cagednagadragon

[cagednagadragon]

"why did the ring mostly affect frodo and not bilbo who had it for a gazillion years" objectively has a textual answer but i think the best answer is that sauron just likes bilbo more than frodo

bilbo: *uses the ring to hide from his relatives*

sauron, remembering almaren: yknow. real.

[cagednagadragon]

[cagednagadragon]

[cagednagadragon]

I have Bluetooth hearing aids, which really can't be wired of course, but it constantly reminds me how terrible Bluetooth is.

Primarily, I guess in how badly it really doesn't scale to multiple primary devices paired to and in the victory vicinity of multiple peripherals.

[cagednagadragon]

love how in bg3 they randomly changed this random cat who says funny things if you use the speak with animals spell on it, from being a hairless cat to a fluffy cat, and everyone hated that, so in an hotfix they changed it back

[cagednagadragon]

whenever a kid is signing up for a library card and they and their parent have good silly vibes i like to treat it like a knighting ceremony. i'm like "jacob, child of hannah, i bestow unto you this card of great freedom and power. are you prepared to take on the literary responsibility of your very own library card? i believe you are." and it always makes them laugh and feel very important it's so much fun. like yeah we do a little improv at the library we do some bits

[cagednagadragon]

Why Magical Girls Are Never Attacked During A Tranformation

As some of you might already have guessed, I’m a fan of Japanese girl idols. One of the many, many idol groups in existence today in Japan is NMB48, a Osaka-based spin-off group of the (in)famous AKB48. NMB has a weekly show that’s surprisingly entertaining as well as educational called NMB to Manabu-kun, in which the members of NMB and a few comedians listen to guest lectures by experts in various fields.

Back on May 15th, the theme of the episode was pataphysics/the science of sci-fi. One of the topics of the lecture held by university professor Yanagita Rikao was the age-old question of “WHY ARE MAGICAL GIRLS NEVER ATTACKED WHILE TRANSFORMING???”

This was his answer, based on the magical girl series Futari wa Pretty Cure.

Question: The transformation scenes in Pretty Cure are very long, so why don’t the bad guys attack the girls in the meantime?

“Even when I was little, I was thinking ‘Hey! Attack them now!’”

“I found this odd as well, so I watched the transformation scene many times. And what I noticed is, when the Pretty Cures yell ‘Dual Aurora Wave!’ and transform, a rainbow-colored column of light shoots up from the ground, going BOOM!”

“And then the Pretty Cures levitate, and go up into the air. Based on this, I believe the protagonists of Pretty Cure are being held up in the air by the power of light.”

“When we think of light, we usually think it heats up things or lights up things. But in reality, light has the power to hold up things as well.”

“When the sun is beating down on us in the summer, the human body is being pressed downwards by the sun beams with a force of 2/100,000g.”

“But this is only about a one-hundred of the weight of a mosquito, so no matter how hot it is, we don’t feel that sunlight is heavy.”

“So that means the light holding them up must be extremely strong. If we assume that the two Pretty Cures each weigh about 45kg and do some calculations…”

“It means the light during the transformation must have the energy of 2,100,000,000kW per 1m2.”

“While the entirety of power that Japan is capable of generating is only 100,000,000kW.”

“So they’re using 21 TIMES the amount of energy the whole of Japan can generate.”

“So what would happen if a bad guy jumped in to try to sabotage their transformation?”

“He would EVAPORATE INSTANTLY.”

“DEATH AWAITS ANYONE WHO DARES TO DISRUPT A PRETTY CURE TRANSFORMATION.”

“So this means the best thing to do would be to transform close to any bad guys.”

“Yes. They are the strongest while they transform, and are practically invincible.”

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Best part for me was the audio book with Quincey's letters: An English woman in the late 20th century reading the words that an Irish author in the late 19th century imagined a Texan would write.

AND DOING THE ACCENT.

#Dracula #Books

I still can't believe there's a fucking cowboy here.

Gothic horror gothic horror laudanum gothic horror blood gothic horror gothic horror TEXAS!!!!!!!!

