#major major major spoilers

[bixels]

I just saw one of your fave games is What remains of Edith Finch and I’m so happy! I feel like its a lesser known game but i loved playing through it. I’m so happy to know more than just my small friend group know about this game!

Sorry this isn’t a question. Also want to say that you’re art is amazing and the development of the designs is so interesting to see. Also the way you draw intimate scenes have so much emotion to them. I love the Aj and rarity kissing comic so much, you can just feel their love for each other ;w;

Thank you so much!

I highly, highly, highly recommend What Remains of Edith Finch to anyone interested in narrative game experiences/"walking simulators." It's one of those games that was handcrafted with nothing but love. Every room you explore is just... real. The way the light flows in and makes the colors of the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms glow. Playing the game is like walking through your childhood home as an adult and seeing how the dust clings to everything you once touched. Also genius-level gameplay mechanics, ones that can make you completely empathetic with the character you're embodying or feel completely complacent in their tragedy. It's really not fair to call it a walking simulator because it's so much more and so much smarter than that.Everyone talks about the fish one.

The theme of death and memory and storytelling and the burden of invisible trauma and self-fulfilling prophecies is so affecting too. The ending made me cry.

[celestialsun123]

SPOILERS! MAJOR LINK CLICK SEASON 2 SPOILERS!!!

WHO WOULD DARE. WHO WOULD FREAKING DARE?! (I haven't watched the last episode, cause I'm emotionally scarred, okay?)

(Edit: 5/3/24 - NVM I DID AND IT SCARRED ME MORREEEEEEEEEEE BUT ALSO LIKE IT MADE ME SO HAPPY BUT SO SAD CAUSE ITS DONE)

[hinamie]

mentor

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[dunmeshistash]

Something that completely flew over my head (I am not very observant), I was rereading chapter 87: Winged Lion II to re-check some things about dungeons and I just now realized the ancient humans weren't from the current races we know.

They seem to have characteristics from several of the human races together, and some of them even seem to have fur (like demi-humans?)

It's even implied that the lifespan differences and physical differences (the two asking for muscles and using magic in the background) were due to the Demon granting wishes

I did notice this part but I didn't realize this was probably part of the source of the race differences rather than the races already being different and wishing for different things.

So at some point the human races might have been even more closely related, before a powerful being influenced their evolution.

[o-wild-west-wind]

ofmd is like not comedy as in sitcom but comedy as in shakespearean where it’s psychological trauma and conflicts of violence but with dick jokes and the promise of marriage in the end

[fox-guardian]

[ID: The metronome meme. One side of the dial says "teehee sam and celia are so cute together i hope they're happy forever" and the other side reads "oh she is definitely manipulating his darling ass into helping her research and this may very well End Badly For Him". The metronome rapidly swinging from side to side reads "me". end ID]

~~~~

I made another one. I figure the truth will be somewhere in the middle, nuance and whatnot (please fall in love) (and let alice hop in too) (protocule ftw)

[luvmesumcheese]

Very messy doodle as I’m still in deadline season, but I just HAD to make an Adaine and Fabian ver of the cute hug they shared ;;;

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[anendtopursuit]

not to gush too much abt neil newbon's performance as astarion (and stephen rooney's writing for him) but like. he's discussed on streams before how conscious the decision to make him feel like he's constantly performing is (regardless of outcome; theatrical spawn astarion & operatic ascended astarion), and how stephen rooney leaned more into the whimsy and fun of the character based on things he saw in his portrayal (hence astarion progressively getting funnier and more charismatic through game development). but the thing that drives me absolutely mad tbh is the moments where all of it drops and he's suddenly so sincere, because it hits you like a truck to the face.

his voice going all soft and quiet and brittle when he describes cazador instructing his spawn to torture themselves. his mannerisms shifting from seductive and playful to a little more nervous. but the one that always gets me is in the graveyard romance scene, talking about what cazador has taken from him, how it was taken by force; "but he did take it," in this voice that's so full of sorrow that it almost sounds hollow, muffled by none of his usual pomp and theatricality, when even in cazador's palace his admissions of upset were sandwiched between attempts to brush it all off. dear god.

[hoziersong]

rat…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

[dirtytransmasc]

I'm just imagining Sevika charging into battle not knowing where her girls are. she hears whispers from the battlefield that Isha is dead and that Jinx is gone. taken. captured. surrendered. she doesn't want to accept either. she almost refuses. and it's in the back of her mind that she has to live so she can find her girls, and at the very least, remember them.

and she almost dies. she thinks that there might not be anyone to remember them. to find them.

and then she doesn't. she doesn't die. and one thing leads to another, and she's on the council. and....

she still doesn't know what happened to them.

and then Vi, the girl who, justifiably, hates her guts, comes back. and the look on her face all She needs to know Jinx is gone. but she can't accept it. she can't.

she demands to know what happened, in a clipped, gruff manner, not displaying much care, but her eyes are teary and her gut is churning.... and Vi just says they're gone.

and all Sevika can do is whisper "... both?"

and she doesn't wait for an answer. the face is enough. "how?".

the answer kills her.

she walks away. murmurs an apology over her shoulder.

she doesn't know what to do with the feeling in her chest. her fingers trace over the carving in her arm.

[vounoura]

↳ ᴅʀᴀɢᴏɴ ᴀɢᴇ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴠᴇɪʟɢᴜᴀʀᴅ — ᴏꜰꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ ʟᴀᴜɴᴄʜ ᴛʀᴀɪʟᴇʀ

[sleepy-ant]

THE EPISODES FINALLY OUT AND GOD HE IS GORGOUES

Transition goalssssss honestly gender envy he’s so me.

[inktho]

If Flertom had long hair as a child…

[starburnedandunkissed]

i can’t believe arcane ended here guys 😍😍 i love this show 😍😍😍😍