#also to be clear this is not a criticism

[rivalcobalt]

I love dipping my toes back into DP and finding new ways the phandom has been unintentionally recreating Kaneki Ken

[asharaks]

it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

[ariadne-mouse]

Upon hearing there might be a M9 episode interlude now in C3:

[duncan-rohanne]

i've seen this thought circling around of twitter and here, in different variations, but it's still the same: don't hate alicent, she isn't a traitor, she doesn't try to have anyone actively killed. she just hates war, is desperate and doesn't know what to do.

ok, i get what you are saying but you are missing the point that she should know better. even if i completely forget book!alicent, who is totally different character, at this point, show!alicent should know that this entire trip to rhaenyra is pointless. nor aegon or aemond would bend their knees. aegon because he is convinced that rhaenyra killed his son and aemond because he just doesn't feel like it. and she also knows that rhaenyra cannot let any of her sons live. she currently raised army of bastards, which alicent knows about, all with dragons and possible claims to the throne. jace himself is a bastard and again - everyone knows! alicent's "you are challenge, aegon, just by living and breathing!" wasn't hyperbole. aegon, aemond and daeron all have to die for rhaenyra to win. otto, criston and gwayne would stand trial for treason and (at best!!!!!!!) they'd be send to the wall. alicent knows all of this, she doesn't let us forget how skilled in ruling she is when viserys was incapable.

(most) people don't hate alicent because now she is some kind of evil traitor. they hate that condal wrote her to be stupid. in her years of living in the court and mingling with royalty, being the queen, the queen mother etc. she has no business to be naive. she is acting reckless, stupid and foolish and those are not alicent's character traits.

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

the conflict, the drama, the angst, catch it all next time on CR

[utilitycaster]

The thing about Ashton saying "WHAT DO YOU WANT" is that I really do understand that they are coming from a place of great pain and a genuinely awful life (and the Arch Heart doesn't really give a good answer either, which is similarly frustrating) but we keep getting this answer throughout the campaign, if not for the Arch Heart at least for other deities, and it's that most simple and also frustrating of answers: consistent effort.

Why did FCG catch the eye of the Changebringer? consistent, repeated prayer, even if it wasn't perfect and could get kind of silly or even annoying to others. Orym is not a worshiper of the Wildmother, but he still repeatedly has reached out and tried to talk to her in good faith (pun unintended). And looking back at others from past campaigns, we learn of their ongoing service - in the cases of those who are introduced as already faithful, often from a young age (Pike, Caduceus, Jester though her deity is not one of the Prime/Betrayer pantheons). Both Vax and Fjord made considerable sacrifices of their own without promises from the gods first, in addition to smaller, regular moments of worship in the course of their stories.

I've never loved the line about there being no atheists in foxholes, because frankly I think it's unfair to atheists and paints them as selfish, fickle, and spineless when many atheists are none of those things. But I do think that a lot of the anti-god arguments fit into that sort of philosophy, that the gods are only to be paid attention to in the moment of great and desperate need and neglected otherwise, and we've seen the attendants of temples repeatedly say that isn't how it works; it takes time. The gods don't necessarily answer a single yell off the cliffs of Zephrah or a single visit, but they do see the repetition and respond to that.

I think everyone in the fandom, regardless of how they feel about the gods, understands there's not going to be a quick easy painless fix to this mess once Ludinus set it in motion, but I do think a lot of people expect there to be a lot of quick fixes to other things (in the story, in fandom, and in real life). And yeah, it does suck that Ashton, having a terrible time, might have had more luck had they prayed or gone to the same temple regularly for a while without necessarily seeing results...but it's also very real. You do have to take your stupid mental health walks regularly for a while (let alone your meds) before there's a payoff. you do still need to do the dishes while you're depressed or sick lest they pile up and make things worse. consistent effort that doesn't always have immediate satisfying results is extremely unglamorous and also it's how you have to do basically everything in life. Even in a time of crisis you need to avert the crisis and then get back to the slow and consistent work of fixing it and improving things in the aftermath.

[gunstellations]

boop! 💙🤍

[ofswordsandpens]

it feels like the show is nailing certain aspects about the characters but only at the completely wrong time because Percy saying "she met a pinecone's fate"... don't get me wrong, the moment feels very true to the part of Percy that is a little shit <3 and it is funny, but it just stands in such stark contrast of his canon kindness and sympathy when he first learned of Thalia's fate that I'm just sitting here like ???

