I'm so happy that Ryoko Kui loved Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. If you enjoy isometric video games like Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity you really should check them out.

thinking about that sheet of elf drawings by ryoko kui and it's a Bunch of women looking amazing as hell and then there's like astarion really small in one corner and he looks like he was traced from the box art

2002 Michigan Renaissance Festival

Wiener Dog in Armor

This is so well written, it reads like James Luceno wrote it

in my head the star wars equivalent of tswift is some human woman named tay’lor spiff or something and her stans are losing their minds over theories that she’s secretly a jedi singing about the horrors of war, even though she’s from a neutral system that hasn’t seen so much as a moral panic in 50 years

This is why questionnaires say that a medical professional needs to fill them out. They're supposed to act as an interface between the patient and the questionnaire. If you had this same problem with a questionnaire in a medical setting, the diagonsitian failed you

When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.

Fuck it. So many of you asked for this so I’m delivering. English Willy part 2. Enjoy

literally this

City counties would have killed the dog in the wheelchair instance for you. Most places have some kind of law to seize and put down violent dogs. For example in California if there's suspicion of rabies, two bites of humans, one serious bite, or was illegally trained to attack people the dog is dead. If your dog bites someone and they're not up to date on their rabies vaccination, it's an instant process because they need to test its brain for rabies (the only way to test for rabies). Otherwise there's a hearing, so if you comply and show that you're a responsible owner and the human who got bit was the one doing the harassment they'd get off. So putting down dangerous dogs with irresponsible owners who aren't cooperating with the community and dogs that might have rabies on sight happens in urban areas as well. Just with drugs instead of guns.

I was saying to Emet earlier that one of the big things I was worried about with this fucking Kristi Noem thing was that she was trying to present this as "a rural thing"

Like "oh you city people just don't understand, this is just how it is in rural places"

And I really didn't want to see this just accepted by the news media, most of whom have never lived anywhere rural, as just "how we are"

Like, no, absolutely not, we don't just fucking shoot dogs bc they aren't good at being hunting dogs. Everybody I've ever personally known who hunts with dogs knows that a dog that is a bad hunting dog may be a great family pet. It's clear that people like that must exist - she's a person, after all - but it's not just How Things Are.

There are enough bad stereotypes about Rural People. We don't need more.

However, I have been relieved to see that a bunch of places covering this have had people on who grew up in rural places & who were pushing back on this hard, saying exactly that: no, this isn't normal.

Ugh.

this wouldn't leave my brain

Most people: It's a bit weird for Astarion to be a judge when he was only in his thirties as an elf.

Realmslore: It's weird for Astarion to be a judge as an elf period

Hmm...

"Magistrate" is going to refer to judge, as lawyers are not a thing. -

Astarion was definitely working in a judge capacity: "A gang of vagrants, a tribe of wandering 'Gur', took issue with a ruling I'd made." | "A Selûnite necklace, if I'm any judge. And I am. [laughs]" -

Apparently judges in Baldur's Gate are chosen from amongst the ranks of the Patriars (because of course they are) -

Human nobility is closed ranks, especially in the Gate. The only non-human Patriar family in existence is the dwarven Shattershield family. You might however, find an elf who married into one. That would be permitted, if looked down upon (you're either marrying below your station to a commoner, or your spouse's Evereskan noble house is liable to die of shame). -

In the Realms, a the offspring of an elf and a half-elf is classified as an elf mechanically. Half-elf + elf = elf | Half-elf + human = human. | Half-elf + half-elf = half-elf.

So for Astarion to be asked to preside over cases in the courts and be allowed to make rulings he has to have human ancestry tying him to a Patriar family - most likely a human grandparent. That would lead to the question of whether the elven relatives were from a noble house (awkward: the Evereskan nobility are traditionally classist as hell and do not like humans), or just random commoners (human nobles marrying random elven servants has been known to occur).

OR

That charlatan background predates his unlife and he somehow lied his way into making people think he was a member of a Patriar family. Although he originally had the noble background, so... who knows. (Although that could technically indicate new money, that would bar him from being a judge, as that's not a Patriar.)

Man everyone in Baldur's Gate's government really does suck!

Current mood: "I don't see why Ulder was a candidate for the Chosen of Bhaal, he's a dick but's he's not-"

Well now I get it. Because that is Bhaalist PR! That is a Bhaalyn MO! You do vigilante justice for public appeasement, and get people a little closer to Bhaal by having them enjoy killing their neighbours! Killing as socially acceptable entertainment that the government officially is turning a blind eye to!

