#she’s had a lot of character growth from the first game

[anim-ttrpgs]

Who is Yvette and may I please know more about their streaming career? 🙏

Comtesse Yvette Preux is, for lack of a better word, one of the ‘iconic’ investigators/PCs in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. She appears in a lot of art in the rulebook, as do many of the PCs of the A.N.I.M. team and our friends.

(both by team artist @chaospyromancy)

She’s also the first ever monster PC to ever be played in Eureka, back before Eureka even had official monster PC rules. The incredible success of that campaign is what set the precedent for what monster PC gameplay would come to be in Eureka.

You can read a bit of an origin story for her in this post

In the 2010s and 2020s, she has a fairly successful twitch streaming/influencer career, with her gimmick being that she claims to be a real 800+-year-old vampire, and allegedly never breaks character. Her twitch and YouTube channels cover competitive gaming, challenge runs, advanced math, firearms, and urban exploring.

In-person she is.. a little harder to get along with. She’s.. old-fashioned, and her values are very distinctly those of someone who grew up rich and Catholic in the 1200s, which ironically means she has little in common with a modern “tradcath.”

The contrast between the modern world, the modern world’s pop culture idea of the Middle Ages, and the actual Middle Ages is a major theme in the parts of her story where she’s actually integrating into the society of the 1990s and 21st century.

Many would expect her to be virulently and openly hateful, but that’s the pop culture Middle Ages. The actual Middle Ages were oppressive in different and more interesting ways.

I’ll give a few interesting examples

In the Middle Ages, women were considered the more “lustful” and “sexually aggressive” sex, a bit like men are thought of today. It’s women who were considered basically responsible for lust in the first place, to the point that it was considered a public health issue. Lust with no outlet was thought to be detrimental to one’s overall physical health. Sex or even masturbation was sometimes prescribed by doctors to combat this.

This is a comedic exaggeration/oversimplification but in the medieval world being around women would gradually fill up a Dark Souls-style Lust meter and if you didn’t do anything to reduce it it would take a chunk out of your health, making you sickly and prone to other health problems. Women were more resistant to this because they’re the source of lust in the first place. Medieval women covered their legs and their hair in particular for everyone’s protection.

This manifests in Yvette as her not caring at all about being naked in front of female friends, but being careful not to look too sexy around male friends. And then awkwardly telling them to masturbate later if they need to because it’s better to sin and live than to avoid sin to the detriment of one’s health. (In fact, knowingly damaging one’s health is a sin.)

In the art, you can see her not only wearing pants, but even wearing pants that show her ankles and legs, and wearing her hair down. It took her a long time to get comfortable wearing anything but full-length skirts around men, but these risqué (to her) outfits are symbolizing her character growth from someone who is accommodating to others to a fault, to prioritizing her own comfort, even at cost to others.

In the Middle Ages, they did not conceptualize homosexuality like we do now. No one was gay, and neither was anyone straight. Attraction wasn’t a trait of an individual, it was a fact. Homosexuality wasn’t really considered a thing that you were, it was a thing you do. It’s really hard to explain so I’m just going to hope y’all get it along with the example. Sodomy was sodomy, and that was considered to cover basically any irregular form of sex. Irregular sex between a man and woman was as much sodomy as sex between a man and another man. This also means that there was no presumption of homosexuality in the Middle Ages. You didn’t have to say “no homo” before you touched your same sex friend’s hand. Close friends would kiss each other on the mouth and stuff, and that was considered normal. (Though something you would want to avoid was spending more than a few minutes alone with an opposite-sex friend, because that could be used to call the woman’s virginity into question, which could hurt her eligibility for marriage.)

As Yvette understands it, in the 21st century, people have constructed entire communities around their enjoyment of sodomy, like how she’s a member of the gun club. She has complex feelings about that but it isn’t like she’s never engaged in sodomy before either. (She brought this to confession and did her penance so it’s fine.)

What really aggravates her is how she can’t touch or kiss any of her friends in the 21st century without it being considered sexual.

She argues it’s not “gay” for her to feel attracted to women either, it’s normal. Women are naturally attractive to everyone.

Where it really gets abrasive though is probably the classism. She’s from the noble class and still considers that to really matter, it makes her a little bit better than everyone else, and more qualified to be making decisions for people.

She does love commoners, though. All her friends are commoners, and she’s very protective of them. She’s too autistic to get that noblesse obligé wasn’t supposed to be a real principal she lives by and even back when she was for-real managing a fiefdom she was an advocate for the comfort of the peasantry.

I'm gonna have to stop listing all her quirks here because if I don’t stop then it’ll go on forever. If you want to read some short stories that feature her, subscribe to our Patreon.

I’ll segway by saying that two more major aspects of her are generosity and power. She revels in power in all forms, including the power to solve the problems of people who are helpless to solve them themselves. Like I said, she takes noblesse obligé very seriously. Jesus Christ had the power to multiply the fish and bread for the hungry, so he did. She can help, so she will(whether you like it or not). She hardly even considers it a “duty,” it’s more like why would she ever do anything else? Sometimes this means giving away staggering amounts of money, other (more exciting) times it means getting involved in a Eureka adventure/investigation, the more challenging and dangerous the better, because it makes her even cooler. This is what gets her into Eureka adventures. She’s going to help the helpless, what does it matter if it also fuels her ego?

I also just realized I’ve said very little about her actual twitch streaming career. Like I said, her gimmick is that she’s a real vampire. In the 2010s and 2020s, she is more or less “out” as a vampire, openly identifying herself as such and doing almost nothing to hide any aspect of her vampirism(except the part where she sneaks up on people in the night and drinks their blood, but she doesn’t hide that because it’s a vampire thing, she hides that because it’s an assault charge). Most people just think she’s weird, or really really dedicated to the persona. And if somebody does actually see her not reflecting in a mirror, or some other unexplainable proof of vampirism, what are they going to do? Go online and say “hey everyone I think that this popular e-celebrity whose gimmick is that she says she’s a vampire actually is a real vampire!”? Vampires aren’t real, idiot.

If you want to read short stories about her, you can get them with a $5 subscription to our Patreon,

and she and her exploits in Eureka campaigns are also talked about a lot in the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club.

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook will also have a section that will probably be called “the making of a vampire” that will detail some of her actual living life and shine a little more light on how a vampire actually comes to be in Eureka’s world.

[desmon1995]

The dichotomy of Fox and Luther

I think one of the weirdest things about the Warriors that even other pieces of media don't really contrast much is the unspoken compare and contrast between Fox and Luther that pops up ever so often in my head.

In the original movie, Fox actually sees Luther murder Cyrus and she basically blacks it from her mind to the point that Luther would have shot her if Cleon wouldn't have stepped in.

Within the concept album, the two are the only ones that make references to video games.

Fox introduces herself as not only the youngest, but makes a reference to the 1970s console the Magnavox and the video game The Odyssey which was one of the first RPGs.

What I really do like about this is that it just reinforces how much of a teenager Fox is but also foreshadows the immense growth that she's going to go through since most 1970s RPGs were very much create your own story types.

(ironically enough the Warriors themselves basically act as one gigantic RPG party and in Japanese RPGs it's pretty common for at least one character to die or sacrifice themselves)

Luther on the other hand predominantly talks about the 1980s video game Pac-Man where he views himself as the title character and the marginalized women he's assaulting as the ghost that need to be terminated by him.

Pac-Man as a character is characterized by his gluttony and the goal of the game is to severely cripple the ghost so that they can become devoured by him.

Ironically enough, Pac-Man is actually pretty fragile and after to hits he's done very much like Luther after everything is said and done.

Another more interesting aspect is that both Fox and Luther are based around mythological / biblical figures.

Europeans largely regarded Foxes as nuisances and within their own stories typically presented them as swindlers and more often than not as a stand-in for minorities (which is why many foxes were brutally hunted for sport).

However, indigenous Americans such as the Blackfoot tribe saw the Fox as a Creator deity that while something of a trickster, often did so to teach people lessons about the world and was said to be the embodiment of the Sun itself.

Fox is more or less all of the above because she is a marginalized woman, pretty coy at first, but ultimately ends up growing to be a guiding light for the rest of her crew to follow as she soaks in most of the lessons that Cyrus and a lot of her older peers have bestowed upon her.

Luther is obviously based around lucifer, but what many people don't know is that Lucifer is actually a Greek god specifically he's the god of the Dawn and his original role was to bring the day into night and vice versa.

It's why he's associated with light, but Europeans deemed that any figures and beans that were not a part of their theology either had to be eradicated or repurposed to fit into their very disjointed understanding of how the world works.

As such, Lucifer was merged with the the the Greek god pan (which was goat like) and that's how we have the horned goatman figure we know today.

In other words, Lucifer was colonized and turned into all things evil but eventually Europeans started to see him as some weird misunderstood necessary evil and started to embrace him and whoopify him.

I don't think I need to tell you how this relates to white supremacy because after the last election we all know that society has grown to not only tolerate but also reaffirm bigotry and White fragility.

The idea is that Luther exists because society allows them to end when confronted with what he does often makes excuses for why this is just the way things are or they just turn around and blame other factions of society.

Luther was always a character that was meant to be a product of his society and in a weird roundabout way he still is that in the concept album but is more horrifyingly real.

It's also interesting how their demise is also treated completely differently.