Like when Percy learns about Thalia in the book, he's very moved by her fate:

So comparing this reaction to the onscreen portrayal, its just like wild that the writers thought this was a "faithful change" lmao. Even if the line is criticizing the gods, it feels as if it comes at the expense of Percy's sincere empathy. imo the pinecone line feels much better suited to a future season where there's active animosity between Percy and Thalia, not when Percy is learning about a girl who died saving her friends.

[five-flavor-soup]

i genuinely, really like aang, but keeping his writing in book 3 and his writing in the comics in mind, i don’t think it’s all that implausible for him to get the sort-of-antagonist role in fics depicting katara-ships other than KA.

reiterating, i like aang: he’s adorable, he’s funny, and he’s nice. but i believe there’s something to be said about how his ‘niceness’ is written and seen as being The Reason he ‘deserves’ a love interest. his thinking is self-centred, and though that’s a believable flaw for a kid who’s, like, twelve, we’re shown that it’s a consistent character trait which is never treated as an issue… even though it is. (and if he’s mature enough to start dating the girl he’s going to marry and have children with, he should also be mature enough to be criticised for his less-than-savoury parts of his personality, no?)

it’s not OOC to write him as being possessive of katara even when they’re not dating, because he canonically is. it’s not OOC to write him as not respecting and/or noticing katara’s boundaries, because he canonically blows past them. the ideas that he might not mature much later on, that he might be wilfully and forcefully oblivious to any discomfort in the KA relationship, that he might continue shoving katara(‘s culture) aside—none of that is necessarily OOC, because aang does not go through significant character development in book 3 + the comics.

in The Promise, there’s that weird moment wherein aang is briefly anti-miscegenation and doesn’t change his mind until katara reminds him supporting that would affect him (him!!! his relationship with katara alone!!) personally. in TLOK, there’s the suggestion that aang never actively pushed for bumi & kya to learn about air nomad culture and there’s the heavy implication that aang never told the air acolytes about bumi & kya’s existence. additionally, tenzin doesn’t even have a hint of water tribe heritage anywhere in his house to honour katara’s side: he’s all air nomad (though?? nuclear family dynamic), in spite of being mixed.

don’t get me wrong, i vastly prefer fic and hc’s in which aang is a katara supporter first and foremost, and that’s also how i prefer to move through a fandom space barring meta and analyses. but i also don’t think making him jealous and petty when she dates someone else is a misinterpretation of the text we’ve been given; canon!aang shows the signs to become that way, and it’s not wrong to read his future self that way nor is it incorrect fandom-ing to highlight these traits

[arabella-strange]

also I'm pretty sure there was a moment (mid-cross talk during the ep) as somebody was mentioning Orym always being in the protective/defensive position and thus in the thick of it, when Dorian muttered almost too quietly, a little admiring, a little (hollowly) laughing, a lot sad, "Always right in the mix..."

and by "I'm pretty sure" I mean I can't stop thinking about it

[essektheylyss]

In terms of potential dunamancers for Essek to contact, I do think Uraya is a strong option, and I imagine there are others we aren't aware of since we were a little restricted in access to other dunamancers while in Rosohna (gee, Essek, wonder why that might've been...).

However, I do think it would be fun as a hypothetical to imagine his mother as one of them; she's the head of the den that is suggested to manage if not control the Dynasty's nexus of dunamantic research, the Marble Tomes Conservatory, so it's very possible she is an accomplished dunamancer of the arcane variety herself, especially in light of who she raised. I've previously tended to imagine her as a cleric of the Luxon, given her role as a religious figure, but considering that the Luxon doesn't differentiate much, it could go either way (even to the point of a multiclass, which honestly would be dope).

We have absolutely no basis of understanding her personal willingness to look past her son's transgressions, but given that he seems to think some would, and that the stakes are monumentally high, it's easy to think that his own mother might be among them. I mentioned last week that the information we have would suggest that she did actually live through the Calamity, and potentially was born in the later years of the Age of Arcanun. Even if she was in a position wherein she may have had sympathy for his situation but was not politically able to look past it, that may change if the stakes are, quite literally, apocalyptic.

But also, most importantly, it would be SO funny to me if Essek, epic-level wizard, international political fugitive, estranged from his family and culture at large, has to call in a favor from his mom.

[ariadne-mouse]

This feels like both a statement of potential obviousness, but also a prediction because hey, we're only 2.5 hrs into Episode 1: I don't think Downfall will reveal either the gods or the Aeorians to somehow be uniquely evil, or that the desire on either part to destroy the other is somehow uniquely more justified or deserved.

