#Evil Races are Bad Game Design

[ganondoodle]

not sure if i have talked about this before but i also really hate how gorons are treated in totk

they are one of my fav and i know they are unpopular and were always kinda slot into the "big fat stupid rock people" role, but i do think totk is one of or the worst case yet; all regions get some life threatening event (ignoring how stupid it is to put the issues you need to solve in the exact same spots as in botw with most changes being also reversible so the actual changes to the environment of the map are largely some small rocks sprinkled about) and they get .. drugs (haha)

like i dont wanna downplay anything but their problem being that they are obsessed with eating (>_>) some drugged rock that makes them mean and lazy (even if the reason is fine ... if i remember right and didnt make up that they had to dig elsewhere for food bc of death mountain losing its lava flow, the execution is my problem -like the vast majority of this game is a ok to great idea with passable to horrible execution of it) and arent even a danger to you (which i thought at first when you approach goronia the normal path and two gorons start to walk towards you if you come near saying creepy shit- i thought they are gonna attack me or lure me into a trap but again .. only to find them wanting me to pay to be let through (i think??) and all other drugged ones are largely just ... eating or lying around ........

like it would have been cool if that drugged rock stuff made them actually agressive, like the friendly easy going rock people being turned into something akin to a starved animal after eating poison bc they were at risk of starving sounds alot more .. impactful and scary (even if it would still be about food, which idk about you but the only kind of fatter npcs, even if non human, being made all about food is .. hm, aside from other possibly bad implications from this, but im trying to roll with the idea of it)

and then poor yuno being put in a stupid (stereotypical?) wrestler outfit and hes LITERALLY being mindcontrolled is so ...... ugh (again, idea is ok but- you get it) and then him being told by two CHILDREN that that obviously not zelda might not be zelda and it not only being the only time that idea is openly said until its "revealed" that hhhwhat?? it was a fake one?? in the mid battle of the "story" and he doesnt even believe it (both bc haha hes stupid and cant understand such a thing and also link not being able to tell anyone ... even his friends ....... ) is just so disrespectful, its ok not to be the smartest guy in the room (tho in totk pretty much anyone is made so much dumber for no reason...) but it being so clearly the gorons that get treated like this just annoys me so much, you know no one of the other races would be treated like that

(not to reach a little but it also plays into how koga is portrayed, like i love him to death and there are things that largely the gameplay only implies of him not being that incompetent, but hes clearly meant to be laughing material, the boss of the band of 'evil' assassins being lazy, incompetent and 'childish' is funny right?? and although i hc that the either super thin or super beefed up appearance of yiga members are just an appearance like their disguises of normal people to seem more unified and less indentifyable- that is still only a hc and then koga being the only character that is visibly fatter (aside from ... the gorons and .. king dorephan??) it puts a pebble more onto the pile of pebbles of little annoyances)

also yuno saying, post mid "story" battle, that no one actually knows anything about ganondorf aside from him being evil and it going complete ingored and never mentioned again feels like the type of thing a games does when they are critized for soemthing and instead of changing it they put a line in the game essentially saying "yeah we know but we are not gonna do aynthing about it lol" (like thinking of the line ashe from league of legends, whos design has been critized alot bc shes running around in a stupid tiny dress in the snow lands of their world, got when her dialog was updated that made her say sth like "yes im wearing a little dress in the forever winter land, deal with it lol" which perhaps was supposed to be a joke but it just feels like a "lol we know, fuck you")

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #ganondoodles rants #also may i say that i dont like that they made yuno be the boss of a company now?? #idk i already didnt like how weirldy overtaking dumsda (hudson) thing got #and him suddendly beign the boss instead of landa (...the dance guy that you buy the house from in botw idk his engl name) #whos now chilling in angelstedt (lurelin?) like hes a shunned king in exile #idk feels off #and no im not saying everything about everything is bad #again I LOVE KOGA AND YUNO #and i dont mean they both have to be the coolest smartest guy around #i find the trend of only their types of design to be the ones made to look stupid and lazy troublesome #THAT is my problem #and yes theres lots to read into koga especially but still #at least it felt like to me that the game realyl wanted you to think of koga being a modern tingle

[verigayo]

Some bs I got rattling around in my brain. (Bg3 spoilers)

I really hate the theories abt the emperor being a super genius manipulative asshole because it’s just so reductive. They figure since the emperor is a mindflayer it must be out to get you. And you can never trust a mindflayer! So then they go thru the whole game refusing and rebuffing the Emperor’s trust and then point and say “SEE SEE LOOK ITS JUST TRYING TO MANIPULATE YOU.” It literally makes no sense because literally giving the emperor even a tiny bit of trust NEVER bites you in the ass. If you at least don’t tell it to die every second it appears before you it will go thru the whole adventure supporting you. The only thing you could say it manipulates truly on is its appearance (which it does obviously to make sure you can even fight the brain) and killing Orpheus. But killing Orpheus is only a really negative thing if you think the Gith are a better ally than the guy who has literally stayed by you the whole time. And I mean if we’re using the dnd lore nerd standards when talking abt illithids and lack of soul and inherent evilness; the Gith are basically just a non tentacle illithid. They literally want to do the grand design but for Gith instead of illithid. And just because Orpheus says oh I’ll always remember you brave warrior that freed me, doesn’t change the fact literally they are trying to control the world.

In contrast if you ally yourself with the Emperor literally when it has the chance to completely fuck everyone over and dominate the brain and complete the grand design it never does. If it was some evil mastermind why would it not do this. It’s all about freedom for the emperor and people think that it’s about control but it’s not. The emperor comes before you and presents itself and its ambitions multiple times once it is revealed for what it is. The only real hiding factor is the whole balduran and ansur thing which ultimately? Does not affect anything really. It is just a past, one that is filled with grief and hardship. Not fully divulging this information is no sleight against it because it literally only makes the emperor more interesting as a character.

And this is where dnd as a setting really REALLY struggles in portraying the depth of a character. Due to its inherent struggles to deal with the very blunt and simplified version of fantasy that it was originally created with, assumptions are abundant in nearly every race in the game. For example, as a drow you are automatically assumed as a follower of the absolute or some sort of nefarious figure. Many characters will literally react with increased suspicion upon you because you are a drow. And while I’m not saying bg3 is exclusively bad at this; omeluum and blurg are great examples of races stereotyped as always evil (illithid and hobgoblin respectively) being unequivocally good people, the reality is that there is a lot of assumptions that are paramount to the dnd lore and canon. And this is why you see so many people violently react negatively to the emperor, they have been taught through the source material of the game bg3 is based on to assume illithids are bad. And if you chose this path you can continue to allow yourself to believe all illithids are evil as you betray the trust of one of the most interesting and layered characters in the game because they are an illithid. Just a waste of a viewpoint for such a cool character :/

#bg3 #bg3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers// #emperor #the emperor #I am high so some of these points may be a bit poorly supported but I still feel v strongly abt this #dnd sucks and bg3 suffers greatly for it #also a clarification that the Gith being a non-tentacled illithid sucks its bad #bad race creation bad lore dnd fail #long post//

[artisticsiren]

Hey all! Sorry for the long absence here, life has been kicking my ass 😅

But I did finally pick up the tablet again, and I've been working on some things. I've been interested in character redesigns so thought I'd try it with some of my favorites (and some old OCs no one's seen yet or in a while). So if you're interested in seeing them sooner, please do drop by my patreon!

Notes:

Anti Comso and his family were my favorite villains in Fairly Oddparents (even when they kinda just...vanished along with every other previous villain that wasn't "relevant") Always thought it was a missed opportunity that we never got them acting ad a villainous family unit. Evil vacations, family bonding thru world conquest scheming, board game nights! C'mon it coulda been great!

Anti Cosmo-- some outfit changes, wanted to break away from the all navy blue color scheme a bit to make him really stand out more among the masses. Also wanted him to have a legitimate crown since...dude is the ruler of the race he deserves a cool ass crown. Made it reminiscent of a salt shaker, put a little upside horseshoe, and the number 13 for bad luck vibes. Alsoooo put some runes in there to symbolize "great protector", because even tho he's a menace....his plans are all focused on freeing his kind so they can do their thing. Just saying, if I had control of these characters, I'd probably be delving more into their place in the world.

Anti Poof (because I'm not calling him Foop)-- gave him a real body, and wanted to try and style his hair after both parents? Make him look a bit more like their kid ya know. Pretty simple design, cute lil onesie. Gave him a rattle instead to mirror Poof more, but cube instead of rounded. Styled it after a dice, and each side has an ailment he can inflict on people. Pink eye, stubbed toe, etc. In my version he's around his folks a lot more, but tries to keep himself presented as an independent person; he's a big boy he don't need no parents (the self proclaimed big boy says as he's burped like the 1 year old he is)

Anti Wanda-- the biggest changes, obviously. The show had some faults...like the constant fat jokes (cough fuck you Bitch Fartman). So out of spite, she's a chubby queen and her twink of a husband adores her every time she nearly snaps his spine. She's not the smartest, but she brings the muscle to Anti Cosmo's brains.

And of course, gave em all tails. Because they're cute, sue me.

