#because they've encouraged it so strongly that now it feels like a majority share of their audience are here for the sex

[asharaks]

it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

#also #and I can't believe I'm saying this #it feels like character assassination against enver 'can't be in a room with you without 5 robocops for protection' gortash. like come on. #stop trying to make him sexy he'll never be sexy #he's a slaver. #i feel like larian have backed themselves into a corner where they have to pander to this side of the fanbase #because they've encouraged it so strongly that now it feels like a majority share of their audience are here for the sex #bg3 #larian critical #bg3 fandom critical #to be clear. Yes i am being a hater #baldur's gate 3

[deepdarkbrain]

I've said just about everything to my therapist.

TW: all of them

Hi, my name is Ryn (they/them) and I've said just about everything to my therapist. Before I get into too much here, be forewarned, I don't want to pull any punches on this blog. I want to be able to share (just about) everything that I would share with my therapist. This blog is going to include posts about dark and difficult subjects ranging from basic mental health to suicide, self harm, substance abuse, etc. I'm 100% going to swear and say what could be considered terrible things. What I will promise though, is that I will always include trigger warnings at the beginnings of my posts and there is a permanent content warning at the top of my blog.

I want to be open and honest about these kinds of dark, intimate subjects not to romanticize them or to encourage others to follow me down what will sometimes be the wrong path. But to share my experiences in the hopes that it'll help someone else feel like, "Oh yeah, I'm not alone on this dumb planet." Having grown through pre-internet times to now, one incredibly helpful thing I've found the younger generations using is the internet to break mental health taboos. Being honest and talking about it, even with a little levity sometimes (I'm looking at you memes), can help.

I've been seeing the same therapist for many, many years now. We've worked through so many things; childhood traumas, hospitalizations, relationships, work struggles, and everything in between. We've had discussions about how shit the American health care system is and also shared wins.

They've had a couple kids. I've started to accept I'm not broken, I'm just really fucking neurodivergent. Not exactly equivalent to some, but to me, hell yeah. I'm killing it.

Here's a little background on me. I am in my early 30s and I've been dealing with mental illness (major depressive disorder mostly, plus anxiety, ADHD, and autism) for the entirety of my life. You'll notice I specifically say "dealing with" and not "suffering from," which is the more common phrasing. This is something I work really hard to do. For me personally, speaking about my MIs in a semi-light way and using specific language really helps me accept and advocate for myself. A psychologist I had in a group therapy session once told us,

Honestly that one statement changed everything for me. One of my biggest pet peeves around how people treat those of us with MIs is the age old trope, "Just think positively!" It drives me batshit insane. For one it implies that I enjoy feeling like garbage at random and destroying relationships with people I care about for no reason. And for another it implies that who I am and how I live my life is inherently wrong.

Something I'm going to tell you, probably over and over again as I write this blog, is that if you deal with any kind of MI, YOU ARE NOT WRONG. I even have to remind myself of this, pretty regularly to be honest. There is something that's going on in your life, in your brain, in your physiology that is causing this to happen and it sucks and we all wish it would just go away, but at the very baseline, it's not wrong. You're not broken. You're just different, and different is okay.

More about me, I am wildly queer and I will fight you about it. Not really, because confrontation is extremely triggering for me, but I do feel really strongly about my LGBTQ+ community. I truly believe they are one of the most welcoming, accepting communities on the planet. Personally I identify as pansexual/asexual/aromantic (pan/ace/aro) because sexuality is a spectrum and I love everyone and no one at the same time, and I am non-binary because gender norms are dead. Use whatever pronouns you want for me, this is an internet blog, who's to say I'm even a real human?

Something I've gotten into recently with my therapist is called "Internal Family Systems Therapy." So I'll probably bring it up a lot. As I am a mere mortal and not an authority on literally anything, please follow the link to read more educated material about this subject. Otherwise, here's my very, very broken down, idiot, tl;dr.

IFST is a type of therapy that centers around the idea that within every person's mind, there are separate parts with separate purposes, usually to protect the base part. Recently in therapy I equated it to, "a close cousin of Dissociative Identity Disorder," in that you think of these separate parts as different versions or personalities of yourself. For example, in my situation I feel that within my mind there are at least five separate "me's" that are all Ryn but also each their own Ryn.