Like in Episode 1 here we're getting a very strong dose of the shitty things Aeorians are doing to other mortals in their pursuit of control and power - we already knew they were a warmongering surveillance state, and as things get worse on Exandria it's grimly unsurprising that the people on the ground are increasingly treated as disposable. But Aeor is still a city full of people seeking safety in a land torn open by the gods' battles, desperate to survive by any (increasingly ugly and sinister) means. And the gods in turn are afraid for their survival, and are acting accordingly in seeking Aeor's Downfall (immense collateral damage) - all while and the versions of them in the party here have lived mortal lives & hardships, have families, communities. They have lived in the desolation their own godly battles have created. We don't see them portrayed as lofty divine abstracts, not even necessarily in the intro, where they are confused, afraid, and seeking safety from danger.

For Ludinus to think this "footage" is in his favor against the gods, and the complexity of the lore being what it is and the cast being the storytellers that they are, I think it must be the kind of series of events you can look at and see the humanity (using that word deliberately) for good and ill in all parties involved - and leave again with your biases if they're strong enough. Very curious what we will learn. I expect to weep. I can't wait.

[lunamond]

The disproportionate hate show!Criston gets is so bizarre. No argument I’ve seen his haters make sofar has made any sense to me.

He is outside of Mysaria the only siginficant lowborn character we meet. He rises up from the son of a steward of a minor house to the position of King‘s Guard thanks to Rhaenyra, who then pressures him into having sex with her, sth that could get him executed. Afterwards she not just rejects his proposal, but laughs in his face.

And when as a result of this experience Criston is shown to be emotional distraught and bitter, people call him an incel? (I assume that they refer to his ideology and not his actual status as a celibate, because not being celibate is literally what started this mess)

It really rubs me the wrong way, when people remove all context from this situation. A lower class person getting a well-off position from a person with authority, who they then end up having sex with is ALWAYS a relationship with a power imbalance (Obviously there are irl relationships like this, who work out and manage to be relatively healthy, but that doesn‘t remove the imbalance of power and the increased likelyhood of abuse).

We see Criston‘s reluctance when Rhaenyra makes her move. It does not matter if Criston was attracted to her or not. The simple fact that he is in a vunerable position makes him denying her a risk. It also does not matter that Rhaenyra had no malicious intentions, the simple fact that she ignores Criston‘s refusal and continues pressuring make this whole scene super uncomfortable. Her ignorance and naivety does not erase the impact of her actions.

Criston growing to hate her afterwards is perfectly justified.

As a man who grew up in Westerosi society, he inevitably holds misogynist beliefs, which is reflected in the insults he uses after this. But compared to the acts of every single character on this show, singling out his character is pretty ludicrous, when we have plenty of male (and female) characters who have done worse:

Like commiting SA (Viserys, Aegon), grooming young girls (Viserys again! I really hate this man, Daemon, Otto, Corlys and Rhaenys because telling your daughter she has to sleep with a grown man when she is 14 is pretty much the same thing Otto does to Alicent) and the only major crime Criston is guilty of sofar: murder (Daemon killed his wife and the servant in Driftmark, also he did large scale police violence which people love to forget about, Rhaenys killed potentially hundreds of smallfolk at the coronation)

Obviously, anybody is allowed to dislike whatever character they want, but a lot of people flatten Criston into just a misogynistic bitter incel who is just mad that Rhaenyra has sex, ignoring every bit of context we get for his behaviour.

This becomes escpecially weird, when those same people have no problem stanning Daemon, who calls his 1st wife a „bitch“, „uglier than sheep“ and then murders her, because he sees her as inferior as a none-valyrian. But Criston calling Rhaenyra, a person he feels personally wronged by, a „spoiled cunt“ is apparently a too far.

It is just really frustating when the character with the canonically lowest social standing gets afforded the least amount of nuance by the fandom (the writers are obvs not excempt from this criticism either).

[artist-rat]

i’ve never listened/watched critical role but my best friend does and sometimes talks to me about it. i asked them for some characters to draw (from any campaign) :p

[spinjitsuburst]

watching secrets of the forbidden spinjitzu while i get some stuff done and i like to think wu's overly harsh vibe at the beginning of the season is him trying to reclaim SOME sense of authority after his ninja literally had to raiSE HIM FROM A CHILD GFDHKJGKJ

[stickandthorn]

I didn’t know where Beau’s spiritual real world home was until I started getting into the WNBA (yeah I’m a Caitlin Clark bandwagoner, what of it?) and I realized that that’s where she belongs. Women’s basketball is her home, her calling. Get that girl on a WNBA team stat. I don’t know a lot about basketball but I can just see her at the free throw line now, I can see her I can see her giving the refs that pissed off “what did I do???” look when they call her for fouling someone, I can see her drinking from those sponsored Gatorade water bottles they’re all forced to drink from. Get her on the court stat.