#npcs. only talking to the pcs. which are all guys

[okcoolthanks]

Realizing one of my favorite campaigns doesn’t pass the bechdel test shouldn’t make me as sad as I should be

[danieyells]

Thank you for sharing the tdb affinity lines! I know I won't be naturally getting any of these for ten years (if the games even still around by then) lol.

I was wondering if you could share any interesting lines of Taiga's? No pressure tho! It's just after seeing some of his lines from other people, he seems to have a bigger role in the story and I'm curious if any of his lines give any more clues to the situation on hand. Also would be interesting to see if he genuinely starts caring for mc besides wanting to like. Eat her for lunch lol.

It's no problem! And yeah that's part of why I wanna share them--getting the units to high enough affinity is a pain and to even see any of the home screen dialogues you need an SR or SSR, which means good luck with the gacha buckaroo.

YES TAIGA MY BELOVED. he's my favorite behind maybe Towa. Chances are if you've seen the one line you've seen the only one referring to that, although there is one more that may be related? But it might be general. As for caring for the PC, this is a joseimuke so. The characters will always love you more and more with time. And Taiga most certainly does haha doesn't prevent the hunger from rising up though. friendly reminder to feed your Taiga!

Hello: (the first time the game is opened after that character is set as home screen NPC. Only happens once per day, unless the character is switched out and back.)

"...Who're you? Don't pop up out of nowhere like that.  Wouldn't want me to shoot you by mistake, would you?"

You've Got Mail: (whenever there's something in the inbox, usually Arena rewards)

"Huh? You got a letter. If it's for me just reply for me, yeah?"

Default: (requires no affinity, has no time constraints)

"What are you again? A middle school student? A transfer student? Got it, an honor student! Gyahaha! I'm never gonna remember that!"

"Heads or tails, even or odd, on or off... It's all so fucking tedious!"

"Playing with these morons is exhausting... Lulu gets all mad if I win too much..."

"Don't talk to me. I feel like shit."

"That smells amazing... Shit, where's it coming from?"

please feed your taiga.

Affinity 1: (between 5am and 11am)

"It's too early for your bleating. Shut your trap unless you wanna get abducted."

once again, welcome to sinostra's house of human trafficking--

Affinity 2: (between 11am and 4pm)

"That dealer sucks. He's been here the longest? Why should I give a shit? Fire him."

what the fuck is tenure?

Affinity 3: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"You wanna know what kinda meat this is? Anomaly meat. What else would it be? ...Who the fuck're you again?"

he recognizes you enough to ask 'again'! progress! also I guess he almost exclusively eats anomaly meat.

Affinity 4: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Oops. I lost all the money Lulu gave me. Better make a run for it before he notices."

Affinity 5: (between 8pm and 5am)

"I'm bored... Hey, you over there. Come play five finger filet with me. Gimme your left hand."

five finger fillet, also called the knife game, is when you put your hand on a table and stab the gaps between your fingers with a knife in a sequence! Of course, you can also play it with someone else's hand, as Taiga is suggesting. Obviously stabbing the hand being played with means you lose. Taiga's chibi plays it when he's idle!

Affinity 6: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"They nabbed one of ours? You guys aren't toddlers. Deal with it yourselves."

it's fascinating that there's such a faction divide within Sinostra that members of Taiga's side get abducted by Romeo's, and probably vice versa. And I bet Taiga doesn't care about any of this. Or at the very least it's not that serious to him.

Affinity 7: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Gambling and shoot-outs are pretty much the same thing. Morons who panic mess up and get dead. Gyahaha!"

Affinity 8: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"None of you morons have any flair for the table. Lulu needs to raise the minimum bet already."

isn't it your casino too. . .or even specifically it's in your name. . .can't you raise the minimum bet too. . . .

Affinity 9: (between 8pm and 5am)

"You're a real smooth talker, huh? Don't remember anything you said though. Ciao!"

your seduction attempt didn't fail because of a bad roll, it failed because taiga failed a perception check lmao. . . .

Affinity 10: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Can't sleep? Sit over there. I'll deal the cards."

He'll play with you until you fall asleep. . .or maybe he'll sit around making ASMR card shuffling noises until you doze off.

Affinity 11: (between 5am and 11am)

"...I'm not gonna play today. I'm sleeping. I don't care if the place is burning down— don't wake me up."

fun fact, he's making this face when he says this lol

Affinity 12: (between 11am and 4pm)

"What's that guy's name again? You know, the one who's gonna become a judge or a cop or something. ...Whatever, I'll just forget it again."

at least he was interested in knowing for a second! maybe he'll give him a nickname.

Affinity 13: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I spy, with my little eye, a tasty-looking kitty-cat.... Come over here so I can pat you. ...Nah, changed my mind. Scram."

maybe it's just my interpretation but I like to think he's hungry and he saw you and he mindlessly tried to lure you closer because he wanted to eat you, then came to his senses and told you to go away so he wouldn't do something stupid like trying to eat a human. . . .

Affinity 14: (between 5am and 11am)

"I'm starving... You, get my usual. It's breakfast time."

i wonder what his usual is. what's a good breakfast anomaly? Dagravnen? Latte? Pompillar to keep the doctor away?

Affinity 15: (between 5am and 11am)

"How does Lulu always have so much energy this early in the morning? It it 'cause of all that expensive water he drinks?"

Affinity 16: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Stop talking. I don't care."

Affinity 17: (between 10pm and midnight)

"You going to bed already? Aren't you a good little kitty-cat. Whatever, do what you want."

he'd rather you stay up with him but he's not attached enough to try and make you stay up. . .yet.

Affinity 18: (between 8pm and 5am)

"You want a surefire way to win at the table? Doesn't exist. You just gotta keep playing."

Affinity 19: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Hey, go warm up my bed for me. What do you mean how? Get in there, dumbass."

either you're gonna get fucked or you're gonna get disappointed when he really just wanted a warm spot that smells nice to lie in and he makes you leave after he gets in bed. Or maybe he'll let you sleep in the bed with him and use you as a little body pillow!

I'd also like to add that he's using the "adult" expression so uh. leaning more towards you're gonna get fucked here.

Affinity 20: (between 5am and 11am)

"Where you going, kitty-cat? Class? You don't need to go there. I got something more fun in mind for us."

the expression used here is once again simply labelled "adult" so. . . . No going to class and no going to sleep.

Affinity 21: (between 11am and 4pm)

"That's it, kitty-cat. I feel like my luck'll change if you're around."

Affinity 22: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I'm starving... This isn't enough... I want more... More..."

they've gotta stop letting him go so long without eating because he clearly loses his mind if he doesn't eat enough meat.

Affinity 23: (between 8pm and 5am)

"I'm the only one who sees how fucked we are. But he won't believe me. So just let it all burn down—I don't give a shit anymore."

if Taiga sees the future or knows the future because of timeline/loop shit, then that Taiga doesn't seem to actively care much about being Captain or doing his job makes sense. He knows that if nothing changes everything's going to fall apart anyway so there's no point in trying. We don't really know what his stigma does either--in fact, his "good luck" could be that he can see and react to future events, so he knows things like what cards will be drawn and such. But he's getting tired of everything always going so bad no mater what he does in response to what he sees. And Romeo(? it doesn't say who he's telling about how bad things are getting) isn't helping to make changes. . .so he's just giving up. But now you're here, maybe you're different somehow. Maybe somehow you're an outlier in this timeline. Maybe injuring you was on purpose to change something in the future he saw. Maybe that's why he's telling you about the spy. . . .of course this is all speculation. Until we learn what his stigma does or what he means by 'ditch this future' then. . .all speculation. But there is a wickhive post that someone can see the future. And the more I think about it the more I wonder if it's Taiga. (also because i'm sure someone will point this out, the wording 'let it all burn down' is specific to the English dialogue, so it's not a callback to the pre-prequel sequence where the school is on fire.)

