#it doesn't come out of nowhere

[lunnefisk]

someone else could write it better than me but i love how the fucked up nasty shit you can make harry do/say/be in disco elysium isn't just like, random stuff caused simply by the player having free will and control over him but they're parts of who he is and who he has been

you're not a tabula rasa. you're a sudden shock of blank pages in a big, aged, damaged book and sometimes the paper you're trying to write a better man on is torn and you see something through the gaps nobody needed to see ever again. and it's just there now again, back to the surface

[k3n999]

*scratches head* uh yeah this. I drew it last week. Why? Just because. Didn't plan to post it but oh well.

(SO I have this Office AU in mind and I thought it’d be better if I just drew them together before I go insane--)

[2hoothoots]

been chatting with a friend who's playing through PN2 again and i want it to be known i will not hear anyone say a WORD about Hollis giving Raz a hard time at the beginning of the game. if anything she is OUTSTANDINGLY accommodating to this random ten-year-old who wandered in unattended off the plane in the middle of an extremely tense situation

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny holds an Intervention for Brucie Wayne.

So! Danny is the head of R&D at WayneTech, and he often works closely with Bruce and Lucius when they want him to make "Proof of Concept" Gadgets and Vehicles. He doesn't question the absurdity of some of the stuff he builds, he was raised by Mad Scientists after all, all of it seems perfectly normal to him!

But he has noticed something concerning about his Boss.

He really needs to get his Partying in control. Every time he comes into work he has eyebags covered by makeup, some bruises from tripping while drunk, and he is always super cagey about what he did last night. Danny asked some of his coworkers about it, and they noticed it too.

They also bring up that he sometimes comes into work with a really foggy mind, which is probably the aftereffects of doing some kind of drugs at whatever party he was at the previous night.

Even his Hangovers seem really bad! Worse than usual, but he powers through them and keeps acting like his normal Himbo self! Danny realizes that Bruce needs to calm down. He has Kids to take care of, and Alfred needs less work on his plate

So he contacts a bunch if Bruce's Friends, his Family, and even a few coworkers who brought up their concerns to him, and he stages an Intervention.

...

Bruce didn't know what to expect when he walked into the conference room at Wayne Enterprises. He had been called in by Danny, his head of R&D, for a Meeting earlier that day, but Danny had failed to explain the purpose of the Meeting.

He had barely made it on time. He had spent the entire night chasing down Scarecrow, and a slip up had caused him to get hit by some Fear Toxin, which took forever to work its way out of his system. It didn't help that the Antidote gave him a splitting headache.

Bruce opened the door to the Conference Room, and was met with a mishmash of faces. Clark was sitting close to the head of the Table, with Lois at his right, and Diana to hers. In the crowed he could also see Dick and Steph holding in barely contained laughter, with Tim looking a little lost to the side. Damian looked as if he would rather be anywhere else, Duke was looking as list as Tim, and Cass was just smirking at him with a look of amusement.

He could also see the faces of various employees of Wayne Enterprises, among them being Lucius and Tam.

What was going on?

The door closed behind him, and he turned to see Danny standing behind him.

"Bruce, this is an Intervention."

[animezinglife]

I'm not going to way in on the shipping aspect of it too much either way (and I do understand and respect both), but...

Az is quiet. He keeps to himself. She would feel absolutely no expectation attached to him because there is none--not from others (despite Feyre's internal comment that they'd be beautiful together), not from the Cauldron/universe, and not from anything she could read from him. A spymaster's mastery of the poker face and all.

Sometimes--and this argument could go either way and I know how thoroughly insane it'll sound to some--women in particular tend to find comfort around men like Az who are either fully inaccessible to them in some capacity (which isn't the case here necessarily) or have some kind of internal wall up that actually makes him feel "safe" to be around.

That is especially the case after a particularly bad heartbreak or rejection, when her walls had been down and she got her heart ripped out by a man she thought loved her (and who she loved).

