#if i ever do an evil run

[greyias]

As a follow-up on Ari's never-ending musical tour, it appears Steam just decided to stop counting my progress at 17/100, and refuses to update it past that, because the morning after the romance scene, I decided to go ahead and try to hit up the Underdark (and the Blighted Village) that I had forgotten to serenade while in Act 1, and got so many gold pieces from people who she had not played for previously.

Unlike those plebs in Moonrise Towers, mushroom people are really into the lute.

As is this doomed wannabe kidnapper from the Society of Brilliance:

(don't worry why Astarion was hiding. I was trying to save her and her asshole friends' future asses by stealing back the owlbear egg I'd swindled her into taking, but even when Astarion succeeded and started to sneak away she was like "BITCH GIMME THAT BACK" so have fun dying jerk! But... at least she tips better than the Harpers)

Then headed back to the Blighted Village, which I somehow had missed completely while dragging my feet in Act 1, and performed for all the goblins. They enjoyed our traveling show, and had some, erm. Interesting suggestions.

I, uh, am sure it makes an interesting xylaphone-like sound. But I think I'll pass.

Confirmed: Ari's lute playing is more entertaining than watching ogre porn

Thanks I guess? Also we might be forever banned from the Emerald Grove for reasons, but don't worry about that. It's not important.

[braisedhoney]

fighting back? against who? they're so happy—they've been waiting for you.

you are wonderful. don't you know that?

bonus: they play sims together :)

[toytulini]

listen im ace and im pro kink at pride and whatever, but the way some of yall are wording your posts in response to the backlash against it is uh. really taking me back to the ace shitcourse era.

yall know theres nothing wrong with being a "virgin", right? that its not inherently shameful to have not had sex, to never have sex, even if youre not ace, even if you do want to have sex someday, like, its fine that you haven't had sex?

maybe if your problem is that theyre trying to police your behavior and shame you for expressing your sexuality, you can say that? instead of resorting to "haha stupid virgin gets no bitches" like my god. do you not hear how fucking regressive that attitude is? i know, i know, youre "joking".

get a better joke

[vic-does-battlecats]

Minor spoilers for the already revealed chapters of the next A Starless Clan book Wind

[shaykai]

Nobody told me there’s a very pretty morally dubious vampire lady in BG2

[tuttle-did-it]

FUCK. THE. TORIES.

They have refused to increase wages whilst forcing the cost of living to skyrocket so high that nearly all of us are counting pennies to pay bills. If we can pay them.

They intentionally and gleefully forced us into a horrible economic (and cultural) depression through Brexit, and not one of them had a single consequence for the constant lies they told to get it passed. This will only get worse.

They have intentionally dismantled the NHS by underfunding it to the point where the NHS staff are all burnt out (having nervous breakdowns, leaving the country for far- better paying jobs or just leaving the field completely) just so they could sell it off to privatised companies worth billions just so they can fill their own pockets. Oh, and the incredible capable staff (medical or support) who were all from Europe have been told they are no longer welcome here and they have returned home because Britain is a cesspool of bigotry and hate

They are dismantling the social care systems for the disabled and elderly, to try to force us back to work even though we are physically and/or mentally incapable of work by stripping away our incomes.

They're doing everything they can to keep us from living by making sure we cannot afford food, housing, utilities, water, and tax.

They are living on taxpayers whilst having millions, even billions in the bank for themselves.

The corrupt politicians fill their bank accounts and buy third and fourth houses across all Europe, another boat— whatever— and they have scandal after scandal with absolutely no consequence, and we can do absolutely nothing.

Their handling of COVID was criminal, and aside from wasting an incredible amount of money, they are responsible for many deaths by not acting fast enough and by forcing people back into the workplace when they knew it was not safe because they wanted to improve the economy they collapsed.

Oh, and don't forget all those lovely parties they had during COVID lockdowns when we were all in our houses and not allowed to see family members who were dying-- or even go to their funerals because of COVID restrictions.

They are intentionally fuelling the hate at queer people-- specifically trans people. This, I assure you, will get so much worse.

They keep sending money from taxpayers over to fund wars in other places-- including genocide-- with no way for us to fight back.

They keep making law after law making it more and more difficult for us to protest against everything they are doing.

Now the Tories expect you to do 12-18 months (+4 reserve years) of mandatory conscripted service in the military so you can go help countries commit war atrocities and genocide. And if you refuse, you are sanctioned. And they are making more and more laws restricting protest and free speech, so if we fight back, we're punished-- criminalised.

Do you understand what is happening right now?

Anyone who can still vote for the Tories after all of this, I have only a deep seeded concern for their sanity, and revulsion at their lack of morals.

FUCK EVERYONE WHO WILL OR HAS EVER VOTED FOR THESE MONSTERS.

FUCK.

THE.

TORIES.