Affinity 24: (between 10pm and midnight)

"If you don't like pain then quit flailing around. I'm getting a taste of you, so close your eyes and shut up."

welcome back to the torture chair! You're probably getting cut like a piece of good meat before he just sinks his teeth into you! Your hands and legs are bound and he's not going to let you get away without eating at least a little of your flesh, so suck it up. That or scream and hope somebody comes to rescue you. . .but the desire to eat the pc never goes away. Most likely because he just wants to eat fresh meat in general and the more he likes someone and the more they hang around him the more he wants to eat them. . .although I assume he unlearned it and now you're here and he just can't help himself. . .if they did consume demons to become ghouls, I bet you're the only thing short of maybe Romeo that'll taste anywhere near as good as that demon did.

Affinity 25(max): (no time constraints)

"You're not getting away from me, kitten. You're here till death do us part, whether you like it or not."

oh and also you're married. y'know in case you wanted to do that. or even if you didn't. you don't have a choice in the matter.

Spring: (March-May) (between 5am and 11am)

"(Yawn) Man, why am I so tired today... Someone spike my food?"

'hey did someone drug the anomaly they brought me to eat so that i would get sleepy if i ate it' baby the weather's just getting warm you're sleepy because spring is cozy

(between 11am and 4pm)

"What? Cherry blossoms? Is it that time of year already? Man, that snuck up on me."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Fuck it, I'm taking a nap. Come over here and be my pillow."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"What's with that vacant look on your face? You need more excitement in your life? Come over here, I'll play with you."

Summer: (June-August) (between 5am and 11am)

"Too hot... Hey, I want my breakfast on ice. They got tons of it over on Jin's turf, go nab some."

hey uh why do you remember Jin by name. like i know Jin's short enough of a name to not need a nickname but also you remember not only Jin but where he lives and how cold it is? Then again you started in the same year, maybe Taiga remembers all the third years since he's known them for two years?

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Why don't we make a giant pool in Sinostra? It's so hot here. I'll put up the cash... Wait no, I used it all yesterday."

YOU COULD HAVE A NICE POOL IF YOU WERE MORE RESPONSIBLE WITH YOUR MONEY.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Quiz time—where's Lulu going all dolled up on a stinking hot day like this? Answer— he's cheating on me! Gyahaha!"

THEY ARE FEEDING MY SHIP WHAT DO YOU MEAN TAIGA JOKES THAT THEY'RE DATING. they have such awful married couple who hate each other but also love each other energy.

(between 8pm and 5am)

"Shower? I don't wanna... Shut up and strip me already then."

man he has no fucks to give that you'd be taking his clothes off and seeing him naked huh. . . .

Autumn: (September-November) (between 5am and 11am)

"Good weather for sports? You get a lot more exercise fighting to the death. Gyahaha!"

how frequently do you think he fights to the death. . .probably a lot less than he used to. poor baby needs his deadly enrichment. Also the fact that he finds the idea of fighting to the death fun explains why he smiles when he takes damage in combat lol

(between 11am and 4pm)

"That looks tasty. Gimme a bite."

so given one of the most common autumn foods in japan is like sweet potatoes(and also the pc probably doesn't eat raw anomaly meat) I assume this means he does eat normal food, just prefers to eat raw meat especially from anomalies? Either way, i am once again remind you to feed your Taiga.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"We're going out. I've been eating more lately and these guys are too slow. Gonna go stock up."

you've been eating more lately? because it's autumn? what are you, a bear about to go into hibernation?? also he's taking you grocery shopping i guess. or anomaly hunting. . . .

(between 8pm and 5am)

"Watch your back. Way easier to jump people when it gets dark so early. Gyahaha!"

i'd like to think he stuck his gun under your chin and snuck up behind you from in the dark here lol

Winter: (December-February) (between 5am and 11am)

"You trying to pull my covers off? Wanna die?"

my boy does NOT like being cold. Or getting up in the morning. So winter mornings? just leave him in bed.

(between 11am and 4pm)

"I wanna go nab some food from Harry's place, but it's too cold for that shit..."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Oh, I got an idea. I just gotta use someone as a punching bag to warm up. Hey you guys, stand over there."

Taiga beating the shit out of his own men because the exercise will keep him warm. . .why do people side with you again?

(between 8pm and 5am)

"I don't like the cold... Come on, come be my hot water bottle! Let me cuddle up to you!"

Getting all tangled up with Taiga under his blankets while he shivers because Sinostra is in a desert and deserts in the winter can be FUCKING COLD especially at night. It gets cold and he's just the whiniest little meow-meow. Until he gets hungry.

His birthday: (October 16th)

"Huh? Whose birthday? Mine? Gyahaha! Totally forgot about it! Grazie!"

it's okay Taiga, I forget my birthday too most of the time.

Your birthday:

"Is it your birthday today? That little twerp told me. Okay, you can take one thing from my room."

Ritsu fuckin doxed you? is that legal? Doesn't Taiga's room have like a pile of coins in it. . .is one coin 'one thing' or is 'the pile of coins' one thing. . .then again the background is AI generated so. not really sensible and doesn't say much about him sadly. considering taiga's described as spending his money wastefully I assume he buys a lot of random things he doesn't need or use--then again he probably spends most of it on gambling. But considering he's offering you anything out of his room, I assume there's a lot of nice stuff in there.

New Years: (January 1st)

"You gonna go skipping off to a shrine together just to get your fortune told? That's dumb. Here, let me guess what it'll say—you'll have an okay year."

the fact that he guesses your fortune is a tiny piece on the 'taiga can see the future' evidence pile but it's a piece nonetheless

Valentine's Day: (February 14th)

"Is that for me? Sure I'll take it, but it better be edible."

i was gonna say 'has he never gotten valentine's day chocolates before?' but i remembered that he probably doesn't really remember if he has so. this is probably his general reaction to gifts lol 'is it money and if not can i eat it'

White Day: (March 14th)

"What's that expectant look on your face? Lulu was harping on about mimosas or something before. That what you want?"

of course he doesn't know what white day is lol but he does remember that Romeo had something tasty!

April Fool's Day: (April 1st)

"I'm gonna die soon, you know? And I'm taking Lulu with me. ...Gotcha! Gyahaha!"

wait you didn't remember white day but you remembered april fool's day? maybe someone tried to prank him first lol remember guys, suicide is not an appropriate april fool's prank!

Halloween: (October 31st)

"Trick or treat. Where you gonna put your chips, kitty-cat?"

I think if you're trick or treating then they're supposed to decide if you get the trick or the treat. . .but it seems more like Taiga to give you something that could be a trick or a treat lolol russian roulette is a totally acceptable halloween party game right? of course!

Christmas: (December 25th)

"Come on Santa kitty, tie a ribbon 'round yourself and get over here. Gyahaha!"

at least he knows what gift he wants! unfortunately you don't know what for but based on his expression you may not get eaten. . .depending on your definition--

Idle: (about 20 seconds without interacting with the game) (below 13 affinity)

"...This is boring. I'm outta here."

