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jq37 · 6 days

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Just to throw my two cents on the Rat Grinder discourse: They weren't worth the Intrepid Heroes' time. We didn't get the full picture of what's going on with the Grinders until the last quarter of the season. Before that they were just this other clique that hate the main characters, so in-character why would the Bad Kids bother giving them so much attention when they've got so much of their own crap going on. Kristens quest to get Cassandra back and her presidential campaign, Gorgugs courseload, Riz's million and one plates that he's been spinning all season, Adaines financial problems, Figs curse and her doubts about what she wants to do with her life. Fabian's the only one who might have had the time, but he had to be Maximum Legend. There genuinely was no time or even an incentive on the IH's side to develop the Rat Grinders characters.

I still think it's fucked up that these teenagers got taken advantage of by adults they trusted, but we didn't learn any of that until we only had two roleplay episodes left. Too little too late to even try anything diplomatic even if they didn't spend all their time after the Last Stand in hiding.

And a thing about Ivy that no one is roasting her about and really should: An elven archer? Really? Wow, never seen that before.

Yeah totally. Like, from a meta level, I see where the players themselves could have been more curious about the Rat Grinders. There are obvious plot threads that could have been teased out there (though, in fairness to the cast, the adult manipulation aspect didn't become clear until way later in the season--the rivalry and foil aspects were more obvious). This final confrontation could look really different if they'd played that all the way out all season.

But in character? The Bad Kids really didn't have a good reason to waste time on the Rat Grinders. They came into this school year already burnt out from their Night Yorb quest and wanting a break. But they don't get that because they immediately are beset by problems they have to deal with--Kristen's god is on death's door from neglect and she's on the brink of expulsion, Riz is running himself ragged trying to boost his resume for college, Fig is having a whole ass existential crisis, Adaine is struggling with money issues she doesn't want to talk about, Gorgug is taking FOUR YEARS of school at the same time, and Fabian is multiclassing and dealing with his empty house/not having parental support (or Cathilda's support) for the first time. They are dealing with SO MUCH high stakes, personal stuff before the plot even kicks in. And, mechanics-wise, this is represented with the downtime system that means that any time they spend on the RG's is time they can't spend on something that matters more to them. IMO, not prioritizing your haters is actually pretty mature. Like, they weren't proactively using their free time to bully them or anything (except for arguably Fig). They were snippy with them when they crossed their paths and that was it. As opposed to the Rat Grinders who literally had to be told by Jace to stop antagonizing the Bad Kids (though they must have been pretty ineffectual at it because the Bad Kids hardly noticed, which I bet stung considering they were so obsessed).

And also, it's not like they didn't try at all with the Rat Grinders. Early Insight checks on Kipperlilly just got, "This is a polished steel orb of a personality" which doesn't sound very worth interacting with in a sympathetic way if at all and then the next big thing they learn is that she had hated Riz since Freshman Year and that she wants Riz and Kristen dead. And that's AFTER we saw her smile and kill her party cleric. In their position I'm not spending further time trying to empathize with this person, I have made my judgement and it's up to the Jawbones of the world to find if there's something in there to be rehabilitated.

And that's not the only case. Adaine straight up saved Ruben from disintegration during the Frosty Folk battle when she easily could have saved the spell slot, but that didn't soften him towards the Bad Kids any. Adaine also was really keen to Scry on the Rat Grinders to find out what was happening at their meetings. But, in scene at least, she was never able to do that so we never got a scene of them, huddled together, clearly unsure about the path they're on but not feeling like they can walk it back or say no to the authority figures in their lives. She didn't get anything humanizing that would cause her to rethink their position on them the way that she did with Aelwyn for instance. So why would they think they're anything but gleeful co-conspirators?