#digital illustration #artists on tumblr #character redesign #anti cosmo #anti wanda #foop #fairly oddparents #anti fairies #anti poof

[mllemaenad]

So ... the stuff with the Emperor. I am somewhat twitchy about designating a group of people as always evil, especially since the game has noted that several races "used to be" considered evil, but now are not. But I can see illithids always being ... antagonistic, as a group, at best. Because they eat people. And unless they can stop eating people, having an illithid friend is always going to be problematic, even if they have no actual plans for world domination.

There's Omeluum, in the underdark, and while I would not say I've interacted with it enough to confirm it is what it says it is, there - at least at face value - is a "good" mind flayer. It's still very much eating people, though. Researching ways to stop doing that, and good for it, but still eating people. Eating "bad" people, sure, but defining "bad" and when being eaten alive would be a reasonable punishment for that is a whole other damn issue.

But the story the Emperor told me isn't ... quite adding up for me. Or else the lore isn't adding up.

From the start of the game, I assumed illithid infection was a matter of incubation. That is, the tadpole in your brain was a person unto itself, and it was going to both feed on you and use your body as a kind of trellis to grow to maturity. In True Souls, the growth was arrested, so no mind flayer was actually erupting out of a body, and the tadpole was consuming little if any brain matter. In the case of your party, even its influence was limited by the presence of the artifact, which turned out to hold an imprisoned githyanki with super powers.

That matched nicely with the things Lae'zel said about infections, about them consuming everything you were, and with the symptoms of infection as described: fever, memory loss, delirium. It sounded as though a person was being eaten alive.

But then the Emperor turns up and claims to be an adventurer who was transformed. It claims to be the same person it was it was before the infection. If true, that would mean that illithids were only "evil" because they themselves were mind controlled. Without that, they'd just be people with unfortunate dietary needs. And, well, we're still hanging out with Astarion for some reason, so this party does not have reasonable grounds to complain about that.

And it could be true. Sure. What do I know about illithids? Lae'zel's information could be wrong. We do know at least some of what she knows is more githyanki propaganda than truth.

Except.

Well, for a starters Withers makes a whole speech about mind flayers not having souls. Now - I don't even believe in souls, so that's not something I'd even consider without being prompted by the narrative. In any fantasy setting where ghosts and souls are assumed to exist, I tend to equate soul with person. If someone is talking to me, they've got a soul. Illithids possibly being terrible people is irrelevant to that question.

Under other circumstances, I'd dismiss this as simple prejudice. But one, this does seem to be Withers' area of expertise and two, it's presented as a plot point: the gods should be attempting to gather souls, but they are not, they are gathering soulless mind flayers who ought to be useless to them. It's weird enough to be worthy of comment.

If the Emperor were a human or elf or whatever, and was transformed into a mind flayer, then it ought to have a soul. Because if there's continuity of personhood, it wouldn't make sense for it to not have a soul.

And then there's the windmill horror. I went the wrong way when doing a quest hunting for lost letters, because I missed that the guy said west and assumed the trail of blood I found was related to the dead pigeons. I followed it to a windmill, picked the lock and went snooping. Inside was a newborn mind flayer - and I could ask it if it had been the one screaming. Its response? No, those were the dying screams of its vessel. It actually delighted in the anguish and terror of the man it emerged from. This wasn't a distressed person who had just undergone an unexpected species change. This was a wholly new person, with little sympathy for its vessel.

So ... barring the arrival of any new evidence that makes the Emperor somehow exempt from this, it does not seem as though it could be who it says it is. I mean - it's entirely possible it incubated in an adventurer. That's as likely as anything else. But every piece of information I can find apart from its story indicates that that adventurer died screaming, and a long time ago.

Which in turn means that this story seems like just as much a masquerade as the business of dressing up as something from the character creator.

"Hey, one of your allies is a friendly illithid!" would not necessarily make me suspicious. I mean - we've got a mummy that raises our souls for pocket change, a priestess who came back from the dead, and very frank demi-goddess, so sure, why not?

But these repeated attempts to convince me that it is in some sense not really an illithid? When every indication is that it is? That I do not trust at all.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers

[spectralreplica]

Saioumota vtuber AU! (My full piece from @saioumota-zine​ )

Also included are the full designs and the Discord icons. Kokichi’s account is the one shown, so it was fun to think of what people he’d be friends with and what kind of servers he’d be in. (I’m not saying they all met in a Terezi fan server in this AU, but I’m not not saying that.)

The conversation they’re having on Discord is basically Kaito having bad wi-fi, Kokichi claiming to have cursed him, and Shuichi offering sympathy and trying to point out something on screen. I imagine they all commissioned Angie for the art in universe, but here in our world, I had loads of fun trying to make the art styles distinct 😁

Official names:

Kindaichi Satoki / 金田一 悟記 Surname: reference to famous fictional detective Kindaichi Kosuke Given name: enlightenment/perceive/realize, account/record (also, sounds like Satori)

Amateur (?) detective with a suspicious amount of anime and game knowledge for someone who claims to only read detective novels and true crime. Audience is split on whether the stories they tell about cases are based on something the real person behind them actually experienced or are totally fictional/references to media.

Inexplicably amazing at racing games. Banned from werewolf/mafia-type multiplayer games for being too good at guessing the bad actors.

Yamiochi Makiko / 闇落 魔鬼子 Surname: fall to darkness/heel turn Given name: demon, ghost, child (also, same first kanji as Maki)

Daughter and heir to the demon king who refers to all followers/subs as minions in her evil organization. Possibly also a clown? Only plays games on hard, and is apparently pro-level at chess. Really wide range of expressions, especially creepy ones!

Accepts Yamimaki and Kiko as nicknames, but not plain Maki. There is some Other Maki who never appears and is only referenced ominously.

Nanase Stella / 七星 ステラ Surname: seven stars/Big Dipper Given name: Latin for star

Alien visiting Earth for the first time from another galaxy. Inexplicably speaks Japanese, English, and Russian despite this. Chat streams rebranded as “Let Me Tell You About Space!” because that’s most of what happened anyway, but she’ll still give advice/encouragement if someone asks.

Consistently terrible luck, both in games (random chance= worst outcome 100% of the time) and out (wi-fi has issues constantly, streams glitch out in ways that seem impossible). Official explanations offered: 1) Attacks from enemy aliens who want to destroy Earth. 2) Cursed by Makiko with a million years of bad luck.

#Saioumota #Oumota #Saiouma #Oumasai #Saimota #Shuichi Saihara #Kokichi Oma #Kaito Momota #New Danganronpa V3 #Danganronpa #Spectra Art #Spectra Port #Zine

[glassshard]

Whenever I don’t like a major piece of media I really like to analyze why. Ever since the RLM Star Wars Prequels reviews I’ve found this exercise super helpful. I think it’s even more helpful than analyzing why I love a piece of media, since my heart is a lot more shallow than my head, and will happily latch onto media with all kinds of problems simply because a boy was stabbed in a sexy way or the music was good.

But after ten hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 this weekend, I just had to drop it. I don’t like the game. It charmed me at first with its high production values and its excellent exploration, but my ardour cooled quickly as it began to butt up against my personal predilections. At first it did so in totally subjective ways with its unlovable D&D mechanics. I don’t know D&D and the game did not have any interest in teaching me about it. It just kinda throws you into a system that has no place in a video game in my opinion, full of unnecessary tedium and opaque mechanics. But you know what, that’s just me. Plenty of people love it. I could deal with bad gameplay, I like lots of games that play like crap. Let me sing you a song of the Legacy of Kain series.

But then the story failed to grip me. It’s written like fanfiction, with no explanation for any of the races, proper nouns, or concepts because you’re expected to already know them. I love in media res, but c’mon. Ya know what though? Still just my opinion. Open world games are super popular, lots of people love them. Remember how much you enjoyed Dark Souls? Look at that vampire, keep going. Sure he’s walking around during the day and vampirism in this setting just seems to equate to some Spirit Halloween accessories but it’s fine!

But then! But then! Then that vampire killed my character in a cutscene! And I thought that was GREAT. Unexpected! Finally! The game’s getting good! I’m invested! I’ll need to save scum and reload but-

Wait, I don’t need to? That wasn’t a game over? I can... I can rez my character? My character died in a story cutscene and I can have another character rez them with a scroll? And then... then I can go talk to the vampire because he’s still hanging around? But I can’t even tell the other party members about it? This is... this is not right. This feels objectively not right.

You can’t use a game mechanic to rez a story death. That’s not how this works. That’s like if Cloud had pulled out a phoenix down on Aeris or Corvo just started shoving jellied eels down the dead Empress’ throat. That is deflating the very concept of death in the game. There are no stakes now. Why should I care about anything? Why do people even hate vampires in this world if death can be cleaned up with a square of toilet paper available from any shop?

Still, I pushed on, in a stubborn daze. This was a sixty dollar game, I had to keep trying!

The underwear inventory slots felt juvenile but that’s fine, that’s fine. The character designs are extremely Ren Faire, but no big deal. One of the party members is named after a Care Bear but don’t be superficial, Ashley. I can equip armour I’m not proficient in and the game’s not going to tell me why I shouldn’t, but I’m not going to take it personally. The mind control mechanic is making every interaction feel cheap and silly, and all the parasitized party members feel fake and offputting. It seems very contrived that they’re traveling together, and I don’t understand why my character would remain in the company of ANY of them when he himself knows they have his same mind-control powers and can never be trusted and sometimes the illithid powers are framed as course-altering and sometimes they’re not and nothing is consistent except the cartoonish characterization of the “evil” races but it’s fine, it’s fine, keep going

But then I got to a portion where my character was able to ask a dead Mindflayer questions about the plot. And I realised, sharply: I do not care about the answers. I do not care about this world or this cast or any schemes at play. No immersion will be happening; my suspension of disbelief is irrevocably snapped. This is a Saturday morning cartoon with dicks.

