was pregnant, molly was a rat, karen was pregnant, abigial was the rat etc. idiot fans stay AWAY from the women characters i beg.

[scalpelsister]

dark justiciar shadowheart is genuinely so interesting to me as like... a facet to her character. like it really hammers home how desperate she is for shar's love and affection (+ the validation and love from other worshipers of shar). like in a lot of ways I get that it seems shocking to others / some fans because it really does contradict some of the morals we see her express BUT imo that just speaks to the level of desperation she feels. her comments on how shar "must" love her for her to survive the shadowcursed lands, or the bit where she talks about shar nurturing her and loving her and sounds... almost more like shes trying to convince herself more than shes trying to convince you. theres a bit about other sharrans not thinking she had earned her name, and of course the mother superior not thinking she was ready / worthy of being a dark justiciar. like shes just so completely desperate to feel unconditionally and securely loved, and to earn the approval of others that shes entirely willing to injure herself in the process (as well as.... the people who actually love her, of course).

not to mention that mechanically, afaik, she can only end up there if shes encouraged to by the player. ie... she needs to know someone else approves.

[itsmewahoo]

im currently playing Wanderstop and im genuinely having a good time. im six hours in so heres my impressions so far. first thing i need to add is that ppl might have these expectations and may not vibe with it upon playing. it is a narrative game first and a 'cozy sim' second. the bulk of it is dialogue which i personally dont mind because i really like the characters but you go through a lot of text and some folks will be turned off by the more visual novel heavy side of it

now for the actual gameplay. some slight spoilers for gameplay mechanics

this is coming from someone who doesnt really play life sims but i personally liked the monotony and grind of the tea shop simulation. it felt kind of cathartic to just do some weeding, planting and sweeping. theres honestly is no rush and the game lets you do it at your own pace until you decided its time to move on. I always look forward to making tea for the customers because i get to know them just a little bit more and get a taste of what they are like outside the teashop. Just like an actual shop customers come and go and it isnt your job to solve their personal problems, you listen and eventually they have to leave and you say goodbye so dont get too attached.

theres also a mechanic later in the game for narrative purposes basically resets the teashop. all your hard work and the ppl youve met are now gone and its a new season, new plants and new customers. some players might feel invalidated by this decision and even Alta is pissed but the themes of the game are about burnout, change and pacing yourself. you didnt have to do all that work, you didnt have to clean every single spot and you didnt have to collect every single decoration to put in the shop.

its kinda joked and hinted early on that there are no rules and Alta just really needs something to do and Boro (your friend and teashop owner) basically lets her do whatever she wants so its these self imposed rules that you create for this 'cozy sim' that kind of drive you and Alta to just do these menial tasks which you dont have to do. the thing that moves the plot is making tea for customers so really its up to the player (Alta) on how much hard work and time you put into it. i personally like this mechanic especially with the themes of the game but i totally understand if that could frustrate players.

i also liked making tea for Alta so she can sit down and reflect on her thoughts and memories which are fully voice acted. the customers are very unique and diverse and they have their own quirks. Boro especially is great. Hes a sweetheart and is very patient with the impatient Alta. We sometimes need a Boro in our life

Overall im having an absolutely wonderful time with the game. I'll probably post again once i finish the game👌

[the-s1lly-corner]

can u do tadc cast (or probably just a few bc this prompt isn’t very creative) x a reader who looks like the player from animal crossing? ball hands,,, maybe weirdly good at crafting things,, gets stung by bees sometimes mayhaps. Maybe they speak animalese and nobody ever knows what they’re saying LMAO

TADC cast x reader whos like an animal crossing player!

depending on what time it is when i finish writing this, i think imma take a short break to stretch my legs and make something YAHOO!! hope you enjoy this anon!! this reminds me, i cleared out my island by making it totally flat... but i never actually... got to decorating it... huh.... commitment is scary, guys

CAINE:

i think as a funny haha gag thing, how funny would it be if he could actually understand you. like you cant talk, and the noise youre limited to is to your "emotes", but somehow someway for some reason, caine can understand you... genuinely impressed by your crafting and even sometimes asks you to make random things just to see if you can make it! expect some really odd and random requests! not at all phased that you can pick things up with your weird orb hands, hes used to the digital world and its weirdness... thinks...

