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There is a passage from one of the Ender’s Game sequels that lives rent free in my mind every time I enter a public restroom of like… Bean thinking very hard about which stall to select because appropriately masculine men never select the first stall, if you take the last stall you’re trying too hard, but you can’t take a stall next to a stall next to one that’s already occupied…
Orson Scott Card is having a Real Normal One Over Here, I Guess.
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Tests | 2023
#artists on tumblr#illustration#celia lowenthal#scifi art#science fiction#last summer i read ender's game and while overall i didn't like it it did kind of indirectly inspire this#scifi illustration
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Lately, I've been thinking about the effect of real-world time on perception of media. Or, wait, let me start from the beginning.
When I was 11, I read the book Ender's Game for some school assignment or another. I don't remember ever considering Ender a relatable character, but certainly my understanding of the events was shaped by being of an age to see the protagonist not so much as a young child but as someone of my peer group, someone who could have been slotted amongst my classmates without anybody batting an eye.
Over a decade later, I read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; it takes place many years later, when Ender is in his thirties, and my feelings about the in-universe time skip were undeniably shaped by the real life time gap between my reading of the novels. Reading the first book back then and then the second book now created a feeling where it's almost like, I'm browsing the facebook page of someone I had known in middle school but lost contact with, checking up on how they're doing today. The real-time factor caused me to perceive it less like a timeskip, and more like a reunion - the feelings were closer to "oh wow, that's my boy! I haven't seen him in years! Wonder what he's up to?" Which in turn gave me a better position to appreciate the parts of the narrative about him struggling to find a place in his adulthood than I would have been had I perceived it more strictly as a quick skip from 11 to 20 to 36.
While musing about this, I considered a VN I played a few years back, which took place over three in-game days - except at the end of one in-game day, the game would lock you out from progressing for 24 hours real time. So that as the in-game investigator protagonist was ruminating on the information that had been discovered that day, the player would be forced to do the same. In this example, by forcing the player to experience the same timeframe as the in-game characters, the sense of it being an in-depth and extensive investigation increases, even though without the forced pauses the game would be short enough to blow through in a handful of hours real-time.
Which brings to mind how time effects things in long-running serial works. It's well known that an audience which watches an episode or reads a chapter week by week has a very different experience than one binging through whole seasons or volumes at a time, but I wonder if the real time relative to the in-universe time makes that effect stand out more? Fight scenes, for instance, have been known to take up several chapters in certain manga or webnovels. What does it do to the reader's perception, if from their point a view a fight takes a whole month, while for the characters they read about it's only been a couple hours? Readers might feel that the situation is more stressful, since the pressure of the fight has been ongoing for a long time for them, while in-universe it was a rough afternoon but no more than that. Contrastingly, when a series skips ahead or otherwise has long periods of time for characters that feel short for readers, it can feel like no time has passed and everything is still the same, unless the author really stresses the differences in world-state that occurred offscreen. Because the reader hasn't changed at all.
No conclusion here exactly, I just think it's interesting how often an audience's response to a work, the emotions felt, are more closely tied to their real-life timescale, something almost completely out of the author's control, as opposed to in-universe time, which can be intentionally shifted or played with for the sake of the narrative.
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Just guys being dudes
#boys will be boys etc#after spending the whole game waiting for them to get together I felt compelled to draw something ajfkfhasjf it was a SLOW slow burn#I'm not like 100% happy with the colors here but ehh I tried sdfhfgds#enderal#enderal forgotten stories#jespar#jespar dal'varek#sleepyscribble#oc.erin#in love with the comic format tbh#I'm so glad I actually managed to finish this bc I usually give up on my little sketched pages halfway through#the farthest I got was lining things yk like I did a couple weeks back#but this time I finished it!!!! I'm so excited sdhkfsdh#it's like I've unlocked a new skill & I'm wondering about the possibilities now#subtly looking over at vincent & pepper 👀#I do have a few little pages I've drafted for them sitting in my wip folders. HM#ship: parin
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Useless rpgs recs. Videogames (not dating sims) where you play or you CAN play as a character who is wlw or mlm
Names and characters/explanations under cut (might contain minor spoilers):
Just a note, when I say romance I mean that there is actual story and plot related to it. Otehrwise for games like Fable or Skyrim (no romance) I will just write "Marry". For the romance games, a more detailed list of characters and romances can be found here.
Dragon Age Origins: You can romance Leliana (f) or Zevran (m) even with a character of their same gender
Dragon Age 2: You can romance all your companions (but Sebastian) indipendently from gender
Dragon Age Inquisition: You can romance Josephine (f) and Iron Bull (m) with any gender, and you can romance a lesbian character (Sera) or a gay character (Dorian)
Greedfall: You can romance Vasco (m) or Siora (f) with any gender
Dragon's Dogma: You can romance any character with any gender
Jade Empire: Sky (m) and Silk Fox (f) are romancable by any gender
Fable series: You can marry a character of your same gender
Skyrim: You can marry a character of your same gender
Enderal: You can romance Jasper (m) or Calia (f) as any gender
Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire: You can romance all your companions with any gender
Pendula Swing: The protagonist is canonically wlw, and you can romance male and female characetrs
Hero-U: The male protagonist can romance male characters too
Cyberpunk 2077: There are different flirts (female characters) that can be romanced by any gender, plus two full fledged romances a wlw and mlm one.