And it all really went back to rezzing that story death. While a lot of my gripes about this game are completely subjective and to do with my own tastes, I think it’s objectively bad design to allow a story death resurrection. It deflated everything for me and I couldn’t recover.

So! I did not like Baldur’s Gate 3, and in my mind my character’s story ended when their trusting nature was exploited by a vampire, and they were killed. But the experience did teach me some interesting things about my own tastes, and what I require to become invested in a video game narrative.

#baldur's gate 3

[juni-ravenhall]

sso and "its just a kids game!", "its not that deep!"

ive been thinking a lot about how there are things you really can and should excuse sso for "because its a kids game". those are things like the silly tone in serious situations, when carl and a DC goon just want to eat ice cream instead of doing villain things, or when mr anwir says "so anyway back to my evil speech", or when avalon/druid says :O, or when katja puts on an evil playlist and we change it to a less-evil playlist during a not-really-canon event quest. the goofy tone of the game makes it less scary despite having some dark and scary elements in the story.

(the goofiness shouldnt mess up the logic of the story, though, which i think the dark riders and DC really have an issue with, but thats a bit too much of a tangent.)

or things like making sure you know that nobody died when you and the soul riders did a thing, or seeing someone blast off in a goofy way after being struck, so you dont feel bad about it, or take away the lesson that killing bad guys is fine. making sure to spell it out to you if theres a lesson to be learnt sometimes, or shoving the magic of friendship in your face (although in a shallow way).

or having non-punishing and laidback gameplay (except economically) to suit the youngest players, like not having to lose anything if you fail, or giving the player very clear instructions for quests, or having NPCs not be very hard to defeat compared to games targeted to older teens and adults. (but accommodating young players that barely read and have never played a game before, or players with disabilities that can't always play in the most hardcore gaming manner, and so on - accessibility - shouldnt in any way relate to having bad or clunky gameplay or game design. sso doesn't actually do a good job of being accommodating, it would be much better if there was genuinely fun, well-designed, challenging gameplay for those who seek it, while allowing those who dont to take their time and play the same thing at their own pace without failing - having properly designed races and champs and overhauling the scoreboard system and testing every race until they're at the quality they should be; having rewards like more js for reaching higher scores while still allowing players to earn okay js if they aren't aiming for the gold medal times or highscore boards. having fun and challenging gameplay mechanics with different difficulties. etc. the concept of "adaptive difficulty" is also interesting.)

theres things that are very reasonable to excuse in kids media. theres just also parts that i dont excuse and dont think its appropriate to excuse. when ppl do the "its a kids game!" thing, its not always about what i described above.

should you excuse low-quality game design and gameplay functionality just because its a kids game? no, not at this price point, anyway - there are kids games for free or for a couple $€ out there that might be validly priced. however, this is also *especially* bad in "girl games" (fuck gender and sexism, but society exists). girl games are notorious for being low quality and not comparable in quality to "boy games" at the same price points. perpetuating this - trying to get girl game audiences' money without providing quality girl games - is a problem of misogyny and exploitation. not excusable.

should you excuse bad writing just because its a kids game? i certainly dont. i dont like badly written kids books, or picture books, or cartoons, and i didnt prefer low quality content over high quality content when i was a kid, either (but quality means different things in different circumstances and to different people). your ability to tell if something is crappy or great improves as you age, but even if its definitely possible for a kid to enjoy the hell out of an objectively low quality piece of media, there are problems that often arise from bad writing and bad design... because where low quality writing comes from, there is often also a lack of care for important issues and topics, and a lack of respect for the target audience.

should you excuse racial or sexist stereotypes, or fatphobia and harmful beauty standards in general, or ableism, or cishet normativity, lack of diversity, just because its a kids game? isnt it *even more important* in a kids game, since kids are still learning so much about the world and starting to form perspectives and opinions and feelings about it for the first time?

if you think "but sso doesn't have much of that!", i think you might have played the game with a very different perspective than i did. what about how courtney, the summers sister, is framed as a joke because of how she looks - you're supposed to find it funny (and sweet though!) that carl franz thinks she's beautiful and perfect, because that's not how the game assumes you reacted to her. the brothers obviously also are meant to be seen as goofy looking but i don't remember if it was handled in such a direct way as with courtney. the game also assumes that you find xin scary or strange-looking when you see him without his mask (it's in ydris' dialogue); which is especially fucked up since he's a person of short stature (and also part of the "circus freak" stereotype!), but also always fucked up regardless - people just exist, man. we are born looking some kind of way. it's fucked up to think xin or courtney are ugly. it's fucked up that we were supposed to find a disabled little girl scary during an old halloween event (i think her back was hunched and she walked differently?). it's fucked up to think pi is ugly, or mrs holdsworth, or the GED workers. i want the world to stop thinking of normal human traits as "ugly" no matter how unusual or usual those traits are, or how symmetrical or not, or how popular or not, how old or young you look, how sick or healthy you look, or whatever the fuck. its all ridiculous and should be stopped. we should think of people in terms of kindness, in terms of shared interests and shared joy, in terms of healthy relationships, in terms of caring and loving and making the world a good place to live in for everyone.

and thats just the aspect of beauty standards and shit. i havent even gotten started on the shallow idea of diversity they executed in the production of this game. on how there were lots of random npcs of colour suddenly, but without bringing poc in as important key characters with interesting and engaging continuous presence in the story. how the dark riders feature the most buff and masculine female character, a physically threatening and masculine woman of colour. how they were going to have 3/4 poc in the dark riders while the soul riders are 1.5/4, and the remaining dark rider appears to have albinism which makes it another harmful ableist stereotype. how so many of the important characters were designed as white - yes, its a swedish game, but the game is not from the 1950s, is it? when sso was released, sweden's population was more than 10% foreign-born. today it's even higher. can you guess if there is a class issue and if rich white game studio owners and directors didn't really think about people who weren't blond and light eyed and white?

or the lack of body diversity in anyone else than 40+ year old characters. sure, it's good there was anyone fat or beefy or differently shaped at all. and it's understandable that they didn't have the resources at the time of release to make the player character more customisable (doesn't excuse the lack of diversity in skintones though) and went with their typical fatphobic misogynist 2000's cartoon look they'd already created before sso (dont get me wrong, i love the old art, we can enjoy aspects of things while also criticising them). but they already *did* create npcs with different bodies and faces on and off - especially the 40+ yos - and there was nothing stopping them from spending a little more time on creating a fat young adult npc, or one with an androgynous body, or a beefy female npc, or other diverse bodies and faces, rather than spending it on putting together 10 more generic skinny background npcs (have you ever thought about just how fucking many random unnecessary npcs are in this game?).

those are a lot of things that are pretty serious and that you have to kind of be woke and analytical to think about in the first place (most players - esp if they themselves dont feel especially oppressed irl - arent ever going to really think about these issues, or might actively be *for* some of the issues, such as in the case of fatphobia directed towards the player model update). other things like the game design and quality of the gameplay, inconsistent writing and design and graphics and so on, are things more players might notice since it can make the game just feel more boring or frustrating compared to other games you play, even if you dont think too hard about the whys and hows.

but the fact that kids might not realise that theres ableism or racism or fatphobia or misogyny or that theyre being pushed into spending money on something that isnt really up to the standard - thats not really a reason to excuse those things. and if someone says "the writing is really bad" or "this makes no sense" or "why did they design these characters this way" or "this horse game sucks and is boring and inconsistent", rather than just saying "its just a kids game", "why do you take it so seriously", "its not that deep", maybe its worth considering this, that there are things you absolutely should excuse kids media for, and other things you really, really shouldnt.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

You know, miraculous fails at rivals And Lila is the greatest example of why

But since I want to make a argument I’ll compare her to 4 other rivals which showcase how to make a good rival

First we have…

Dr.Eggman:the doctor is the total opposite of he’s rival in all aspects, Eggman is red and sonic is blue, one likes machines the other likes nature, one is old and the other is young, one wants to slave the world and the other wants nothing but freedom, one is a man and the other a animal, one makes things to fight for him while the other fights with nothing but he’s quills. The brilliance of Eggman’s rivalry with sonic is how they are nothing alike and that makes a parallelism, they are two sides of the same coin by being the total opposite, I know people usually talk about shadow,metal sonic or knuckles when talking about the hedgehog’s rival, but everything this three have that rival sonic, Eggman has it and does it better

Meanwhile lila does not parallel Marinette in any way, shape or form than being evil. Lila is a lier… but Marinette ain’t that clean either (that time he tried to steal Adrien’s phone for example)

