👀 what if I was interested in that Gale poly rant but in a positive way?
LKSJFDLKFJGDFG i can't use the rant on you then because it would be too clinical and i would angry swear sometimes probably
but honestly like. first we need to talk about halsin . wait first we need to talk about poly as a sexuality
i'm going to try and not turn this into a massive character analysis or analysis of queer identity in media etc so i will attempt to retain my humour throughout to ground me
people who are poly tend to sit on either side of a coin. poly is a preferred state of relationship, or just a state of relationship they enjoy, and they can do just fine with monogamy, and everything is chill - ultimate relaxed person mode. the other side is the group of poly individuals who view poly as important to them and their sexual identity as being straight or gay or bisexual or pansexual or any other identity. for them it is part of the queer umbrella and it is fundamental to their being, they can't turn it off, they can't be ok with monogamy, this is who they are.
for reference, halsin is the latter. poly is part of his sexual identity.
halsins poly rep is, spoken from a poly person, ok. it is ok. it's not good, it's not bad. it's mostly the stuff around halsin i don't like. (and i am not going to talk about his drow situation, for reference, because that shit goes beyond poly rep.) making halsin token poly, for lack of a better word, would realistically be fine in most situations, in fact i've talked with aisling about this and i would have preferred they made him poly with no poly options in the game to go with him over what we got - we can't forget he was added late, he isn't as fleshed out, he feels a bit misplaced sometimes, and his poly goes hand in hand with that. he could have existed as a poly character, which nearly all wood elves are in canon, without shoving in some poly options for him with existing companions who would explore that with anyone else despite the game allowing you to romance those companions with the other companions if you play as them? and they flirt with each other in banter quite regularly? i don't know. it feels very like, o shit we gotta make him poly he's a wood elf! and he's a druid! but we have no options for him! who are the easiest to add without it feeling odd??? like idk. it doesn't feel great from a poly pov, and if you enjoy like halsin x shart x tav or halsin x astarion x tav that's totally cool - i am not dismissing these at all because i don't fucking care about canon so even if it didn't exist in canon in a way i don't really like, i would still be cool with it.
our poly rep leaves much to be desired, tldr.
i am happy it exists, however. and my hope is that one day in the future when we have an rpg where every romance option is bisexual or pansexual that they are also poly. that is my ultimate ideal for the future of these situations in gaming. i know some people are uncomfortable with poly, but that's why we refer to what i first said. you can have characters like halsin where it is fundamental to their being - they will never be monogamous, you cannot change them. but you can also have individuals who are cool with monogamy if you're not comfortable with polyamory. i want characters who will date each other on their own, and you can join the polycule, or get involved with just one of them. i want devs to be open minded and not give us a token polyamorous character and instead explore it in better ways.
i have known many poly people, i've dated poly people of both sides of the coin, i've been involved with people who are married to someone they don't live with but have nesting partners (a partner they live with who isn't their spouse) and multiple partners on the side and follow the hierarchy side of poly. my ex helped me understand poly as a sexuality and they also didn't subscribe to poly hierarchy and all their partners would be equal. poly is an expansive identity and it deserves the attention and respect other queer identities do.
a poly person creating poly ships and poly situationships with a character or characters who are confirmed monogamous is the same to me as a gay person creating gay ships and gay situationships with a character or characters who are confirmed straight. and that might be divisive, because many people, including queer people are not ready for or not comfortable with polyamory yet in their spaces. now i can be respectful of people who have trauma around polyamory because they were involved with someone who used it as a weapon - usually done by someone who isn't actually poly. but we as poly people deserve to take up space, we deserve to be in your media, we deserve respect, we deserve to be represented well.
and if video game devs aren't going to do that for me, you bet your ass i'm gonna do it for myself. no one can take that power for me.
what exists in my game doesn't have to mean shit for yours - it doesn't exist in yours. it is a thing i do for me to make me happy. if anyone gets upset about that they need to go outside.
please don't cast a witches curse on me
i might come back to edit this ... i haven't proof read it..... this was just screaming <3 i'm too tired to read my own words back
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I've been listening to some of Tower of Swallows again and I'm currently sitting with and obsessing over these six paragraphs right now. Forever having Ciri feelings I can't articulate in an actual Post....and yet my Ciri wip gets bigger and heavier every other week.
The interior of the tower immediately reminded her of Kaer Morhen – an equally long black corridor behind the doorway, an equally endless abyss in alignment with the columns and statues. She could not understand how this chasm fit in the slender obelisk of the tower. But she knew that trying to analyze it made no sense – not in the case of a tower that sprung up out of nowhere, that suddenly appeared where nothing had been before. In such a tower, anything was possible, and you couldn't be surprised by anything.
She looked back. She did not believe that Bonhart had dared – or had been able – to follow her here. But she preferred to make sure of that.
The archway through which she was riding shone with a bright, unnatural light.
Kelpie's hooves clattered on the floor, which started to crack under the horseshoes. Bone. Skull, tibia, ribs, femur, pelvis. She rode through the middle of a giant ossuary. She was reminded again of Kaer Morhen. The dead should be buried in the ground… How long ago was that… At that time, I actually believed such a thing… the majesty of death, respect for the dead… But death is just death. And a dead man is just a cold corpse. It does not matter where it lies, where his bones disintegrate.
She rode into the darkness, under arches, between columns and statues. The darkness began to weigh on her like smoke. Intrusive whispers and soft sighs urged incantations in her ears. Huge doors suddenly flared up in front of her and opened. They opened one by one. Doors. An infinite number of heavy doors opened silently in front of her.