Hell, the one RG Adaine was even slightly curious about was Oisin and now we know that he was feigning interest in her which, man, can you imagine how much worse that would have felt if she'd actually taken the bait and pursued him beyond just thinking he was cute? Of course, it's possible that her interacting with him more along with some good charm rolls could have changed the narrative in some way but we can only go off of what we know to be true in canon and those facts are (1) He tried to get closer to Adaine while actively planning the downfall of her and her friends, (2) he (along with Ivy) was mean to Buddy behind his back while tricking him into a plan that would force him to go against his religious beliefs, and (3) he called his KVX related dragon ancestors to try to kill the Bad Kids and endanger the entire student body population. Three strikes, you're out. If I'm a Bad Kid I'm not super interested in whatever else is going on with him. And again, literally all of Adaine's friends (except Riz) gave her help to do an Insight check on him during their confrontation in the hallway so she was looking for something there worth engaging with, but she didn't get much.

Fig was fully doing CIA, MKUltra, Fantasy Geneva Convention violations on Ruben to try see if she could get information or flip him. I think she did it in an objectively insane way so I'm not entirely shocked that it didn't yield the exact results she was looking for. But she never found the smoking gun (or whatever the opposite of that is) in his head that would absolve him/show the Rat Grinders were being controlled and her messing with his dreams never flared his conscience enough to make him try to break free (as far as we know) which is what I assume she was going for. If I was Ruben looking for a way out but scared of the repercussions, I might go to Adaine who saved me from certain death earlier the same year and has helped saved the world 3 times with her party and their friends in high (and low) places. Maybe that's what Fig thought might happen but it didn't so from Fig's POV? Gave him a chance. Time to start blasting. And again, at that age, if I walked in to the first day of class and the first thing this random boy does is sneer at me and flaunt his musical success, I'm popping up on his Nemesis Alert at that moment. Doubly so after he tries to trick me and my friends into doing drugs so we get expelled. I'm surprised she tried at all with him.

Fabian absolutely tried to interact with Ivy--in large part for self interested reasons of course, but that doesn't change that he did it. And she came across as callous and unkind from the jump. Their final conversation before the latest episode is the one where she talks about wearing Mazey like a sweater and then says that Fabian missed his chance with her before stalking off. That's a pretty open and shut interaction. No way 17 year old me is like, "Hmm, but why is she acting so mean? Perhaps I should examine that more closely to further understand her." Nah, I've decided she sucks.

And Kristen has tried with Buddy literally up until the last moment. She rolled an Insight check on him right before the fight started and she got a 1. She got nothing from him.

Mary Ann is actually the only Rat Grinder who hasn't done anything to make a bad impression on the Bad Kids--the only thing she did was have a really good Bloodrush tryout. So no reason to hate her specifically (and, in fact, she is also the only Rat Grinder that at least half of them are positively obsessed with), but no reason to explore her further. And Kristen still tried giving her a stuffed animal and her response was that she already had that one and that she was going to give it away. What are they supposed to do with that?

Even when they tried, they didn't get information that was worth chasing when they were so busy and had to manage their free time. Gorgug didn't even slot in downtime to talk to his bio parents when they visited. Why would he spend any time on Mary Ann to figure out her deal? Maybe if they were given more explicit opportunities to interact with them in passing. If Mary Ann was shown at Bloodrush Games. If during class time Oisin tried to interact with Adaine. If Kristen ran into Buddy and Bucky talking. If any of their forays into talking to them or looking into them yielded anything actionable or that piqued their interest--they opened the door for Brennan to give them something more than once. But they never got anything that was worth investing more of their limited time into.

(And also, they didn't learn that Porter was involved until WAY into the last quarter of the episodes. Which absolutely could have changed things since, as far as they knew the RG's were working alone to raise this god which isn't crazy for them to think because Kristen literally did that last year and it was of her own free will. If they knew early that the RG's were smaller players in Porter's plot then maybe they would have been in more of a rescue mindset--especially since Fig has always mistrusted him--but that's not information they had and by the time they got it, the RG's were in deep hiding, like you said.)