This woman's just had her entire life and what she thought was going to be her future ripped out from under her (or at least, she has from her perspective). Elain seems emotionally intuitive: maybe she also can sense that Azriel understands what it is to have loved someone he can't have every bit as much as she can feel Lucien's inner turmoil.

He was also still eyeing Mor in those scenes. Still pining after her because the woman will just not be honest with him and tell him she doesn't love him that way.

On top of that, we obviously all know and love Lucien, but can you imagine a guy like him just getting thrown at you along with this unspoken expectation of what the term "mate" means in the world you've just become a part of against your will? It has implications in the human world anyway, but on top of that, even in her state she'll still have noticed how Feyre and Rhys are around each other.

Maybe Nesta and Cassian to some capacity--everyone can feel what's going on between them. Its about as subtle as a brick to the face, and there's absolutely no way someone intuitive like Elain missed it.

That would be a lot to process. A lot of pressure that you'd feel was on you and that you'd be trying not to put on yourself.

Lucien's not pressuring her, but that doesn't mean there's not a part of her frantically trying to sort through that bit of information, and the fact that she can feel him through their bond? That his soul is basically intertwined with hers?

She probably--if we're being honest--felt nothing close to even a fraction of that with Graysen. Everyone underestimates Elain. I'm not even fully convinced the concept of security wasn't part of her thought process, and I'm very certain she's going to realize she didn't actually know what love was when she was with him.

Feyre already had grown a bit accustomed to the Fae when she felt Rhys. She didn't have a full understanding of their world or the way things worked, but she wasn't blindsided by that pull either--only that Rhysand was her mate and that he'd known without telling her.

It scared the fire out of Elain feeling that. She has a new body, new abilities she doesn't [yet] really understand, and now she can hear a guy's heartbeat through stone and feel his pull towards her? Basically that he can cut directly to her soul no matter how gently, right after she's just been hurt so badly? She doesn't know Lucien. It makes sense she wouldn't want to open up to him right now and potentially develop those feelings--she knows he's Feyre's friend, and that could even add another layer to it.

She's intimidated by the whole thing. Not by Lucien. Not by anything he's done. It's nothing personal against him--it's simply too much for her to process right now and once again, poor Lu's collateral damage.

There's no expectation with Az. He's a strong, quiet presence with no "mate" title attached. Elain is also a person drawn to comfort others, and he's very clearly been through it in his life. Her being able to pull those little smiles and whatnot out of him would bring her a lot of joy.

I love the "crush on the brother's best friend" view--I think that's a pretty good way to describe it. Az is beautiful. He's quiet and mysterious and so different than anyone she would've known. It's not surprising she'd have some draw to that.

I don't think they're the endgame, though. I pray to the Mother it doesn't become a full-fledged love triangle for all of their sakes. I feel bad for all three of them in this scenario as it is:

Az has been in love with a woman who can't even bring it upon herself to be honest with him after centuries, his brothers have found their mates and are moving into new chapters of their lives (and Rhys and Feyre are going to be parents), and that frustration towards his situation's got to be close to boiling over. He was locked in complete darkness as a child and never given the opportunities in life the other males were--you think some of that pain's not still left over and close to festering? I absolutely do. Imagine being trapped in that darkness and along comes a sweet, beautiful sunshine of a woman who treats you like a person and is gentle and kind with you.

Lucien literally cannot catch a break. He still feels horrible guilt over Jesminda (and maybe she can feel that, especially through their bond/she might even be misinterpreting his conflict/pain), takes the blame of his crime of having loved her as what got her killed, has been exiled and kicked around from one Court to another where he constantly works to build a home for himself only to have it ripped out from under him by someone else. He's been abused in every conceivable way throughout his life from all his father and brothers inflicted on him, to Tamlin, to Ianthe, and even to a woman he thought was his friend (Feyre) using him sexually just to push Tamlin over the edge. Tamlin, who he'd called his friend despite it all and whose court Lucien had tried to make his home.