[cagednagadragon]

we need to ban parents from using the word "attitude" so they can maybe start grappling with the fact that their children maybe are having a reasonably angry response

[cagednagadragon]

Ok so I watched the interview with Stephen Rooney, Astarion's writer, and here are some highlights. (I'm an aspiring writer and current game design student who wants to write for games so I'm sorry if some of these insights aren't as interesting to you as they are to me <3)

He calls Astarion his "horrible little vampire boy"

He loves seeing the fandom around Astarion<3

He did write other characters in the game, but mostly NPCs surrounding Astarion or his storyline, so it mostly revolved around Astarion

Astarion is not as connected to other companions/Origins as, for example, Lae'zel and Shadowheart, or Wyll and Karlach are to each other, but he is still reactive to their stories, even if it's just to stand off to the side and laugh when something terrible happens

He had a clear sense of where Astarion's story would start and end, but it got "muddy in the middle", but those are also moments where the best ideas come from

They write from the general idea that every character has one "good" and one "evil" ending, in order to give the player choice. RIP Ascendant apologists :(

According to Stephen, two of the most important aspects of Astarion's character (to keep consistent when bringing him to Idle Champions, at least) is that he enjoys violence, but is also fun about it

"He has a certain appreciation for violence, I guess? A bit of a murdery streak. [...] He's a vampire, he's all about blood, and he's all about, kind of, those darker sides of humanity. [..] But at the same time, he is ... He is really fun, he's really fun to write, he's really fun to have in your party, and it's very important for me that that is also represented."

"He's gonna stab you, but will have a smile on his face as he does it? I mean, I dunno. That's kind of him in a nutshell."

Larian would not have allowed for Astarion to be a typical brooding Dracula type, and there were scenes that were shot down for not being original enough

The main thing about Astarion was trying to get a "sense of fun." It would be easy to write a character that was very unlikable, and they absolutely did not want to do that

Rooney says Astarion is consistently terrible throughout the game and awful in a whole lot of ways, but he also needed to be charming enough that you could tolerate his presence and wanted him around

Rooney also had a lot of input on Astarion's stats (meaning the 10 Charisma is probalby 100% intentional)

He also had input on how certain lines should be delivered, even though the writers didn't directly work with voice actors

The way Astarion moves and poses is "all Neil"

Apparently, Neil Newbon worked on the character for years and Rooney did not speak to him once, though his voice work did influence how Astarion's lines were written and it became a "feedback loop" (Possible context for "ONLY SLIGHTLY, NEIL")

There were no points where a line delivery drastically changed Astarion's writing; rather it was a constant, slow evolution

However, there was one very spoilery moment where Neil gave such emotion to some "basic" lines that it fundamentally changed the scene (WHAT IS IT OMG)

It's difficult to balance approval, as you don't want to straight up write a monster. Every character needs to have some humanity in them. So if it comes to leaving the party, it needed to be the result of something central to said character. They wanted to be mindful of situations that would cause actual rifts between characters. (I assume this is why most generic disapprovals/approvals are +/- 1 or 2, while character-related ones give +/-5 or more)

However, as they don't write straight up horrible people/monsters, it doesn't come up as often as one might think.

The interviewer makes a point about how characters like Astarion and Lae'zel are good examples of how to play "evil" characters, as they are maybe not the best people but are still eager and willing to stick around the other party members

They worked to make sure the characters would work as a group, no matter the configuration of the group. The characters needed to be on the same path, even if they don't always agree or walk that path the same way.

Stephen Rooney is very proud of the "climactic" scene of Astarion's story. (AS HE SHOULD BE.) He even had to step away from the computer and have an emotional moment. Me too, man.

He's also "extremely pleased" that there's a point where you can punch Astarion in the face. "Actually, that one might be my favorite part" A MAN OF THE PEOPLE!!

Stephen Rooney's tip on what specific thing you should try out with Astarion: When he's trying to get a "sneaky nibble" at night, you should "probably" let him bite you. Way ahead of you there, sir.

No discussion about Astarion's romance unfortunately, but that's that!

[cagednagadragon]

"You can't slay The Absolute if you can't absolutely slay." - Tav

Companions in the Wavemother's Robe BALDUR'S GATE 3 (2023) dev. Larian Studios

[cagednagadragon]

Friendly reminder for new players like me: don’t choose armour that you’re not proficient with, even if it’s shiny. Since you won’t be able to use magic you’ll have to use..alternative ways of fighting

[cagednagadragon]

I made a video on the funniest/most annoying thing that’s ever happened to me in a game store

[cagednagadragon]

Very Silly Concept: a show called "Accessibility Nightmares" but it's structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.

The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that's the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.

A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don't allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like

And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like

The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says "Well I mean, it's makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?" The specialist just

The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don't know.

[cagednagadragon]

speaking of adult SSF novels, what do people recommend as good new sci-fi, particularly the more spacey end of things

recently I've enjoyed Murderbot (Martha Wells), the Imperial Radch trilogy (Ann Leckie), both the Indranan and Farian war trilogies (K.B Wagers), Barbary Pirates Trilogy (R.E. Stearns), The Wayfarers (Becky Chambers), Tanya Huffs Valour Novels, and I've been super getting into the expanse novels (James S.A. Corey)

so yeah what are other people enjoying