FUCK.

THEM.

ALL.

[meownotgood]

also while I'm on the topic of being off topic. this is my beloved durge tav moon. her wizard boyfriend sprays her with water when she tries to bite people

[other-peoples-coats]

For reasons that don't need going into, I'm once again thinking about the logistics of hyperspace travel, and like.

Ok so you know how map makers put in trap streets and fake islands and alter the elevation of mountains and generally put in teeny tiny (or not so teeny tiny) errors to catch plagiarists? That, but hyperspace maps.

Like there has to be a fuck load of -- if not laws, at least generally accepted norms? about what you can and can't do, because... look, at the distances you (hypothetical GFFA space faring traveler) would be traveling, you're off by a fraction of an inch when you launch in the direction of planet funtimes-vacation-land and you end up like. 80,000,000,000 lightyears away from your goal, at planet oh-fuck-deathworld and/or in the literal middle of a moon and/or lost in deep space forever and ever, where no one can hear you scream.

So there has to be a sort of mutual agreement that hyperspace maps can't be like, 'oh yeah, there's def a planet here😉 it for sure orbits this totally real star😉😉 at 90000skm (space kms) a syear (space year)😉😉😉'; because, like. otherwise everyone would die and no one could use hyperspace ever, basically.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Only takes one 'whoops they were trying to avoid our fake planet and crashed into an inhabited planet, killing all 4 billion inhabitants via the most literal meaning of terminal velocity' to make hyperspace travel a wee bit dubious as a concept.

(and also get your particular cartography company/space-gps company sued out of existence, either by the people who survived Alderaan V-0.01, navigational error edition, or by the big scary conglomerates that had interests in the outer rim mining planet you just got blown up, as relevant.)

Ditto altering the speed at which planets (moons asteroids etc etc what the fuck ever space shit is out there) orbit their relevant local stars; again, fractions of a second off really adds up over that sort of scale.

I'm assuming that there has to be rival cartographic companies, simply because like. gffa is medieval end stage capitalism on steroids. There's multiple map companies, even if it's just that kuat drive yards have their hyperspace maps for their ships, and dodgy-joe's shonky ships have their maps for their ships, and the jedi temple have their maps (which they have to install on the jedi ships by way of jailbreaking/rooting the navigation systems, presumably, every jedi runs the equivalent of a mid 2010s iphone with a million sketchy apps sideloaded), etc etc.

Anyway. Fake planets (moons etc) are out for reasons of not turning random tourist space-bus no #7629 into the Death Star (analog edition), ditto altering the speed of existing planets, ditto, presumably, putting in things like extra space stations or fake hyperlanes or black holes or whatever.

Which basically leaves you with renaming things! presumably most mapping places go real world analogous, and pick something pretty easy to think is real - asteroid #12-z-3095-y labeled #13-z-l14r, or the 56th moon of ult'klssyk and the 59th having their names mixed up, etc-- but presumably at least some do like. the most obvious examples.

Long story short nine million words later there's at least one map that labels Alderaan as Coruscant and Coruscant as Mandalore and Mandalore as Alderaan, and the ensuing media shitstorm/spwitter hot takes/spunglr memes takes over the galactic news for like. a month and a half.

At the minimum.

[eastgaysian]

hades 2 is just as addictive as hades was if not more. supergiant you've done it again

[themthistles]

[sullina]

i think part of what makes so many people just flock to dungeon meshi as well is that it's also a story involving an autistic main character, who actually IS the main character

Because many stories will have an autistic character in them and then the story is more about how all the neurotypical people AROUND the autistic character deal with the characters autism, and the autistic character ends up as a side-character in a story that's supposed to be ABOUT them.

But in dungeon meshi, Laios especially is so much the main character! And i know he's not the only one, and not the only autistic character obv, and i know the story isn't about just him alone OR his autism...

But we get Laios' perspective. On just about everything. The story is, in the roughest terms, about the party venturing into the dungeon in order to save Falin, who got eaten by the red dragon. They're on a time constraint and have no money or equipment except what they literally have on their backs. That's the story.

Another author, a worse author, probably wouldn't have made Laios the party leader. A worse author would've relegated Laios to the "weird, awkward newbie who's excited about monsters but doesn't have the slightest clue or experience with them" who's job would've been to cite fun facts about whatever monster they encounter from some book he carries around, and the main interactions between him and the party would've been them yelling at him or calling him weird, to the point where you're wondering what this characters purpose even is in the story beyond comic relief.

And I'm so glad we didn't get this.

Instead of a story that emphasizes how "weird and unlikable" this weird character is, we get Laios being the partys leader, who, yes, is weird, but also competent and knowledgable and skilled and also is still a full character, with thoughts and feelings of his own, who actually speaks his mind and interacts with others on equal footing, who defends himself when he KNOWS he isn't in the wrong.