Kelpie's hooves rattled on the ground.
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Gambling Apocalypse Tenma AU
As I rewatch Kaiji I inevitably end up wanting to combine show I like with other show I like and stuffing fav characters into show. So here we are.
This was uh going to be a short summary type thing but I accidentally wrote a novella about it sorry
This AU starts off with a much more depressive Tenma. After Tobio's death, rather than immediately pour his grief into developing a robot version of his son, he recedes into himself, psychologically paralyzed, likely turning to alcohol to drown out his anguish.
His mental state is taken as an opportunity within the Ministry of Science to have him ejected from his position; Tenma was never the most well-liked director, and there were those with ambition to usurp him that would jump at the chance. Not that he especially cares in his state.
He's eventually dragged out of his stagnation by Ochanomizu - who, inadvertently, becomes the very catalyst pushing Tenma to develop a robot replacement to his child. This was not what he meant by encouraging Tenma to fill the void left by his son.
...But, well, he is no longer the director of the Ministry of Science. His access to limitless government funds and resources for "scientific research" has been cut off, and this is a project he cannot finance on his own. He can't ask Ochanomizu for help, but...interestingly...a representative of a certain shady organization known as the Teiai Corporation reaches out to him, offering to finance and support his project. A sane and well-minded Tenma might think better of it, but grieving and desperate, Tenma accepts their offer and is able to create a robot in the image of his beloved Tobio. For a while, there's joy in his life.
But the bill, as ever, comes due: Tenma must pay up, and the very resources that had been at his disposal will certainly ensure that he will, or else. Of course, he doesn't have the money; instead, he is given a choice. He can relinquish the robot Tobio in order to wipe out his debt - the child is a sophisticated and powerful robot, after all - or he can participate in a certain illicit event hosted by the Teiai Corporation.
It's nothing major...just a four-hour gambling cruise with a collection of desperate, damned souls that were also swept into debt with Teiai. The conditions are simple: Those who choose to participate are given a chance to clear their debts wholesale should they win. And should they lose...?
Well...no one really knows what happens to the losers seized by Teiai. It's said that they labour away their debts under Teiai's watchful eye and are freed once their work has covered their debts, though it's rumoured that most perish before they reclaim freedom.
There's only one answer Tenma can give, of course; he's not willing to lose Tobio again.
Thus is Tenma's debut into the Gambling Apocalypse, where he must become cutthroat in order to survive; if he wants to see his son again, he must make choices that will doom the hapless to miserable servitude, with a nonzero chance it ends in their death.
He survives the cruise, but of course, it was hardly enough to clear his debt; the cruise was never going to be the end of it. Teiai doesn't let go of its victims that easily. He will be called on again: this is a weight that hangs over him, all while he returns to his son Tobio. The same hands that have pushed innocents into hell must now be the hands that can embrace his child.
He wants to protect Tobio from the truth and enjoy what peaceful moments he's allowed with his son, but it's difficult. It's difficult to be the parent of a child who cannot understand the danger that looms ahead; this "happy" home is not to last. Tenma angers quickly and easily. He turns that anger onto Tobio.
As Teiai's games become more and more vicious and unrelenting, as his conscience holds onto the last vestiges of thread that remain, Tenma even threatens, once, to give the boy in: it would all end, then; the debt would be clear and no longer would he have to endure Tobio's childish annoyances, his ungratefulness.
The next time that Tenma is beckoned, Tobio takes matters into his own hands. He does understand, now; and he would have, if only Tenma had bothered to explain sooner. If it's a debt that needs clearing, he will work. He will help his father clear his debts however he can. Of course, it's difficult to find work as a child; but a circus troupe finds amusement in the idea of a child robot, and takes him in. He is whisked into a certainly unpleasant working situation, but he remembers his father, and what he must be enduring. Tobio, also, will endure.
When Tenma returns, Tobio is gone.
All that held Tenma back from becoming something monstrous has disappeared. All that kept him going has disappeared. When he is called upon by Teiai, there is no knowing what sort of person might come out the other end; whether a monster clawing his way to freedom regardless of what actions he must take, or a desolate husk surrendering defeat.
There is still a light, however dim: Found by Professor Ochanomizu and rescued from the circus, Tobio - now Atom - is able to shed light on the situation which Tenma took great pains to keep hidden from his old friend. With time running out, Ochanomizu and Atom must do what they can to save Tenma - from Teiai, and from himself.
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UHHH and that's a wrap!!!! I couldn't quite decide which way Tenma would go after hitting Rock Bottom in this AU, and tbh it would really depend on the kind of mental state he's in at the time. On the one hand I like the narrative of Ochanomizu and Tobio racing to prevent Tenma from crossing a line (actual outright murder probably) - or having to pull him back into humanity (and yknow, his ensuing penance)
But on the other hand having him get sent to Teiai Evil Hell Prison would be interesting because a) there's a lot of narrative potential having Tenma faced with what Teiai is doing with the people that lose the games and b) need him to decimate the foreman at chinchirorin Kaiji style
Tenma's whole character is definitely a much different guy in this AU, he starts off pretty sympathetic, the guy you wanna root for, he just ends up having an inverse character arc where he gets worse instead of better. His conflict with "Tobio" is also kind of reversed, less about being unsatisfied with Tobio as a son and more not being able to handle the fact that he probably has intense PTSD now and isnt capable of coping with it in a way conducive to being a parent (or like, coping at all)
Anyway that's gambling apocalypse tenma!!!
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