Now we have…

The blights of Zelda BOTW:if you don’t know about zelda then I’ll just make this quick. In this game there’s four champions representing their race and each with their own powers pilot a giant machine to aid in the war against the Calamity of Ganon. However Ganon designed something to get rid of the champions and take over the machines. The blights (fire,water,wind and thunder) do what a good rival does, do what you can do and do it better, the water champion who is a trident user? Water blight can freeze water and is a even better spear user, The fire champion with a almost indestructible shield? Fire has a better shield with a even greater power to break your shield, the wind champion who’s a amazing archer? Wind blight is a even better quick shooter and can control the air to make he’s flying and arrows turn basically useless, the thunder Champion with a great talent on the sword and shield? Thunder blight is even better and has the speed of a thunder making it able to be almost untouchable. The blights perfectly rival and surpass their champions because they are made to do so and that makes their fights so epic in the first place

Meanwhile Lila has illusions, it fits her personality and way of work but outside of using it smartly I don’t see the parallel

The next one is…

Venom:what hasn’t been said about venom? They have a personal vendetta, they hate Spider-Man with all of their soul, they can do everything spider-man Can plus the tentacles and not activating Spider-Man’s spider sense. They are different enough while similar enough to make for a perfect rival in fight, but he’s person is also perfect. Spider-Man betrayed the symbiote and Peter Parker ruined Eddie Brock’s reputation, now all that hatred joins into a corruption of the image of Spider-Man into a hulking monster searching for revenge and vindication

Then we have Lila which only has a personal vendetta against ladybug meanwhile she’s just a sociopath against Marinette, Lila is just crazy which isn’t bad but making her more evil than Hawkmoth and some other choices I made but I’ll won’t spoil… Jesus

Now we have a personal favorite and the most similar to Lila…

King K.Rool (hear me out):K.rool at first was nothing but a sociopath, he wanted DK to die by starvation so he could conquer the island… but then he kept changing after every defeat. He was humiliated so he kidnapped Donkey but he got defeated again and he’s homeland was destroyed, so he tried again kidnapping them to use them to conquer a new land… but that failed as well and now he has nothing but he’s followers… then he tries to blow up DK island out of pettiness! But then he fails again, the brother he imprisoned was freed, he’s new fortress has crashed, and he’s literally kicked out of the ring in the final match (he’s given four uppercuts, he gets he’s head smashed by the ring lights, he slips on a banana peel, he’s toes are crushed and he’s smashed by someone of he’s own size) and then he disappears for years… But he returns and he’s different. He now mimics DK’s moves but he can do them better, he can counter every attack of DK, he’s strongest attack always involves blowing up DK island, he now moves like DK to the point he imitates he’s run like a animal (he even mimics he’s alternative color pallets) and the most important is how he’s main song even mimics DK’s, he’s song starts with even monkey noises DK and crew make, but the song is quickly drowned by drums and trumpets making way for him, guitars and similarity’s to he’s other themes show and he even has a rap segment which seems to talk about how great he is and how you should praise,fear and aid him on he’s quest to conquer and ends with a chorus mocking Donkey Kong saying “you go: Banananana”. K rool sheer hatred made him imitate and improve DK to humiliate him at he’s own game by being the Cooler DK and he succeeds

Lila lacks any connection, any parallel, every reason and every thing that makes a good rival by being nothing but a bad guy who only wins because everyone around her turns into a idiot. I wish Lila tried to step up her game and instead of making Marinette look bad because she already failed at doing so, she would imitate her and be better because People believing her lies does nothing but showcase the moment she actually has to do something by herself without help or puppets involved or when the plot takes her power to make everyone around her stupid, I just know she will lose because she’s not a rival but a plot device

I don’t want Lila and Chloe to be the main villains because they are kids. But if Chloe or Lila ever become something else I just hope they stay has rivals who only want to prove themselves and show they are better than Marinette without having Adrien involved because if you involve Adrien then that will just give everyone another reason to make Adrien the main character, Marinette needs a enemy which couldn’t care less about Adrien and instead just wants to beat her because even if astruc claims this is her show, everyone and everything should he revolving around adrien even if he’s not the best character (I’ll die on this hill)

The thing about Chloe and Lila was that there actually was something to contrast them with Marinette, but the show never did anything with it.

Consider this: Marinette, Chloe, and Lila are all held in high regard in one way or another.

Marinette earned the status of being the hero of Paris and the class's "Everyday Ladybug", but stays humble about it.

Chloe was born into high status by being the child of the Mayor and a successful fashion designer, but feels entitled to more attention and power.

Lila tricks and manipulates others into believing that she's a super important person with all kinds of connections, but tries to use that influence against the people she views as enemies.

If the show focused more on the connections that Marinette, Chloe, and Lila had, we could have an interesting battle of wits between the three, with Marinette getting the help of her allies to prove she isn't wrong about Lila, Chloe using her influence to make things harder for Marinette/Ladybug, and Lila coming up with new lies to cover up any holes in the ones she's already told to keep her facade going.

Instead, the show just lumps Chloe and Lila together into a single unified force this season, and little is done to actually acknowledge how much influence they have among their peers, while Marinette never uses her connections as Ladybug to deal with Chloe and Lila in the first place.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b #lila rossi

[flowersandbigteeth]

Hiiii 😭New in blog!

Do you have any tips/source in writing orcs?

Bc planning to do some bc got the spark your fics an inspiration 😩😩🙌

Halllooo! Welcome! 🥰 I started answering this question and it got so long 😭 I could honestly write an essay on this, there's so much to think about. So my candid thoughts are below 👇🏽

As far as pop culture goes: I generally like Durotan in the warcraft movie as my favorite Orc "look". I'm not too inspired by Tolkien's Orcs personally, but technically the DnD Orcs are based on that description. I started out basing my Orcs and half Orcs on the DnD races and elder scrolls online (orsimer are an orc like race) and then it grew into developing my own lore.

The DnD community is great because there are a lot of OCs to consider for reference and spin off games and lore, though (not saying you would, just for those who need to be reminded) you shouldn't steal other people's OCs. You can browse OCs on toyhouse and Pinterest, as well. Warhammer, Magic, and Warframe also have orc type characters to look at for character design ideas. Tolkien originally developed his Orcs from old English monsters, so that would be an interesting rabbit hole to jump down for inspiration.

Aside from the aesthetics there is a big pitfall to look out for when writing Orcs specifically:

Orcs started out as a villain race, but I find that extremely reductive. Orcs deserve culture, art, motives, and a spectrum of personalities. Tolkien's Orcs have been criticized as well as DnD rules about Orcs. I'm not going to do a deep dive into that because there is a lot to parse through. You can look it up if it interests you. There is far, far more discussion on it than I'm going to get into right now.

But my ultra, ultra simplified take away from what I've read is it's important to acknowledge the personhood of any character you write. And that's true for any writing really. Not to say you can't write an orc as a villain, but, for example, there is difference between writing a mindless killing machine and a villain with a personality, motive, strengths and weaknesses, and backstory if that makes sense.

If they are a mindless killing machine, there should be a reason other than Orc=bad. What happened to them to make them that way? Is there a societal expectation that they are trying to live up to? Do they have an internal struggle about it or do they feel justified for their violence? Are they under a spell or brainwashed? Why is that?

Villains are tricky because you want a satisfying ending, the villain may be complex, but they have to reach a point of no return where the hero has to act. So what was it that sent them off the edge? Vanity? Greed? Revenge? Etc.

Separate from Orcs it is a good way to look at all monster writing. As the counterpart to "born sexy yesterday" I think "born evil yesterday" is also kinda blah.

I'm not at all going to say I am great at this, it's often hard to create full, complex characters in short fiction but it's something to strive for. I'm sure I have characters on this blog I could have developed better, but I try to keep it in the back of my mind the more I learn about writing.

It's the same for an Orc hero. Orcs aren't dumb, malleable studs. I personally like expanding on Orcs canon skills (strength, loyalty, stamina, leadership) and flesh them out. Saber is strong, but he's also nimble and charming. Reven is big and can be scary, but is skilled in style and fashion, as well as being steadfast and loyal. Cedar is a warrior but studious and kind. Golmad loves weapons and is a leader but also gentle and good humored.

For visual ideas, I look at a lot of different styles and cultures, but it usually has a lot to do with the environment. I like to look at ye olde hairstyle and clothing ideas relevant to the place the Orcs are from, if that makes sense? Like if they lived in the artic you'd look for cultures that live in cold weather and draw inspiration from the materials they would have at hand for processing, sewing, and decorating.

In general, I tend to lean on more traditional depictions of mountain Orcs, but jazzed up? I don't like ripped, careless dirty rags, but clean, utilitarian and neatly cut leather and furs, as they are big hunters there rather than farmers. If they live in a village or town they'd wear whatever is in fashion, cotton or linen. Where are they from, their social class, and what types of clothes would be best for that environment are good questions to ask when developing costumes, next their personality. Whether they are vain, utilitarian, or cocky and like to roll around with their shirt off. 😸 I think keeping the environment and personality at the forefront of your mind, you won't fall into cliche traps. There's nothing wrong with having dirty ripped clothes but if it doesn't make any sense in the context of the world you're building it flattens the character. The assumption that Orcs are filthy or unskilled at tailoring by nature doesn't work for me.

Idk without going on too long, I hope some of that helps?

