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Priorities.

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I've been (very slowly) playing through Bg3 with my (very Lawful Good) bff, and she just got to the party where Lae'zel says she wants to taste you. She was like, 'I don't know what I did to make Lae'zel think I'd be at all interested'

So I said, 'It's just based on how much ass you kick*'

And she said, 'Isn't that a type of asexual? Only being atttacted to someone because they kick ass?'

Anyway Happy Pride everyone

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I'm procrastinating preparing for PF2 today, so here's my BG3 OCs.

Dair - Rogue

Intended to romance Gale; did romance Gale.

I'd seen most of the characters from the beta players on tumblr, so I went in with every intention of romancing Gale -- This might be the first time I've played a game with a romanceable scruffy brunette man with long hair, AND he's a purple coded wizard?? Sign me up! I was willing to go another direction if I didn't like it, but he's wonderful *dreamy sigh*

Based off my first D&D character/first Warden, Dair is my go-to Robin-Hood-esque thief character. So, when Mol asked me to steal the Idol of Sylvanus... If was a rough first playthrough.

Rather plain looks, like all my characters that start as D&D characters. Until she ended up a mindflayer, anyway.

Se'Dryk - Bard

Intended to romance Lae'zel; romanced Wyll.

Increased the difficulty and made a character based off my Knight-In-Shining-Armor Cassandra-mancer, Cedric Trevelyan. He was intended for Lae'zel, but she insisted it was nothing serious and then Wyll asked to dance... It was so hard to turn him down with Dair... I wasn't strong enough to do it again.

Se'dryk kept Cedric's baby blue eyes and boy-next-door face, but he's a bard so he's a bit more colorful.

Scarlette - Sorcerer

Intended to romance Astarion; romanced Minthara

Full irredeemable Durge playthrough. I really wanted to romance Astarion and I kept turning Minthara down... But the girl is PERSISTANT. 'I understand you don't feel like same. Let's date anyway in case you change your mind later' jfc. Astarion had already said he just wanted to be friends, so, drow lesbians* it is.

She doesn't remember the ritual that is written into her face, but she tries to cover it with her blood-streaked hair.

Dahlia - Warlock

Intended to romance Lae'zel, did romance Lae'zel.

No relation to my Rook with the same name. Finally got my Lae'zel romance when I did a full hardcore/save all the tieflings achievement character. If she had any memory, she'd probably tell you she's spent time in the Feywild. She might occasionally use magic to manipulate someone... but it's for the greater good! She's a good person, really!

The Random button generated that white swirly tattoo, and it reminded me of vitiligo. I know that vitiligo happens more in high-friction areas, so I liked the mystery of what kind of magics could be happening that would cause that kind of pattern on her face.

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Where can I find a 'my other ride is a bog unicorn' bumper sticker?

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Long overdue Veilguard versions of my lovelies! You should play along! @thevikingwoman @galadrieljones @thedreadblog @thebookworm0001 @roguelioness

Keria

I worked REALLY hard to try to get Keria as accurate to her Inquisition version as possible, even though I don't have any particular talent with CCs. This would be Inquisition-era:

The whole reason she has a messy pixie cut is bc her magic makes the wind misbehave around her so she keeps it short to keep it out of her eyes... And the Veilguard version puts it directly in her eyes -.- Still though, look at her! She looks great, no wonder Solas fell so hard Q.Q

Bonus Done-With-Your-Shit and 10 years later Veilguard-era versions:

Elle

I didn't like their braid options, and they didn't let me make her vallaslin pink enough. Still gorgeous.

Bonus Elle-as-Rook, bc tbh she makes a damn good looking Rook

Des

Once again the limited hair options got me 🙄 it's funny how there's so many great hair options in Veilguard, yet none quite match my OCs lol. Des remains perfect none-the-less.

(I don't have any bonuses for her bc I made her the Inquisitor in my second playthrough but then never made it that far :( )

New girls!

Dahlia "Rook" de Riva, warrior, Lucanis-mancer

Amethyst "Rook" Laidir, rogue

Hey uh, did you know on PS5 you only get 3 save files?? I think Amethyst's was a victim of needing new space. I couldn't grab some decent pics, this is all I've got.