(13 affinity and above)

"Are you done yet? I'm hungry over here."

Absent: (logging in for the first time in 2 or more days?)

"Long time no see! You decide to ditch this future too? Sorry I'm not dead yet."

AND HERE"S THE LINE THAT'S CAUSING SO MUCH SPECULATION. . .what does that even mean Taiga. . .what do you know, what have you seen. . .and can we fix this future instead of leaving it to rot--

UH. YEAH. I THINK I'VE SAID ENOUGH HAHA. . .everything Taiga says is so. . . ./gestures weakly) IT REALLY DOES SEEM LIKE MORE IS HAPPENING THAN YOU REALIZE RIGHT??? The game's still so early on we probably won't learn for a very long time lol. . . . But, yeah. Taiga definitely loves you--and lusts after you. As his affinity goes up, he asks "who are you" a lot less, did you notice? He starts to remember and just say "kitty cat" and "kitten", because that's who you are and he can remember that. So far the only people he remembers are Romeo, Hyde, and Jin it seems. And you.

[zarkishere]

height chart time!

over at twitter i didn't really get to write ANYTHING soo...let's talk about this AU for a bit here! nothing important, just some thoughts and maybe some spoilers hehe (there is 100% spoilers LMAO)

this is a passion project of mine born from my WAY TOO STRONG hyperfixation on spooky month and my LOVE for slime rancher! it's been in my head since around November 2023, but only did i start REALLY thinking about it in around the middle of January 2024. i was on a family trip, it was super late at night and i was daydreaming about spooky month as i looked out the window... at some point i started to think about...what if Lila was on the far far range? then i started to plan; a new island on the far far range, a sort of market instead of the thingy (no idea what it's called) that Beatrix uses to interact with NPC's in practice it'd be very similar. you walk up to a stand (that looks according to the person and what they want) and they'd pop up all hologram-like! then bow, you talk, you sell them stuff, amazing! of course in this AU some people actually go to Lila's house, like Frank! you know that little spot behind Beatrix's place back in the game? well, there! every once in a while Frank would show up in his flying van, offering items you can buy :D some would be...less than needed (like heart beets and such) OR they could be something wonderful! like Gilded Ginger! or other illegal items shh...no one can know... anyway! then i started using milanote (which i recommend) and started figuring out the story and characters here's a screenshot! a lot of things were changed soo...take it with a grain of salt ;)

i did a lot of sketches on random bits of paper and my phone (which i won't be adding here cuz they're not needed :P) figuring out character designs, and eventually moved on to start doing the character sheets on my pc! you might've noticed, but i really thought of this first as if it was a videogame it will never be, don't get me wrong, but it started from there and THEN i started to think of it simply as a story i want to tell there's still a long way to go, but i have so many cool ideas i JUST WANNA START WORKING! i got sick recently (and still am tbh) so i'm taking a bit of a break tho.. i have a lot of ideas for the story, and am already planning out a small animatic...but again, no promises! i don't even know if i'll do everything drawn or i'll write stuff out too! i mean, i might even get bored and never touch this again LMAO i'm writing this on the 29th, so i haven't watched the new EP yet...but i imagine a lot of things will be changed once it comes out so, one last time, everything i say and do is up to change! i'm in no way a professional and this is just a side thing i'm doing while actively working and studying. i'm just a guy after all. i hope you guys like this as much as i do, and i can't WAIT to give you more information! that's it for now, i gotta do my music homework LMAO--take care everyone :)

[enden-k]

btw now that i can get to it (was busy and had someone over) i can babble a little abt zzz and give my thoughts so far on it if anyone is still wondering whether they should try it or not

first thing i have to say is, to me it feels like a cozy casual kinda game. and i love it. i think thats the part i saw some ppl complain abt

it reminds me a lot of P5 w the overall vibes etc (i played on first release years ago but not the additional stuff afterwards so idk if there were changes to the plot or anything with whatever royal is about) and it was a comfort game for me back then so yea. this might add a lot to why zzz feels like such a comfort game to me

the siblings are not active, playable characters in combat since theyre the proxy guiding and supporting the playable characters (agents) in the hollows (compare it to domains). outside of the hollows you run around with ur chosen sibling and whoever you picked, the other doesnt disappear or becomes irrelevant. they are a unit, run their video store together, theyre one proxy, supporting each other. i already love how trailblazer is more vocal than traveler but the siblings are active, talking parts in cutscenes and whenever theres dialogue choices, your chosen sibling ACTUALLY SAYS IT. this is smth i wished for a while in gnshn so seeing it in zzz made me super happy. it gives them sm life and gets me into it idk how to say it

(this is them btw. pretty mfs)

anw its not overwhelming like gnshn feels to me. gnshn has sm to explore and sm story and its smth i both enjoy and feel exhausted by. now, if you played persona or are familiar, its easier for me to use for comparison. you get to run around as the chosen sibling in the city but the fighting (w the agents you pull from the gacha) all happens in the hollows (similar to when you enter the metaverse). it runs with a day-night cycle and depending on the time, npcs and quests pop up. you can pass the time if you need a specific time of day for an objective, by doing hollow exploration or simply resting in ur room. theres side stuff you do, like running your store and visiting the arcade and play snake akjscbk

the combat itself reminds me of HI3 and wuwa and feels super smooth and fun to me

it has cutscenes etc but the story parts in between are illustrated and presented in a comic/storyboard kinda way? which fits the whole video/movie aesthetics well. its pretty cool

overall, if you didnt try it out yet bc you think it requires lots of energy and time like gnshn, its nothing like that at all. ofc im not through with everything but so far it feels like a very nice game to play casually, w a big cozy bonus when youre spending the day freely in game. i play only on pc or on console when i wanna lay down but this game even i would play on phone or ipad to chill akjscbk

the characters are also pretty fun and cool looking! like, look at them, so far we got

the most chaotic ragtag group in all of new eridu (they share one braincell and its anby who is in charge of it)

fresh looking heavy industry workers (they have a bear)

classic horror housekeeping service who will poison ur tea ig

motorcycle gang (oggling the glasses guy and boss lady super hard, they will be mine when playable-)

public security (they have an actual catboy in case weve got catboy enjoyers here)

special hollow operation elite squad aka the coolest strongest mfs out there taking care of hollow disasters

ALSO THE NPCS!!! LIKE!!! look at the cook!!! tinmaster running the coffee shop!!! the girl selling gadgets or the bunny person running the arcade!!!

even the regular npcs just roaming the streets. theres lots of cool details and life in every bit, its really cool

anw!! idk if this helped or made sense, this is also just my own impressions and feelings so far so yeee. if someone decides to play, i hope you will have fun and get whoever you really really want!!