#sweet asks #sweet anons #orc lore #orc headcanons #orc boyfriend #monster romance

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Worst Trope Ever Showdown: Round 2, Side B

Humanoid Female Animal

Mainly a thing in animation (tho comes up in CGI in otherwise live action movies or w/e). the male of an animal species will range from somewhat anthropomorphic to looking pretty much like a normal animal, but the female of (supposedly) the same species will be extremely anthropomorphised & sexualised. often includes long hair on the head, heavy makeup, and boobs where the animals they are supposed to represent usually have none of those, and the males usually don't have any either

Propaganda:

ugh. UGH. can a female not exist without being a sexy sex doll? can a female not be hairy and animalistic like the male counterparts? can a female not have ANY interesting design features/ any design at all except 'sexy'??? CAN A FEMALE ANIMAL LOOK LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL PLEASE. IF YOU'RE GRANTING THE MALES THAT GRACE WHY NOT EXTEND IT TO THE FEMALES JFC. IS THE ONLY PURPOSE OF A FEMALE CHARACTER OF ANY KIND TO BE SEXY TO THE AUDIENCE??? IS IT????? (also they just always look terrible like c'mon that thing is meant to be attractive somehow? to be visually pleasing to you somehow?? (sorry)

gotta slap a bow and eyelashes on to Girl character design bc god forbid we can't tell the boy and girl bunny/lion/deer apart!!!

Aside from the obvious sleazy aspect, it is also, in my opinion as a working character designer, deeply uninspired and often a symptom of a lack of real consideration going into the designs and/or world-building.

Always Chaotic Evil

A whole race/culture within the setting who are just evil for the sake of being evil.

Propaganda:

Racist as fuck!

From a narrative standpoint, it does limit storytelling and opportunities for character development. On another level, it’s riddled with dodgy implications when played straight (ie certain cultures/races/ethnicities are purely and inherently evil with maybe one or two exceptions and anything the “good races” do to them is justified or just doesn’t matter). Given how frequently speculative fiction (you know, Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror) is used to mirror or comment on the real world, this gets a lot uglier and more horrifying for too many reasons to go into here. Look, when Dungeons and Dragons are moving away from this sort of thing and even JRR Tolkien (the father of modern fantasy) thought that trope was distasteful and regretted not showing more sympathetic aspects/members of the orcs in the text, it’s safe to say that this is a bad trope.

making an entire fantasy race all pure evil w zero nuance is just...hmmm

#the worst trope ever showdown #wtes polls #anti tropeaganda #humanoid female animal #always chaotic evil #tw racism

[ganondoodle]

i know i said i wouldnt be ranting about totk anymore, but i realized i didnt really count the sage dungeons as story (dont ask me why) so i thought im gonna write a better summarized version of my opinion about totk (i have around 60% of the game, all lightroots, not yet all shrines (missing like .. 20 or so, know the reward), not all krogs (dont know the reward), not all mayoi (half know the reward?) )

(in no particular order)

good stuff (in my opinion)

the. MUSIC! god the music is good, it was good in botw too but now with much more different bosses it really is probably one of my fav soundtracks of all time (most fav are all three phases of the end fight, the pre-fight to that, the build up one before all of those, Frosgeira (wind tempel boss) the glorious mASTER KOGA and more tbh)

the build up and end boss fight(s) are fantastic, i dont think im ever not gonna have my heart racing when approaching it (despite now skipping almost the entire way bc i set a teleport thing right before it) just bc the build up is so well made and the music(again) is such a banger and the fight(s) itself is so fun too, tbh i keep wanting to play it just bc its so fun

i LOVE how many themes play into the music (endfight alone had so many layers, fav probably is ganondorfs classic theme and calamity ganons both in the same piece among much more, and daruks theme in the fire temple)

(edit) YOU. CAN. TOUCH. DA. DRAGONS!!!!

ganondorf

ganondorfs design (x3)

ganondorfs weapon designs

ganondorfs voice (japanese)

everyone elses voice (japanese)

all voices (german)

thE YIGA!!! i love everythign about them and am so happy they got to be more than just some mini mission

(edit) also the fact that they get zonau tech to work without any special ghost powers is so ????

(edit) koga can summon and use zonau tech unlimited?? hes so cool

NO stealth mission!! (as far as im aware)

bosses are very different from each other

main dungeons are not too short and not too long and mostly fun (mostly bc i personally didnt like the gerudo one), i love that you can still somewhat cheese them and do them your way

sages felt like they got a bit more involved

(edit) you gotta do more stuff before getting to the actual dungeons and i really like that, feels less like a fetch quest but that you are actually helping

(edit) each sage is actually there in the dungeon and is required for it, which is great!

each settlement saw a much bigger danger/change (tho that has more impact if you have played botw) and its problems felt much more real

shrines are well varied tho i think overall a little easy (only got stuck on two so far and later solved them easily bc when i first started them i was tired and exhausted, no brain left lol)

NPCs felt less flat + more bigger sidequests that felt like they had more impact

cool new monsters + designs

the underground was pretty appropiately creepy

the sages abilities are neat

you can refight bosses!!

stable points system is a neat way to encourage you using them

weapon fusing is neat

(edit) the forest of the krogs being corrupted like that is both creepy and a neat nod to oot

(edit) the vai gerudo outfit being gone!! (one) evil has been defeated

(edit) the health bar going so far off the middle in ganondorfs second phase is honestly just funny hnjdfdjk unfortunate that you only need the master sword and with a few perfect dodges his health melts like butter in the summer

(edit) the music when dragondorf transforms sounds so sad .. its probably meant as a oh no world is actually ending sad but i like to think of it as a oh god what did he do to himself sad

the scene where rauru seals ganondorf kinda fruity

(graphic, animations and the overall world is still fantastic)

bad stuff (in my opinion)

everything zonau they feel forced into every bit of the world and its history (i know them being somewhat alien is intentional but not like that) it feels crammed into places they werent before and shouldnt be and it makes it all feel very artificial

the glyphs/dragon tears/memories really ruined alot for me, while it gave you insight as to what happened, it felt like it showed you too much and too little at the same time and i think it would have worked better if it was all in text for once if even at all, so the past stil stayed a mystery and youd be left wondering

timetravel .. really wasnt necessary and felt more like an excuse to get rid of zelda + make her the poor little sacrificial girl again + and to make her turning into a dragon as tragic as possible, like nothing but a stepping stone to the big reveal tm

shiekah tech being not just fully irrelevant but practically erased, wiped off the world (i know about the literally last guardian parts in hateno, it feels more like an oversight tbh, purah technically using it ... tho i dont think she ever calls it that, the purah pad is jsut the sheikah stone but worse), there being no good explanation, no remains, nothing as to why it would suddendly stop working and why even the titans and ESPEICALLY the shrine of life would be destroyed, if anything why wouldnt you enshrine it as a memento to history it was such a focus in botw and so well integrated into the world that it being fully gone, not even old overgrown, or visibly reused to build homes etc., or remains of how they built the og shrines in the underground feels like a HUGE missed opportunity (seriously it would have been so easy to make the ancient shiekah base their tech on old zonau tech, without stealign the gocus but buildign a connection)

all of the continuity problems, totk feels like botw didnt happen and the excuse of 'they didnt want to confuse new players' doesnt make a lick of sense in my eyes bc; its supposed to be a sequel, if you want it to be a standalone game then dont call it a sequel- if you start to play a game with the sequel instead of the first part its your own damn fault if you get confused; if anything, it would have been a good opportuntiy to make people interested in botw so theyd buy and play that one too

ganondorfs character is very flat, you basically get to know nothing about him (yuno even calls that out midgame but its never elaborated upon nhgfrdfhkk)

the zonau and their kingdom of hyrule is presented as this so perfectly good thing to such a degree it turns creepy, the end cutscene with mineru going poof was kinda uncomfy to watch tbh

the reward for all shrines being essentially a reveal as to who the hero in the tapestry was and it being, of course, some weird half zonau is the lamest answer to a mystery i didnt want an anwser too, it doesnt feel like it came naturally either (again my point of the zonau being forced into everything)

the shrines (zonau) feel so much more unnatural than the shiekah shrines, alien in a bad way and not in a good way + really are like a bad reskin of them, their sudden appearance and use is so much less logical

back in botw i was doubtful of if the shiekah tech wasnt going to far too modern tech and cause it all to feel like a bad mix of modern tech and medival fantasy, but they balanced it perfectly (tho the eponator zero was very much the limit imo) but the zonau tech .... oversteps that line i think, it really does feel, more than anything else, that it was just bc they wanted the stuff to be in there bc it might be fun to play around with, im not against that kind of stuff mind you im all for fun, but it feels a little like they thought of a box with endless stuff to play with first and a zelda game second (if you get what i mean)

quite a few quests or things in the game seem like they are more and then end in a dead end (the worst of all is impa saying she wants to go research what could help zelda turn back, and i was excited and convinced that shed give me a quest to find some mcguffin that would do that after i beat ganon but there wasnt anything you could actually do; less bad one but disappointing nonetheless the dongos were mentioned and treated like this big awesome thing from alot of NPCs all around the map and then when you find them they are bascially just gem vending maschines)

the way zelda turns back and link gets his arm back is incredibly unsatisfying, none of them even have something like a scar, or mark from it all, zelda spent thousands of years as a dragon (a transformation that was said to cost your soul but i guess that wasnt true) and link had his arm bascially eaten by miasma and he gets it back like it was never lost, zelda returns all intact as if nothing happened, getting blasted by some magic tm by two ghosts that were supposed to be long gone is the solution to all problems!!