She was supposed to romance Emmrich, but a game glitch didn't allow it. I started romancing Davrin instead, but didn't make it much farther in the game.

??? "Rook" Thorne, mage

She was going to be my second attempt to romance Emmrich -- I thought it would be cool to romance him as a I'm-Already-Dying Grey Warden, but uh... Yeah I decided the game just didn't have enough replay value, and now I can't even remember this poor girl's name :( Something like Isaar or... something. Guess it's just Rook now.)

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Spouse is usually really good at helping me with fight scenes, but uh, guess he's burnt out

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Oh, I have one to add!!

Netflix did an adaption of Uglies on 2024. They shoved the whole book into 90 minutes, so it's a bit of a speed run, so a lot of detail is missing. It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't think there was a whole lot of indication that any of the characters were POC. Netflix did a good job diversifying the cast, but it was SUCH a decision to have Laverne Cox as Dr. Cable

In this society, generally speaking, they have the technology to do practically anything with surgery. When you come of age you get surgery to redo everything you look like. You can have tentacles for fingers, feathers, literal cat eyes, whatever. So there's no reason that a young miss Cable couldn't have chosen to make herself indistinguishable from cis women. So, by choosing someone the audience knows is trans, it seems this character made the CHOICE to appear trans. (Worth mentioning that you're allowed to re-do your surgery, so this is true even if the character were older when she transitioned.)

In addition!:

In this society, specific to the geographical location of the first series/this movie, there's a Pretty Committee that's essentially a board of directions/HOA of what everyone is allowed to look like after surgery. No tentacles or purple hair allowed here: everyone has to be Generically Pretty. No flaws, just boring Hollywood pretty for everyone. So that ALSO means that these super strict guidelines allow you to not look cis. (Not to mention not skin lightening...)

iirc Dr. Cable is the head of the Pretty Committee, too

Anyway. That's a lot of words to say that either Netflix is saying this character who could look like literally anything chose to look like a dark skinned trans woman, or they're saying this actress is playing a cis woman. I'm here for it either way.

Shout out to the Wheel of Time casting team for this absolutely epic casting choice. This is trans actress Rebecca Root playing an Aes Sedai, and it’s such a power move by the casting team, because either there are trans Aes Sedai, or this actress is playing a cis woman, which leaves transphobes arguing for her womanhood. It’s glorious.

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Hey Malevolent podcast fandom, I'm new here and all caught up, how're we feeling??

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@aquamarinemarie

@tel-abelas-mofo I can’t find a post to reblog about it, so here’s just the original tweet.

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We're getting a release date this ❌Friday, I'm sure of it. Reblog with your DA4 predictions and/or wishlist!

Edit: <Marking these with whether or not I was correct.>

Predictions:

❌The protagonist "Rook" is short for 'Rookie'.

✔️(Nickname via Varric, obv.)

✔️Enby pronoun options.

❌We'll be able to tell that Varric was a quest giver back when they were making the game an MMO

❌Dorian will play as prominent a role as the advisors of DAI.

✔️(Yet no mention of his time travel magic.)

❔Maevaris will have a small but fun speaking role.

✔️Set in the North. (Tevinter, Nevarra, Rivain, Arlathan forest.)

❌Solas will be A Boss but not THE Boss. Either an early- or mid-game combat.

✔️Then we join forces to take down the remainder of the Evanuris/archdemons.

✔️The Evanuris have silly hats.

✔️Mythal.

❔There's going to be a heist quest/quest line. Trust me.

❌I'm hoping it's in the Archon's palace, possibly bc of something that was there back when it was Arlathan.

❔"That's not what your mom said last night."

✔️Kaiju battle(s)

❌Dread Wolf Dragon

❌Those three twinned mountain things of Ghil's (from TN) as a series of dungeons??

✔️Romanceable dwarf.

✔️(Possibly Lace Harding.)

✔️Romanceable skeleton/other undead.