And so, coming into the last few episodes, that's who the Rat Grinders are to the Bad Kids. A group of kids who they first heard about in the context of, "they famously hate you," even though they'd never interacted before. A group of kids who they already thought sucked even before they tried to kill the entire study body an hour ago. A group of kids who are trying to doom all of Elmville to eternal rage and who are willing and ready to kill them to do it.

With that context, yeah I think their actions are pretty understandable.

(Also, lmao. Yeah, I think calling Ivy basic would probably hurt her more than most things you could say to her.)

#asks #farmer-10 #dimension 20 #fantasy high #d20 #spoilers #d20 spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers #dimension 20 fhjy #fhjy #and they knew the rage crystals existed for a while #but they had no reason to believe that the rage crystals are a thing that happened *to* the RG's #rather than being a thing that they're doing to others #so like yeah I totally get it wishing that they players had delved deeper into their whole situations #that's the fun of narrative foils after all #but I don't think the bad kids themselves handled this situation unreasonably #when ppl rub me the wrong way/are rude to me irl I avoid them #if they have hidden struggles that's between them and their loved ones and their therapist #and if I was a bad kid after such a stressful year even if I heard their tragic backstories at this point I'd be like #cool motive still murder

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samrut · 1 year

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Rewatching Hetalia World Stars. Alfred is such a relatable character.

#hetalia world stars #hetalia screenshot edit #hws america #hws lithuania #hws romano #hetalia screenshots #A good ass is a great motivator #helps moral #thank you for your service Liet #he's such a team player

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alpacacare-archive · 7 months

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girls night

#repostober #day 9 #la te #deltarune #noelle deltarune #susie deltarune #deltarune noelle #deltarune susie #suselle #girls.#manifesting this plz #ignore where i wrote susies name i couldnt keep track of which limbs belong to who and i wanted to paint this but then lost the motivation #imagine kris got a marker and wanted to graffiti 'butt face' on susie but the players a weenie and chose the option that had no profanities #twice

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mssi · 3 months

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top 2 in la liga both dropped points this weekend..yeah barça can definitely still win the league it’s not over until it’s over

#if this doesn’t motivate the players to go all out idk what will #fc barcelona

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thefirstknife · 7 months

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Since tensions and emotions are super high, I know people default to drastic measures and worst case scenarios, but I would like to remind everyone that there are still people working at Bungie.

A lot of comments online right now act as if there's no one there anymore and that it's totally okay to burn everything to the ground. But there are still employees there who are facing an incredibly difficult situation and they don't need the community to talk about it all as if they've all died.

It's not helping them or their laid off colleagues to talk about the game they work on as if it's gone and over. They still work on the game and that work will be difficult for them, emotionally and physically. I'm sure it's also not good to be the remaining employee and hear how your work is now worth nothing and "will suck" and be "soulless" because some of their coworkers are gone. It's literally the last thing they want to hear in a situation of complete demoralisation. It's not respectful to them or to the people laid off. This is a massive group project. There isn't a single person responsible for the soul of the game, all of them are. Some of them are gone, but many are not.

Many of the devs that we know and love are still there and will be still working on the game. We should respect their work instead of preemptively calling it soulless. Obviously the game will not be the same. That's not the main issue here. The main issue is that there are still developers who have jobs and who would probably like to keep those jobs and who still care deeply about their work and are passionate about the game and its community. So just be mindful of how you talk and engage with the situation. The remaining devs will have a tough time, especially with motivation and morale going forward; we don't have to add to it by labelling their efforts worthless. Most of all, they will for sure be overworked and understaffed and they don't need added difficulties and demands thrown on them.