(edit) link losing an arm wouldnt just be super intersting but also lend itself well to lead up into the next game where his prothesis is the focus and source of abilities

(edit) zelda got done so dirty, instead of her actual interests and character to shine she just gets shoved into yet another crisis surrounded by strangers in a world that looks like hers but isnt, and all she does is beg the ancient sages to swear to help link and sacrifice herself again (can you call that fridging? bc she sure feels like she got fridged) i like zelda and i dont like how much i didnt care about her and tbh im angry at the game for that

(edit) both link and zelda not even slightly changing in the years btween botw and totk kinda boring, like a haircut can only do so much

(edit) sonia really is the wife that dies to make husband sad thing isnt she? i get that gan had to get his hands on an enigma stone but i feel like there had been better ways to do that, the fact that she dies that easily is almost funny honestly, why does ganondorf even have weapons when he can just one punch people to death (tho i find it funny to imagine he can literally just kill people in one punch but hes too prideful to do it most of the time so he always uses weapons to look more cool)

(edit) so many new characters that you barely get to see or interact with, i really ... couldnt get myself to care much

(edit) zonau tech being so irrelevant to the games story while its also the focus is .. weird, its really just play doh for the players and nothing else honestly

(edit) monsters mining sonanium feels strange bc ... they dont do anything with it? the best thing i can think of is that they were told to do that so link cant .. upgrade his battery thignies? but then again you could just destroy the mines and remaining constructs to stop it .... also you really dont need anything zonau tech related to beat gan?

(edit) ganondorf beign so utterly uninterested in their tech is weird considering how he dealt with shiekah tech (and we KNOW it can get corrupted) he should be a tech nerd tbh

my twitch VoD of the first time beating the game getting muted at the credits despite me talking over it

nitpicks (in my opninion)

(edit) ganondorf should have a bit more of a boar inspired design, as treat, i think

(edit) the enigma stone wandering back to ganondorfs forehead even after transforming is? weird? i guess an excuse for da epic last stabby but still? (how cool would it have been to have to plunge into his mouth and break it there or something)

(edit) the underground gets a lil old after a while, the fact that its pretty much the same everywhere aside from some .. very strange flowing magma is a lil boring

(edit) ganondorf could have gone way more crazy with abilities and all that, imagine hed spwan multiple miasma arms on himself when you get him to a certain level of health

(edit) i miss unique weapons, there arent even normal axes around anymore, everything is about fusing really, i miss the cool shiekah tech weapons

(edit) the forest of the krogs being largely irrelevant is kinda weird

(edit) mineru being the sage of spirit still is kinda meh, the robot is neat but i thought tauro or purah would be the surprise sage tbh

(edit) the bosses were a little easy (i did boldo gohma rather early and did it without even getting hit)

you cant talk to koga normally :(

you cant find koga again after the last fight :(

you cant refight him (to my knowledge) :(

i find it very strange that yuno seemingly lost daruk shield, despite him having inhereted it in botw

the sage powers are not .. very great integrated, while its fun to haven them run around and help you fight, to actually use their powers you have to chase after them, something that in the heat of a battle is very annoying to do, constantly activating the wrong on or them losing their charge up when they get knocked over is like trying to herd a wild pack of geese while a three headed dragon is shotting laserbeams at you

some widlife just disappearing all of the sudden is very strange (like the rhino in hebra)

some new houses or settlements would have been cool, that the material things at the sides of roads are really only for you to play around with and not to build anything that lasts

you cant fight ganondorf (non dragon, even the dragon is locked to that evening sky) in the sunlight, night or rain, i would have loved to fight him at various times of day

their refusal to show any kind of blood is honestly turnign serious scenes into very awkward ones, sonia just getting punched and she dies with not even like, losing some spit from the force or something, or the fact when you defeat ganondorfs second phase he acts mortally wounded but doesnt even look scratched is just :/

amiibo stuff while neat being included its really mostly just bloating your inventory, if i wanted 5 vaguely different link outfits then i would have gotten the amiibo for it

why hide the -now-totally-not-phantom-ganon-armor- behind such a long questline and then .. have that NOT be upgradable

they put in a house building thingy and then not let you have a roof or a tree or something :(

at some point stable points jsut get you more and more of those free staying over night tickets that i maybe used .. once at the very start and now its just accumulating in my inventory

only one new horse coat pattern :(

satori now only being a thingy that shows you caves is kinda boring, i loved the mystery around it in botw (additionally, that it shows you caves you have completed already kinda sucks)

the end of the shrines isnt that cool anymore, speaking to a mummified monk that gives you essentially his last remains of life energy is so much cooler than a statue of the oh so awesome god king and his wife

the many references and reuse of old names is neat but together with timetravel etc. it easily leads to confusing and fighting among fans for who is more 'right' and its just .. tiring

(edit) considering how much of the advertising was about the sky islands i wished there were more and bigger ones, the underground (that was a little one sided after a while, it all looking the same rly) could have been alot smaller if the sky was bigger instead

(edit) i wished there was more of a sense of .. lost life in the ruins you find, from all races, the ancient ruins are jsut some bridged and ceremonial stuff and i wished there were more like .. houses, like people actually lived there and it not being all around beign a platform for you

(edit) the fact that the half zonau hero exists mean either rauru and sonia had kids but those were clearly not important enough to ever show nor mention, or there were other mixing of them before they all mysteriously died out the fact that the ancient hero was half zonau means their genes survided till then but somehow it never came up? the tapestry still exists and impa and purah say like its a well known fact that the hero looked like that (not at all close to any modern species) when you talk to them while wearing it (the fact that the hero armor thingy is very reminiscemt of ganondorf is like some backtreading bc we were theorizing about the hero having been ganondorf once and they wanted to stop that .. but the more funny thing is the HC of its a descdendet of rauru and ganondorf nhjdfknhdgkfnhkfd) (edit to add to the HC; the game being a big battle about child support is funnier than it should be idk if nintendo knew what they were doing adding details like that)

all in all it just feels like missed opportunities, lost potential, and more a game build around some game mechanics they really wanted to get into than telling a neat story, espeically so bc they called it a sequel, most of my complaints wouldnt be there if it was some alternate thing instead

i probably forgot stuff but if i think of more i will add them later with a little note that it was added in an edit (sidenote, i find it funny how much more nuance that whole conflict would get if rauru and ganondorf were bitter exes bfdrjfbdfndk)

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #totk spoilers #i felt like i was beign a little unfair #so i wanted to make a summary #tha took me hours to write #and is again long as shit #whoop #long post #this isnt a complete list iether bc that would be even longer and take even longer nhdjkkd #i wanted to do comic works damn it #anyway this is the last long post about this #bc im moving on now #...its half inspired by people respondign to me with -what how can you not like totks story but then like botws lol wtf- #well i do #*shrugs*

[shaneru-is-new-to-shifting]

Just gonna info dump about my Mario dr cos why not lol.

-------------------------------------------------------

Name: Shinko Asahara

Race: Japanese (raised in Koopa city by the main antagonist himself😈)

Nickname: Lila (what I usually go by)

Age: (Kinda confusing lol sorry) when I enter my dr I'm 6 and when I shift back to this cr I'll be 16 (yes I'm spending 10 YEARS in this dr cause my time ratio is 1 day cr = 1 year dr and since I don't wanna go through the last 4 months of school, well, you can guess lol)

Sex: Female

Gender: Cis girl (she/they)

Sexuality: Lesbian

Height: 4'11 (5'5 in my platformers)

Weight: 94 lbs (pretty skinny ik)

Hair color: Black and slightly white-ish blonde

Eye color: Black

Skin tone: Light

Nd lables: Autism, ADHD

Backstory + main story: I was kidnapped as a baby by kamek because of my unnatural strength and slight mind powers (which have gotten stronger as I grew up). When I turned 6, Bowser taught me how to do villain shit (setting up traps, activing those traps, using my powers for evil, trying to find what I do best (power wise, which is mind powers and manipulation)). I went to a villain school for Bowser's most talented, yet under-developed crew members (even though he sees me as a daughter tbh) before the age of 15, where I was assigned to go to a 'hero' school to find out what the good guys are learning and how to counter act that. Idk what happens after that or during my young teen years because I wanna be taken by surprise.

How I view myself: I see myself neutrally, I sometimes get insecure but I always have Bowser, Bowser jr, and my friends to lift me up. And ofc, I get super confident in myself sometimes, usually because of my powers.

How other bad guys view me: They all have underestimated me at some point but I always prove them wrong by prolonging Mario's journey to saving Peach (unfortunately, he always saves Peach so that's the most I can do lol).

