#you just made them fucking worse

[felikatze]

i feel like. the more i like and care about something. the less i am capable of watching video essays about it. game i never heard of and don't intend to ever play? sure i'll watch 8hrs discussing it's flaws.

but thing i like? if you think you can point out flaws i'm not already aware of, you are dead wrong. none know better how much my interests suck than me.

and also. if you get one thing wrong about them i'll maul you. with things i like it means i've already seen every single piss on the poor take of it ever, and i'm much more polarized. i got emotional investment. i'm going to start biting people.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

genuinely why are you not allowed to decline someone's affection. why do you have to trap yourself in situations and relationships you don't enjoy in order to protect someone else's feelings. it's not really fun to be 'friends' or 'partners' with someone out of moral obligation. it's not fun for anyone involved. but you have to stay, because they mentioned they have abandonment issues once and now you feel like cutting ties would be the most evil fucked up thing you could ever do. it's not my fault if i don't like someone. it's not. but it feels like it is.

[little-pondhead]

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

pygmalion and galatea for aroace people

you should tell your friends what I look like, riz gukgak.

[rocketbirdie]

here comes trouble (make it double!)

[cangrellesteponme]

i don't think wonderland is ready for those alices

[pepperpixel]

SAID HE LIKES CRAZY GIRLS,

BUT HE HATES WHEN I ACT CRAZY,

IT TAKES TWO TO TOXIC!

FINALLY!!! Finished these pics of jinx I’ve been working on!!!!! HOLY SHIT, these took so long…. But finally… they’re done… pls enjoy this art of my beautiful princess w a disorder. Featuring alternate colors for the big pic and also a closeup! Cuz I rlly like how both the lines and coloring on her face turned out… like the pink gradients w her eye… her deer in headlights expression,, like uve just startled a raccoon digging thru ur trashcan and r two seconds away from getting mauled.. m proud of it!

[starry-bi-sky]

realizing i have. a lot of untapped trauma potential for clone^2 danny because i just Fully Processed Four Months Late the fact that his parents were capturing and torturing ghosts in the basement before he became Phantom. and the fact that he was on house rest for 2 weeks. during that time period. and he wasn't really leaving the house. he could hear their screaming through the floorboards

*points at clone danny* i can give you suuuuuuch a bad time babe ahaha. i've got two untouched years before you meet damian what fucks you up before then

[ganondoodle]

me: finally im able to cope with how much i hate totk and can fuel that energy into other things :)

nintendy: the shiekah tech just dissappeared and no one knows why or cares enough to investigate it lol. lmao. its gone bc the calamity is gone or something even tho it literally isnt bc ganondorf is right there haha lol, stop asking, why do you care. just forget it existed and look at that sexy goatman and glue instead!! glue! isnt that wild?? also its totally a direct, 100% same universe and exact same characters, despite them act totally out of character, sequel to botw-

[autisticrosewilson]

So do you guys actually think that Jason's entire story, relationship to the others, and philosophy amounts to him being a rebellious teen who wants his dad's attention? Like are you 100% serious? I thought you were joking about that but too many of you are saying it with your whole chest.

And what the fuck is this "Bruce antagonizing Jason is fanon!" Shit I've been seeing? You guys are aware that a parent can love their kid and still be a shit parent right? I know you guys don't want to fathom the thought that maybe your blorbo might also occasionally have to face responsibility for consistently endangering children but let's not start being delusional now.

Bruce does love his kids, that doesn't mean that he hasn't hurt them. And I'd also argue that for the most part he feels in the right for it, and he's said multiple times that he believes it's for their own good, so you can't even argue that he's sorry about it. It's okay for you guys to admit that your PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of the character wouldn't do that but don't sit here and pretend that it's not a facet of the source.

[hella1975]

im so sick of reading ooc dabihawks fics make them try and kill each other fr i have a GUN

[avocado-frog]

Man I hate being able to read

[trappedinafantasy37]

All forms of media (video games, TV shows, art, movies, books, etc) are all meant to be social and/or political commentaries. In fact, I can't think of an example of a recent creation that isn't political in some way. And Baldur's Gate 3 is not an exception. It is political. And if you think it is not, it is because you are not paying attention, or you are failing to extrapolate the lessons of the game into real life. One of the points of fiction and entertainment is to provide us with a safe way to view and interact with the evils of the world. To show us how evil happens to begin with, and how it is allowed at all. If we can see what evil looks like, and how it comes to pass, then we will be able to recognize it in real life and potentially stop it.

No, I'm not saying that Larian made this game to be a commentary of the US specifically. The things that happen in the game are happening somewhere in the world. Right. Now. It is fantasy for some, but reality to many others.

There is a reason why so many people, most especially women, flock to a character like Astarion. And no, it's not just because he's a pretty bad boy vampire. But because millions of women (and men) in the world understand what it's like to be sexually assaulted. To be enslaved. To be someone's property and a toy. To be used and abused and denied your autonomy. To scream and cry and yell and shout and beg for mercy from the gods. But no one is listening. No one cares. And they say that it is all your fault. Women cling to him because they find comfort in his story and they see a reflection of themselves in him. And they have extrapolated his character into their personal lives to help them heal from their traumas. Astarion is not real. But he represents the millions of people in the world who have been raped.