Then, there's Elain, who'd been a breath away from securing a future for herself she'd probably dreamed of since she was a little girl. Elegant parties, beautiful gowns, a handsome and well-off husband she was set to marry. She was excited about this new chapter in her life, and what happens? That life is torn away against her will. Her heart was already broken from all her choices and promise of the future she knew were ripped away, and then what happens? The man she loved and who she thought loved her verbally guts her in front of his father and her family (and Jurian). Yet another piece of that lack-of-choice got thrown in when her private business of being mated to Lucien was shared with him without her knowledge or consent, and he throws that back in her face as well. I know very few who'd bounce back quickly from that situation and be ready to dive into something new with anyone, no matter how good he is to her.

Her resistance to Lucien has nothing to do with Lucien himself. I fully believe if no mating bond had snapped into place and only about half of the trauma occurred rather than the full brunt of it, she'd genuinely like him. Be open to him; warm to him and open to knowing her sister's friend. I think she'd end up falling for him anyway.

Their story's already full of angst, and it's going to get worse. I feel bad for everyone involved and already know some serious mistakes and hurt are probably going to come out of all three of them.

I haven't read ACOSF yet, so at this point, I'm just bracing myself in case any of this starts playing out.

Or, maybe I'm totally wrong about all of this and the story's going to take some wild turns.

Finished ACOFAS, and honestly I can see why Elriels would think Elain and Az are end-game.

I think SJM is totally setting up Lucien and Elain’s story to be full of angst!

I also wonder if Elain is acting like this, searching for comfort in Az and not her mate because:

A) she heard him say to Feyre “I can’t stand to hear in the same room as her” so perhaps she heard him and got her feelings hurt

B) she knows that Lucien is torn. She can feel it . Torn because of Jesminda and the love he felt for her and now he has these crazy intense mate feelings.

C) close proximity - she sees Az the most and as a result feels comforted by his presence - like having a crush on your brother’s best friend I guess.

In short I can see why Elriels are steadfast in their convictions. It doesn’t change my opinion but I can appreciate it!

Thoughts?

[trappedinafantasy37]

I went to a very old save of mine in which I knocked out Minthara in Act 1 and I talked to her again in the throne room. If you knocked her out, this is how she looks at you when she questions you:

She seems genuinely disturbed over your actions. Can you blame her? You were the one who knocked her out. You brought her harm for reasons that she cannot understand. She can understand someone killing her as that is what she expects of those around her. She will criticize your choice of sparing an enemy and showing mercy to someone you have greater reason to kill. Even though she has doubts about you, she shuts herself down, thinking she should be more grateful rather than doubtful of you.

You can tell her that you saw her as a potential ally, but she will call you a hypocrite as Gut and Ragzlin were not shown the same mercy, nor was any other True Soul.

You can even tell her, "You were simply too stubborn to die" as a means of trying to take any culpability off yourself. To try to turn the situation into a little jokey joke. However,

Minthara does not take it as a compliment and she knows you are full of shit. Even though you took the "good" path, she does not trust you.

Minthara understands mercy and even she believes some people are deserving of it. Sadly, she does not see herself as one of those people and is disturbed as to why you gave her mercy. There is no answer you can give her here that will make her trust you. She knows you went out of your way to spare her and only her, and that frightens her.

Remember, this is not the first time in which Minthara's entire army was killed right from underneath her and she was deliberately left as the sole survivor. Orin slaughtered all of her men in a blink of an eye, and Orin's "mercy" only brought her pain and torture. Later down the road, Minthara criticizes herself for not paying more attention to Orin when she first arrived at Moonrise. And so she is giving you a lot of attention, she is watching you, studying you, because she fears that you are going to hurt her the moment she takes her eye off you. Because you already have. Your "mercy" gave her a concussion, your deception had her found guilty of incompetence, and she was then subjected to even more torture by the Absolute in which she was given permanent brain damage. She is afraid that the only reason that you spared her, is because you want to torture her. Even when you show up in Moonrise and enter into her mind prison, she is expecting you to kill her and begs you do it quickly. She is not expecting mercy from you, only death. She is only in that predicament because of you. Why would she think for a single second that your mercy comes from a place of good intentions?