How the good guys see me: Since I'm a good manipulator and have mind powers, when they first meet me, they think I'm an innocent girl who also needs to get away from Bowser when I'm actually the opposite. But once they find out, they don't trust me anymore, although they always have the erg to trust me again:

Other stuff lol: I have a crush on Daisy..pls don't tell her...or my dad lol (he's not homophobic, he'll just freak out that I'm in love with a good guy lmao). I have a witch themed room and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I practice my powers and train every other day for the day my dad kidnaps Peach again, I'm not even required to, my dad only requires me to train on the weekends but I like having a constant routine and a constant break. Oh- I forgot to tell yall, Bowser's my dad! (Not biological ofc). I play video games with Bowser jr on the weekends (when he's done training), becuase my dad approves of my regular training routine. I'm older than bowser jr btw. I LOVE spicy food, I have such a big spice tolerance, the magma burger is my shit. My 'casual' fit is NOT casual in any sense of the meaning, I wear a cute black crop top with a black miniskirt that has a spider web design with platformer shoes that make me look 5'5 when I'm 4'11 (I'm so short lmao, although the other bad guys aren't that tall either lol), not only that, but I top off that outfit with my pigtails that show off my natural white-ish blonde highlights. I'm pretty smarter than most people initially think, like, one of my favorite subjects is math. I don't get tired easily, it's probably because I had to fuck up mario at nights buut maybe it's something else lol. Don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it..I'm a great rapper-. Finnally, I let my hands do whatever if I don't have pockets, which usually makes the good guys think I'm weird, the bad guys don't mind cause there are so many different types of people there.

-------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading all of this somehow lol

#reality shifting #shifting realities #shiftblr #shifting #shifting community #desired reality #shifting antis dni #reality shift #shifter #shifters #222

[goqmir]

hype level for future mtg releases (this is genuine btw i cant sleep because my leg hurts so bad let me have this)

Murders at Karlov Manor (Q1 2024):

15%. i kinda get the vibes. theres some interesting things generally but im not sure this one is for me. i like clue tokens so im excited for some support in that area but. ill probably pass on buying any of this

Outlaws of Thunder Junction (Q2 2024):

like 35%? its cool! i like the west quite a lot, everyones excited for deadbeat dad oko. im just not expecting a ton and id love to be proven wrong! new planes are always fun and it would be a delight to fall in love with thunder junction but my expectations are very tempered. supposedly its about "villians"-- of which my biggest dream is a reveal of a phyrexian that wasnt killed onscreen to be hanging out there. rakdos would be cool too.

Modern Horizons 3 (Q2 2024)

90%. i cant wait frankly. modern horizons 1 and 2 feature some of my favorite magic cards ever and ive never been around for a modern horizons release so im just so excited. cant wait. big fan i bet there will be so many cool cards dude holy shit

Assassin's Creed (Q3 2024):

5%. i dont give a shit about assassins creed. i like the aesthetics of black flag i guess. this is a set with boosters and the cards will supposedly be modern legal(?) but they arent draftable so thats gonna be a shitshow when the boosters are overpriced and you cant even run limited events with them like MAT but like. at least MAT was awesome and had a bunch of banging cards and introduced cool deciduous mechanics to standard and gave us [[Rocco, Street Chef]]. all this is giving us is ezio or some shit

Bloomburrow (Q3 2024):

75%!! woo!!!!! i cant wait for the little animals set. i like little animals. i would really like one of them to wear a thimble

things i want specifically out of bloomburrow:

give us kwain lore! kwain is such an important little guy to our playgroup we would all love a new kwain or some kwain backstory and there has never been a better time for it

fox tribal 🥺🥺🥺🥺 boros please plzplzplz i need fire foxes i need evil foxes i need foxes so bad i want a fox tribal commander ill do anything

Duskmourn (Q3 2024):

45%. wrenny is hyped for this one but i dont think ill be biting tbh. its cool! i like the vibes :) just not for me is what it seems like right now. maybe like LCI the set design and mechanics will be so sick that its just awesome but the setting isnt catching me

Not gonna talk about innistrad remastered i will not be buying that. give me anime art tamiyo

"Tennis" 2025 (death race across multiple planes with cars):

15%. i like vehicles but like. i feel like this one will kinda skew corny in a way i wont vibe with. the technology seems like kind of a lot too. cool idea, i hope its executed well

"Ultimate" 2025 (Return to Tarkir):

65%! i like tarkir :) they wont print the stupid fetches but whatever. tarkir is super swag and i hope they can resolve the weird multiverse tarkir thing and give us a swag set i believe in them. also ugin reappearance maybe........

Final Fantasy 2025:

100%. i am so onboard with final fantasy dude i feel like it will be so fucking cool compared to like marvel or doctor who or whatever. final fantasy fits so perfectly with the other mtg planes and theres so many interesting things to pull from every game could be its own set so the fact that theres like so much shit there like its so exciting like i cant wait for this one. im gonna play final fantasy 6 with wrenny before it comes out so thats exciting too teehee ^_^

"Volleyball" 2025 (top down space opera set):

95%. a space opera could be so fucking cool. im worried theyll fumble the bag and make it really fucking star warsy and thats a truly terrifying thought but i have faith that we can get so see some more interesting and solemn parts of space in magic the gathering. i think a plane with fledgeling space operations and wild star littered frontiers would be so fucking sick and thats like maybe one of my dream sets. please dont fuck this one up

"Wrestling" 2025 (Lorwyn reimagining)

cool. i like what they did to kamigawa. um idk 30%

"Yachting" 2025 (Arcavios/strixhaven)

yippee!!! 55%? i like strixhaven but showing off more of arcavios is what im really super into here cuz i feel like that could be a lot of fun. its an interesting plane i wanna see more

um anyway ill try to sleep again now i guess

#mtg

[theladyregret]

I've seen you make commets concerning Drow skin color here and also in the authors notes of your fics. Could you go into it more? I find it a lot more interesting then what a lot of people insist on doing. Also how do you balance it with in game racial lore or do you just dismiss it completely?

God, I love asks like these.

I'm pretty sure I've already gone into it somewhere on my blog but it was in response to an angry ask so likely something people would skip over because...drama. Which is of course totally valid but I'm glad I get to go into it again in response to a nice ask instead.

I'll start with the lore question which honestly isn't very complicated in it's solution. You can choose whatever lore you like for your preference and you really don't have to change anything. All you have to do is sweep it into the nice neat corner of "creationist myth" or "religious propaganda". That is to say that these things are not meant to be historically accurate or factual retellings. Hell, they could just be outright lies depending. Even goodly folk and religions with goodly deities can have these things and followers who take it as fact and it doesn't make them bad people necessarily. Ignorant maybe? Bad...it depends on how they go about it once being faced with the truth.

So when lore says "Drow have dark skin to show everyone else that they are evil and they were banished to the depths of the Underdark as a punishment" that is just something someone decided was true...but really isn't, but people certainly may believe it is. Just as the Drow are taught that they were forced underground by the evil surface races and that Lloth is their sole protector and they are the only goodly people in the world. It's not true...but some of them certainly believe that it is.

The key is to remove the idea of black and white in terms of what is good and what is evil and whether both can exist within every race regardless of stereotyping. No race is inherently one thing or the other regardless of cultural norms or upbringing. Every race is capable of evil and good. Period. Anything that says otherwise is a myth people may have been taught and may believe is true even though it isn't.

As for the skin tone thing. I have always been a big promoter of the fact that magic existing in a world does not mean science does not. So...even if it is a fantasy world with magic...genetics still exist. Evolution and adaptation still exists. Not everything is just magic. I'm also completely against the idea of locking races that aren't human into set ethnicities. Every race should be capable of having varied ethnic features based on where they are native to and I don't mean subraces either. So...if humans in a certain area have certain ethnic features like darker skin and hair, hair texture, certain facial features...that should equally apply to all other races that also come from that area in addition to their racial features. So a gold elf can have dark skin, darker hair, broader or narrower facial features because they come from a warmer region...and still be gold elves. Same for a wood elf, or an orc, or a halfling, or a gnome etc

Applying this to Drow is a bit different only because the Underdark is a fantasy construction but largely they can have the same differing in ethnic features but also...it's always been my belief that their dark skin tone (which tends to be more purple or blue toned rather then orange) is the result of an adaptation to the Faerzress radiation. This also explains why other Underdark races also have this adaptation...even the goodly races. And why do they have white or extremely pale hair in contrast to their skin? Because the adaptation that makes their skin dark is not the same as melanin and is not designed to protect against UV light but a completely different type of energy. As a result their hair doesn't have melanin and likely their skin would be sensitive to sunlight similarly to how people with low or no melanin would despite being so dark. If a Drow has darker colored hair...or red hair, this could either be a left over recessive gene or a gene mutation. Still possible just not common.

This can also explain why red eyes are so common as well because low or no melanin levels can make eyes appear pale blue, pink, red, or pale purple as well as not being able to filter glare from light well (among other things but I'm not going into all of that here). Humans don't typically have red eyes with albinism but you can bend those rules for the fact they're elves and not humans. Just like with the hair color it's also just as possible for some of them to inherit a recessive gene that puts more melanin in their eyes giving them an unexpected color or higher tolerance to light. (this could explain Drizzt's eye color certainly but I actually think that's a whole different thing which I have also talked about before in another post and won't go into here)

So yeah, this is generally how I feel about the whole thing and have for a very long time...and honestly...solves a lot of recent issues people have with it all, I think anyway.

#asks #dungeons and dragons #the legend of drizzt #Drow #dungeons and dragons lore #fantasy racial issues

[talenlee]

January 2024 Wrapup

One month down! 2024’s going to be easy, you’re going to see! We made it this far, we just have to do this again and I’m sure we’ll find a way. This month has seen a Games Done Quick event, a bunch of videos, five story piles!