#destiny 2 #bungie #it's hard for players to find motivation right now. it's worse for devs #we can just take a break. they can't #no matter what happens those devs are the first to get affected #unfortunately we have very little if any way to actually affect those responsible #once again this should be a call for the whole gaming industry to finally unionise #for the record: this is the state of the whole industry. this year in particular

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thealchemyofgamecreation · 1 year

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Free-to-Play Games: A Love-Hate Relationship for Gamers and Developers Alike

Are free-to-play games a blessing or a curse? Read my latest blog post, based on Kati Alha et al.'s article on 'Free-to-Play Games: Professionals’ Perspectives'. #freetoplay #gamedevelopment #gameindustry #gamedesign #AdobeFirefly

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#addiction #engagement #ethics #Free-to-Play #freemium #game design #game industry #In-Game Purchases #loot boxes #microtransactions #mobile games #monetization #Player Motivation #Player Rewards #psychology #retention #social gaming #Subscription Models #User Behavior

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rawrsatthetree · 2 months

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So I’ve had three play throughs so far where I’ve romanced Astarion. Two were Dark Urge and one was a vanilla Tav.

Since so many people can’t wrap their head around how anyone could possibly help Astarion Ascend so I want to run through my thought process of why my Dark Urge Tav’s did help him.

First I’ll start with Puk, my evil bard dark urge. I think of Puk as a dark urge that Orin should have stabbed harder.

He naturally falls back into who he always was, never resisting his killing urge and love of chaos. He’s a cruel, manipulative, power hungry, monster and he loves it. He’ll take any offer that equals more power, going so far to become half illithid. His evil nature is only encouraged by Minthara and Astarion. Puk knew as soon as he remembered his heritage that he wanted to reclaim his spot as Bhaal’s chosen having already re-earned his slayer form. Puk never thought twice about Astarion Ascending, more power for his little vampire meant more power for him. And if Astarion could make him immortal all the better. He doesn’t care how it will change Astarion, he’s always been a toy for Puk: a key to immortality and fine breeding stock for ascendant dhampire bhaalspawn. Puk doesn’t mind playing the submissive little consort either, at least until he takes control of the brain and makes his vampiric master nothing more than a thrall to sit at his feet while he becomes absolute in Bhaal’s name.

Next my other dark urge Ilona, they were my first play through. I’ll admit they started out as a self insert but I’ve replayed they’re run and fleshed them out to be their own character. Unlike Puk, Orin left Ilona’s head full of scrambled eggs. They barley remember how to be a person and start off with very little personality beyond their urge. As they gain companions and spend time around others slowly the urge is joined by a new person starting to form. As this new personality arises they start to become scared of the urge realizing how they’re companions react to them whenever they let the it take control. Especially after the Alfira incident they start to resist the urge and wanting to be free of it. Of course because they’re an excellent killer and their brain is easily manipulated goo, Astarion picks them as his protector. Ilona is completely defenseless against him easily falling for his honeyed words and attention. However as they grow closer they become completely codependent on each other. As they become more and more afraid of the urge they become more and more dependent on Astarion. He’s their protector just as much as they’re his. This only spirals out of control when they get to Baldurs Gate and learn of their past, they’re terrified. They start to feel hopeless in standing up to Bhaal becoming an unholy assassin and almost ready to except their fate to become their father’s chosen puppet. They’re so wrapped up in their past they’re not sure how they feel about Astarion ascending. It seems like what he wants to do and when he promises he needs that power to protect them both to keep them both safe forever, Ilona believes him. Plus it’s not like they can judge him what’s 7000 souls when they’ve killed countless innocents for less. They just don’t have the strength to deny him and risk loosing the one source of safety and comfort they have. They don’t mind becoming his spawn, between loosing their memory and the urge they don’t trust their own mind, better to let Astarion have it. Even if one day he compels them, it’s for the best if he does the thinking for them anyways. Deep down they know they deserve how he treats them. That and with the. daddy issues deeply rooted in their psyche from both Sarevok and Bhaal part of them loves it. They’re his little consort his beloved pet and he’s their master, their husband, and father. For better or for worse they feel they deserve each other.