There are many different ways you can interpret Shadowheart's story, but I always found it to be an allegory for queerness / transness. She knows who she is deep down, but she has been beaten and indoctrinated over and over to believe that who she is wrong. Everytime she exerted a will of her own, she was forced into conversion therapy and had her mind wiped so she can be reprogrammed. And when that began to fail, her god inserted a permanent tether into her soul. To remind her that god is always watching, and will punish her for her sins. Shadowheart rejects Shar because she feels that she is in a safe environment to do so. That those who are around her will not judge her, ridicule her, or treat her like she ha a moral failure for just being who she is. But that rejection comes at a price where she has to choose her parents or chronic pain for the rest of her life. But if Shadowheart does not feel safe to live as herself, she goes into the closet forever and denies herself and has to put up an act for as long as she may live. She forces herself to subscribe to this dogma because she feels she has no other choice, and to be a blind follower means to be without pain. Shadowheart is not real. But she represents the millions of gay and trans people in the world who have been outcasted and abused by religion and the law. Where they feel it safer to deny who they are, then run the risk of the wrong person finding out who they love.

The grove conflict, is a very real reality right now. Innocent people are experiencing a genocide. And the people conducting such genocide have framed these innocent people as evil monsters. These actual literal genocidal lunatics truly to their core believe that they have the god given right to kill these innocent people because they are an affront to their god and that the land they occupy does not belong to them. There are children in the world right now who are burning alive in a genocide because the people who are burning them believe these children to have been born evil. Of course they claim that these refugees are hiding weapons of mass destruction, how else are they going to justify destroying safe places like schools, hospitals, and actual refugee camps? And the people who have the power to do something to protect these innocent refugees, would rather they be tossed out and left vulnerable to their murderers, because that is more convenient than helping them. That the people who can help are purposefully closing their borders, because they too see these refugees as lures for danger. The tieflings are not real. But they represent the millions of Palestinians and many others who are dying in a genocide right now.

And this man is not real, but he is the president elect of the United States. Gortash won. The Absolute won.

And I wish we had a simple and easy explanation of 72 million Americans have tadpoles in their brains and were forced to vote for Gortash. But in reality, not everyone in the Absolute had a tadpole. Not everyone was a True Soul. A mass majority were willing participants of the Absolute. They never once communed with the elder brain and have never received direct orders from it. They saw what the Absolute is, they saw what it can do, and it was not a deal breaker for them. They chose to follow along with it willingly, thinking that the Absolute was here for them. They were not mind controlled, but they were brainwashed in their own way. And for those who are not brainwashed, they simply do not care. They want to revel in the Absolute's cruelty and how it is going to hurt the people of the world because they themselves want to deal the cruelty.

Gortash is a slaver and a tyrant and he is very up front and in your face about it. He feels no guilt, he feels no shame, and he is well aware of how he induces suffering on those around him. And the moment he became Archduke, he slaughtered everyone who got him into power because he didn't want to share it nor run the risk of them turning against him. You may be able to make a deal with Gortash but he was never going to keep up his end of the bargain. Just like an embraced Durge betrays their romance partner, Gortash would have betrayed you (and even Durge). Because tyrants do not share, and they do not step down. Tyrants are not just tyrants only on day one or for just one term. They are tyrannical always and will do everything they can to stay in power permanently. Tyrants do not play fair. They get into power through perceivingly legitimate means. But when you find out it wasn't legitimate, it's too late. They've removed your ability to not only remove them from power, but prevent you from getting anyone else to replace them.

Gortash didn't just come from nowhere. He has been a duke in the city for a very long time. People know who he is and what he is about. The people at his coronation were there out of genuine support for him, knowing exactly who he is and saw no issue with what he was doing because they all benefited from it. The only one at that coronation who was not a willing participate, was Ulder Ravengard (A BLACK MAN). Gortash used a literal puppet government to get himself into power and silenced all dissent.

I do not know about you, but who Gortash represents was pretty damn obvious to me. The game demonstrated how people like Gortash can get into power at all and remain in power. Gortash manipulated people's fear of the world, and he used religion to do it. He implemented the Steel Watch and militarized the police, and to have constant surveillance on the people. Where any slight transgression will be met with hostility, and the people will cheer because they see violence as a necessary means of keeping the peace. Where if you just didn't step out of line, then maybe the Steel Watcher wouldn't need to pulverize you in the street. He uses the media and is constantly pumping out propaganda to love him. He created a problem, news of the problem spread, and then he sold a solution. He promised to keep everyone safe, protected, and made promises of law and order against this unruly chaos (a chaos he created). Where any opposing opinion is othered and regarded as being too radical to be a sane or legitimate opinion. He enslaved a group of racial minorities and used the livelihoods of their children as collateral. And instead of putting the blame on the slaver, radicals like Wulbren put the blame on the slaves.

The events surrounding Gortash and the Absolute have been unfolding here in the States for a very long time and all of this did not just come out of nowhere. This didn't just start happening 8 years ago in 2016, this was decades in the making and there is still plans for more to come. This wasn't an accident, everything is working by design.

Gortash is not real. But Donald Trump is. That should scare you.

[eebie]

Grinds my teeth to dust…. i wish touch didnt have so many Implications. im just trying to survive out here

[zeravmeta]

seeing a bunch of yugitubers finally white knuckling teeth clenching admitting that links were actively detrimental for the game and that pendulums were not the core issue is so satisfying, actually

[unordinaries]

presented without comment

(chapters 280 + 344)