POMNI:

hey at least theres someone the same height as her in this place...!/hj

tries hard to understand your funky emotes and body language but shes at a loss... i mean at least you can still pick stuff up and try to write, so at theres some method of commutating asides from simply trying to learn how to read you! though, she is a bit unnerved by your silence and how your face is mostly stagnant when you arent.... emoting.. a static smile can get a little unnerving when youre standing next to the person and understand thats its a real person.. you know?

a little confused on how you can just pull things out from thin air, but does admit that it can be useful... has probably tried to ask you to make an exit out of desperation because hey if anyone can make one it would be you so whats the harm in trying (my girl is losing it)

RAGATHA:

i think you guys bond over the crafting; since ragatha makes stuff too, like pillows and clothing and plushies and the like! sure you guys may not be making the exact same things, but you both create and thats enough to bring you two together! doesnt mind that you cant talk, in fact i think after the chaos of a day in the digital circus she embraces the calmness around you... scolds you for constantly being stung by bees, though... though she tries not to be too mean or harsh since its not like youre trying to get stung on purpose... but please just be careful... she worries about you, afterall!

honestly ragatha doesnt have individual fingers, so the fact you can function with balls hands doesnt phase her

JAX:

really touching on the fact you have an inventory that you can hide stuff in i think he would slide you things to hide for him; especially its hes going a "imma do something to someone as a prank then run and use you to hide the evidence" ... you know usual jax antics where he tries to get the reader to help him with his trickery. whether or not you actually aid him is totally up to you. probably makes fun of your short height and the fact youre always getting stung. probably points and laughs when he watches you run around while literally being chased by a swarm. promptly screams when you make a run towards him, thus bringing the bees to him. you have probably bopped him with your net after he says something particularly not-nice, me thinks... or maybe you just dont like him and youre constantly bopping him, i mean i do enjoy it when the reader doesnt like a character but you can easily ignore this little aside if you want this to be a friendship or romance!

KINGER:

OOOOO imagine you come with the basic ring/inventory of tools (net, shovel, watering can, fishing rod, ect) and you can just pull it out of no where.... oooooouuugh imagine taking your net out around him and (wordlessly) offering to go look for bugs with him,.. kind of panics when you get stung by the digital bees; probably helps you patch up... honestly i think given that kinger is all about bugs, i think its a safe bet he would know how to treat bites and stings... so hes your man if youre really bad about avoiding bees and the like! can see tropes that trope where like "whats that? little timmys stuck in the well?? (but thats not what you said/meant)" because youre like emoting and trying to direct his attention somewhere but he gets it. so totally wrong and commits to it before you can stop him. i just think thats funny

ZOOBLE:

thinks youre... odd. though... imagine you can change up your style and appearance by simple interacting with a mirror and wardrobe. i think they would think thats cool, that you can just... do that... zooble has to rip their body parts off (sounds way worse than it actually is, LMAO). probably gives you this look when you walk into the tent to show that once again, youve been attacked by a swarm of bees.... how do they always only sting your left eye...? is that just how your digital body shows the injury, or do they just... no nevermind, theyre just going to give out a sigh before taking you to caine or kinger for medicine. definitely gets onto you for constantly messing with the digital bees, though...

GANGLE:

honestly between all the characters i can easily see her being an animal crossing fan... and while she may not remember all of her old life, i like to think that subconsciously she would recognize you for what your digital body is intimidating... bonus if in the real world animal crossing was her comfort, so naturally, she instinctively finds comfort in you even if she cant totally pin point it... though, she has trouble understanding you outside of your emotes... but even then when you do an angry stamp or shed tears she cant quite pinpoint why youre upset... oooo please make her an art easel! i think that would be a great gift for her and she will be absolutely over the moon!