[level2janitor]

whenever someone complaints abt a ttrpg being 'gamey' the standard response is "well what did you expect?? you're playing a game, dipshit". but i think by 'gamey' the actual criticism being made is that it feels artificial

5e's always felt gamey to me because of the annoying obligation to balance encounters and an adventuring day. you need to have enough encounters to drain the wizard's resources, they need to walk a tightrope between challenging the PCs and not TPK-ing them, etc etc.

and everyone talks about how hard this is on the GM with the limited tools 5e gives you (which it is) but it also has the unrelated effect of feeling extremely forced from a player-side. the illusion of a consistent world starts to slip because what the PCs encounter has to revolve around the PCs for the game to work.

also i've been seeing a lot of 4e defending on my dash lately and like, yes it's a good game that's very good at the thing it chooses to do. but the criticism that 4e feels gamey (read: artificial) is extremely valid; the strict separation between combat and non-combat results in all flavor basically being only flavor

there's a 4e paragon path you can take called the Entrancing Mystic, whose powers have flavor text describing how you bewitch and ensnare the minds of your enemies. what do the powers actually do? some forced movement in the combat boardgame. what happens if you use them out of combat? who knows! they certainly weren't designed to be used that way, because their actual effect is measured only in terms of the combat boardgame

obviously there's a lot of aspects of non-4e D&D and similar games that are unrealistic. hit points are not how being stabbed works. but certain gamisms bother me more bc they create a clear disconnect between the fiction and the mechanics in a more tangible way.

like, 13th age's resting system (great game but i wanna pick on it here) has you fully heal every 3 or 4 encounters. only had one encounter? no full heal-up, even if you're resting. you have had four encounters? you get a full heal-up. there's a halfhearted sidebar about how the GM should contrive a reason for the heal-up to happen.

as a game balance mechanic, it's great! but i despise it because it's so disconnected from the reality of the game world. HP and fully healing on a rest isn't realistic, but it's an abstract representation of something that happens in the fiction. take a rest -> fully heal is unrealistic but internally consistent with the game world. 13th age healing is not - the in-universe characters can never acknowledge it as it makes no in-world sense.

anyway the reason i'm grumpy abt this lately is the MCDM game has a taunt mechanic that's just straight-up called taunting and it irks me so so bad. again, great game, super fun, but taunting leads to so many situations where an NPC does stuff they wouldn't do

y'know, like a videogame! where the dialogue and personality is just a skin over a set of game mechanics. and when NPCs start behaving out of character with no in-world justification (cause taunts aren't mind control ofc, it's just a guy... taunting you) they feel gamey. artificial.

i like all of the games i brought up (except probably 5e) but i had to get that out of my system thanks for coming to my ted talk

[ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma]

wotw round 1

propaganda under the cut!

anders:

So for context as to Why This Has Happened, he does happen to be an incredibly controversial character because of bad writing and that time he blew up a catholic church (complicated), so a lot of fans, even fans who otherwise wouldnt do so, of him swung HARD in the other direction of "he has basically no flaws at all" which is. Not True. Even if you agree with the blowing up a church thing. He is RUDE and MEAN and HAS BOUNDARY ISSUES. also he js very much the epitome of Extremely White activist and doesnt know how to communicate unless he is arguing (he is not good at arguing and he does not like doing it. these conflicting traits cause exactly the amount of problems you think it would).

Now are these various issues he has generally due to "forcibly imprisoned in a cult", "a year of solitary confinement", and "hes mentally ill and his writer is incredibly ableist"? Yeah for sure. But that doesnt mean the solution is to scrub every flaw he has away or pretend like they dont matter or blame it on the (very cool and sweet) guy possessing him (willingly) its SO uninteresting. And then if you try to talk about these flaws you get people excitedly talking about how they always without fail kill the passively suicidal man and how his romance is inherently abusive to the pc or some shit. Im DYING out here

link:

I know this is like really minor but it bugs me SO much. Ok so. At the beginning of the game, Link gets woken up by Zelda. She calls him a sleepyhead. Later in the game, she references that he would oversleep sometimes. Some of the other npcs do this also. Fandom decided that this was one of his only personality traits, being a sleepy little soft guy who loves his girlfriend soooo much (ok, he does love her a lot, but that's not the point).

This just makes me so upset because he. is. not. sleepy.

Oversleeping doesn't make you sleepy! Many fics portray him as someone that's very soft and gentle and kind and can fall asleep anymore!

At the very most, he's tired. He pushed himself hard during his quest, losing sleep. Afterwards, he would probably go back to a regular sleep schedule and sleep fine (barring nightmares). This is a very different thing than sleepy!

Anyway. Next point. Soft and gentle. He is a kind person, he's on a time sensitive quest and he'll stop to help a mother find her lost child, help a demon become human, find a LOT of lost things, all sorts of stuff like that, but he is not soft and gentle. At the very beginning of the game, he tells the bully "nice hair" (it's kinda ridiculous). Many of his answers are short and blunt. He says "not that guy" when he has to enlist the help of someone he doesn't like. He broke a chandelier for the equivalent of five dollars. He eavesdropped on a private argument-- like literally if you walk by the house at the right time control is taken from the player and he'll walk towards and listen to it. He tells a guy that his elder is dead just for shits and giggles (he's not).

Anyway. Fandom, of course, remembers none of this. He's the peacemaker, he's the soft and gentle one, he falls asleep whenever possible-- he is none of these things! The only thing they get right is that he loves Zelda!

I just want the fics where he's properly snarky and rude and tired (of this bullshit), is that too much to ask?

[bananasofthorns]

tell me about your worst guy

ok a summary of the campaign and what has happened so far, as quick as I can. the campaign is based on the life series started by Grian Minecraft (the irl guy) - tldr all the PCs plus a handful of NPCs are in a death game (kind of think the hunger games in terms of how much space they have. but add minecraft mechanics) and they each have a limited amount of lives; once they reach their last life (red), they get to/have to start killing people. last person standing is the winner. to make things more silly goofy, there is also the boogeyman mechanic, where at least one person per session is chosen to be the "boogeyman" and they have to kill another player or else lose all but their last life at the end of the session.

there are also these beings called the watchers. if you don't know what they are, think angels who love watching people Go Through It in these life games. Aphim is a watcher, but a disgraced one - this game is his last chance to redeem himself. so he NEEDS to win. additionally, he has been told that he has to kill Beau, an NPC who has been in the games previously, was formerly a watcher (which Aphim. dubiously knows in canon? I don't remember), and is currently trying to stop the games from continuing. also he and Aphim are uh. how do I say this. homosexual. Beau is trying to seduce Aphim away from the watchers and Aphim has no fucking clue how to feel about it because he has never been flirted with before. especially not by a hot man. anyway

something you need to know about Aphim is that his normal form, his watcher form, is nowhere near human. he is towering and winged and has far too many eyes and a few too many joints and when he does not need a contained physical form he does not really have one. imagine a desolate, snowy forest of birch. he is the trees and their eye-like knots and the blanket of snow and the spaces between and the void above and the distant stars. that is Who He Is. but for the game he has to be contained in a human form and he Hates It. there is nothing he loathes more. it's like gender dysphoria but for what kind of thing he is. the only thing he loathes nearly as much is the thought of losing his power and autonomy, which is what will happen if he fails the watchers.

and every time he fails to kill Beau, even though he's not red yet and so by the rules of the watchers' game can't yet kill Beau, the watchers threaten his wings. which he obviously is not a huge fan of. so even though he is very intrigued by Beau and what Beau's trying to tell him, the selfishness will always win out.

cut to the most recent session. boogeyman is rolled. the gang [Aphim, Beau, Orla (NPC), Carwyn (Mura's PC), and Apate (Laurie's PC) wakes up to find Synne (NPC who is someone from the real world isekaied into the game. funny as hell) gone. they go to look for Synne. Synne comes out of the bushes trying to attack Beau; Apate and Aphim (who, by the way, hate each other so bad - Apate has a lot of watcher trauma to work through and Aphim just finds her annoying) notice first. Apate (who has also latched onto Beau as a way out of her Literal Trauma Cycle) goes straight to trying to attack Synne. Aphim disarms Synne.

meanwhile, halfway across the map, Arsené (Ophelia's PC) and Achlys (Chrys's PC) both notice a Very Bad Vibe Shift in, like, the fabric of the universe. something is about to go so horribly wrong.