Fox dies a horrific death by being ran over by the station train right after she fended off her crew from Captain Victor,

Her death is the thing that allows the Warriors to escape and is meditated on not only in the same train home but during the finale.

Luther's death is off screen so he doesn't even really get to go out with the blaze like the shooting star that he thinks that he is.

I know that there are a few people that really wanted to see him get it good, but I almost feel like not giving him what he wanted is a much more satisfying conclusion

[lyriumsings]

a lot of people are mad mara and crow made up and like hmmm yeah it could’ve gone on longer but at the same time it makes sense that once he got all his uldren memories back that he’d forgive her bc that’s his sister. idk you just always forgive each other eventually lmao as long as he doesn’t get reduced back to mara’s lap dog i think it’s fine. when you think about the fact that mara made marasenna pocket dimension or whatever the fuck it was called she was like 19 or some shit and she saw her brother and everyone really as things to be manipulated so it makes sense that she warped his sense of loyalty to her she was creating a universe from thought as a damn teenager. like the problem isn’t crow forgiving mara it’s “are they capable of keeping his character on a forward trajectory without backtracking into that bullshit” imo which imo uldren (pretty much the entirety of his existence as uldren had mara manipulation in it) and crow are different because that part of their connection no longer exists and it’s why they’ll always be fundamentally different characters to me. idk well see im not done with the season story yet lol

[presiding]

you'll never guess which level we're up to in this dishonored 2 rewrite

[vaguely-concerned]

the things it adds to both of the characters involved that lucanis used to have a thing for viago could not have been more tailor made to be for me. literally the ideal thing to come out of this game for me personally and specifically and spiritually. I mean I'm teia x viago trash until the day I die and nothing will ever change this (and with the best will in the world and even the power of lucanis' big beautiful soulful eyes, that would never have worked out even if viago DID somehow understand he was being propositioned. which I'm not convinced he did. the mutual 'so. snakes are pretty cool huh. and. knives. also' awkward energy without someone of teia's charisma and people skills involved to mitigate it... it would have been dire), but on so many levels I find it so incredibly charming for what it says about them both that the (one-sided) attraction was there once.

what's more, it means the man about whom this legendary paragraph was written:

Viago was not a typical Antivan. He liked facts—checklists, numbers, precise measurements. Heart palpitations, clammy hands, tight pants—Viago did not like these things. In fact, he would go so far as to say he hated them. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood.

has got some of the hottest coolest deadliest people in thedas down so catastrophically bad it's got them acting unwise. teia had to wait a UST-drenched decade for him to be ready to take his fucking gloves off for her. and she did!! the tetchiest most neurotic least approachable little vetinari knockoff of a man you ever saw has game for days and days and lives rent free in heads for years. in eight little talons viago consistently feels so inadequate up against dante and it's like. man I'm shaking you by the lapels you have what he'll never have. the ability to bewitch body and soul with your terrible personality and long thin legs. do not waste the gift you've been given go get her she's waiting!!!

(lucanis is really good at reading people, so I wonder if maybe he saw through all of that to some of the steadiness and incredible capacity for warmth and tenderness in specific interpersonal relationships you see viago have with teia when he finally opens up enough, and maybe that was part of it. either way it's so perfect that both he and teia have regarded viago with this affectionate intrigued amusement. lucanis still seems pretty fond of him in a 'viago continues to be exactly himself no matter what else happens or goes wrong. comforting universal constant' sort of way, he brings him up quite a lot in party banter.)

you've seen lucanis' game in this day and age, arguably or at least hopefully older and wiser -- can you imagine how catastrophically bad it must have been back when he presumably handed viago, most paranoid man in thedas all years running, a knife like this expressed everything it needed to. people give him so much shit for the cake moment being his big romantic lock-in, but considering where we started that is GROWTH and I for one am so proud of him fhsdkjaf.

also I wonder at what point vis-a-vis that whole Situation teia and viago met for the first time, leading us to ask... just how much was it a matter of lucanis simply being ignored out of a lack of interest on viago's part (tbf, not entirely unlikely). how much was it lucanis truly not managing to make himself understood. (all but certainly. literally how would one understand that. I think it says some sweet things about rook and lucanis' dynamic that they -- somehow -- DO pick up what he's putting down in a similar scenario presumably b/c they know him pretty well by then haha.) how much was it viago interpreting the romantic move as a death threat from one of the most dangerous people alive and freaking out. (1000% and indubitably.) and how much was it andarateia steal-your-girl cantori turning up and thus setting off whatever spectacular, volatile, awesome-in-the-original-sense chemical reaction between the substances of her and viago's souls that goes on to this day and makes everything else kind of a side note at best. a gentle mix of several of these things, perhaps. ...god I love all these characters so much

[bhaalble]

Back on my Wyll script doctor because I was talking about it with a friend. Specifically imagining a version of Wyll's big Character Choice that felt like it had some actual teeth.

Imagine a world where instead of a cartoon evil hot lady Mizora and Wyll's relationship actually had some complexity to it and like. some genuine push and pull which gives him temptation to stay. I just keep thinking about this 17 year old who his whole life wanted more than anything to be a hero, who got his chance to do something heroic and selfless and save the city from certain doom, and his reward is getting kicked out because he did it the "wrong way".

Imagine if instead of forcing his silence, Mizora instead comforted him. How unbelievably cruel of your father! Well...since you've nowhere else to go, why not stick with me? We make a pretty good team, as it turns out, and I can get you a whole list of monsters who need killing. Plenty of devils and demons loose in your world targetting all sorts of innocents. Our interests can keep aligning, and you get a place to sleep when you need it.

Wyll makes his peace with it, because he has nothing and no one. And Mizora's not GOOD maybe, not by Ulder Ravengard's definition. But she's fun. She delights in his growth. And she does certainly keep direct him at greater evils, devils who really do need killing. And if she spies on his every waking moment, well, she worries. If she sends him after the occasional innocent, well, she had people who she has to answer to as well. She's a devil, how much can he fault her for her nature? She's always seemed like she knew where the line was...

Karlach (and the player) express their doubts, of course, but for act one at least he's defensive. Yes, she punished him and he hates it and its miserable but....he was in breach of contract! She's NEVER gone outside its bounds, she's always stuck very closely to their agreement. Wyll, who wants so badly to trust others and believe everyone has the chance for good, can't find it in him to believe the worst even of a devil.

And Mizora is FOND of Wyll, loves him even in her way. As a cherished pet, as a trusted tool, as a best-laid plan. Never enough to choose his own well-being over her own agenda, never enough to see him as his own person. He's her little project, the long shot noble brat she gambled on when Tiamat decided to get too big for her britches. And it paid off! Wyll always pays off, currying her all the favor from Zariel she so desperately craves. And who are you, or anyone, to come between them? She's treated him well. As she's quick to remind him, she wanted him when no one else did, aided him while the rest of his city slept snug in their beds. And if Ulder Ravengard didn't want a son with a whiff of infernal, then do you REALLY think he'd want you with lovely horns and Avernus in your blood?

You discover his father's been taken. Beyond igniting a lot of old feelings, it brings up a question of succession. Of course, Florrick isnt giving up on him, but if not...there aren't currently any likely candidates to take over the Flaming Fists. Not trustworthy ones. Florrick will take the position, but everyone knows in the back of his mind Ulder never really stopped planning for it to be Wyll. With the city in chaos and a cult army on the rise, they may need an answer sooner rather than later. Wyll feels the call of the Gate, but knows just as well that Mizora wouldn't want him to return in such an official capacity.

For the first time ever the leash starts to chafe in a way he can't keep pushing through.

Act 2 rolls around. Mizora sends up the Warlock signal. After potentially some encouragement from the player, Wyll (NOT THE PLAYER. I DONT KNOW WHY ITS THE PLAYER IN THE GAME ITS WEIRD) hesitantly proposes that maybe, if he does this....they can do a renegotiation of his contract. Not break it, he assures her quickly! Just....reopen the terms, take a looks at the agreement. Maybe discuss an exit ramp? After all....I mean, neither of us truly thought I'd be doing this forever, did we?

Based on Mizora's reaction. Yeah she did.

But fine. She agrees. And Wyll's not mad that it turns out you're rescuing her, not a nameless "operative" for Zariel. He would've done that on his own had she asked. Its the fact that she apparently didn't feel like being honest, that she let him fret and worry about potentially handing Zariel back some runaway for basically no reason. Its the fact that she came here to check in on the cult that abducted his FATHER just to see if Zariel could make any use of them. And its the fact that she seems surprised and annoyed that ANY of this bothers him.

All this builds, of course, to the final confrontation. The basic elements are the same. Mizora outside the coronation (this time needling at Wyll, "I'll be at camp if you're not too high and mighty to consort with the likes of me anymore"), Ulder tadpoled and fighting it. Mizora makes her offer. I can end the contract now, and you're free to go running after daddy (who won't want you btw! not like I do!). You'll lose all your powers, all my aid, all those juicy quests to chase down the greatest monsters in the hells. Take on your father's job and settle in for a life of misery and compromise and only doing as much good as the nobles will let you. Or: pledge yourself to me, eternally. I'll give you a boatload of new powers and eternal life to boot, so long as you serve as my sword and shield.