Let’s get into it, looking at what you might have already seen and what you might have missed if you’re at all a fan of Things Talen makes!

This month’s Game Pile were:

Exploding Kittens, where I opine about an interface mistake in a game that’s pretty much entirely about revelling in its interface, right?

A Patreon and Channel trailer update, where I made a pair of videos for that

Puzzmo, a game that I have already stopped playing because it fails to localise to non-American spellings

A video form of my Gene Wars article, which adds some details and context about this aggressively tedious game that’s remarkably hard to play, even without Dosbox overcycling and making things die of old age

It also is the first month where, in the off weeks, Fox and I have been playing a game together – in this case, we played through Space Quest III, completing the trilogy. There are, after all, never any other Space Quest games, and you can go check those out over on Youtube (part 1, part 2).

While Story Pile articles covered:

The Sopranos, a TV series that took a lot of time to watch and was worth it and I immediately stopped caring about once I was done watching it,

Godzilla vs Megalon, a charming hokey 70s piece of kids’ action entertainment

Appare-Ranman!!, an anime about going fast that fails when it comes to races

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a dense book about economics where some betrayal happens,

Afterschool Dice Club, an anime about board games, no really, actually about board games.

But that’s not all I wrote about this month that you can read, with your eyes! I wrote about how much I missed having the physical ritual of a bullet journal. You know, for the nine days I didn’t have it, which is weird because it’s not like I was doing detailed journalling at the end of December.

I wrote about the Speed stat in Pokemon games, and how it currently works. This article actually started as an introduction to the competitive idea of ‘speed tiers’ and how things could be generally positioned against one another. Turns out that no, just explaining how Speed works took a thousand damn words. I thought about ‘hey, who’s the fastest Transformer‘ and found the best answer I could have for that was absolutely nonsense and completely at odds with how Transformers presents that. Keeping with the theme of ‘speed’ during GDQ I wrote about the Speed of Communication and ways to categorise and consider that in your worldbuilding.

I talked about the Minotaur, the Iron Hearts, and the 404 Not Found of Cobrin’Seil, cultures that matter and need to be available for players, but need to also have a material presence in the world that makes them matter. 3rd Edition D&D had some real weird rules corners, and one of them was The Monk, and hey, hey now, I am talking about 3rd edition. You know, the real actual 3rd edition, the 3rd edition before 3.5 that everyone likes to pretend was just part of the same continuity. Anyway, monks were bad. And weird, and they didn’t have game language to describe their mechanical needs.

I also tried to confront the way that Atheism gets treated as a special kind of social evil which just happens to be in contest with someone claiming absolute knowledge of the runner of the whole universe, but we’re the smug ones. Also just vented about how much Mike Winger sucks ass, truly besmirching the noble name of Internet Weirdo Dudes Surnamed Winger, RIP to a real one.

For Magic: The Gathering content, I inspected 2023’s mechanics and what I want to do with them, along with my articles reflecting on 2023’s daily cards and announcing the plan for 2024’s daily cards — the story of Vox Maxima.

This month’s shirt/sticker design was this cute artwork I did of a Ralts reading books:

You can get this design printed on things here. Time is probably limited on this one.

And what else has happened this month, what do I have in terms of diary? Well, truth be told, I don’t have a good answer to that right now because as I write this it’s the twelfth of the month. January is a weird month, lots of stuff gets done because the year is now open in front of me, and as a result, I get a lot of stuff in the queue. I also had a subtheme for this month, with GDQ providing Speed Week.

What I do know about this month though, what I know about my diary, is that I’ve been working on things that need work. I have had to reconcile that the pandemic didn’t just pause my work it made it worse and that means that I’ve been finding victories where I can: What can I do? What can I make better? How much faster can I get things done? How can I make sure I’m always working? And …

At this point…

I’ve done it. I’ve done what I can so far, and I am going to get better.

I wanted to have Lysen Co out by now. I wanted to have Cancon stuff done, too! But money makes a lot of things in that space not stuff I can idly play around with, which is frustrating. This is a point where I’m really grateful for my Patreon – and yes, that does make me worry that I’m going to be trying hard to be crowd pleasing. I guess what I’m saying is if you say ‘I like this’ you might find me overproduce that because I want you to have more of it.

Got my booster shot. Jab in the arm. No reactions, no notes, incredibly boring. Actually no, my shoulder hurts a little bit which I think might be because a guy in a coat stuck a thin piece of metal into it so they could stuff some MRNA shedding nanomachines into my bloodstream so Bill Gates could track me. Mentioning that because it should be a thing people remember to do, and I did it. Easy Feel Good Points for me, since I don’t have any meaningful reactions and they could be sticking maple syrup in me for all I know. I’m genuinely at the point where I think I might be nonsymptomatic, and Fox might be too, and I may have contracted and shared Covid a hundred times and never noticed it because the canary in my personal coal mine is… immune… to… coal? Anyway.

I spend some time this month reading Michel Foucault, right at the source, and lemme tell you that guy’s work is dense. He’s got this really nuggety attitude of words, where there’s very little use of example and demonstration – there’s these heavy laden words that get explained, then he’ll drop all four of the ones he’s been explaining in a sentence and moving on. It means there’s a lot of back tracking and like ‘hey, is this what I think it means?’ It’s a really interesting experience of spending four hours with a twenty-two page essay and realising that yeah, I have these great ideas and I can explain them but it’s translated to… two hundred? words on the page.

There’s also been some delving into Roland Barthes, and back to Johan Huizinga, because Magic Circle theory has become more important to my demonstration of why I’m not invested in Magic Circle theory. Got to demonstrate that expertise.

It was CanCon month! I didn’t make a post about CanCon specifically, because the schedule filled up and that’s just how things go. CanCon meant three days away from my normal computer, and you know what that meant? When the Gene Wars video went up it went up with an audio error and I had to wait two days to fix it! Oh well, I’m sure we all had a laugh about it. I unlisted that video and by the time this goes up it should be fixed. And a new video should be a few days away. Shh~.

Anyway. CanCon was great! Nothing terrible happened and I’m definitely not writing this on night 2 of 3 thinking ‘well nothing bad is going to happen tomorrow!’

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Diary #Meta

[falsesighted]

🔥

[[Oh yeah watch out cause these takes are HAWT

1:

Wyll isn’t boring, he’s just black.

But not in the way you’re thinking. I’ve had this opinion for a few years now but each time I say it, it never fully comes out in the way that I mean so just bare with me.

I haven’t played all of Wyll’s storyline, hell, I ain’t even finished the game yet but I think the “Wyll is boring” debate is apart of a larger problem. From the perspective of a black woman…Wyll is a token. Not in the typical way. He has personality, story and whatnot but like…It’s very obvious to me that he is the “single black man that only exists to hit the diversity quota so no one mentions the all white cast” which is what he is to me. It’s obvious in so many other games. Fallout 4’s Preston Garvey, is just off the top of my head. Wyll is the diversity pick but they still need to write him a story and whatnot, so fine, but no no no he can’t be anything bad because it’s a bad look to have the ONLY black companionship be a rogue or urchin AND ESPECIALLY NOT A BARBARIAN. So lets make him a warlock that fights for justice and good, fine! And he’s kind hearted and sweet and sort of cookie cutter so they cover alllll their bases. Which again, is what they did with Preston Garvey. Leader of the Minute Men that fight for good, justice, sugar spice n everything nice.

BECAUSE if they wrote then any other way there would be backlash BECAUSE none of these white writers actually know how to write a black person that is remotely evil or bad or complicated without turning them into a stereotype or being afraid that they’ll do that. BUT THATS JUST HOW I FEEL ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY.

ONTO THE STORY.

He’s the token so they intentionally put less effort into it.

Well, not INTENTIONALLY. I don’t genuinely believe Larian is just a studio full of old timey racists that put micro aggressions in their game to spite us black ppl but like, even if subconsciously, I feel like they definitely did not look at Wyll’s story the same way they looked at Karlach’s or Shadowheart’s AND DEFINITELY NOT ASTARION’S.

BUT AGAIN I DID NOT FINISH IT SO I COULD COMPLETELY BE TALKING OUT OF MY ASS WHICH I WILL ACCEPT but from the perspective of someone who’s watching all the drama of this unfold like…y’know, SOMETHING is wrong if this many people claim he’s “boring”. BUT ALSO, a percentage of those people ARE actually racist and just didn’t play his story at all so🤷🏾‍♀️

2:

Astarion as a whole and his storyline are so beloved because he is a man. I will not elaborate at this time.

3:

The customization in this game is actually atrocious. I mean I know WHY they did it the way that they did but preset faces instead of slider options and it works well! But like…yeah not satisfying at all. It feels more like I have to settle for a character that looks “good enough” rather than a character that actually looks good. God forbid I want them to actually look like me if I’m picking one of the human/elf races. Do not get me started on hair options.

Fun fact, I actually dislike Aljari hairstyle. Those braids are just one of the 5 black hairstyles we’ve been provided and the only hairstyle that was actually a good design and texture for him.

4:

Baldur’s Gate 3 and many games like it have bias toward white people because when people think D&D and fantasy they think white people and we should really and truly undo this thinking. White people are not the “default”. Everyone should play these games without realizing their identity is clearly an afterthought.