Synne lunges for Beau's throat but Orla blocks Synne; Beau briefly restrains Synne. the moment they touch, Aphim is hit with a wash of pain so bad his entire body just goes numb. it's the feeling he gets when the watchers summon him from the game to talk to him but far, far worse.

which is the bigger threat right now? Synne or Beau?

who is the subject every time the watchers summon him?

he attacks Beau.

obviously, Orla and Apate do not take kindly to this. in fact, they end up killing him about it LMAO (also, side note. all Beau did was push the axe further in. which was INSANE) (he didn't die; Arsené, Achlys, and their allies showed up and helped him). so he's on his second to last life right now

before he respawned, he had a vision where aforementioned Grian Minecraft (the character, this time) (he is also a former watcher) went hey bud. maybe think about what you really want. the watchers will fuck you up. and Aphim (digging his teeth into his monstrousness so hard it'll hurt) basically went hm. no 💛

and then he was also briefly back in the white space where the watchers summon him to talk. and all he felt was their towering presences and disappointment. and then he respawned. so obviously he is going to be so normal about all of this next session,

[futchgunk]

Bladders Gat3 Finish doc

:et me get the rest of my fucking feelings out about baldurs gate:

im so mad bc any character who is not human or realism/white passoid is literally regarded with the same type of dismissal that you would see in mainstream media. all the companions that are not white passing are treated like shit and have bad ends.

-Lae'zel (gith) gets abducted by the a bad guy for the last 1/3 of the game (also we could talk about her being the fighter class as default is also a bit racist, but the deep dive will be its own essay). and then she can die and not be able to be resurrected. (resurrection scrolls and revivify spells ONLY work on companions and not npcs)

Wyll (THE ONLY BLACK HUMAN MAIN CHARACTER, side note we could talk about how is name is spelled like a white mormon names their kids) is a big talking point bc he is constantly strung between the expectations put upon him by himself, his family, and then his pact matron. AND NO MATTER WHAT OPTION IS CHOSEN WILL CONTINUES TO SUFFER IN THIS EXECUTIVE PURGATORY. He starts as a "i have to kill this devil" actually its a tiefling (suddenly its now fantasy racial infighting, so of course u dont wanna kill another companion so early in the game, so Wyll is forced through Hell's Circles and the exposure makes him grown large demonic horns. (Wyll does not have control over his body or himself, nor his actions, and only suffers the consequences of the actions of the Tav (PC)). Wyll even gets to have the "I did everything for my father's (approval just to have my father misunderstand me and then the most noble course of action is to be independent because i am still bound by choices prior and also if two black people form any sort of family on screen its disgusting and blasphemous so I might as well treat my father like my brother who i never was able to relate to when i was younger" THIS IS NOT MENTIONING THAT WYLL IS LITERALLY THE SON OF THE DUKE OF BALDURS GATE. HE GIVES UP HIS STATUS OF NOBILITY TO BE HEROIC AND IS JUST FOREVER CONTINUALLY PUNISHED. THE DUKE OF BALDURS GATE IS BRAINWASHED TO RELINQUISHING HIS TITLE AND CORONATES THE WHITE DEVIL EVIL DICK BAD GUY WHO SOLD KARLACH (TIEFLING) TO HELL FOR GIGGLES.

Karlach (tiefling) is a bright eyed noble hearted character that is looking for solace after having 10 years of her life taken from her when she got sold to devil and hell and made a war machine slave because thats perfectly tragic. Her heart is taken from her and replaced with an engine (machine) that is slowly killing her when she is not in Hell. THE ENGINE DOESNT EVEN HAVE A GOOD IN GAME MECHANIC, YOU GET TO SET URSELF ON FIRE TO GET A 'HEAT' DEBUFF THAT U CAN CONSUME ON AN ATTACK, you build heat any other way, so its like only <Lv. 4, and if you minmaxed the opening scene, you get a 2h sword that does this every attack, so like its a bit moot and useless. Furthermore i think its really stupid that shes yearning for companionship and yet is not allowed because her engine makes her to hot to touch. Which rubs me the wrong way as a black transfem (u could argue tiefling coded) because I already feel like that. I feel like im too intense and hot with my passions and i intimidate people to the point that I'm actively denying myself the intimacy i crave so dearly just by existing and expressing myself. The taxation of life shouldn't really exist in video games!! The whole party gets mind enslaving brainworms that magically dont work because the plot armor is really strong yet the demon character who EVEN WHEN THEY SEEK HELP IN THEIR COMPANION QUEST ARE DENIED THE REALITY OF LIVING COMFORTABLY BECAUSE THEY SHOULD ONLY EXIST IN HELL. (cried actually). Before the last of this mess, she offers to turn into a mindflayer just to give herself the peace that she could be the hero that saves the world (become the villain because its better than who you currently exist as, or die being yourself (who has LITERALLY BEEN DEMONIZED). Karlach doesn't get to have have a happy ending because she either dies from engine overdose or goes to hell just to fucking breathe. THE KICKER IS THAT WYLL, THE PERSON WHO WAS GOING TO KILL HER AS PART OF THE WARLOCK PACT, OFFERS TO ACCOMPANY HER IN HELL AND FIGHT BY HER SIDE. WHICH MEANS THAT ALL OF THE MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES EFFECTIVELY FUCK OFF AFTER YOU SAVE THE WORLD.

White victim Shadowheart has the option of rejecting what she knows (which was a lie told her) or believing it. The worst she has to do is kill a bound seraphim, and free her parents held captive by putting their souls to rest (she turns them into light, killing them). She gets sick weapons. Clerics are busted anyway.

White devil astarion got to ascend in pale supremacy and got cool vampire powers (bite+, bite++, buff on kill, and consume buff for heal || next hit crits). The final battle WAS BUGGED FOR ME. I WAS STUCK ON THE BOSS FIGHT FOR TWO WEEKS BECAUSE THE END OF BATTLE SCREEN WOULDNT LOAD. LIKE I MADE A WHOLE NOTHER CHARACTER BECAUSE I BEAT THE BOSS 7 TIMES AND MY BUGFIXED DIDNT WORK!!

if im gonna get so heated about video games i am just gonna go play bloodborne so i have no room to complain bc im constantly sucking

[d20-brainrot]

get ready for some d20 asks bestie

favourite season

favourite pc

favourite npc

LEAST fav season/pc/npc

a line that you like

a funny bit that makes you laugh

saddest/most heartwrenching moment that makes you sad every time

best character arc in your opinion

which of the newly announced seasons are you most excited for?

who would you like to see on d20 for the first time or to return?

who would you like to see DM on d20?

a mini that you like

a battle set that you like

something you hope comes back for another season

a season you wish people would watch more

ooh i love this!!!

favorite season: definitely starstruck odyssey or neverafter. they are just both so fun, and everyone is having a good time. plus i like a little horror y'know?