It is not far off from developing into this:

"The Bhaalist/Bhaalyn observes unfolding life in the city and picks targets to be murdered, often troublemakers..." "[a Bhaalist] captures select people and “rightfully” murders them in on-altar rituals to the god (so, the slayings are not a crime, and the cult works to protect you from arrest by the Watch and any consequences of the killings). As a joining member, you get to name one candidate the cult will kill (i.e. someone you hate or owe coin to)."

Also, as said a few times prior, they tend to infiltrate law enforcement. Congrats on your accidental Bhaalist rituals that strengthen the Lord of Murder, sir.

Considering Ulder's ability to judge rationally and without bias is readily illustrated in him exiling his seventeen year old son on the spot without trying to get his side of the story or doing any investigation... I don't trust his judgement with these illegal hearings either!

Exactly! I could have (and likely) went to the exact same school (so otherwise pretty similar cultures) as people who were raised under what a lot of what was described as "female socialization" and received none of it. Simply because the political beliefs of my parents were different from theirs. My parents bought me any type of toy I'd like and let me dress without too much restriction regarding gender. The only difference between me and my brother is that I grew up with the idea that dresses and skirts were an option (they would have been ok with it, but society less so), and when I said I didn't want to wear them anymore, I was told I had to wear a suit to formal events then. I wasn't raised being told that I had to be submissive and quiet, I was told that I could be anything and not to let people stop me. My mom never told me I needed to start shaving my body hair, and when a peer at school told me, I had already been so isolated from the general social scene of any gender that I didn't care. So I didn't. When I realized I was trans, my presentation didn't change at all, because I was just doing what I wanted and was allowed to.

I did become less physically active after my best friend's mom told him he couldn't be friends with girl and when it was him or me, I was then kicked out of the friend group. But my hypotonia developed shortly thereafter, so who knows how that alternate timeline might have gone. Which just like not experiencing any peer pressure to start performing gender when the expectations kick in harder post puberty because I had already failed to fit in years ago, shows how other factors contribute to the wide range of experiences one can have with gender roles. My biggest external source of gender related trauma (coming in second to having period related medical conditions) is a woman I never really spoke to. Every other adult in my life was fine.

Not denying that this is often a thing (especially in more homophobic/transphobic/sexist places) but as usual I am skeptical of any overly general statements about gendered socialization.

Some people "grew up as boys" and didn't experience much peer violence at all, even trans women are not guaranteed to have such bad experiences.

For example, I grew up as a trans woman in exactly this sort of turbo-sexist and violent culture (some of my classmates even used to go out at night to shoot at trans sex workers with paintball guns from a car) and yet the main source of violence in my life was still my parents. People my own age generally thought I'd literally kill them if they bothered me, and no one there at all had even the slightest clue I was trans either, just clearly autistic and eccentric in ways that ended up scaring them too much to punish.

And for a lot of people the situation isn't even like that to begin with. Some people are fortunate enough to just not grow up around violent abusers at all and actually enjoyed their childhoods.

And conversely, there's a lot of people who did not "grow up as boys" and still experienced extreme violence that they needed to learn to move around in some way.

This reminds me of when people make the inverse posts about how "female socialization" means you're forced to grow up submissive and accommodating under threat of violence and the posts end up revealing that they are universalizing their abusive upbringings to their whole gender. They also don't seem to know even cis men can grow up in such a way (violently authoritarian parenting seems to be the norm, if anything).

in my head the star wars equivalent of tswift is some human woman named tay’lor spiff or something and her stans are losing their minds over theories that she’s secretly a jedi singing about the horrors of war, even though she’s from a neutral system that hasn’t seen so much as a moral panic in 50 years

I was expecting to find fandom wank about Gideon being an unfree person (textually called a serf, legal code of the nine houses unclear) of the organization Harrow controls. Luckily the fandom has been able to perfectly synthesize "it's fucked up and we like it"

Ah! I forgot! The Locked Tomb with all the necrophilia is doing well! Because of the freaks! You can't avoid it, they're fucking corpses in those books. See! Dyke on bike! Look at me, promoting.

--

That's actually just how 3d fallout games are

this frame from the fallout tv show is so funny i nearly puked watching it

✨️ calling all Star Wars fans ✨️

Hello there tumblr!

While we Star Wars fans are anxiously waiting for the bad batch finale, I could use your help! In fact...

I am currently in the process of writing my master's thesis. My research is about age & Star Wars characters. The research is trying to investigate whether there is a difference in fans of different ages liking or disliking certain characters that appear throughout Episodes 1-9. The survey takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, is completely anonymous, and you must be 18+ to participate.

It would be ✨️ wizard ✨️ if you could share it with your friends, parents, siblings, or any other Star Wars fans you might know! Or even just reblogging this post for others to discover here on Tumblr 😊

It would mean the world (or galaxy hehe) if you would fill it out. If you did THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS! ✨️✨️✨️