She knows fully well that she owes her life to you and that her life is entirely at your mercy, one you can revoke at any time. She doesn't trust you, she doesn't trust the rest of the companions, but she cannot leave nor walk away. There is no good way out of this for her and she's afraid of the cycle repeating. She is not going to make the same mistake again. Instead of her oath to you being from a place of affection, her oath to you comes from a place of fear.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

we need to go back to judging BL/yaoi fans by whether or not they can handle Ai no Kusabi

lemme be clear: you do not have to LIKE Ai no Kusabi. but can you handle it.

can you handle a dark story that is fundamentally about the complexity of human emotions within abusive power dynamics, which are not just maintained but in fact demanded by a dystopian social structure that dehumanizes everyone within it?

can you handle morally complex characters who do fucked up, awful things to each other both out of malice and a dysfunctional desire to connect to another human being?

can you handle being expected, as the reader, to comprehend these nuances to the setting, while also being compelled by the plot to feel compassion for the tragic characters trapped in its doomed narrative?

can you handle navigating the uncomfortable intersections between hate, lust, love, and abject loneliness?

can you handle when a social class is literally called the Blondies and you just have to, like, accept that and take it seriously?

can you handle a cockring being a serious plot device?

NO??????

fine. can you at least handle other people enjoying all that shit? can you handle Ai no Kusabi merely EXISTING??

STILL NO??????

then you're outta the club, buddy. SCRAM

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

perhaps my most #cancelable videogame take i can post on this website is i think that the kind of people who say that anyone who picks the "morally wrong" or "mean" options in video game dialogue should, as a player, feel bad about their own choices/morals in real life. is that those people are just another flavor of the kind of dudes who play Disco Elysium and get mad for not being rewarded for picking the facist options. both of these groups are reducing games to "a thing I want to agree with me and everyone else who doesn't either suffers or does not have the option to play a character who behaves otherwise" rather than "a medium where you get to (or even Have to) explore different kinds of characters in order to experience the full depth of the story and characters in it."

When I want to pick options in a game that are mean, negative, arrogant, or ignorant, it's because I want to explore what would push a character into becoming that kind of person. Sometimes I want to see how the NPC characters who I-The-Player like/agree with react to someone who is fundamentally different from them. I think it's GOOD actually when the narrative allows you to push limits and especially when it has the option to then punish you for it in some way, such as losing options/routes later on, or companions straight up abandoning you for your choices. It DOES often make me deeply, viscerally uncomfortable to make choices in a game that are so counter to my own, but it means I get to experience that discomfort in an isolated environment and also think about what it means, what would push the character or even yes a real person into actually feeling those things. And I get to play with what ways the narrative could challenge them/make them grow over the course of the game--or on the other side, it can let me make a character who does start off more open/accepting but let the events of the narrative push them into being more reactively closed-minded instead.

I like that we have invented a medium where you can play a game multiple times and experience it differently depending on the character you play as. Books and TV and movies are all static--the greatest draw of games to me is the ones that are responsive, that can tell a slightly different story every time--when other characters in the game respond differently to you because of it, or some paths open up and others don't. And so yes it did disappointment me when a franchise that previously had these elements, Dragon Age, did not include them in the most recent installment. I don't think games should have options where you get to just hit a button to say something racist with no consequences or exploration into why a character would do that. but like, if i can only ever play a game as an upstanding person who is morally right all the time in basically the same flavor for every dialogue. I only get to truly play that game Once, you know? And I only get to see the way the companions react to someone they like and trust. And never really go deeper than that.