fav pc: ylfa!!! she's just like me for real. no but seriously, she is a child growing up into a body she doesn't fully understand, and thinks that how she feels makes her irredeemable. little el is shaking in their boots right now. i also love lapin. he's deadpan but he does the right thing. plus i just loved how zac played him, it was wonderful

fav npc: esther sinclair is my shit!!!! i love her sm, she is a fierce warrior and i love that about her! also AYDA AGUEFORT IS THE BEST!!! just her and fig are adorable, her being besties with adaine, her calling gorgug the finest wizard ever, just beautiful!!

least fav season/pc/npc: i hate biz glitterdew with every ounce of my being. just the "nice guy" energy radiating from him makes me sick. like i had dudes like that interact with me in middle and high school, and they creeped me the fuck out.

a line i like: "i'm the prince of shoeberg, motherfucker!!!" is a great line and it makes me giggle every time i hear it. a very impactful line for me is "you listen to me right here. having panic attacks, that is not a character flaw, do you understand? you are not a coward. you have a goddamn medical condition, all right?" like that makes me want to sob. i watched this season right around the time that i got diagnosed with severe general anxiety and social anxiety, and it hit me that i am not flawed, i just needed some help.

funny bit that makes you laugh: god just the fact that murph cannot for the life of him roll well is hilarious. i also love the hairy baby dance! like the fact that it came back in an adventuring party for starstruck was fucking great.

saddest moment: god when jet is talking to liam and tells him to tell ruby that she did the right thing, and then the light goes out of the locket of the sweetest heart. gut-wrenching dude. or when they're in the nightmare forest, and brennan is talking about how ayda loves fig because she was kind to her, and that she sees her for who she really is. that always makes me tear up dude.

best character arc: dude ragh for sure! like him going from being a bully, to everyone realizing it was because he was getting harassed by his best friend/the guy that he had loved for years? god what a good storyline. or kugrash, sacrificing himself for everyone by eating the bagel?? killer moment.

fav newly announced season: wasn't there one about them blowing up or something? what the actual fuck does that mean mr. mulligan and mr. reich? huh???

who would you like to see on d20 return or for the first time: alex song-xia needs to come back. no ifs, ands, or buts about it! they were wonderful, and i loved how they played conrad. if they don't come back, i will lose my mind.

who would you like to see dm: murph should dm! he's amazing on naddpod (even though i'm only on the very first campaign) and i would love to see his work in the dome. it would be absolutely amazing!!!!

mini you like: preston was so tiny and so cute! i also loved sprinkle, for the same reason. the fact that it literally was just a sprinkle as a mini was great and i loved every second of it

battle set you liked: the battle with the terrible dogfish!! the fact that it came from like the top of the dome????? absolutely astounding. rick perry truly works wonders with minis.

something you hope comes back: ooh, that's a tough one. i did really like the moving part of mentopolis, the little pressure meter thingy. i did also love in acofaf that they got little trinkets! i love a good trinket!!

everyone needs to watch escape from the bloodkeep!!! i love it so so so much, and it has some amazing characters, some amazing minis, great players, and it's dimension 20 history y'all!!

[gascon-en-exil]

Awakening has so many "nothing characters" besides Priam, remember Chrom's father? I still find it funny one of the "Rhea bad" arguments said * Like this isn’t the “good guy blue country” we typically see in a FE game. This is Chrom’s father’s Ylisse. Which I find really hilarious to this day given how much that plot poitn was forgotten with the game entirely vindicating the prejudice against Grima worshippers and even when it was brought up, it was to talk about how Ylisse was the true victim of the crusade.

I'll be honest; I barely remember Chrom's father, or anything he did. FE13's story is already impossible to take seriously in between all the fanservice and time travel silliness and how it's all a clumsily stitched-together riff on the first three games on the series in sequence. Asking me to care about the actions of a character who never so much as appears onscreen (or even has a name?) in a game like that is entirely too much.

Of course, that does play into the broader point about FE's character writing. Like I said in response to the Bernadetta ask earlier today, gimmick character writing is inevitable in games like these, which sit awkwardly between party-based RPGs and large-scale tactical games where most/all of your units are generics. Every FE has a handful of one-note playable characters, and NPCs - or characters only ever represented as generics - are naturally going to be deemed less important by players because that's how the developers are treating them. Conservation of detail: if the author doesn't put time and effort into fleshing out a character/nation/whatever, then it logically follows that that element is not intended to be very important. The hierarchy in FE is mostly clear-cut:

Avatars > other playable characters with plot armor and/or plot relevance > non-plot-relevant PCs > named, unique NPCs who appear onscreen > NPCs who lack one or more of those traits

There's a bit of wiggle room in the middle, if you were, for example, to compare an undeveloped filler unit to the main villain. Apart from though it's a good rule to follow when handling what one might expect from a particular character. Rhea is actually a good example of how this works. Both Fódlan games treat her as more of a multipurpose tool to be brought out whenever necessary than as the impactful major character that she allegedly is. This is in large part because she's an NPC, and doesn't need to be developed in the same way (full support list and multiple endings, battle lines/interactions, activity dialogue) as even goofy bit players like Raphael or Alois. There's a whole bunch of telling and not showing when it comes to Rhea, just like with Chrom's father I suppose.

A corollary to all this is that it's the natural role of transformative fandom to expand underdeveloped and overlooked elements of canon, often in ways that the original writers never conceived or intended. However, as I noted in my discourse video, everyone in transformative fandom has their own priorities when it comes to which parts of canon they believe deserve to be expanded upon - and discourse frequently arises when contradictory desires in fandom spaces come into conflict with one another.

[magnetictapedatastorage]

HM:AWL critical analysis. a looooong post

harvest moon a wonderful life gamecube edition has a LOT of rough edges.

everything is incredibly, painfully slow. that's not so bad on its own, you know, to take things at a less frantic pace... but it's the menuing. menuing is fucking glacial. buying something takes ages, with long animations and having to restart the whole dialogue for every purchase. the font size is huge which means it takes FOREVER to get through a block of text (this is understandable, a small CRT of the game's era would need a huge font). but every time i talk to takakura there's at least a 50% chance he's going to try explain to me the basics of cows, which is like 9 dialog boxes long. also every time you select soil it takes 3 A presses to get out of it even though you only get 2 lines of dialogue.

the game feels wildly uneven. the cow system is fantastic, it feels genuinely educational while also being engaging and profitable in the game.

the crops are dogshit, full stop. you can not make a reasonable profit. there are no multiple-harvest crops. instead, there's some insane hybridization system that i can not for the life of me understand the POINT of (and that you need to befriend takakura- the 9 dialogue boxes guy- to use). planting and taking care of crops feels genuinely punishing with very touchy controls and long animations. all for a profit of 5g. oh and here's the final nail that REALLY shows you were never meant to do it: YOU CAN NOT SHIP THEM. EVER. YOU CAN'T SHIP CROPS. or anything else for that matter, except eggs and dairy. everything else has to be sold at your own market stall as you wait for an npc to walk by and MAYBE ask to buy SOMETHING in your inventory. god help you if they ask to buy the watering can instead.

going to bed has you wake up a set number of hours later (around 6 hours), rather than a specific time of morning the next day. you may have to sleep twice in a row to get to the next morning. which is... neither bad nor good. it's just interesting. you get a pet dog that does absolutely nothing, and that you can feed for no reason. it doesn't need food. you can disable the background music on the farm by interacting with the record player, and thank god because there is no variety by season and it gets grating quickly.

it feels like the very first generation of a brand new split-off series, that died on the vine. and i guess it kind of was. no other harvest moon game has done things like that, for better and worse. there's a lot of mysteries about the game to this day, and it's much less documented than the others in the series.

the game released in 2004. there was a rerelease for ps2, that fixed some of these things in 2005. there's been a PC rerelease in 2023, and i have no idea anything about it.

the only reason i've been playing the oldest version is to use the gay patch... nami will be mine eventually lol

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 7- Part 9

Ooooh, I see some discoloration in the darkness, and I think I can recognize what it is.