❌The Grand Necropolis will be the new 'ugh, the Fade'

❌We affect who sits on the Navarran throne.

✔️Harley Qun will be basically the only Qunari we talk to other than a few dialogue lines from the bad guys.

✔️Lords of Fortune background!

❌More emphasis on necromancer background.

✔️Grey Warden background!

✔️(Or just a companion.)

✔️Crow assassin background and/or romanceable companion.

❔More info on "those across the sea"

✔️Fewer race/gender limitations on romances :(

❌Ending(s) where Solas dies/is killed.

✔️At least one 'happy' ending for the egg.

✔️Customizable Inquisitor

✔️(either a Hawke in DAI type role, or maybe Cori from Witcher 3)

✔️Solavellan catharsis.

✔️"Vhenan..."

✔️Me, crying

Wishlist:

❌Origins style origins.

✔️Body sliders in CC.

❌Protagonist has siblings.

❌The architect.

❌Cole

❌Sandal.

✔️Healer

❌'Hollix' as a companion.

❌Feynriel

❔Nipuni returns to us.

✔️Answers.

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I'm at Urgent Care and in tons of pain and very miserable but this post is about how the news channel playing in the waiting room is covering bi erasure, which is interesting.

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Regarding the canon trans characters, Flynn (the warden healer in Lavendel) is nonbinary and Harding names a nonbinary Veil Jumper in banter with Taash but I can't remember if we see them in game.

Oh yeah, Flynn! Wish we got to see more of them 👀

While we're at it, I also forgot the mayor (or whatever they are) of Treviso.

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So wait, afaik there are 3 canonically trans characters in the franchise, and they're all from Tevinter?

I bet it's Thedas slang. "Is he, *you know*.... From Tevinter?"

Edit: wait, forgot Taash. Still though. 75%.

In DAI, Krem talks about how he had to bribe a doctor to sign off on his papers in order to enlist in the Tevinter military and that he had to flee after being outed and liiiike

I really want to know what enlistment was like for Tarquin. If he began his transition after the ultimatum from his father, he was presumably of or near the age to qualify for service but still young enough to rely on his family for survival. Just coming into adulthood, just finding the words to define himself, just grasping the magnitude of knowing.

And in a near parody of support, his father will only accept him as a son if he pledges his life away to a deeply patriarchal institution where stealth is not only mandatory to obtain the position in the first place, but enforced by the threat of legal prosecution. You want to be a man? Fine, if you are not a man here, you will be punished for it. As a soldier, your masculinity will be defined and held to account or you will face violence for your trespassing.

Or stay the course. Accept an adolescence of grooming to become an ideal wife and marry up in status, bring the family new opportunities. Bear children, play politics, repress, repress, repress. Swallow poison and choke on what could have been.

Be a man or be destroyed, either way.

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I just finished the Burning Shores DLC of Horizon: Forbidden West (phenomenal series) and Aloy's little romance with Seyka was very cute.

Can't say I fully understand it from Aloy's POV; Seyka is fine, no hate, but she doesn't seem any more or less special than the other companions in Aloy's life. So why her?

EXCEPT

The timing. Coming from a world of heteronormativity (me, not Aloy. I don't think there's much evidence of or against hetnorm in canon?) I find it hilarious that she went through a game and a half avoiding emotional connections, then she finds out the woman she got her DNA from was all toxic yuri with the villain and is like... Oh is THAT what my problem is? Do I like girls?? And immediately falls in love with the next available woman she spends any amount time with.

(actually as I write this I guess the connections between them was supposed to be bc they both felt like outcasts... Idk didn't feel super genuine, but again, no hate. Why Seyka, but also, why not Seyka)

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Personal. Not even personal to me, really. Just need to rant.

Many months ago there was an ice breaker during a team meeting that was like, 'what's your favorite memory from childhood,' and my immediately thought was like wow, that's not good question. Some people had shitty childhoods and probably don't want to think about them! (Not me, mine was fine.) As each person answered and none of the answers were bad my stress about the question lessened... Until my boss went last and said she couldn't think of a single thing. No favorite game or friend or meal.