[necrokunn]

Mr. Qi headcanons + SDV headcanons in general (1/2)

Okay, I've seen people being interested with the lore and headcanons I cooked up for Mr Qi, and by people, I mean two. (You know who you are) I'll be making two parts, first is what I cooked up for Qi's backstory and the 2nd part is my whole psychoanalysis on the guy's personality (its long) But before I actually dive into Mr. Qi's backstory, I need to tell my headcanons I have of SDV in general. So for what I have for SDV is that- well its a game, but not just any ordinary game. This universe is set in a universe where I just put all my ocs in it so I dont have to organize everything in specific universes, and well- MAGIC EXISTS IN THIS UNIVERSE!!

My idea for SDV is that it works like Greed island from HxH. If you don't know what Greed island is, its a game that takes place in the real world, a console teleports you to an isolated/uncharted land and thats where the game takes place. SDV is a highly sought after game, but theres barely any copies of it, and instead of one developer, theres actually two. The first one is obv CA and he works outside of the game (but I'll make a different character so I dont disrespect the guy) and the other one is Qi, who works within. Qi isnt really known as the co-developer of the game since he prefers to be anonymous(?) so that it comes to as a surprise when players (especially exploiters) realize that he isnt an NPC. I havent really written Qi's backstory in full detail but I already have like- main key points, he's a guy who seeks something out of the ordinary, a challenge, anything that is unpredictable to him, he led a mundane life back then, but then just decided to test his limits. With what? Idk yet, like I said I havent really written it in detail.

Qi kinda looks after the valley kinda like how Razor does on Greed Island, keeps out the trespassers who got into the game via traveling and not by console, or people who find a way to exploit. So anyways, digressing from Qi's backstory rq. Every story is already written and fabricated within the game. This is when my farmer oc comes into the picture, her name is Millicent, Millie for short. Shes like every other player, except for some reason- her choices, her actions- somehow changes the game Like it slowly get it's own storyline, no longer limited to the code, kinda like becoming sentient in a way. So of course, this intrigued Qi and decided to give her challenges far different from what he usually gives to other players.

And that concludes the first part for what I have cooked up for Qi

If you have questions, ask away, I don bite and I really like to interact with yall

Also have the first ever doodles I made of him

[softness-and-shattering]

Im not the first person to complain about fatphobia in baldurs gate 3. Its just a lot worse than not being able to make fat player characters, tav or durge. Its that there are almost no fat people at all in this whole world.

Ive played close to 300 hours, and I havent fully explored act 3. There's some characters who are quite large. Halsin is tall and broad but he has a trim six pack. So does Karlach, despite being buff she has quite a narrow waist. Weird to be a barbarian without serious core strength. Korilla and Hope are very curvy, but no belly.

I can only think of two actually fat characters are neither are great. One is Glut, the myconid sovereign who asks you to betray Spaw, when you have no other reason to dislike Spaw. Firstly, the name. Glut - Glutton - he's fat. You dont have to also name him fatso. He feel entitled to a colony of myconids and is happy to kill Spaw about it, its just an ownership rulership ambition there's no justice to it. And if you refuse you have to kill him. So firstly he's non-human, non-humanoid, the hobgoblin specifically states than myconids have way less going on mentally than the player character and its kind of unclear to me if they're a hivemind or not. In that fantasy grey area of if they're properly people rather than unusually conscious vegetables. And he's also basically an asshole.

The other fat character is Thisobald Thorm. To begin with he's undead, and the son of a major undead villain. Not a great start. Second, he has four legs. Yes there are lots of unusual human variations and I suppose a person could have four legs and that would be fine. But why make that Thisobalds 'quirk'. Its clearly that he's soooo fat that he cant possibly move around on two legs so lets give him another set and make him monstrous. He needs to move around because he can be a mini-boss battle and it would be soooo hard to animate two big legs, or even two comically small legs. Nah we gotta give him four, evoke monstrosity. And then, the ways that encounter can go, is you either totally ignore him, or you interact. If you interact, you have to kill him, and if you talk your way through it he literally explodes from being too fat. Theres lines about his stomach seems like its going to burst open from all its holding and then it does. And then theres no body left behind, just the pile of gore thats also left behind when you raise zombies. He cant even be a humanoid corpse, he explodes so violently from sheer fatness that nothing recognisable is left behind.

