agirlinsearchof

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Gentle writing advice indeed.

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#too much country #no just no

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Fans' attitudes toward AI-generated works

Irina Cisternino, a PhD candidate of Stony Brooke University, is writing their research on topics related to technology, art and fandom. You can participate by filling out a survey and additionally, signing up for an interview. The survey is expected to last until at least the end of April, those, who signed up for the interview, will be contacted later. You need to be at least 18 years old to participate in either, be able to understand and speak English and identify as a fan.

After the completion of the research, it will be accessible as the dissertation of the researcher. If you have further questions, you can contact Irina Cisternino at [email protected] or Lu-Ann Kozlowsky at [email protected].

[agirlinsearchof]

preview of my piece for @utenafashionzine

look for it at the end of august!

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When I play Baldur's Gate II, I know I want to have my character, Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, and Aerie as my party members.

My question is, who should the final party member be? Any temporary ones I should consider? (Since my character is a mage, I know I'll need Valygar at least temporarily if I want a stronghold.) And there's a certain spoilery lategame character I'm heavily considering, though I'm not sure if a good-aligned character would go that far out of their way. If there's an in-character reason a good Charname would recruit this character, I'm all ears!

Either way, my final party member should probably be more physically-oriented. Three mages, a druid, and a ranger is a little imbalanced, I think, though at least one of the mages is also a thief, and the druid is also a fighter.

#baldur's gate 2

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The last character you drew/wrote about is now stuck in the last game you played. How screwed are they?

#...my baldur's gate protagonist is stuck in baldur's gate #honestly her situation hasn't changed in the slightest

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a 3DS is an animal

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David Gerrold's "When HARLIE Was One" (1972) was a novel about an artificial intelligent computer, and his friendship with his psychologist. It is chiefly remembered as being the origin of the idea of a "computer virus," which the novel predicted a decade before an actual computer virus came into existence.

HARLIE showed up in other David Gerrold novels, notably Star Wolf, where every intergalactic cruiser had a HARLIE installed. A HARLIE (not necessarily the HARLIE) showed up in Gerrold's War Against the Cthorr novels.

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I just made a connection.

In Pucci's backstory, the tragic death of his sister put him in an emotionally vulnerable state, which left him in a position to be manipulated by Dio for his own ends.

Jump to the final arc of Stone Ocean, Pucci encounters three of Dio's sons, who are in bad places emotionally because of their respective backstories, leaving them in a position to be manipulated by Pucci for his own ends.

The parallels!

#jojo's bizarre adventure

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I'm enjoying BG3, but I absolutely loathe that Larian made Abdel Adrian 'canon' in these games.

Because no the fuck he isn't. And Gorion's Ward was definitely not a "he" as far as I'm concerned. She would die before agreeing to become a politician.

In case you're unfamiliar with fandom's three decades of lore and memes: fans never liked Abdel Adrian. He originated as the misogynistic meathead protagonist of the laughably bad novelization, which fans collectively agreed was not canon. And most importantly: the book was never relevant to the games' timeline, as it directly contradicted key details and events. The two were completely separate.

The original BG came out decades ago and had multiple endings. "Canon" was always going to be tricky. But it was totally unnecessary to specify a named/gendered version of Gorion's Ward. No one needed or wanted that, and it's frankly disrespectful to longtime fans of this series.

I hate it so much. It's putting a bit of a damper on my first experience of this game, which until now was 10/10.

I don't care if you disagree. Argue with the wall.

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the player learns of sarevok's reasoning a couple ways outside of gorion's letter. when they meet cythandria, she either gives them his diary or they can take it from her corpse. and then sarevok definitely discusses his reasoning in throne of bhaal if you recruit him, because he encourages his sibling to try and do what he failed at. there may be more i'm forgetting.

Thank you, kind anon! It's a good thing the letter isn't the only way for the player to find out!

#asks #baldur's gate #gorion's ward #sarevok anchev

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There is a cure for vampirism!