What she remembers is living ain Vietnam and her mom covering her and her sister's faces with chicken poop to make them unattractive so they wouldn't get sold into sex trafficking. She remembers being afraid of the American soldiers trooping through her village with guns. She remembers her dad disappearing. She remembers when things got so bad that her mom took them to the States and they moved in with a strange man who her mom claimed was their dad that they hadn't seen in two years, but she and her sister knew better*.

Cut to November. My boss tells me her aunt died some time ago, and it was her last wish for my boss to take her ashes to a specific temple in Vietnam. Thinks it'll be healing for her to see her homeland again. Some years ago her dad died and the whole family got together but could not find a legal way to just SEND his ashes to the temple bc of a lot of international body part laws. Someone in her family eventually accepted the responsibility and took her dad. He refuses to do it again. Even her husband refuses to go back to Vietnam for her.

She tries other family members, legal methods, paying a stranger to do it... Anything to not have to go to trauma land herself. Nothing pans out. So in November, she tells us she's thinking of taking December off to just get it done and over with. It's not in the tourist area of the country. Three homes are made of mud and there's no electricity. And it's still dangerous. She'll stay with a male relative who lives out there and never leave his side, she'll dress like a bag lady and make herself super unattractive, she won't speak unless necessary to try to avoid anyone noticing she sounds American.

And all my fucking privileged ass white female coworkers are like, you should go! Your aunt is right, it'll be ✨ healing ✨! You're not a child anymore!

I was quiet during the meeting, even though I thought it was a fucking stupid idea. I love my boss and we're close for coworkers, but we're not like besties or anything. And it's not my culture. Is it really my place to say anything?

But within the hour I messaged her anyway. Fuck that. I've ALWAYS been the one to speak up when others won't. People will thank me after meetings for speaking up against whatever new bullshit management is pulling. (Mind you, it rarely helps, and it just makes me want to go WHY DID NONE OF YOU SPEAK UP THEN but I digress.)

I say I'm super close to my family too, but I don't believe in peer pressure from dead people. You can honor the fact that your aunt thought this would help you, but there's no reason to think she knows you better than you do. Not to mention this is a HUGE ask and you weren't even that close to her. Best case scenario, yeah you heal a bit. Mid case, it's a huge use of your time and money. Worst case, we never fuckig hear from you again. You're not a bad person if you don't do this. I just want to make sure at least one person is telling you that you can just flat out not do it.

But her therapist agrees it'll be healing. Off she goes.

Mind you, this is her first real PTO since she helped start the company like 12 years ago or whatever. She'll be without Internet for two weeks as they hike to/from the temple. She's a workaholic. She was supposed to retire a year ago. It didn't stick.

The hike is more like a loooong upward slope. Multiple villages and marketplaces are along the 'road'. The temple is at the top. It's beautiful. She puts the ashes in their place.

On the journey back, her and her uncle are in a food cart marketplace. The crowd ebbs and flows and pushes you along with it. She knows not to separate from her uncle but the 'crowd ' pushes her into a separate alley, intentionally, to separate her. There are men there. 'what's up pretty lady, looking for a good time?'

She says no, she's not, get uncle will find her, here have my money, just let me go. They say thank you for the money, but that's not what we're after, and...... My boss goes silent for a long time. The meeting is silent. Eventually, tearfully, she says she's not going to go into details, but anyway, her uncle showed up and best them up. Her flight was supposed to be in another two weeks but instead she leaves right away. Multiple international flights, lay overs, 6 different planes, to get back to the States. Not even HER state, just back to where it feels like home. Where she feels safe again.

I wish this meeting hadn't been in the middle of the day bc I'm too fucking angry to work. I'm mad at so many people rn. My coworkers, her therapist, her husband, men who've made victims of women since the dawn of fucking time.

Was this trip healing? Is this going to make her feel closer to her 'home land '? To her aunt, her family?

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Omg it's been so long since I've written anything that I can't even remember how long it's been, BUT I just wrote ~1800 words in one sitting! Of an ACTION SCENE (hardest for me to write). I'm so relieved 😩