And yes I know the excuse is that hes drinking this super intense poison alcohol brew and thats what gets him. That doesnt make it better. I dont know of any toxic substance that makes a person explode. Its not otherwise explosive. That isnt a thing that happens. There's no point someone gets so fat and so full that they explode. Its a gross outcome for a character you're intended to be entirely disgusted by. (its also not any kind of representation for people who consume various uh tabboo substances but I cant really speak to that aspect).

Two fat people, neither entirely human or allowed to be a person, one an asshole and one with no good ending. Like. cmon. You figured out how to animate dragonborn faces, and tails, you can have people be fat. It isnt actually a monstrous trait its actually super normal, its weird and urealistic that everyone in all of Faerun is slim. That doesnt happen in real life. The gender/sex options, and the vitiligo, thats fantastic. Yes keep representing and letting us play as all kinds of different people. Add some body types that arent just tall short/slim muscular too! For the player and the NPC's.

[wackywatchdotcom]

I've found it interesting that both Jax and Ragatha are essentially two sides of the same coin. How they mask their true feelings and interact with others is always some kind of front.

However, they both seem to have tried to reach out to Pomni in a way they hadn't with the others (Jax after Pomni spent an adventure with Kinger, his attempt at reaching out at Spudsy's) (Ragatha pretty much all of episode two etc)

I am wondering that, since she is new, they are trying, in their own way, to get validation from the new person without realizing it yet.

i agree so so much!!!! jax and ragatha feel like theyre very specifically associated with one another writing wise VERY deliberately. the theme song alone separates the characters into chunks (gangle zooble and kinger. ragatha jax and kaufmo) that pair the two up, theyre constantly interacting, that they share two spotlight eps, and so on. almost all of the characters, imo, have some sort of narratively significant dynamic, but jax and ragatha is absolutely one that is given extra detail, which definitely highlights the idea that theyre VERY different but also VERY similar in an important way

jax is decidedly the most Mean of the cast, and ragathas the most Nice, put simply (bc that is subjective, but i think the opposite degrees of friendliness the two exhibit are pretty clear), but that in itself IS some sort of mask, with their masks getting partially dropped in ep 4- i dont think theyre fully dropped and i dont think it has to do with 'jax is secretly nice' or 'ragatha is secretly mean' so much as the episode highlights the idea that theres more context to why they act how they do, and that the two of them are both putting on some kind of performance, though the extent of that isnt so cut and dry i think

i think ive seen it described better by others than i could but i think its very much that they are what the other lacks, in the least healthy ways possible. id consider them foils, because a person could argue theyre far more similar than meets the eye (with the severity of their masks and that both display an at least partially disingenuous happiness) but i think that they still mirror each other strongly enough that its them being foils that actually highlights these similarities at all- everything they do is opposite from one another, even down to how they treat the npcs (jax enjoying the idea of causing them harm because theyre not real, it doesnt matter, he can do what he wants, vs ragatha whos as kind as possible to the npcs, the reason for which being unclear since she doesnt seem to view them as alive, but likely a need for approval, so she does what she wants, too), but it has a similar root cause for WHY they do these things, and how it impacts their personhood by slowly stripping them of themselves

the two absolutely seek approval so so hard. ragathas more blatant in it, stating directly that she wants jax to like her even if she hates him- that she doesnt think pomni likes her (the idea of which causing her distress). she needs people to like her so bad. theres a lot of possible reasons for this but frankly it really seems to stem from her placing her own self worth on the care of others. it distresses her deeply when she thinks someone doesnt like her. on the topic of the npc thing it DOES seem like its some attempt at being cared about, even in an absurd situation. ive discussed it before, but it reads like fawning, HARD, particularly when shes around kaufmo- it makes no sense for her to try to appeal to his emotions, to apologize to him and try to convince him of something that would make him less upset, even if its not true, when she KNOWS you cannot really reason with abstracted players