Expeditions: Viking: There is a female character (Roskva) and a male character (Ketill) who can be romanced by any gender.
Expeditions: Rome: There is a female character (Daianeira) and a male character (Caeso) who can be romanced by any gender.
Pathfinder Kingmaker: This game has multiple romances that can be romanced by characters of the same gender, mainly for wlw. Regongar is the one male character who can be romanced by any gender and also in a poly relationship with Octavia. Octavia, Kanerah, Kalikke, Nyrissa are the female characters romancable by any gender.
Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous: Similar to Kingmaker, there are multiple characters romancable by male or female protagonists.
Rogue Trader: One male character and two female characters can be romanced by any gender.
Gamedec: Ken Zhou is the only romance option in game and can be romanced by any gender.#
Black Geyser: The romances are minimal, but there are multiple female and female characters romancable by any gender.
Always sometimes monsters (and sequel): you choose both the gender of the protagonist and the one of the romance.
Divinity Original Sin: If you play alone you control two characters who can end up in a romance (not fully written, almost subtle) indipendently from their gender.
Divinity Original Sin 2: All the companions can be romanced by any gender.
Disco Elysium: If you choose specific dialogue choices it is revealed that the protagonist (Harry) is attracted to men.
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, enhanced edition: The enhanced edition adds Dorn and Hexxat who can be romanced by the same gender.
Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear: Two romance options are not gender locked.
Baldur's Gate 3: All the companions are romancable by any gender, plus there are some more flirts/less developed romances.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Multiple characters through the game are not gender locked for romance.
Eternal Home Floristry: You play as a gay man.
80 Days: The protagonist (a man) is clearly in love with a man, you can also romance a male character.
The Technomancer: You play as a male character, one of your romance option is mlm.
Sorcery!: If you play as a male character you can still romance Flanker, who is also a man and is the one romance option in the game. If you play as a female character there are some dialogue choices that can establish your character as wlw.
Knight Bewitched: The protagonists are two women in love.
Dreamfall The Longest Journey: One of the protagonists (Kian) is a gay man.
Dreamfall Chapters: Kian and Saga are respectively a gay man and a pansexual woman.
Newfound Courage: The protagonist is a gay boy, but also the whole game is about being queer.
Haven: You play as a couple of lovers, who can be two women or two men.
Fallout 4: Some of the romance options are not gender locked.
Morrowind: There is a mod to romance (links of all mods here).
Solstice: Visual novel but not dating sim, you play as two characters and one of them is a gay man.
Mass Effect Trilogy: multiple companions (nb, f or m) can be romanced with any gender.
Mass Effect Andromeda: multiple companions can be romanced wtih any gender.
Hades: The protagonist (the son of Hades) can romance a male character (and enter into a poly relationship).
Icewind Dale II: mods
Icewind Dale: mod (one male character who can be romanced by a male protagonist).
GAMES I FORGOT (EDIT):
The Red String Club: you play as two gay men who are a couple.
Please keep in mind that this is the post I constantly update:
#pillars of eternity#enderal#baldur's gate 3#rogue trader#dragon age#etc etc#wlw and mlm games#useless recs#i haven't done one of the useless recs in a while
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Naked Jehuty, by Rakan (Jujuarhat)
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forgot to post this yesterday but my very favorite customer on saturday was a kindergartener looking for a chapter book to read with her mom.
I suggested The Borrowers and she loved the idea of tiny people who live under the floorboards and steal your safety pins and hair ties, but she also immediately started calling them “the Followers” and would not be corrected
#vintage shop life#also recommended Vorkosigans to her mom who normally doesn’t like SF ‘except Ender’s Game’ but desperately needed something escapist
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tv executives: ah, here is an extremely popular book beloved by so many. it is full of rich lore and extremely deep and complex characters and relationships. it would make such a wonderful movie or television show! tv executives: i know! let's adapt it, but change everything about it and dumb it down because our audience is too fucking stupid to understand this complicated book that they clearly love and cherish. ah yes, we will make millions.
#movie adaptation#tv adaptation#tv and film#this post is about ender's game#but plz im so curious tag with the media u are mad about
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is this anything
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Practicing some portraits again :>
Less OCs this time, Enver Gortash from BG3, OC of my friend from Skyrim, Tharael Narys and my Prophet Calian are from Enderal
#baldur's gate 3#enver gortash#bg3 fanart#skyrim#skyrim oc#enderal#enderal fanart#tharael narys#enderal prophet#original caracter#oc art#digital drawing#art#video games#videogames fanart
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Masters' Academy AU: Environment Concept Art
Remember how I was talking about all of the school's the amazing facilities? Dipper agrees... with one or two tiny exceptions.