My vanilla Tav is an Oath of Devotion Paladin. They were never really onboard with the whole Ascension thing. They love Astarion but they’re worried about what that kind of power will do to him. They do start to falter in act 3 after facing so many horrors they’re beginning to loose faith in their Oath and fearing the worst. Maybe it would be ok, he could use that power for good! To defeat the absolute and save the city, to save themselves. When he says he wants that power so they can be safe forever, for good; they almost make up their mind then and there to help him when the time comes. They steel their resolve to stand by him just like they promised however when they come face to face with his victims tied to the ritual, they break. Looking into Sebastian’s eyes, easily picturing themselves in that cell with him, they promise he will not die trapped in that cage and they mean it. Even if Astarion hates them, they can’t let him go through with the ritual if not to save him than to save those poor souls that fell for Astarion’s charm just as they had. And when Astarion smiles at them and tells them he loves them, they feel their faith and hope return.

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buwheal · 2 months

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What we thinking of the setup /j

I spent all day making my desktop look like this & love it sm lol it was so much fun doing it and looking and learning all the stuff.

Anyways im back from my midterms break and hopefully im gonna start back up again!!! Yay!!! But first i have to finish a section of the reference sheet i was working on :-)

#thats his habitat. Enrichment.#oughhhh dont get me started on the little rabbit hole i went down when getting windows media player 9 skins #now i need to make one of those ‘character on default computer background’ wallpapers with spamton to get the whole deal #…don’t analyze my desktop.. its barebones because im still getting stuff back on from my old computer #and this sudden motivation to change the entirety of my windows to look like XP was all because my family member showed me an old tower with #XP he was working on and i got to look around and explore it and even draw spamton… and i realized #Wow. I am missing out. I hate the windows 10 look but i never fully took in how fucking lame it is.#so i took it upon myself to research everything to make it look like XP. Even the windows menu!!!!#if you guys (the one person reading the tags) want to see the spam i drew on XP i can post it :-)

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bhaalsdeepbat · 1 month

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imo the thing about ascended astarion is that he does love his LI, but he no longer shows it in any meaningful way. everything he does is out of fear and he thinks he's performing a show of love, but has his vulnerability locked behind so many layers of a role he's playing. He's using this role as a layer of separation to prevent him from feeling weak and vulnerable in the way love makes him feel while also manipulating the LI into complacency so they don't leave him before the tadpoles are dealt with.

he can feel that flicker of what once was, but it's accompanied by feeling small and weak. the ways he doles out affection affirms that he is none of those things. so, no. not showing love, but showing how he's the one in control. like he tells araj, he needs people to know who owns who, now.

it comes back to "I can be yours, and you can be all mine. If only for the night," but instead of the the equal partnership that springs from the Graveyard Scene where they vow to be each other's for as long as the other will love them, accepting the uncertainty of that future because of the abundance of joy living a life worth living can bring when lived together, Astarion has to establish ownership over his LI.

He owns them, body, heart, and soul, but the only piece of him his LI has is the piece that no longer exists. the piece of him that was the sweet, vulnerable Spawn who was starting to see kindness in the world where it once was cold and unwelcoming.

he loves them, but it's locked up so deep, all he can feel is a flicker of remembrance, like he lost something.

#bat rambles #like he loved LI it's what motivated so much of his fear and just #confirming he ISN'T strong enough as is #he's gotta make sure he never shows weakness in the way LI made him feel through acts 1 & 2 #bc he feels SO weak compared to them especially relying on them to keep him safe #it's a flipping of that dynamic #rather than equally protecting each other and letting life happen #it traps his LI in a stasis and forces them to rely on him in ways he had to rely on them #also there's only so much they can do in a game where players have to make all the choices #so player has to consent to the relationship but it doesn't mean the relationship itself is consenting. especially since he promises #to eventually turn them into a true vampire but it's clearly not going to happen

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