From there I think three endings branch out, and with it three classes for Wyll. If he stays with Mizora, accepts a relationship where he will never be an equal or a free agent in exchange for the affirmation he wants so badly from his father, he remains a Warlock, with some juiced stats and extra spell slots, along with shiny new gear. If he pledges to follow in his father's footsteps, he instead becomes an Oath of Devotion paladin, pledging himself in service to Tyr, if with a sense of doomed finality. The Blade of Frontiers is officially retired, and along with it any identity he has outside of being his father's son. Or the third path, break the contract without taking his father's role. He will look for his father, yes, but whether or not you find him he's going back to his roots, travelling around to do some good in the world (as the Blade of Frontiers) or kicking ass in the Hells with Karlach (as the Blade of Avernus). In this timeline he becomes a fighter, with a default preference for Eldritch Knight.

What's important: if he breaks his contract then Mizora is NOT hanging around camp. She will leave in a fury, accidentally bound by her own word to withdraw her influence completely if he breaks his contract. She may still approach the player some night to sleep with the player, framed for high approval/romanced players and her trying to take something back from Wyll. But Wyll will have to learn how to define himself without her breathing down his neck, without keeping her happy dominating his every thought. Its nervewracking, and even lonesome at times...but its freedom. And, perhaps, that's worth a little bit of lonesomeness.

[lunahearts]

Okay I'm doing it. I'm chapter 96 posting.

This is not meant to be a big analysis post this is mostly just me sharing all the little moments that Marcille & Laios show their care for each other because they are SO beloved to me. Join me on the journey if you wish.

(but also the above statement may be a lie. I do have a point here, it turns out, and the point gets at some of my Big Feelings of what Dungeon Meshi has to say about the nature of friendship & living in the world)

So, first of all, the conversation about Laios being king at the start of the chapter. Just in general Laios insisting on presenting himself in his own way here is so good. Character development!!

Before the events of the story he hadn't shared his inner world with anyone but Falin. Now he's like Actually I'm gonna dress up in the discarded remains of my monstersona and that's just how it is.

And even though there are a LOT of parts of the story and bits of character growth that go into this, I think it specifically highlights some interactions from a few chapters ago.

After all, his initial reaction to having been in that monster form & coming out of it was trying to hide from everyone.

And I think everyone helping him put things in perspective here contributes to how he is able to present himself as king. They assure him that he is accepted, despite having just been seen by EVERYONE at his Peak "Weird Monster Guy" mode.

Highlighting what Marcille says here especially:

Going out to "face them with a smile" is EXACTLY what he does. Not right away. He's still pretty stressed in the following scene in this chapter. But he is able to face the crowds with a smile, eventually...

As king. Dressed in the memory of his most vulnerable moments, the most honest expression of his desire.

BUT I'M GETTING A LITTLE AHEAD OF MYSELF. Before the King Laios speech, there's a little moment with Marcille I want to highlight, because...

Did y'all know that by the end of the manga, Marcille isn't like... grossed out by eating monsters any more? Or at least, she's definitely changed her reaction to it. It's Namari who makes the "yeah it smells good despite what it is" comment, not Marcille.

We even get shots later of Tansu, Shuro, and Kabru being kinda grossed out by - but still going ahead and eating - the different Falin foods. Chilchuck also throws out a line about it being surprised that it's good.

But there's no disparaging comment from Marcille, despite the Everything of the situation. I just think that's also a nice little detail. She may not be as far in the monster eating game as Laios, but she's more willing to roll with the weirdness.

So after this little moment, this is when Laios comes out in his new regal outfit. And first of all...

This is such a good contrast to the moment when the group goes to save Marcille in chapter 84. The monsters had stopped attacking, and everyone's reactions to Laios and the others framed him as unsettling. Creepy. Maybe even traitors.

They even use some of the same labels (lord of the monsters/lord of the dungeon, dark lord/demon king)., but the context is that they are disgusted. The parallels in this manga....

Have a tendency to destroy me. What a difference in reception.

Anyway, after this moment, Laios stops to talk to the group... and I'd like to point out again: MARCILLE ISN'T FLIPPANT HERE EITHER!!

Chilchuck is still Chilchuck, of course, and I want to be clear I love that, too. Chilchuck is who he is to his core. His little jabs are very affectionate in this chapter.

But Marcille... Marcille only points to the Winged Lion symbol as being weird, not the monster bits. And like, considering what she's just been through with the lion, being skeptical of that part is... fair.

(don't get me wrong, her "that's fine and all" isn't exactly excitement. BUT the point I'm trying to make is less about her completely changing her feelings & preferences. It's more about how she expresses them, and how she treats Laios and HIS feelings & preferences)

And she continues to be so encouraging!! Wah!! Like, despite, all four of these people definitely caring about Laios, it's Marcille specifically who tells him to relax and just be honest. And you know what? I think that's what Falin would have said, too.

Please also note how cute everyone's little faces are in the crowd:

(see, Chilchuck loves him too!! Look at that fond face, and the cheer. and Senshi! and Namari! They really are such a family)

Laios' short speech actually has a little bit I'd like to highlight as well, since I think it is a nice little reflection of his choice to keep the lion insignia on his new outfit:

"Eat to your heart's content," he says. Not just "enjoy," or "let's eat."

Dunmeshi does such a wonderful job of framing so much about the Winged Lion with nuance, and this is a good example of that. Desire is not bad! Craving and consuming is beautiful. As Laios says when explaining the lion insignia...

It's not just something to get rid of.

So then... on to the feast!

And not only does Marcille not express any grossed out feelings, as I mentioned before... she even helps to gross out Chilchuck!!

Her weird girl powers are only just in their infancy. She will only grow more powerful in time...

As the feast goes on of course we get the group's realization about her hair, and I'd like to point out:

I really feel like they have such similar reactions to finding out about how the other has been affected by the Winged Lion

Just... the quiet concern. Not making a huge fuss, but... worried. Understanding. A little heartbroken for each other.

SPEAKING OF HEARTBROKEN REACTIONS THOUGH. WHAT COMES NEXT REALLY GETS ME.

After Chilchuck braids Marcille's hair for her, the topic of her needing to leave everyone comes up and...

God, these expressions. Every Time I see these panels I think about about what Laios saw in her nightmare. Her fears. The weight of inevitable loneliness, and the way it has marked her. As much as Marcille tries to keep things light when talking about it, he knows what this means to her. And it HURTS.

So he doesn't accept it. But do you notice how he frames this. Do you see. Not "do you want me to fix this." Not "hey I have an idea."

"Would you be willing to stay."

He doesn't know whether she will accept. Whether she will hate the idea, actually, of staying here with him. He's putting himself out there fully prepared for rejection & dismissal, as he has faced many times before.

But his pitch, his proposal to her, it's not JUST an excuse to ask her to stay, either. He's put thought into this. Into what Marcille could mean and do here. Not just to and for him, but for the people of this area. The place he has taken responsibility for.

He's also thinking about Falin. And about all the other little girls, the people of all sorts, just like her. He's thinking about the people who have been killed (burned at the stake???), hurt, shunned. About the people who have been abandoned. The people who are still alone.

He's not just offering Marcille an out from her isolation, he's offering her a new purpose. A new way to continue her work, to do the things she cares about. He SEES her! he understands her.

BUT ALSO HE'S SO NERVOUS OUGH. FIDDLING WITH THE PLATE. UNSURE IF SHE WILL CARE. UNSURE IF HE HAS IT RIGHT.

HE'S NOT GOOD WITH PEOPLE HE'S NOT GOOD AT THIS.

BUT THEY UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER. AND SHE WANTS THIS LIFE HE'S OFFERING HER.

Still... it's not that simple for her, even if for a moment she is swept up in how much she wants this.

Again here, Marcille is working so hard to be chill about the whole 'going west with the elves' thing. She looks absolutely devastated in the first panel, but puts on a smile in the second.

Maybe she doesn't want to bring down the mood. Maybe she doesn't want to burden everyone with what seems like the only option she has. Maybe she had already accepted the cost that might come with bringing Falin back. Maybe after everything with the Winged Lion, she doesn't want to risk letting herself fight for her desires too hard.

But hey. Desires aren't always bad. They aren't something to just get rid of.

A small bit of visual storytelling here... I love that Marcille is confined by the panel, but Laios is stepping outside of it. He's literally pulling her outside of the box she feels trapped in.

Also, I love that his first acts as king are:

1) welcome everyone to a big feast

2) stand by his friend and help her find happiness

It's great stuff and it's so Laios.

In addition to that, I love how this whole act actually plays out. I love that, while getting the elves to let Marcille go, he gets to be extremely cool and protective...

but also like. Not THAT cool and protective.

No really, I mean it! I think it's important! It's important that cool 'suave king guy Laios' is a front he puts up when he needs to deal with these strangers, and one that he completely drops once it's just him and Marcille.

He's not trying to impress her, or convince her he's cool and suave. Why would he? He trusts that she's okay with the messy, often unimpressive, sometimes kinda gross reality of who he is.

And isn't that what Dungeon Meshi is all about? Messy, unimpressive, gross reality. And how beautiful, how wonderful, how very precious it is

Especially when you get to share it with your friends.

[thisisnotthenerd]

putting the tl;dr at the top as a poll and the commentary under the cut because it’s quite rambly and it’s also late and i’m tired.