Art by @okkennymay
#masters’ academy au#gravity falls#paranorman#danny phantom#okkennymay#parapines#he's the smallest kid in his class#perks of skipping a grade#this is like 40% because it amuses me#50% storytelling tool to highlight Dipper's immaturity despite his claims of being smarter and more mature than the other kids#and 10% Ender's Game reference#see my post about Dipper being kind of a dick in this AU#Norman puts up with so much of his shit#crushes and loneliness make you do the dumbest things XD
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Close enough, welcome back Grace Chastity
#smosh#angela giarratana#starkid#hatchetfield#npmd#nerdy prudes must die#nmt2#nightmare time#nightmare time 2#grace chasity#ender rants#smosh games#smosh pit
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Okay so I've been thinking about this for a while. So back in the 80's John Byrne overhauled the Superman origin story to come up with the concept of Krypton as this cold, technologically-driven planet--and this was partially so that the ship Superman arrived on earth in was an artificial womb so that he would kind of, technically, be 'born' on Earth (which honesty cuts into a lot of the pathos of Krypton and Lara and Jor as parents and also cuts into the 'Superman as immigrant' narrative which we've come to love so much). And this did end up influencing Superman lore because, hey, Krypton as a technologically-driven society that is deeply flawed but also convinced of its own perfection is still really interesting.
Cut to Snyder making 'Man of Steel' in 2013 where he asserts that Kal-El is the first "natural" birth on Krypton in centuries. So basically because Snyder wanted to work in more of his Christ metaphor for Superman ("His birth is a HUUUUGE DEEAL"), you end up back with the lore that yes, Kal-El was a (born) baby when he got put in his rocket and thus it's back to an immigrant narrative.
Anyway, ANYWAY, my point is, even though both these writers were working from a weird conservative place that fundamentally misunderstands major points of Superman's character (In Byrne's case, Superman as an immigrant, and in Snyder's case, Superman as Jewish/Space Moses) it has resulted in what may be my favorite implication of Superman Lore: That Jor-El and Lara were considered pervert freaks for having a baby the old-fashioned way. If Krypton never blew up, Kal-El would have grown up relentlessly bullied, like "That's Kal-El, his parents had him by having sex, without input from the proper committees, he came out of a vagina, what a freak."
Sidenote but I'm actually really enjoying the "House of El" YA graphic novels right now, because it's basically Lara and Jor going, "The only way to save Krypton is by inflicting ADHD on random teenagers."
#superman#DC#house of El#also I love how Krypton has these kind of... Dune-adjacent vibes#like part Dune part Ender's game#jor el#lara el#pregnancy cw#krypton#lara lor van
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an ender painting i made a while back,,, beautiful boy :)
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Some Enderal characters + my silly little arcanist because I've been rotating this game in my mind 24/7
#my boy erin bringing the bissexualism to the sad death tragedy game#I was like yk what this apocalyptic dark fantasy game needs? yeah that's right. a short little bisexual magic boy#enderal#enderal forgotten stories#vynblr#jespar dal'varek#calia sakaresh#dijaam onelys#tharael narys#lishari peghast#putting their full government names in the tags#oc.erin#sleepyscribble#it's so funny to me that like#very often I'll be going through this game's dialogue options like 'oh erin would definitely say that'#but also like I realize it's the flirt option. but he would not mean it as a flirt#so in my head he says stuff and everyone thinks he's firting while he's just like. clueless <3#except for jespar like those were genuine attempts to flirt#he tried there. he really tried
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A thousand thanks to @lairofsentinel and @alcassin to help me complete these lists!
I am finally putting all the games I know with same sex/queer romances. Mainly, I am focusing on non-dating games, so games that are about a specific plot, adventures, other non-romantic events but that do have romance options in them.
Recommended: Are all games that I played personally and that have full romance. Informational: Games I know have romance, but I have not played personally or I could not confirm there was enough romantic content, or games where the romantic content is minimal (ex. Fable)
The lists are divided (linked) in:
RPGS (ex. BG3, DA:O, DO2 etc.), in total 39 games are currently added in this list
Visual novels that do not focus around dating (ex. Solstice, Loren etc.) but that still have romantic options/romantic storylines, currently 10 games in the list
Life simulators or walking simulators (ex. Stardew Valley), currently 7 games in the list
Others, currently 7 games in the list. Others are all games that did not end up in the above categories (ex. hack and slash games like Hades, puzzle games like Newfound courage)
There is also a category for dating sim visual novels. Here I will only add games I played and enjoyed given that it is usually pretty easy to find queer visual novels.
If there is a "what to expect" summary from this blog (a lot written by lairofsentinel!!) I also linked that!
#lgbtq games#lgbtq#queer videogames#baldur's gate 3#sorcery!#enderal#stardew valley#etc#what to expect
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