Of course, firstly there is me. The very essence of who I am. Funny, smart, loving, and able to think clearly and rationally. This is the part of me that has been me from birth and will only ever change for the better. It is the base, the original. This is the part of me that wants to stand up for itself but most often gets overtaken by the other parts. Base me gets frustrated when people use MI terms flippantly (ie. "Oh I'm so OCD!" "I'm goth so I'm also depressed." "You're like totally schizophrenic!"). Drives me bananas. Just don't do it.

Next there is depression. This is the part of me that experiences deep sadness, mental anguish, self hatred, and many other nasty, no good things. Usually the depression part of me is equivalent to someone I like to call Floor Ryn. People who know me well, know if I tell them I have become Floor Ryn, it means I've gotten so low that the only thing I'm able to do is lay down on my kitchen floor and exist. It is not comfortable, it does not make me feel better, but I simply cannot do anything else. I'm nigh on catatonic. Though at other times depression is sobbing for hours and being unable to listen to music with lyrics for fear that I will start sobbing.

Because depression is what I deal with the most and what comes up for me the most, there's a lot to it. Depression isn't just emptiness, it can also be cruel. To myself and to others. It's the part that has been hospitalized for attempting suicide. It's the part that created the hundreds of scars that live on my body. It's the part that has told friends I hate them when really I don't. It doesn't care about the exciting plans the me part of me made for next week, it just wants to cry and rage and feel miserable.

Next there is anxiety, and this is the second of my more prominent parts. This part overthinks, panics, has meltdowns/temper tantrums, and tries to fix everything. It's neurotic and selfish. It's the part that picks at my nail beds. It's also both blind and hyperaware of everything around me. It's that toddler at the mall beating their tiny, fat fists on the floor while you're thinking their parent should be doing a better job parenting. This part is also surprisingly rational; it can be bargained with. It can be given evidence and shown that everything is okay. I find anxiety to be easy to manage on a daily basis. But I do have meds for emergencies.

Next is ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. This one is somewhat new to me. I've probably always had it, but haven't been diagnosed until adulthood. This part always has at least five projects going at once (I'm an artist and just a creator in general). ADHD can't pay attention in lectures, can't stay still, is terrible at exams, needs to multitask, and constantly wants to go off on tangents. It's hyper, impulsive, and generally content, if not good-spirited. It makes me question occasionally if I inherited my dad's bi-polar disorder. I haven't; I've been told many times by many practitioners. But the thought's still there (hello, anxiety).

Finally autism, and again this one is new to me. This is the part that feels like an alien because I can't understand why you feel the way you're feeling or fathom what you're thinking. It's the part I think that is the most ace/aro. It's the part that doesn't care about dating or sex and doesn't understand how you can't live without your partner for two days. Also it's the part that can't look you in the eye when we're talking and says shitty things sometimes because it forgets that yeah, it is actually human and has to follow human social rules.

All of these personalities of me coexist at once but can also present themselves more individually. They're each trying to do something for me. Depression is, to use another therapist's words (Kati Morton), "pulling the ripcord" to yank me away from a situation it deems triggering. Anxiety is working to repair and investigate to find a solution to the problem at hand. As for ADHD and autism, I think mostly they're just along for the ride. ADHD is kind of a bro, a Gryffindor (big Harry Potter nerd here). But they have their uses, I suppose.

Am I perfect? No, absolutely not. Do I want to be perfect? Not really, no, sounds hard and depression isn't up for the challenge. In thinking about perfection, I like to think of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, which essentially means to embrace the beauty of imperfection. As an artist, I've heard of it mostly in the context of kintsugi ceramics where pieces of pottery that have broken -- whether on purpose or accidental -- are repaired using something that will emphasize that it was once broken. I've often seen it where the shards are attached back together with gold so that the cracks are almost more beautiful than the original piece.

So, to try to find a conclusion to this post, I am mentally ill. I have been for a long time and I will be for a long time more. I am not broken. I am not wrong. I am not perfect. And all of these things are okay. I want to improve myself, sure, but I think everyone should strive to do that, MI or not. All I want to do with this blog is share my experiences and the sometimes comical ways I twist my deep, dark brain to ease the pain a little in the hopes that someone else might feel comfortable sharing those things, too.

Because you know I totally want to hear the ridiculous and stupid shit you've said to your therapist before, no matter how cynical and morose. Seriously, so I can share it with mine next week.

#mental health #mental illness #trauma #depression #anxiety #therapy