*whether dorian is one of these is up for debate

there’s some discussion of bell’s hells not having the “it” factor for a lot of people. even though it’s my first campaign and the only one i’ve mostly watched live, i kind of have to agree.

there’s a distinctive lack of investment in backstory for the group in terms of what they’ve spent time on in campaign. i think fearne is the only one who’s been done justice, even though we’ve seen other exploration, because they’ve been to her home multiple times, and while her backstory isn’t central to the main plot, it is close. it’s enough distance for her to be able to develop as a character but also for us to see where she came from.

imogen’s is tied directly to the main moon plot, so she’s had screen time aplenty, but less time to develop quietly, as laura does really well. i might argue for orym, but that’s because his is kept simple but with depth. his backstory comes through in the acting because he’s put up against his family members occasionally, but he’s a little guy at root.

for everyone else it’s been short detours. sometimes not even that. the spotlight oscillates between moon plot and god arguments with indecisive wandering in between.

while not everyone in vox machina inherently had a deep personal connection to the big bads of their campaigns, they didn’t need to. they did it for their friends, because they loved and trusted one another deeply. they made decisions about what they were facing and stuck to it, even when it meant sacrifice. they made multiple levels of friendship around and across the table.

at this point bell’s hells has been told a bunch of different things to do. and honestly i don’t know if they ever decided on one.

that’s not the point of this though.

there’s some archetypes or dnd players out there: roleplayers and power gamers. people who are all in it for the story and people who are all in it for the game. and it reflects in the characters they build.

somehow bell’s hells (collectively) is neither.

they don’t have strong investment in the plot collectively. the character concepts range from simple to deeply complex, and i have to say that i think the simpler has worked better for a plot-heavy campaign, because the characters that started simpler had a chance to develop over the campaign rather than competing for time between the plot and their own stories hanging over their heads.

take dorian. he was a humble bard, a former noble, who’s trying to make his way in the world. he refused great power from an evil source and paid the price in the loss of his brother. he fell in love as the world ended, and is still trying to sing the songs of the people he loves because he wants to bring people joy and bring them together. he’s invested in stopping predathos because of his friends, but also to avenge loss, and to protect the people of his homeland and take up his responsibility as heir to the silken squall.

it took a paragraph. but at the table, even when he was with the crown keepers for a few months, he fits right in. he’s had growth while keeping true to his core.

i’m not going to get into the rest now but there’s a definite element of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.

anyways, beyond the difficulties of backstory, they’re not super optimized. i’m of the belief that optimization works in tandem with roleplay—the characters are growing and changing over the course of the story, and having the mechanics trace that and make choices impactful is a big part of the appeal of the game.

watching vox machina and the mighty nein fight is a treat because not only are they level 20 and therefore godlike in power, their mechanics support interesting combat where failure hits hard because they’re built to succeed. when someone fails a save or misses it means something. they have options in their wheelhouse but they’ve found their niches and know how to play to their strengths.

bell’s hells is playing high level combat right now, but they have middling stats: lots of dump stats, 10-14s in the middle and some attacks/spell saves that aren’t as high as you’d expect of level 15 characters. they have several characters with perhaps too many options, and have made some weird strategic decisions. they’re indecisive. in combination with fluctuating luck from the dice, there’s times where they can wreck house, but also times of them failing saves, missing on full turns, losing resources, and overall failing more than they succeed.

also bell’s hells don’t make big decisions in combat unless they’re absolutely forced to. in the last arc pre-final battle, the big battles were otohan on ruidus, dominox and ludinus in aeor (+delilah), zathuda and the unseelie in the feywild. with otohan, they were dying all around until fcg’s sacrifice. literally end of the line. then in aeor, they fought to end dominox, got whammied with downfall, and then had the delilah fight, but then her sealing came later. they fought in the arch heart’s temple, but the big revelations came on the heels of that, between the arch heart themself and then zathuda being strung up on the loom.

but of a tangent: i don’t think naddpod and critical role can be fairly compared, because they’re different in tone and telling very different stories. i relistened to naddpod c1 recently along with the last few episodes of c3 as we approach the finale, and while they have gotten more creative on the character building side, the story is still well done and combat is fun to listen to. they have had moments of deep tragedy on naddpod. they’ve had cameos of old characters, and even had one of them as a pc for a full arc mid-campaign 3. they’ve explored the future of the world of bahumia after the events of c1.

and while the story is satisfying and fun, the combat is also satisfying and fun. not just because murph is really good at building combats that are interesting in theater of the mind, but because the characters are built to be good at what they do. and when they go down, when they miss, when they fail, it hits harder. but they bounce back and keep going even when the circumstances suck. and they make narratively important decisions during combat.

with bell’s hells, i have often noted a split between their combat and roleplay. i like matt’s combats. i think they’re fun and make good use of a variety of enemies, terrain, and complicating factors. with vm and mn, it makes for really engaging episodes of combat, where they make use of the environment tactically and get to discover elements of how the field is set up as they go. i’m using the recent examples, which are not entirely inclusive but generally reflective of their combat trends.

vox machina fought their way off an airship, onto a chaotic battlefield, and then stealthed up to the malleus key, where they proceeded to defeat ozo cruth, break the bloody bridge, and get vax out of imprisonment. the mighty nein stealthed around kreviris, met with the volition, zip lined to and blew up the arx creonum, and then snuck through to meet the weave mind in combat. i can recall fun details and clutch moves, big risks including characters dying, and overall, battles that had character interaction.

as i’ve talked about before, bell’s hells gets whomped. they swing for the fences on some things, but when it doesn’t pay off it’s not just a missed opportunity, it’s often an active barrier or a loss of valuable resources that drive them closer to crisis.

imogen’s whirlwind, laudna’s disintegrate, and dorian’s forcecage were all great moves this episode. it also means they’re down some of their highest level spells before they actually face ludinus and/or predathos. granted they have the orb. but whether they can use it will be variable.

[love-takes-work]

WHAT WAS THIS SHOW ABOUT?

One thing I really love about Steven Universe is that each of the four major characters kind of got a chance to be What The Show Was About. I would have LOVED spending more time with all of them and delving into who they were and who they became beyond what we got, but what we got was . . . actually pretty special.

STEVEN

As the ACTUAL main character and the show's literal namesake, it's obvious he's the protagonist. Our man has been through a lot and I don't suppose anyone would say he never got his moment considering he was there for the whole show. But except for some pretty important identity stuff that depended on his choices in the last episode of the OG show, a LOT of Steven Universe is stuff that happened to and around Steven. There was so much history and so much baggage that a lot of the story was about how he fended it off, dealt with it, fought it, reasoned with it, and managed everyone's emotions in the process.

Steven is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: being half human, being extremely young, being Rose Quartz's son, and having Diamond-level powers and a claim to the Pink Diamond throne.

We had to wait for Steven Universe Future before the show was entirely focused on him, his development, his trauma, and his healing.

Some episodes from the original show focused on Steven's mental health and growth as a person--most notably "Mindful Education"--but we just didn't get to linger very long with his development until the epilogue show because plot stuff was always happening, other people's feelings were taking center stage, and worlds needed saving. I'm really glad we got Steven Universe Future for that reason. Some people disagreed, but I felt like it was a long overdue look into the soul of who he is--how his central defining character trait was his selflessness, and how desperately he needed to address that without having it manifest in a toxic way in the tradition of Jasper, White Diamond, or Pink Diamond.

AMETHYST

It could be argued that Amethyst had the most careful, nuanced, significant character growth of the three supporting Gems in the show. And it started immediately in the first season, when she constantly squabbled with Pearl and revealed that she felt judged and stifled and treated like a misbehaving child as early as "Tiger Millionaire."

Amethyst is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: She's the clear outsider as the one who didn't fight in the war, the only full Gem from Earth in the group, the only Gem who grew up with no Homeworld dogma but also no roots, the only Gem who'd never met another one of her own and longed on some level for that connection.

The show continues to check in with Amethyst's self-worth issues throughout, giving us "An Indirect Kiss," "On the Run," "Maximum Capacity," "Reformed," and even "Cry For Help" (which seemed like an Amethyst episode until Pearl did her thing). We get "Onion Friend" when Amethyst shows us she thinks she's boring and that nobody values her. And we get "Too Far" when Amethyst really starts to internalize her inferiority based on Peridot's assessment of her and revelations of her origin.

With her cooking on that, we end up spending a string of episodes with Amethyst as the focus character. She's still shaking off dust about not doing what she's supposedly made for when a fight with Jasper twists the knife. She's beaten and insulted and almost physically destroyed, having to be rescued by Stevonnie. Steven misguidedly tries to cheer her up by letting her win at video games and she reveals that she thinks she's "the worst Crystal Gem." She finds an ally in him but still wrestles with her inferiority to Jasper. And when she still can't beat her in a rematch, she breaks down and realizes her strength is in togetherness. From there, she begins the process of healing, helped along by additional support from her family and finding some connection with meeting the Famethyst. When "Tiger Philanthropist" comes along and reveals that Amethyst doesn't need the outlet of wrestling anymore because she DOES feel she's good enough, we can reflect on what she's been through and how far she's come, and how that leads to her being the one who doesn't fall apart on Steven in the face of huge revelations about his mother.