it reads more like instinct, then, that others need to like her and shell do anything even if its putting on a face in order to maintain that. its not healthy and reads as insincere to others at worst, and makes it hard for others to know whats real with her- but she seems to genuinely care. its just that once you base your entire identity socially on others liking you, or being liked by as many people as possible, the line between you and the fake, palatable version of yourself becomes blurred to the point of hardly being visible. it makes it hard to maintain that approval longterm, because it damages trust and damages her own sense of identity, which runs the risk of making an awful gradually deteriorating loop of her trying HARDER to appeal to people and putting people off MORE in the process

jax doesnt seem to care so much, sort of. hes a little confusing to break down bc he is deeply contradictory (not in a poorly written way, hes just quite fucked up). he likes to do what he likes to do. he likes to do things he finds funny. but ive mentioned it before, that i dont think he hates them. theyre entertaining and the fact that he keeps his face up around them implies that he does care what they think of him. during the evaluation, he says 'no one can see this, right?' hes the most emotionally repressed person alive as said by gooseworx herself, but this is a performance for himself and highlights that he assumes others have the same expectations of him, too. he cant be uncool, but WHY does he care if the others thinks he is? if he truly didnt care about the others opinion of him, hed just... never pretend. how can someone so obsessed with doing anything that HE finds fun regardless of others opinions of him STILL give a shit what anyone thinks? (is it because he wants the appearance of having it together? but then, thats dictated by others view of him, not the other way around)

i see it interpretted that his shittiness is him lashing out at people, which i think is true somewhat but not quite in the typical way. i dont think hes unhappy and snapping at people because of it. i dont think the circus made him an asshole, so much that i feel like he was already a bit unpleasant to others, but with no true consequences, and being deeply unhappy made him start leaning on being MORE of a dick. hes unhappy, so hes going to BE happy, and if that means throwing someone of a truck for laughs or pushing people around or dropping them in deep fryers so be it. its not real anyway. its a desperate desire for joy at the expense of others. but this is destroying any semblance of companionship he could have, and given that i think hes the MOST social of the cast, constantly talking to people and joining things, i think this has worn at him in its own way

(both jax and ragatha seem to had deeply adapted to the circus but in cartoonish ways- ragatha treats it all like its real for comfort. jax treats it all like its fake but engages in the cartoon bullshit it all has to offer)

thinking on it, what with how pomni assures gummigoo and what kinger tells pomni, theres probably something to be said about the fact that, of anything, the only real thing IN the circus is how people feel about one another. when everything around you is fake, the only real things are other people and your interactions with them. ragatha and jax both seem keen on participating in distractions (jax avoids participating actively in the pilot but he DOES suggest the adventure, and seems to have a lot of fun participating in ep 2- though its in his own 'everything should go my way and if it doesnt ill mope about it' way. ragatha outright speaks positively about them as a way to keep the players minds 'healthy and stimulated' and seems to see them as a genuine attempt on caines part to keep everyone sane. theres something to be said about the stupid sauce too probably) and in putting on their faces to cope

but a new player doesnt have all these fake concepts ingrained in them yet, and pomni as she is is a deeply blunt person on top of that. she acts often on instinct but she also speaks her mind openly (really, shes who jax WANTS to be... sort of. if that makes sense). of anyone in the circus, she IS the most 'real' and how she treats people is genuine, and it makes me wonder if jax and ragathas interest in her isnt JUST a desire for companionship bc of the inherent loneliness and isolation of the circus and how that wears on a human, but further, a desire for something truly real in their lives; a genuine connection with a person who is utterly sincere. something real, despite it all

[pressureconfessions]

Idk how to properly word this but hear me.

I personally dont ship sebastian with painter, but it annoys me to see the people who do ship them get harassed for it?