I haven't finished playing Baldur's Gate 3 yet, so I don't know how Larian handles Astarion. I'm currently somewhere in the middle of Act 3, I've done his personal quest, so I'm getting there. However, there's something I've been thinking about since the start of the game, the moment I learned that Astarion is a vampire spawn. There is a cure!

Warning: Major spoilers for Baldur's Gate 2!

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet. Maybe I've just missed it. I have to put it out there because it's gnawing at me. There is a solution!

There are a lot of variables to the story of Gorion's Ward (GW), so I'm not going to speak for everyone, but at some point in the story of Baldur's Gate 2, GW's love interest is kidnapped by a powerful vampire, Bodhi, and turned into a vampire spawn. However, GW and their friends defeat Bodhi and in her very lair find an ancient tome with information on how to restore a vampire spawn, bring them fully back to life.

Another great thing is that, at that point, you may have Jaheira with you - I did - so she would know of the solution and could provide this information to Tav's party. Surely, a Harper would even keep a tome of such importance, or GW, raised in Candlekeep, would bring it to one of the greatest libraries there is, especially after it had saved their loved one's life. The tome would be invaluable to them.

What needs to be done should be simple enough: Take the heart of the master vampire who turned the victim and bring it to a temple of Amaunator (There's one in the Umar Hills, at the very least, even if it was falling apart a hundred years ago.) together with the spawn. GW's love interest had to be delivered dead because they were fully under control of their vampire master and I imagine also because of the game's limitations - the spawn just wouldn't follow even when charmed. But I see no reason it wouldn't work with a living spawn.

Pray.

???

Profit!

"In the arms of the Sun god were the infected placed, and the hearts of their dark masters were laid there with them. Blood did burn, and the dead returned, but not as undead or unliving, but alive and freed from taint."

GW's love interest was brought back to life perfectly fine. There was no catch. No side effects.

Now pardon me if I'm being redundant and Baldur's Gate 3 deals with it in some other way. I just had to put this out there, because it'd been driving me insane, having this in my head since starting the game. The whole damn time.

But anyway, here, for all your happy ever after headcanon needs, in case it is needed!

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I really appreciate how larian handled Gorion's Ward in bg3. It'd have been super easy to stick wholesale to Abdel Adrian being the canon character and have Jaheira and Minsc talk about him as their old friend. And while Abdel does get name dropped in the Baldur's Gate gazette, the game and the character remain vague about the precise identity of Gorion's Ward.

They're not gendered or named, there's no mention of who they did or didn't romance. The only facts that are canonised are that they were good, they refused to ascend, and that they have passed. Nowhere does the game force the player to reconcile Abdel Adrian and Gorion's Ward as the same person. They can be the same person if you want them to be, or you can treat them as wholly separate individuals. Its a really good balancing act that doesn't force returning players to accept this character that they don't like in place of their own and still acknowledging the canon lore without them stepping on each other's toes.

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#baldur's gate 3 #dark urge #polls

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I see! This is interesting!

Literally everyone who voted on a pronunciation for Charname chose "Char-name." Makes sense. If you don't know that "char" is short for "character," that makes the most sense. Even knowing that, though, just by virtue of the spelling "char-name" is the most intuitive pronunciation, at least to me.

Two people voted saying they call the Baldur's Gate protagonist "Gorion's ward," and out of the two non-Charname options, that is the less spoilery.

And exactly one person said they use their spoilery name. To be fair, I did obfuscate it, since I was streaming it and didn't want to spoil my mutual who watches my streams, so maybe not everyone realized what that option means.

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It's kind of crazy.

In Baldur's Gate, there's a big reason why Sarevok targets your character. This reason is detailed in a letter that Gorion wrote in the event that he should come to an unfortunate demise.

Thing is? This letter is stashed in his room. A room which you can completely miss if you rush like I did.

Granted, his reasoning isn't as plot-relevant as some other details, but still.

Does Sarevok ever give his reason for targeting Gorion's ward if you missed the letter?

#baldur's gate #gorion's ward #baldur's gate gorion #sarevok anchev #didn't know he had a last name