GARNET

Garnet kind of peaked early, which is not to say it wasn't great. The final episode of Season 1 revealed her identity as a Fusion and further that she was "made of love," and then everyone was on the "Garnet is awesome" train.

Garnet is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: being a Fusion all the time, leading the team and generally holding the others at an emotional distance, never asking questions, offering resources to the others for stability and balance, being the only Gem with Future Vision and a massive responsibility to use it well.

"Jailbreak" was a huge defining moment for Garnet, and as the "stable" character whose worst problems were mostly other people's problems, she did not seem to need a character arc. She was the culmination of a love story, always awesome and strong and dependable and everyone leaned on her, and in "Jailbreak" we found out why she has such an amazing foundation. But the show was not done with Garnet. Not by a long shot.

Pearl hurt her badly in "Cry For Help." Garnet's breakdown and subsequent focus on building Pearl back up was a significant look into how Ruby and Sapphire operate as a couple. Garnet is amazing partly because she is the result of all that work, but who is she as a person? As an individual who isn't an individual?

We see some of her struggle with leadership as the show moves on--most notably "Pool Hopping," and some of the last episodes when she can't make decisions in the Diamonds' shadow because everything's become about Steven's choices. But Garnet gets a spotlight again when Ruby and Sapphire feel differently about the Pink Diamond revelations and they worry Garnet only exists because of a lie. Digging into the real answers of who they are together through finally asking "The Question," and defining their fusion in their own image, was a move toward more authentic stability for Garnet. Her wedding made headlines, and watching her spearhead the immediate fight against the Diamonds on the beach was awe-inspiring.

PEARL

Pearl is initially presented as "the perfect one"--she's persnickety, she's organized, she's hyper-competent, and she's all about rules. But something else is going on with her not far beneath the surface. The first Gem to die onscreen--because of overconfidence and a silly mistake. The first (full) Gem to cry onscreen (and then over and over and over), the first to have a breakdown (and then over and over and over), the only one of the four to have faced an impossible choice, a relationship that nearly destroyed her, and a secret that ate her up from the inside. She was the only one who had (nearly) the whole story. All along.

Pearl is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: the oldest Gem of the group by far, the one who served a Diamond and kept Rose Quartz's secret against her own will, the one who doesn't eat, sleep, or shapeshift. The one who both sat at royalty's right hand and existed as the lowest form of Gem life--created to be a servant, with programming no other type of Gem must live with. Her anxiety, grief, and desperate loneliness makes her one of the most multifaceted and interesting characters in animation history.

We see some minor wigging out from Pearl in "An Indirect Kiss" and a more intense version of it in "Space Race," but we get a much clearer picture that Pearl is Not Okay in "Rose's Scabbard." At that point we assume she thought she was closer to Rose than she really was--that she thought herself special and partial to secrets no one else knew, but that it wasn't true. "Rose's Scabbard" is a different episode on rewatch. Pearl is right that she alone was the one Rose "told everything." She did have a special relationship with her that the others did not.

Pearl's insecurity continues to bite us in the face as the show goes on. She tries to mold Connie into a self-sacrificial super-soldier after her own image in "Sworn to the Sword." Her deep need for someone strong to tell her what to do leads her to betray Garnet in "Cry For Help." Her inability to appropriately make it up to Garnet further complicates our understanding of how she can be so lost. Her jealousy, inertia, and angst frustrate her relationships, with some nice resolution in "Mr. Greg." Peridot's lore drop about Pearls' slave status sheds light on this, and seeing her get underestimated and bossed around by other Homeworld Gems is disheartening as we move on, but when we finally find out that she was Rose's secret accomplice in a false murder that poisoned thousands of their own citizens and led to massive waves of death, and that Pearl's free will to speak about it was also ripped away from her, we finally know, we know why she's been so brittle she could snap all along. She's been trapped inside herself all this time--in an almost literal way--and it's a wonder she's managed to carry on. Pearl's arcs have often been deemed the most emotionally fraught and tinged with gray morality.

These characters all got some very important story arcs focused on them in the midst of moving the plot along. I think the show did a phenomenal job with not only emotional development but with fallout for the other characters. We got to see the Gems' (and other loved ones') reactions when Steven's mental health took a nosedive, and watched them learn more about how to be there for him. We got to see Steven's initially misguided attempts to hype Amethyst up when she was spiraling, leading to him offering her what she actually did need, along with Garnet and Pearl (as Sardonyx) misfiring a bit when they wanted to celebrate Smoky Quartz. We got to see Steven's curiosities and misgivings about Garnet's life as a Fusion, and how Garnet affects others when she does crack under the strain, and how Steven must step up to leadership when Ruby and Sapphire are separated and how Amethyst tries to take care of him while Pearl has a guilt spiral. And we see how Pearl's choices led to Garnet's silent treatment, Amethyst's sulky helplessness, and Steven's attempt to hold the family together; we see how Pearl's confession reformats everyone's understanding of who the Crystal Gems are and why they're even here.

And even when the show is taking careful turns with each character to paint their nuanced feelings and troubles on the screen, it still managed to give us such a worthwhile overall story, with action and backstory and worldbuilding and everything. What's different about it is that the center was always its people--their relationships, their psyches, their evolution and education. I truly love the balance these creators chose, and I remain grateful that we got to experience this story.

[classofo9theflipsideremake]

Class of 09: The Flipside: Rewrite

Hey everyone! I’m a huge fan of Class of ‘09 and I’ve been thinking about how amazing the game could be with a bit of a revamp, especially after the direction the third game took. While I love the dark humor and over-the-top tone of the original, I feel like the third game didn’t really hit the mark for me (and I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way). So I’ve been working on an idea for a rewrite/remake, but with a fresh twist—turning it into an interactive YouTube series while keeping the same spirit and dark humor that made the first game so iconic.

Plot Overview:

The story would pick up after the Graduation ending, with Jecka as the main character. She’s been desperately trying to find a university that will accept her, not because she cares about school, but because (in her words), “I’m too fucking hot to work in a fast food restaurant, Nicole!” She calls Nicole at 3 AM, and together they find a “cool” fashion university.

It turns out Jecka has secretly loved fashion for years and even draws her own outfits every Wednesday when she barely talks to anyone—even Nicole! Most of the game would follow her experiences trying to survive at the fashion university, dealing with new classmates and the ridiculous world of high fashion.

While the cast is mostly new, Nicole, Ari, and Jeffrey all return:

Ari is now a confident head of the city Pride Parade and got into the university because of her work designing outfits for the parade.

Jeffrey is much less weird—he’s still into manga and anime, but his focus is on design and improving his art. He got into the university because his anime character designs have great anatomy.

Nicole got in by tracing Jecka’s work (I don't wanna get murdered by the fandom so I had to sneak her in the University SOMEHOW).

What Makes It Different:

Same Dark Humor: I want to keep the sharp one-liners and edgy humor from the first game. Think along the lines of the famous "I feel" conversation from the Nicole x Ari ending.

Character Growth: Jecka gets more depth, especially with her secret passion for fashion. Nicole will still be chaotic, but she’ll face new challenges trying to survive at a university where she doesn’t belong.

New Characters: Jecka’s new classmates would bring fresh dynamics and humor. Some could be rivals, others potential new friends.

5 Endings: I’ve outlined five endings, with a mix of success, rivalry, and even failure, all with the same darkly comedic twists that Class of '09 is known for.

Why Interactive YouTube?

I think the interactive YouTube format would be a cool way to bring this story to life. Viewers could make choices for Jecka and Nicole, leading to different outcomes—kind of like the original game but with the visual and comedic flair of a YouTube series. I’m aiming to create something that feels like it could be an official continuation, with all the humor, drama, and ridiculousness we love from the first game.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Does this idea sound like something you’d watch? Any suggestions for what you'd want to see from a Class of ‘09 remake? Let me know!!!

[anime-grimmy]

Soooo, you've probably noticed Ive been replaying HZD recently so my mind's been stuck on the franchise for a while.

I finally took the time to actually try and experience Burning Shores for the first time, this time with an unbiased opinion.

Bcs, ngl, when it came out, I was very negative towards it for a couple of reasons. It already started out with me not being able to freaking play this DLC, even though I was so excited for it, cos while HFW was on PS4, the DLC wasnt. And Im wasnt going to buy a whole ass PS5 just for a DLC.

(I will get it once I buy a PS5 for MH Wilds though).

And then, ofc, the elephant in the room - Seyka, or rather Aloy's relationship with her.

I'll preface this with, though it should be obvious with my content, I do NOT have a problem with Aloy being in a gay relationship.

What rly irked me, and honestly still irks me, is that Aloy finally gets to experience new feelings IN A FUCKING DLC. AN EXTENSION A LOT OF THE PLAYERBASE WONT PLAY.

The second reason I didnt enjoy this decision was bcs it felt so rushed. I mean, we're talking about Aloy here! Miss "I dont have time for feelings bcs I gotta save the world"! Miss "I barely just learnt to let others in"!

From what Ive heard, the DLC is over the course of a few weeks/months, so it's not like they fell in love just like that, but Ive also heard that while playing you do not get a feel for that passage of time. I'll have to experience that for myself though.

Now that Ive had some distance from the franchise though, my feelings have changed a bit

Im not going to lie and say I now loooove this decision. No, I am still miffed such enourmous character developement for Aloy is stuck IN A DLC. Not to mention that it was such a bold move to try this with a new character, cos this relationship being perceived well hinges on the player liking Seykay and that fast. Imo she's a fine character but also nothing special.