Its not incest since they have no actual family ties to eachother(biological,adoptive, step siblings, none of that)specially considering one is a computer and the other is a guy who was turned into a fish,i know that zerum and zeal have said they see eachother as family but like..there is NOTHING to back up that fact in game OR in the official wiki, the average player who doesnt go after stuff the devs have said about a character would NOT know about this, theres no lines about painter from sebastian, the things painter says about sebastian really dont feel like hes talking about someone he sees as his brother

And theres also the fact they've CANONICALLY only known eachother for **2 DAYS** theres no way someone can build a familial or romantic relationship in 2 days

Sorry for the rant, im just tired of seeing people get harassed and screamed at for "shipping incest" when its really not the case :P

.

[rox-and-prose]

I have this horror game idea that has probably already been done where you fight grotesque abominations while the main character narrates what is happening on screen, alluding to the fact that he's telling this story to the person who is behind all of the goings on. Towards the end, you have a pretty gnarly fight with a series of hideous monsters in one room and then theres a cut scene as the final boss enters. You don't see their face but you know it's them because the main character starts his narration (perhaps seeming a bit more smug than you remember).

The screen fades out and then back in so you dont have to listen to it all again and, as he repeats his final narration, the camera starts to pan around and it's revealed that you the player were being shown monsters and demons and hideous monstrosities not because thats what they were, but because thats how the main character has been portraying them. You have been enacting his narrative. He isn't hallucinating or suffering from any mental illness or injury that might cause a distortion like that. He knows full well that he was killing actual people the whole time, but in his opinion the people he was fighting were monstrous and so he doesnt feel like theres a difference.

The story may not totally line up in other ways as well. People spared may be revealed to have been dead or hiding from him etc but the ultimate point is the main character was lying, exaggerating, and othering the whole way through in order to justify his actions.

The ending from that point could go several different ways but I like the idea that the final fight is actually you playing as the "final boss" defending against the main character and, possibly at the start of the fight but possibly just as you finish the fight, the narration picks back up, but it's the "final boss" narrating this time.

idk.maybe thats just like faux edgy and really cliche but i think it would be slightly interesting as a concept

[frostops]

mutual's post about gwyndolin yesterday got me thinknig about the fandom tendency to reinterpret characters like gwyndolin as transmasc actually despite that never making any real sense, and i just saw a tweet about how naoto from persona 4 should have been a trans woman which is just the same thing with all the same problems so i need to talk about or ill go insane.

another character this happens with is chihiro, and does it actually make sense to look at a character who was only thought of as a boy by the rest of the cast when they found a penis on said character's corpse, and say that this represents transmasc experiences? Not really. its not engaging with the text in any way. the transmasc reading of chihiro is not a real interpretation of chihiro's arc in danganronpa. its a way to ignore the problems with the way chihiro is written. people who see chihiro as transfeminine do so because they recognize and acknowledge the transmisogyny in the writing. if chihiro was transmasc, then there wouldnt be transmisogyny in chapter 2 of THH. but there is, and liking danganronpa doesnt mean you should ignore that.

but it feels worse when people do this persona 4. not only is a transfem interpretation with naoto inconsistent with the text and ignoring the problems with naoto's arc, its also ignoring the game larger conservative politics regarding gender. this is moslty focused on the handling of kanji's sexuality but theres also the crossdressing jokes, yosuke being the most homophobic towards kanji and being implied to actually be gay, teddy in general, and a lot else. naoto being a trans woman doesnt fix any of that, and frankly, it doesnt even fix the game's treatment of naoto after their gender is revealed. once the player knows naoto is a girl, naoto becomes fair game to be sexualized and objectified. the comments about the size of naoto's breasts and naoto being forced into a swimsuit competition are already results of the games shitty gender politics, but if you actually had a serious reading of naoto as a trans woman, youd have to contend with things like that. youd have to contend with the fact that in this hypothetical reading of naoto, the second naoto comes out as a trans woman, all of their friends treat them like a sex object. thats already one of the games many flaws, but some people who do the whole "naoto is more like a trans woman actually" try to reframe these scenes as actually progressive if that was the case.