Laios and Shuros confrontation is both shocking, and also a huge breath of fresh air.

(Also, i know that "Shuro" isn't his real name but i can't remember his real name and I can't be bothered to look it up rn)

Shuro tells Laios to learn to read the room. A worse author would've had Laios apologize to Shuro for his own incompetence, but instead of meekly accepting that accusation, Laios throws it back in Shuros own face. That Shuro should've just been direct and honest with Laios when he KNEW that Laios wasn't getting it, instead of just playing along and letting that resentment fester.

And Laios is not only shouting it out, speaking his mind, and refusing to be treated as lesser than anyone else just because he can't "read the room", but he's also portrayed as RIGHT! Shuro would've have had to put up with Laios, whom he didn't like, but whom he let believe that they were friends, if he had just TOLD Laios he didn't like him DIRECTLY.

and look, i know that there's some hints or pages or whatever you wanna call them, that Shuro is also autistic, but comes with a different background, which basically just makes him and Laios incompatible in a certain sense.

But even with all that, Shuro still had no right to fault Laios for his shortcomings, when his own shortcomings played just as much of a role in their eventual confrontation. And the difference? Shuro KNEW how he himself AND Laios felt, but Laios only knew how he himself felt. Shuro was at an advantage in their situation, and he still faulted Laios and made him out to be this villain, who was purposely trying to make Shuro miserable, when Shuro himself NEVER opened his mouth to correct Laios!

And the thing is, Shuro isn't in the wrong for not liking Laios. Shuro is in the wrong for blowing up at Laios without EVER even giving him the chance to correct his behaviour!

And Laios KNOWS this, and he REFUSES to just apologize for something that wasn't even his fault! How could he possibly have known Shuro didn't like him, when Shuro never gave him any kind of indication of that fact?

And that's just it, isn't it?

Because I know I've experienced this kind of situation, even if exact memories don't come to mind, and I know other autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people have experienced this kind of thing. Of someone whom they were just having a normal conversation with or whom they considered a friend, just randomly blowing up at them for no conceivable reason. From our perspective, the other person just randomly decided they didn't like us anymore, didn't care about us anymore and wanted to be rid of us, or decided we were suddenly just evil, and they got mad at us, yelled at us, called us names, and then just left. And we're left confused and sad and, having no other information to go off of, because none was given to us, are bound to come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with us. We're just not likeable and any kindness from other people coming our way is just them being too polite to say anything until they've decided they had enough of us and abandon us. Because they never liked us. They were just too polite to say anything until they couldn't take us anymore.

[nulltune]

wip from months ago that i will complete someday maybe 🥴 (delusional) BUT UNTIL THEN- i'm a self indulgent binch i want a witchy hakuno for a general fantasy verse so badddd it makes me look stupid <3 /this was rlly inspired by "wait by the shooting star falls" btw 🥺🫶

[chronurgy]

I love Eberron so much I can't wait to run a dnd campaign in Eberron like this bitch has everything: cold war politics, corporate greed, ambiguous divinities, death cults, a country run by hags, magic integrated into everyday life, a guy whose epithet is fleshweaver, an ubercursed continent, dragons who serve an ancient prophecy that preserved the world but wouldn't hesitate to squash you like a bug, I could go on

Eberron my belovèd

[antihibikase-archive]

Lycoris That Blazes The Earth : I Won't Give Up Anything Anymore

[gxldencity]

I said this on Twitter but I feel like in the next few years we're gonna see fantasy/romantasy book comps with bg3 and the only thing baldurs gate 3 about them is that they're fantasy with a found family but it does fundamentally misunderstand what works in the bg3 group dynamic in that several people here are 2 seconds from becoming the worst versions of themselves if the person leading them isn't telling them No. Don't do it. It'll just be another fantasy with ur extremely generic found family that u could put together for any book lol

[aleki-lives-here]

I watched an mdzs animatic with a song from wicked, and something in my mind finally clicked and now I want to scream about how similar my current and my past hyperfixations are.

"Good news, the witch is dead!" like

"No good deeds" is such a "character pushed to their limits" song. Imagine it before the nightless city. The first scream, as Wen Ning and Wen Qing walk away. The chanting as he lies there, unable to move, praying for them to be well. Memories of people he loves: Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, Lan Zhan, the Wen siblings.

"Was I really seeking good, or just seeking attention?" -- as he looks at the burial mounds and leaves.

"If I cannot succeed, Fiero, saving you, I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again." -- as he learns about Wen Qing and Wen Ning's death.

Ending with him arriving at Nightless city and pulling out the flute.

I want to see it animated so much!

My skills are so annoyingly not up to the task. Maybe if my hyperfixation survives long enough that I learn drawing and animating things well? It'll be the third mdzs animatic I really wish to do one day. Maybe one day.