That’s right, our final Pokémon is a Grubbin! Apparently, this encounter can either be a Grubbin or a Joltik, I’m not sure how the game decides which bug to give you here, it could just be a 50/50 thing. But honestly, I would’ve been fine with either of them, both would be helpful for the Gym. Joltik is obvious, being part Electric-type itself by default; as for Grubbin? Well…you’ll see (and no, it’s not about its evolution).

Anyways, I’ve got a good Ball for this, so let’s start by just purely putting it to sleep with Sing.

So far so good. And now, my secret weapon: Chekhov’s Dusk Ball!

Not only is it nighttime, but we’re in a dark building, so this should work perfectly on this Grubbin (especially with it being asleep)!

Outstanding, amazing, 10/10-

I named her Prong after the metal protrusions on electrical plugs- which, you know, given the Grubbin line’s association with electricity and such, seemed fitting.

Anyways, with the lights back on, do these NPCs have anything new to say?

I mean, seems like the lights got fixed pretty quickly, so it couldn’t have been that bad all things considered.

Which god, there’s like thirty of them.

Anyways, those are all the encounters- now it’s time to build our final team for Julia! …After I admire these nighttime light effects.

Nice.

Anyways, as for our team to take on Julia- I did some looking, did some moving-around on the PC, and this is the final product (or, well, near final because there’s yet more grinding to do):

I swapped out Breeze and Streak for Bloom and Prong. Once this Gym battle’s done, I’ll probably bring Breeze back in after beating Julia, but as for Streak…who knows, this may be his time to get some rest. 

I’m keeping in Whiskers because she has a bit more type coverage in the form of Zen Headbutt and Disarming Voice in addition to a STAB Normal move. As for why I’m keeping Riptide in, well- c’mon, he’s our starter! I’m not taking my starter out of the party! It’s like Octopath Traveler, you can’t take the chosen protagonist out of the party- and even when you are allowed to take them out of the party in the endgame, I still don’t do it because I’m too attached.

Anyways, there are some interesting things about Bloom and Prong. For one thing, Bloom apparently has a unique Original Trainer-

“Sweet Co.”...whatever that is. Maybe it’ll become relevant later.

Oh, but Bloom does have the Budew line’s Hidden Ability! Very nice, even if it won’t come into play in this particular Gym battle.

As for why Prong is so special, well, that’s pretty simple: her moves! And in Grubbin’s Gen VII learnset, there’s one move in particular it learns early on, and Prong luckily has it in her current moveset:

BEHOLD! AT LONG LAST, A SINGULAR GROUND-TYPE THING! Again, I doubt we’ll be able to rely on it during this particular battle, but a Ground move is a Ground move and it is so good to have.

Now, the next task is to get these two on the rest of the party’s level- Lv. 16 specifically- and from there, grind everyone up just a bit more (but still below Lv. 20, of course). Bloom in particular is an interesting case, because I want to evolve him into Roselia, but we can’t do that until it’s daytime again. So, I can probably start building up friendship with him now, then continue tomorrow.

And it was in the midst of trying to build up friendship with Bloom that we ran into this new guy, a scientist-looking dude. What’s he got to say?

What kind of analysis would you even be doing on the outside of a building, of all things? Let alone to the point that you get the “wrong” data? How does that even happen?? Do you even have a doctorate, sir??

Wha-!? Excuse me!? Those are what the Read-Outs are?? I mean- if talking to NPCs is what gives those Read-Outs, I mean…I do that pretty frequently already, so maybe getting all the Read-Outs won’t be so bad…? I still wish we could just get the data by battling under that Field Effect a certain amount of times or something…

Which Field Effect is this Read-Out even about, anyways?

Oh- yeah, that makes sense.

Previous

Next

[githvyrik]

I do feel like I have a Point to being kind of a contrarian hater around bg3 because like I don’t actually hate it and there are a lot of great things it does but there’s a lot of things about it that REALLY REALLY bother me and also. like. I get larian isn’t the biggest studio but um. dnd is owned by wizards of the coast which is owned by hasbro. and uh. you don’t even need to look that hard for the awful shit they’ve done. so basically I think it’s important to bring up some things within The Hottest Big Game that I believe leave MUCH MUCH MUCH to be desired. anyways with all the Fantasy Game Stuff it supposedly challenges and twists (I have no idea what people are actually talking about when they say that, I guess it’s because they give NPCs something to do?) it sure seems happy to keep on with the weird traditions of If No Boob How Woman and Woman In Armor Means Tight Metal Jumpsuit and Fantasy Racism that’s just some people being mean to you based on the fact you’re a devilspawn and not like an actual system of oppression based around giving socio-economic power to certain people at the expense of others. and also drow are still evil. they do that really cool fun thing (/s) where people are Fantasy Racist to drow and call them all evil and horrible and yet they’re Right to be doing that because every drow is evil except you can theoretically play as One Of The Good Ones and maybe meet a couple more? great work guys. also no fat people you can’t make a fat character even though you can make your skin green and have horns and a tail. you can play a fucking dragonborn but you can’t be fat. also you only get like a few face presets and they’re different based on if you pick elf or half elf or human or whatever with no crossover???? which really drops the ball considering a lot of games will at least let you match a different nose to a different set of eyes. it is genuinely a big letdown for a game that’s supposedly all about Player Freedom where you can have pink skin and horns but you can’t be fat and if you play as a woman you can be muscular but only in the way where you can still be curvy and if you’re a guy you can be muscular in a twunk way and if you’re a poc trying to make your character reflect you then good fucking luck lol make do with like the 1 face preset you get I don’t even wanna hear about how hard it is because games have been letting you play with facial structures using sliders since forever. also I specifically built this PC to run fast and have good storage I got like 3 other people who Know Shit About Computers for video games and art and I spent a long time and a lot of money making this stupid thing I KNOW it runs well. so why the fuck is my game still so laggy what is taking up all the damn space I know it’s not the character customization. like is it just me or

[bg3fandomcritical-reactive]

"Gale doesn't flirt with anyone except the player character because, he could be demi-sexual, but he is also still hung up on Mystra.

(...)

Just because he doesn't flirt explicitly with all the NPC's doesn't mean that he is not pan."

You can handwave it away as whatever you like, headcanons are fun, but the fact is that outside of the PC he only talks about Mystra. It doesn't mean he's not pan, but it also doesn't mean he's not straight, or even gay (which is a perfectly valid reading of the character I've seen). He's playersexual. Hence why the distinction can be important.

Fact is, if they wanted to drive home that he's not only interested in a woman outside of the PC, they could've written him mentioning some guy in that one scene where (IIRC) he mentions messing around with other students when he was younger.

This is not a slight against Gale in specific. He's just the clearest example. I know people are upset when others says he's straight, but that's not what I'm trying to imply here at all.