Now, I do have to say, I am really happy that Aloy has finally come so far that she allows such intimate feelings to develop, or rather, that the devs let her be this way. I know a lot of us still perceive Aloy as this single minded protag, that wont let anyone in bcs "the mission is too important", so Im glad Guerilla shows us that Aloy has undergone quite the growth.

Im also pleasantly surprised that Guerilla has the guts to include romance for Aloy, bcs they were one leg in the "strong women need no (wo)men" pit, so it's great to see they dont let Aloy fall into that trope.

Now, for the FUN part.

I actually have a conspiracy theory, ie I am gaslighting myself on why such a big thing is stuck in a DLC.

I think Guerilla is testing the waters to see how players react. I am pretty sure they can gather the data on what dialogue options players used, so Im thinking this:

Guerilla is trying to gauge the player reaction on a) Aloy developing feelings, b) players thinking Aloy is ready/willing for a relationship, c) same sex relationships. They tried killing quite a few birds with one stone.

I have seen quite a few teasing, winky face posts and replies from Guerilla staff about romance options in the third installment, so my guess (delusion) is that the relationship is hidden in the DLC so Guerilla can plan on how much and obvious to include several romance options in the last title.

I know this is all just wishful thinking, but even if Seyka is a good character, I hope to fucking god that they dont just take that relationship decision away from us, esp with a character bound to a DLC.

Guerilla gave us such a wonderful cast of characters over the last two games, and if they want to give Aloy an "end game" in the third title, I hope they do let us choose with who. Or at least I hope they dont force a relationship we cant choose onto us.

Cos as much as Aloy is her own person, it is still US that make the decisions in game. Through our individual playstyles , we give Aloy our own interpretation. Now, we cant change her core values, but still, I hope to GAIA that Guerilla will give us enough wiggle room.

(Guerilla, Im begging you, Ive already waited 8 years, please dont let my ship sink)

[josgalaxy]

MY PERSONAL RANKING OF BALDUR'S GATE 3 COMPANIONS FROM WORST TO BEST (spoiler alert!!!)

Of course this is just my humble and personal opinion, let me know if you agree! Trigger warning, I have a lot to say:

11. The Emperor

I know he's not technically a companion, but let's be honest, he is with Tav since day one. Let's just say this one is a shady bitch. From the get go I didn't trust the Emperor, and going forward with the game my suspicions were confirmed. Not only he literally exploited everyone that could help him reach his goals, but he shows no true loyalty to anyone but to himself.

Proof that the Emperor is just a gaslighting bastard: 1. Lied to the whole party by changing his appearence to seem more trustworthy 2. Killed his dragon bestie Ansur that was just trying to find a cure for him. 3. Kept a Gith prince imprisoned to exploit his power and was willing to eat his brains out to get more powerful. 4. Tried to sleep with Tav and secure their trust (btw, a kinky bitch). 5. LITERALLY SIDED WITH THE BIG BAD NETHERBRAIN as soon as Tav was not okay being manipulated anymore (like babygirl, you spent the entire game telling me we had to kill that thing and now you're ending up siding with it? Excuse me??)

So, yes, The Emperor deserves to rot and I was very happy to fry that calamari.

10. Minsc (and Boo)

So, I haven't played bg2, so I don't have that kind of attachment to the old characters. I don't mind that he is juts this brainless hunk, and I like the fact that he carries a cute hamster with him. He kinda reminds me of Kronk, and I love Kronk so he gets a few points for that. But other than some muscles, dumb jokes, and Boo, what else is there?

Let's just say that he made me smile a couple of times, but I got bored of him (but not the hamster) almost instantly.

9. Jaheira

Same here folks, I appreciate Jaheira but I don't feel that attached to her as the rest of the companions (probably because of the fact that she and Minsc are introduced in the game quite late). I mean, you get this badass milf Elf (mother is mothering) that can turn into a panther and has a cute accent... how can you not like her? But do I find her as interesting as other chatacters in the game? Not really.

I would probably share a drink with the tho, to hear all the stories from back in her day.

8. Wyll

Before any of you come for me for putting The Blade of the Frontier this low, let me explain. I like Wyll, I like the fact that he is a dancer, he's romantic, and that his main goal is to help people. I mean, he made a pact with a literal devil to save his city! Don't get me wrong, I think I would be friends with him irl, but as for character growth and depth, I think he passes off to be more bland than the rest of the companions, probably for his too goody two shoes attitude.

Let's just say if he was a spice, he would be flour. Sorry.

7. Minthara

You see, a long time ago my first playthrough, when I met Minty, I seriously contemplated killing all the Tieflings just to be with her. This is just to let you have an idea of the hold this woman has on me. HAVE YOU SEEN HER? Apart from being a hottie, and incredibly useful in combat as a paladin, she is hilarious without even trying. When you see an [ ! ] over her head you know for a fact she is about to tell something UNHINGED. I'm gagging.

Anyway, just so you know I haven't sacrified the tieflings to recruit her. I'm not a monster. I simply knocked mommy out and found her in Moonrise Towers.

6. Lae'zel

I believe Giths and Drows are quite similar: they both crave violence and see any kind of kindness and compassion as weaknesses. But what makes Lae'zel a better character than Minthara, is the fact that she evolves from her prejudices and violence, while the drow doesn't. She starts off as this ruthless and closeminded character, but later on she learns to challenge authority and her tyrant, save her people, find compassion in others and fall in love.

I think her romance is one of the best ones in the game. It starts off as a simple one night stand where she tries to dominate you, pure physical, but then she starts to soften and open up to Tav. I mean the rooftop scene where she calls you Source of my Joy?? Sounds more like Bae'zel to me.

5. Gale of Waterdeep

To be honest, Gale is literally my type irl: a hot scruffy nerd whose ideal Saturday night is reading a book and drinking some wine in front of the fireplace. Also, he has a cat! He is a bit of yapper, I know, but I find him quite charming, even though he eats magical boots from time to time in order not to explode and kill everyone in the vicinity

I believe Gale had the potential to be a heart-throb, but the only thing that gave me the ick about him, was the fact that he is too obsessed with his ex! I get it, she is the goddess of magic, but that doesn't change the fact the she literally groomed him since he was a child. He was willing to go full Manhattan Project just to get her approval. You are cute magic man, but you need to get over your ex.

4. Halsin

May the Oakfather protect me. He is such a dreamboat. He is kind and forgiving with everyone, loves animal and nature - duh, is great with kids, and let's not forget he is absolutely gigantic (points for him). He even carves out a wooden duck for you at the end, so cute! I love the fact that he knows his boundaries and is particularly attentive to respect everyone, like when he flirts with Tav but will wait for them to speak with their partner in order to have an open relationship.

I know he may not have the same depth some other characters have, but who cares?? Teddy Bear over here is fine as he is. What can I say, I'm a sucker for big men that try to be gentle.

3. Shadowheart

Shar's favourite Princess is one of my favourite characters in the game. She starts off as being wary and skeptical about Tav, but she quickly opens up as soon as one shows her kindness. Which is heartbreaking since she led her life following the Lady of Loss, hence without any kindness or compassion. Her backstory is particulary well made, so that you can truly see her growth: from standoffish, she ends up being such a goofy and sweet character. From putting all her faith in a goddess that has literally taken everything from her, she then learns how to discover herself and prioritise her feelings for the first time. I love that for her.

She is quite frustraing sometimes since she keeps missing in combat, but we love our emo babygirl anyway.

2. Astarion

So, the only reason I didn't put Astarion in first place, is because I know for a fact that in real life I would LOATHE the man. But we're not irl, so his gaslighting and manipulative tricks are overshadowed by his witty answers, his flirtatious expressions and the incredible velvety voice of his (thanks Neil Newbon). And to think that I thought I had successfully avoided the Vampire phase... well, I hadn't met this diva right here.

His backstory is one of the most heartbreaking, and with the right choices, I believe he can grow more than any other companion, which is why he is such a fan favourite among the fans. He starts off as being a vain and manipulative twink, but as you get to know of his past and the horrible things he has been through, you realise he is simply a victim that doesn't know any better.

I just love his confession scene to Tav: "I had a nice, simple plan - seduce you and manipulate your feelings. All you had to do was fall for it. And all I had to do was not fall for you... which is where my nice simple plan fell apart." EXCUSE ME?? WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT??

1. Karlach

She's an icon, she's a legend, and she is the moment.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Karlach officially is the most likable companion of this messy rank. From the first moment you meet her, it's so difficult not to fall in love with this fireball of energy and kindness. Her backstory is probably the saddest of them all: a hopeful kid that gets betrayed and forced to live with a deadly engine that will one day burn her from the inside, like a tragic metaphor for an illness.

She is also smocking hot (and not just because she is literally burning), I mean, the tats, the muscles, the badass hair and half horn?? Child, she ate and left no crumbs. She is a total smokeshow, and despite her bubbly personality she is not afraid to be a bit sexy and flirtatious. Can we talk about the: "I wanna ride you 'till you see stars" YES MA'AM, PLEASE MA'AM.