So like... I just sit and think about the scenes you can get in Inquisition. with Cassandra breaking down, because she fears she placed a would-be tyrant at the head of a powerful organization--that she searched and searched and chose wrong. Of Varric who is desperate to convince you not to become a monster, like the last person he feels betrayed him. Vivienne intentionally pissing you off because she wants to see how far you'll go when angered, how much she has to worry about your reactions. They say so much about the companions, what they fear most, and where they will draw the line. And especially in Inquisition, at these crisis points--you don't have to double down. Your character can have a come-to-Andraste moment where they go "woah... is that really how people see me? is this what i want?" and I think that kind of option can do way more for encouraging actual players to examine the choices they make in stories, more than locking the player into supportive, non-aggressive options does.

now. do i think all games execute these flavors well? no. writers and devs will have their own biases and blind spots, even if they are otherwise well-intentioned. and I don't think the ends of the scale need to extend from "absolute angel" to "horrible bigot", because the real complexity of course lies in the middle. I am not asking for games to let me be bigoted at every turn, what I want is games that let me make the protagonist deeply flawed in one or more ways--fearfully closed-minded to things outside their upbringing, or afraid of change to the status quo, or who want to advance their own aims regardless of consequences to others. I actually agree that the game was correct not to include any options for disrespecting Taash and their personal journey for example, but I do wish... idk maybe that we could have had a scene where if for instance the player character avoided outside-world missions relating to clearing away blight, they could confront us on how this might devastate the natural world and its creatures like dragons, and push us into trying to resolve it. Or in the other direction, if you spend the (currently meaningless) time giving money to background NPCs begging in the cities, Neve could could have a special cutscene thanking you for your attention to people otherwise beneath notice. You know?

And of course not every game can do this, I can write those sentences up there that represent hundreds of hours of dev time, of course they can't do it all. But the prior games usually did have at least a little of this, and that was enough to make me really fall in love. I KNOW the tumultuous development cycle, restarts from scratch, interference from higher-ups all contributed to why Veilguard was unable to hit those same marks this time. And we probably won't ever know how much of the loss of options/reactivity was intention vs a side effect of these things. But I wish people wouldn't frame players who miss these aspects as insane/morally corrupt. When for most of us it's because we genuinely enjoy challenging and exploring these aspects of reality in fiction in a way entirely unlike what we actually support in real life. i fully acknowledge not everyone desires to play this way. and that's fine!!! i am glad people can enjoy doing a "good" run each time that brings them joy. but for me it really limits the potential bounds of my enjoyment i guess. I like media that is complicated and messy and makes me think, and extra so when I get to see how playing that way impacts the greater story around it.

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

The whole Star Wars universe is so insane actually it's making my head hurt

Putting aside the fact that the entire galaxy is interconnected via space travel with more cultures and societies than the human mind can comprehend, the history is so, so old. The spacefaring history of the galaxy goes 100,000 years into the past, that's twice as much as the time between today and the extinction of neanderthals. And look how long it took us to figure out space travel, the history of individual planets will be even older. Look how long ago before the movie timeline SWTOR takes place, and there's already so many ancient ruins. No matter how far back you go, there will always be something older. Lost cities, technology, cultures covering the surfaces of planets. Entire civilizations built on whalefalls they believe to be mountains. So many remains of space vessels scattered on planetary surfaces, and even more that were left to float through space forever, their crews long dead. The spaces between planets are vast and there is nothing that would allow corrosion and decay except the UV radiation from stars. Stray too far from regular hyperspace routes and you might encounter these ghosts.

The entire galaxy is a graveyard

[emberwritesinsight]

Sketches of Anthy Himemiya giving her friends heart attacks for the nth time, drawn when I was on the same train of thought that produced this post

Bonus doodle:

[billpottsismygf]

March Madness was a pretty underwhelming episode (I don't know enough about sports to know or care about the demon thing, since it wasn't doing enough on its own apart from yet another blinder of a performance from Matt Berry), but it brought home to me just how much the show has completely dropped Guillermo's fighting prowess. It bothered me in episode one when Jerry got him by the throat, but it's even worse here where it's Colin beating him up. Did we just forget that Guillermo is capable of slaughtering an entire theatre full of vampires and can beat Nandor in single combat? Maybe he doesn't want to alert the office to his almost supernatural slaying abilities, but he should at least have been able to hold Colin off.

I guess I don't mind the show moving on from slaying being his main focus (though it was my favourite Guillermo plotline), but I don't see why they seem to be retconning him to be just some guy again.