We need to remember characters aren't real people. They're written a specific way for specific reasons, so something not being written in does matter. Yes, if a real person doesn't flirt with everyone it doesn't mean they're not pan, of course. However, if a character is being propped up as pan representation, it is important that that's been written in in some manner.

By this logic we eventually run into JK Rowling incidents where an author can say "oh yeah, this character is gay" even though no effort has been put into making that part of the text. Yeah, sure, if the character was a real person them making no comment indicating their sexuality wouldn't deny it. But since they're not real... it's just lazy to try to act like that's representation, or canon.

I'm aware a lot of people will feel that this isn't the same since he can romance a male PC. But, I'm once again encouraging people to watch the verilybitchie video about why that is only slightly better.

I'm not against the companions in BG3 being playersexual, to be clear. I just want the correct terms to be used, and I think it would've been cooler if they had actually put in the effort to make everyone explicitly pansexual instead.

.

[raymurata]

16, 31, and 42 for oak 👀

16. What scents do you associate with your PC?

I think they'd smell like an alchemist if dnd alchemy made any sense, like solvent and smoke and maybe even faint sulfur. But dnd alchemy is just magic actually, so maybe not? Maybe they smell like the tobacco and herbs blend they smoke on their pipe, and like Vermalock wood if it has any smell.

But the question is what smell I associate with them rather than what they smell like, and I'm not sure. Something warm and earthy.

31. What’s your favorite part of playing your PC?

One too many. I love playing someone who's genuinely so sweet and caring, because the characters we created deserve so much love! And I can just spend my free time plotting the many ways in which Oak will shower you guys with affection.

42. Who is your PC’s favorite NPC(s) and why?

Aaahhhhh. This question makes me blush already. Like, if we don't count NPCs that are from my own backstory (Oak's whole family) then I think it's Foghome and, in a different way, Galsariad. Foghome because Oak has such admiration for calm and wise people, especially those connected to nature and all. Oak's really glad he'll be brought back 😭

And Galsariad... Well, funny thing here is that Gal was the only one in the Jigoutlaws Oak didn't like ar first. Lmao "Entitled rich drow wizard," Oak thought when they first met (Gal had had his money stolen, y'all remember that? I wonder by whom xD). oh how things have changed since then. I wouldn't say that Gal's Oak's favorite NPC, per se, but certainly the one they most want to talk to/are most interested in atm. 😳

[s0lar-ch3ri]

tell me all about dnd character(s) please i am begging

OMG OMG OMG OMG OKAY OKAY OKAY!!!!! HAGVJDFD GLADLY I WILL

I GOT A COUPLE SO LETS GET INTO THIS:

ohevet: first ever character! uses she/they i think (and if they didnt, they do now! update: JUST REMEMBERED, IT WAS HE/HIM FOR A CIS WOMAN! THROW OUT THE OTHER IDEA SORRY) and also my first aroace character. his name is a joke with that honestly, as ohevet is hebrew for love. i lost the stat sheet a bit back BUT im working on rewriting the stats so i can make an actual character of him! his backstory is kinda silly and i dont really remember it rn so ill also be redoing that shit for sure, but i do know one thing, he's cursed. with this marking on his face, hes able to get "Stackable Concussions" (which me and my dms came up with stat affection ideas but i do also wanna make my own for funzies, and i doubt either would mind if you also wanted to lol). by the end of the campaign, he had been like the only one to not try to seduce someone (my friend had gotten a nat 20 to seduce "mommy nature" so theres that) and had a stack of 10 concussions. how he was still standing is beyond me. did i fall for him? abso-fucking-lutely, i made him hot and wanted him carnially and yet hes aroace so what can my gay ass do? (fun fact: one of my dms is my now girlfriend!) btw before i forget, mountain dwarf fighter, and had a lizard he took off the floor rather then pay for a pet, one of the players had its brother/cousin.

ivy: meant to be an npc for my campaign (which btw ill gladly talk about BUT MY PLAYERS CANNOT SEE THIS LOL ARCADIAN AND GAYWITCHNERD SKIP TO THE SECOND PARAGRAPH ON IVY), but a played character in my friend's (arcadian) campaign (arcadian was the one to try and seduce "mommy nature" btw). speaking of npc, the played character and npc have different stories, so we going with npcs rn! ivy (she/they/star pronouns lol) was meant to be a royal guard who did training and learning in the forests, but im thinking of making her a shop owner (eh, probs for out of dnd oc shit). while in the forest, she sorta fell for a nymph there which looks a lot like one of my players characters (agreed romance thing lol). while in town, i plan for her to sorta like fall for said player after bumping into them and shit. that being said, love wont be her only motivation! i do have some plot ideas i need to think up, but im pretty ready to connect shit in. also shes gonna have a dog familiar (my dog) just to involve her somehow lol. oh yeah she slso has gay moms

NOW WE TALK HER AS A PLAYED CHARACTER! in arcadians campaign, shes a half-elf druid like before, but her lesbian parents arent really too existant. (hey gaywitchnerd, i dont mind you reading this, but your character wouldnt know this info) due to issues with her planet, ivy has had her set of challenges, and is looking for strength in knowledge (literally). back home, theres some fucking secret thing there for some deity. on this route, its a pursuit of learning what the deity is. (another idea i had was that the swamp she once lived in is commonly disregarded, and due to anxiety she worried about it being forgotten and shit happening to it so she went looking for power to protect it) there are religions based around it, but ivy isnt exactly religous but still learning as much as she can about it. (fun fact for this one, but its related to the oc: i was planning for her to have BPD, but i wasnt sure how to play one so as a non-dnd character im gonna find ways to incorperate it, also she likes one of the pcs and an npc, the pc is my gfs one but i doubt they realise it lol)

hunter: like all my characters, i go into it with a basis, something i build around for them (ivy is an acception, she was just gonna be an npc), and hunters no different. since the campaign features 3-4 tabaxis (cant remember for sure), an undead, and other various magical people, i wanted to be just a regular guy, which i am! human fighter guy and all that, pretty normal (most extraordinary thing is that hes a magician)...except humans arent fucking normal here because its a tabaxi village. i fucking love that i didnt know this btw! CAUSE I DID NOT, NOR DID MY FRIENDS REALIZE. the story with this guy that i got is he was a traveling performer, one who used this bow tie made special by his fiancé, which works like the bandana chip uses. this however, got taken while traveling, and hes not willing to preform at a show or anything until he gets it back. for the tabaxi village hes disguised as a cat and his whip is his cat tail (this is to make up for the fact that im not a tabaxi with them all lol)! fun fact for him now: his original design was meant to look feminine and masculine to encapsulate my bigenderness in a character ("the most magical thing about them is their gender!"), but ended up feeling too extra for the "just a guy" vibe and got a total redesign lol (he/him cishet man btw, gonna be fun to try <- bigender afab)

techic: my newest campaign character (who i get to play again in 5 minutes, but by the time i finish writing this, we may have started already lol)! a genderfluid tiefling warlock, who worked as a cashier at a 8/12 before shit went down (its an apocalypse campaign). (update, it did actually, writing while we wait for players to arrive) the funny idea with this one? "what if they made a deal for surgery and just got more out of it?". not much on them rn so fun fact time! their mom is a pc (played by arcadian) and currently being locked in a closet cause they ate their zombified partner!