But in spite of everything bad that has happened to her, Karlach is always smiley, loves her friends deeply and uses every moment to be a goofball and dance around. She is too pure for this world, which is why you feel that her horrible fate is particularly unfair to someone like Karlach. To be honest, her scene in the harbour after defeating the brain is heartbreaking.

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So folks, here it is my personal ranking from least to most likable companions of Baldur's Gate 3.

Let me know what do you think!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Talks: Why Nemona is the perfect Rival introduced in Pokemon games.

Now I understand that this is Quite a bold claim, with the plethora of rival characters. Many are strongly for Blue, Silver as having a Jerk Rival is what inspires you to get better. Others say there are stronger Rivals Like Barry. Some even go hard for Wally because having a character arc about overcoming Growth and getting a dope theme song is what its all about.

Nemona is your Guide

Nemona is your Friend.

You are her goal as much as she is your goal

I will address these below

Nemona is your guide

Nemona is the first student you meet at the start of the Game. She is also the first trainer you actually battle. Immediately helping you get the hang of the battle system for those starting out. And like with the recent trend of Rivals she picks the starter that is weak to yours. Which considering her experience makes sense as she already COMPLETED her quest of being the best. This is her being there to check your progress.

Nemona is also the one that helps give you the free study goal of taking down all the gyms. She is the guide to your gym challenge.

She even introduces how Terastallization works. She is the one that gives you all the mechanics you need to know how to battle.

What is also amazing is during the time you are taking on Gyms, she will meet up with you and battle you, being at a comparable strength to you. But unlike with other Rival fights, Nemona's wins or loses will still progress the story. And its only after the first time you play that you realize, Nemona was showing MASSIVE restraint in all her battles with you. She is training you to be stronger. Her strategies evolve with each battle, and she has great coverage.

_____________________________________________________________

Nemona is your Friend

A lot of recent pokemon games try to have your pokemon rival be your friend. And it is with mixed degrees of success (I think they only started getting it right by the time Hop was introduced.) Nemona's friendship is more interesting because YOU choose how it develops. Outside of battles, there are events with Nemona that let you get to know her better, you find out how she was sickly in the past (like wally) and while she wasnt ignored by her parents, they were busy. And people saw all of her success as coming from her family's wealth, which was not the case. And she loves battles but most people are afraid of her because she takes them to seriously. She is in a way, the perfect blend of all previous rivals/ rival friends. (Except Gen 6 but thats because those werent friend rivals, they were caricatures)

She is a champion level (Blue)

People are intimidated and scared of her (Silver)

She was sickly but got better and gained confidence (Wally)

Works to help you through the world (Brandon/May)

Loves Pokemon battles and is super hyper. (Barry)

Is analytical and smart with pokemon battles (Cheran)

Friendly and has some deep seated insecurity (Bianca)

tries to be very chilled out but is passionate (Hau)

Has a burning desire to prove themselves (Hop)

Nemona has a blend of all these qualities and it works perfectly.

Nemona is purposefully holding back as to not scare you away. And its why when you finally become Champion rank she is even happier than you. Because now, SHE can go all out, and there is someone that can handle it. She finally has a friend that can handle all of her, and thats worth its weight in gold.

______________________________________________________________

You are her goal just as much as she is your goal

Nemona was someone that went through her journey. She won, she was a champion and not even Geeta could compete with her. And that skill made her intimidating to ANYONE she battled. And even when she would hold back she would trounce them. (even in the DLC, she is the strongest trainer outside of you and the Blueberry academy head).

She was bored. she had 'completed' her journey and was never challenged. So when you show up, she sees something within you. The spark of a champion. She could tell that you were the one that could challenge her. So she found a new purpose. Getting an all out battle with you. You would be her goal, and she would help you progress in anyway possible. She would check your strength, show strategies.

And while this was happening, you start to realize that she is your final opponent. She is your endgame. That's where things get interesting. As you find out how strong Nemona really is. With the reactions of the trainers that see her, and even after you beat Geeta (the champion) even she admits how she is no match for Nemona. Which really puts into perspective how this journey played out. Nemona was your first battle and she would be your most crucial battle.

Its just a great full circle moment that gives the trainer a welcome feeling. And at the end, when you finally beat her at full strength, she is excited. She isnt angry or sad. She is just so happy to give everything she has. You were able to give her what she was desperate for. And without realizing it, she became your goal. And she is finally, truly your rival.

_____________________________________________________________

Nemona has so much going for her character, and it adds so much to the rivalry you develop.

It is nice that GameFreak managed the perfect blend for this rival.

[gleefullypolin]

Initial thoughts on first watch through of Part 2

I will need to watch the season again a few more times as I was overwhelmed to be sure as a lot was going on. But my quick thoughts on storylines...

I'll start with my least favorite part. Sorry but it's the elephant in the room.

Ben.

I cannot. Every time they wasted screentime to go back to him fucking, I was like. God no, please make it stop. I mean I got it the first three times we showed it. Was it really necessary to keep harping on it. Honestly, shit or get off the pot with Ben's story. I'm bored and I don't know where they are going with this. I'm disinterested now.

Fran/John

This got better for me in the back half than the first half. I took no interest in them in the first 4 episodes. it was a snooze fest and while I would not watch a full season of them, they were cute in the back half and while the "dying breath" line was a bit harsh (seriously writers was that necessary) I'm even less interested in exploring a full season of Fran's actual story, not because it's been gender bended to Michaela, I just don't care for Fran's character. Personal opinion, sorry.

Kate/Anthony

Loved competitive Anthony at game night, we are the same Anthony, truly first borns. Kate has relaxed him for sure tho. Loved how he seemed to truly support his siblings, first with Colin and again with Fran in their choices to marry. Wished we could have seen his face when Pen announced she was LW after he was so clear that there was no way anyone could be her under his nose as RULER over the Bridgerton lands or some shit. Would have been a delight to see, yet...he did once again run off and leave his duty as leader of the Bridgerton family once again. For all this fandom screams that Anthony is the only man of the house with the actual job and responsibility he has yet once again disappeared from it yet again. No matter, there was little of this duo for me to take true aim at this season and thus not much for me to say other than what I have.

So moving on....

Cressida

What is there to say...Who's afraid of the big bad BITCH. Well not Pen. And no one else, for off to the country she goes and good on ya! Sorry, don't let the door hit ya on the way out. I'm not sad to see you and your big ass sleeves go.

Violet/Marcus

Tend that garden girl. TEND THAT GARDEN! That's all I gotta say, S4 is gonna bring Mama Bridgerton her just desserts! It was lovely seeing her navigating the dating mart and being nervous herself. I can't wait to see her needing to lean on Lady D and her children as she tries to figure this out herself next season.

Eloise

I was up, I was down. I was on the floor in anger and tears and then crying with joy. I understood you, I swore at you, I still love you dearly. There is much for you to learn about love and the world and I will welcome you home to do that. I did feel like she grew a lot this season. She was confused by love. Love of Pen, Love of Colin, love of being a woman in society and finding her way in what all of that means again. It was nice to see that. I loved her scenes with Colin and Pen and even with Benedict. I do look forward to her season as I feel like she had the most growth this season and while I feel like Ben's is next (boo) she can't be far behind, though I would welcome them doing her and Ben together in 4 at this point since it takes so fucking long to film these.

The Featheringtons

The most growth came from the family. Portia, Pru, and Phillipa had a lot of growth. Between mama being put in her place, then having to face how she has treated her daughter, how she sees her daughter, and then realizing how her daughter is stronger than she realized was quite the journey. And then beyond that seeing the jealousy the sisters had for Pen all along, the way it burned in them because some part of them always felt that their mama loved her most, favored her most even with her treatment. That all the girls really wanted was love of their mama. Seeing that family all together at the end, not jealous of who had the heir, just happy, with their families was beautiful.

Colin

Oh dear sensitive Colin Bridgerton. You really are a soft angel boy. He was so in love, so smitten and we needed that for him to understand how he felt up front but the moment he found out about Pen, you could feel the heart break, the confusion, the anger, the loss. And it didn't just magically heal. He loved Pen, he knew that but the burn inside to reconcile that he couldnt tear LW from her, couldn't rip it from her soul was literally a dark cloud over him for the back half. I took no issue with his words in anger, the were to be expected. He no more meant them or believed them than the stupid ass words people say in anger or stating he would never court her. They were simply words.

His mother was right. He is sensitive. Sleeping on the couch, pouting everywhere. He could not reconcile his thoughts. Could not get her to give up LW for anything and his brain could not comprehend. It was only when he went back to her letters that he realized Pen was not LW, LW was Pen. He loved ONE woman and they were the same woman. He also needed to stop taking control and stop trying to save the day. Pen was a capable woman and he needed to stop trying to control her.

I think the greatest thing about Colin as a character is that he is a sensitive person who loves wholly. He is able to put away the notion of the MAN needing to be the one who runs things. He lets her be a partner with him, in sex, in life, in their roles. This is shown not just in the fact he lets her take on how to fix the LW situation in the end, but also having her on top in the bedroom in their final sex scene. She's a participant in their marriage, not a submissive wife. This is refreshing in this world and I'm happy to see it in Colin.

Penelope

What a ride for Pen she had. She was faced with giving up her dreams to let Colin thrive in his. And she was willing to do so, lets just preface they gave us that scene where she put away LW for us to transition to Colin finally losing his writers block and happily writing away. She gave it up only to be faced with a challenge and needing to take up the quill again. Pen needed to save the Bridgertons and did so later on but she was willing to give everything up for Colin.