Guillermo is still my favourite character, but it really feels like they don't know what to do with him anymore (or any of them tbh). His desire to become a vampire that clashed with his slaying heritage was really compelling, especially when paired with his complicated relationship with Nandor. Now they've resolved the wanting to be a vampire thing and forgotten about the slaying thing, and he barely even speaks to Nandor. Whether their relationship is going anywhere I don't know, but removing their dynamic to the extent that they have really hampers their individual characters and the show itself.

[silusvesuius]

[evilkitten3]

i have a theory about shinji, gin, and aizen, but i'm not really sure how to word it.

we never really see shinji and gin interact all that much, which makes sense bc both of them have significantly more important relationships with aizen, but at the same time it's a little odd how much there isn't.

like. gin cut hiyori in half. shinji is understandably pissed about that, but he aims that anger at aizen - and this seems to be one of the very few things in the bleach world that honestly isn't on him bc he never told gin to do that, he never even implied it. hiyori was never a threat to him. hell, we don't even know if she was charging in the right direction; if anything, attacking her implies that she was which is a really stupid thing to do when you're surrounded by a bunch of people who super want you dead and would kill you if they could be sure you weren't tricking them into stabbing each other (ofc it could also be a fakeout but still)

but i don't remember shinji's beef ever really being with gin, even tho he didn't seem to anticipate that gin was working with aizen the whole time during tbtp. so like does he feel responsibility there? cuz gin went straight from academy to 3rd seat and shinji could plausibly feel like that sent him right to aizen bc he doesn't know that gin was always aiming for that. did he blame himself? does he feel like he should've seen it coming? does he still see him as some weird genius kid? does he just view gin as an extension of aizen, which is both dehumanizing to an extent but also entirely fair bc gin did that to himself?

the thing is, since we never really see them interact much, it's kind of only interesting on shinji's side of things, bc gin doesn't really care about much outside of whatever the fuck he thought he was doing and the version of rangiku that he has in his head who needs back something that the real one doesn't ever seem to have realized she lost to begin with. gin's so disconnected with basically everybody that most of the time you can usually assume his thoughts are just "lol. lmao" and there's no reason to think that doesn't extend to shinji as well (gin has deep thoughts on: aizen, ichigo, and matsumoto (massive asterisk on that one ofc) and i think everyone else is kinda set dressing to him lmao the guy is Fucked Up)

anyway i think it's interesting to toy around with that relationship as it was in reality as well as how it might've been perceived, but also in the sense of both of them being sort of opposite ends of the manchild spectrum - shinji leans into his childish side but still has a fairly adult worldview, and gin is able to pull off maturity to an extent but was never able to escape a deeply childish mindset

[hoofpeet]

I'd probably have to read the printed version and web version back to back at some point to note all the differences but... ough

[betweenlands]

look i hate LLMs as much as the next person but can we please stop acting like a totally easy and feasible replacement would be installing a mod that just exists out of thin air and comes with a custom written set of quests and NPC dialogue branches.

that is not how writing works. that is not how writing dialogue for games works. i have literally written NPC dialogue for a minecraft map before and six short, unpolished, janky monologues with no branching whatsoever took me two weeks to finish. frankly i would rather have the LLM stank than put a bunch of under/unpaid writers or actors into crunch mode for a relatively minor aspect of an otherwise great server.

[gastersreturn]

I GOT A THEORY I GOT A THEORYYYYY

So like-

what is Aster is from another Au/ timeline?

It would explain why he remembers the others spending time with him and stuff while flowey is shocked he acts differently than the one he heard/knew about.

Meaning, what if Aster is just not in his right Au/timeline and he belongs somewhere else?? But thats just a theory...

A GAME THEORY!

How I love listening to your guys's theories, seriously 👀👀👀 You got really cool ideas sometimes, and I like hearing what you see and understand in my writing And when you get it right, I feel so euphoric

Can't say if you're right or wrong though, can't spoil anything x) But the fact that you think he's doesn't belong here is interesting 👀