I loved her convos with Gen and how it was another woman who allowed her to see that women did not need to give up their worth for men. AMEN! No one said, Colin needed to give up his dreams but Pen absolutely was able to have hers too. I loved this and then to see her stand up to Colin in their second fight, to let her voice be heard to him and not let him talk over her was also important.

The fact that Pen stood up for herself, diverging from the books where Colin does this for her in the books, having Pen stand up for herself thus saving herself and outing herself to the ton, I liked this. Pen was able to put LW away and use her OWN voice to the ton and explain to everywhere why she created this entire empire. I thought this was beautifully done and then having her let Colin out of the marriage afterwards so that she basically put them now on a level playing field was perfect. His speech at that point should be put in a museum because it leveled me. I think this put them finally into the right place for their marriage and lets them begin as equals. They both have a career, they both have a purpose, they have each other and they do things together. She's not out there alone anymore.

What a fucking journey. God I love this show.

So yeah, I know I'm seeing people upset, they didn't get the spoilers they wanted, didn't get some pieces they built up and you are allowed to feel that way. I think my only gripe I have is that our sex montage was cut from the show and instead we got too much Ben and his tiresome threesome that went no where. So that is my only gripe. Give me that deleted scene and I'll be happy forever. Otherwise....

Polin is life! I loved everything they gave us and I have no complaints.

A+++ They have a happy fan from me.

[nightmanatee]

reasons why it might be safi all along (i mean why not).

disclaimer! i don't THINK i'm going to be right but i have been thinking about this game and all it's characters for so long that i won't stop until the next game is out i guess. do take this with a grain of salt just in case..

so. yeah. in a perfect circumstances the next game is going to be about max again. and safi. again. and many other things that i'll explain below but i also have tl;dr at the bottom bc there's a lot to talk about.

before we start i want to establish a few things about safi: she can turn into anybody she's met irl. she can leave parts of herself in people when she turns into them. these parts act as things that "change" people making them more like safi (something poetic about her losing parts of herself and being more like others she turns into and others becoming more and more like her). and she can potentially manipulate people.

part 1: all the things that happened before.

there are some weird things that are mentioned even before lis:de timeline. max has a part in her journal about how yasmin "was just some hot older lady who seemed to really want to be my friend" and safi CAN become her mother if she wants to. and even if it's actually yasmin it might be safi's part in her that wants max here. max is also promised an apartment where she "could bring friends over if she had any" and then the first day at uni safi comes in and says hi "like we've been friends for years"??? FOR YEARS??

"did you snoop into my wallet??" seriously how come we moved on from this THIS FAST???? like i get it safi getting into max's house in ep3 to see what max is up to but ep1? why would she want to get to learn about max this way?

i've checked their sms and there's one interesting thing when safi is being like "not to sound like a creeper but are you still at turtle?" or something and it IS interesting how she knows it (max being all alone at thanksgiving at turtle).

what could this all mean? well, 2 things. either safi is really interested in max's life and wants to know her and she doesn't care about consent, personal space and privacy (something max does if she romances amanda btw). or she needs to know not who max is but what, but more on that later.

part 2: max as a character.

although i do think that it's possible for max to be who she is in de given 10 years of growth but also given all the previous things i've said it might be safi's part in her making her act like this. max's freakiness totally comes from safi (remember ep4 dialogue between them), her confidence comes from her too (is it about her having more confidence or max having a lot of confidence through the years before (enough for her to win a few competitions)).

also! remember that max has taken out safi's parts out of moses, gwen and herself? and still safi can turn into her (vinh, yasmin and amanda). i also do wonder if it means that safi doesn't have "influence" on these people she can just turn into them? but then also -

part 2.5: "why isn't it hurting me?"

- also consider this: could it be so that safi lied to max and some part of her is still here. might as well explain why she hasn't replied to chloe's message anyways. or does it mean that safi has "been inside her" for so long that max doesn't even notice it yet.

it is rather interesting how there are a lot of moments specifially with safi that get brushed off and not mentioned again: the wallet thing, safi being too cruel in ep4 confession, her explanation for max not being hurt by her. could there be something more to it?

part 3: the reasoning.

ok. but really like why? why would she need to get max here in the first place? could this be just an accident with the universe being so kind to plot something like this? or could it be safi wanting more talented (like actually talented wink wink lucas) people here and she's noticed max and her work and decided to bring her here?

yeah it can be just it.

it can also be that safi just lied.

part ???: the one where i think safi lies.

ok but also let's imagine for a second that safi just. lied about many things. she did know about arcadia bay (weird how she's ready to snoop into max's wallet but can't google one thing about her? is it really THAT hard to either google who she is and to learn that she's from oregon or to go through her friends online see victoria chase and see that victoria probably posted about arcadia bay. like c'mon guys it can't be THAT hard). she did know that max has powers (just not what kind). she knew about chloe and met her personally.

if you go into the theory of safi becoming "others" who she shapeshifts as then her saying "partner in grime", doing the finger pistols, even her eagerness to "sacrifice herself for a greater good" - might all be from chloe.

she might've lied about not knowing anything to learn just how much max is weak for these things (something she's done for lucas).

part 5: the nightmare sequence.

it starts off pretty realistically with max encountering moses copying safi (one thing she talks about and it being potentially implied that she leaves a part of herself in people and they will act more like safi) but then something weird happens: the nightmare becomes personal. suddenly it's safi being in "chloe"'s position, it's blackwell's bathroom (max told safi about this) max having a weird unexplainable memory of her breaking up with chloe over safi's "coolness" (something she would've never said herself could it just be max). there are memories of her in the darkroom (mentioned in the diary), motels (something safi could've never known). it is kinda weird to focus on these things while the whole "nightmare" is more about helping safi becoming herself again. there's too much chloe for something that shouldn't include her in the first place (bc safi hasn't met her, has she?🤨🤫)

"she was in my head back there, and she didn't think of me at all" and "you know i was in love with her, or i thought i was" are two very interesting quotes from vinh that could mean that safi CAN make someone feel certain things she wants them to feel.

could she also make max feel like she needs to move on from chloe? given how eager she was to make max a move on amanda?

so yeah i do kinda feel like max hasn't finished her job fully and that something's got fixed but not all.

bonus part: aren't they merging already??? wait WHAT.

this thing is written at the very end of the game after safi, after nightmares after EVERYTHING. "something has been restored" and i wonder what, considering that it's not about safi or other peoples' memories. could it be that more that these two timelines merged? i mean it could also mean just max herself being "restored" by being able to save the day with everyone this time around but we'll see.

ok, wait! part 6: bay over bae.

almost forgot it. but yeah how can bay thing be somewhere here? well for once chloe is still important to max in this timeline the only problem is safi not being able to meet her "irl". i mean unless!! she evolves her powers enough to be able to "mimic" not only a person but their power/s as well. and given how she knows both of max's powers she can either timetravel to meet chloe or just travel to a parallel timeline to meet her future self (and to hurt max even more) or both. and now this will be the worst.

tl;dr? kinda?

what could that all mean? it could mean that safi has plotted max getting into caledon (to get what kind of powers max has/to exploit her talent to boost university's fame) and her only way to achieve that would be if max and chloe broke up (given how chloe didn't want to settle in with max yet. or if max wouldn't want to come "home" yet.

OR

it could mean that safi knows max's WEAKEST spot now and might, y'know, use it given a chance and a reason. and oh boy does she has a reason to (esp if you don't side with her). she can turn very fast against someone (did this to gwen and max), one wrong thing and she will want to hurt max in the worst way (remember how she's told all these awful things to robbie despite personally knowing him??? and it's all bc of his dad's actions?).

but only time will tell.

[what-eats-owls]

In one of your answered questions you put that ragne was orignally supposed to be Vanja's love interest. Can you explain more about that

"Supposed to be" may not be the right phrasing, haha!

There is a period of time with every story where it exists in my skull not as a linear series of events, but a primordial soup of ideas for scenes, characters, vibes, etc. For LT, that was right around October/November 2019. I joked earlier that Vanja is a spectrum from Eleanor Shellstrop to Sophie Devereaux, and at this point, I envisioned her a lot closer to Sophie. My first idea for her love interest would be the chaotic, semi-feral son of the god who had cursed her, assigned to basically monitor Vanja, and accidentally foiling her mean-spirited endeavors by being honest and nice.

It was a fun dynamic, but ultimately, I felt like it wasn't hitting the right notes, or allowing for the most interesting character growth. I didn't like the idea that her love interest would be, even unintentionally, constantly undermining her, but not in a way that challenged her. Or that she would be in a relationship with someone essentially expected to surveil her. Or with someone who was still learning how humans work, and thus wouldn't have an understanding of the games and nuances that Vanja relied on to survive—someone Vanja could tell herself only loved her because he didn't know better.

Then I had an idea to make the love interest someone who did understand her, however grudgingly. Someone who could appreciate the ingenuity in her schemes as well as the awful things she's survived, and that would challenge her and be challenged in kind.

I also really, really wanted to write a bitchy teenage boy detective.

So by the time Little Thieves went into the outlining phase, Ragne was a girl and Emeric was Vanja's love interest. And you know (most of) the rest. :)