Keracts Art Place

I feel you've misunderstood the assignment. Female characters should not have "attractive" as a mandatory quality. And you would be surprised how much that changes the design process.

Whenever the subject of objectification comes up, people always ask the false question of "Well how do I make a character Sexy without being Sexualized?" The problem is that "Sexy" is the first thing on your list and you're not willing to sacrifice it.

This is something that compounds on each other because, as in all things, a lack of diversity leads to inbreeding. It's why anime characters are increasingly shifting into more and more grotesque versions of neoteny and why some game companies think A, B and C Cups don't exist.

The more often "sexy" is the first and most crucial design element for you, the more your designs start to fold in on themselves until you end up with Stellar Blade, where every character is a bug-eyed freak sitting deep in the uncanny valley and only visually appealing to the most incurable weeb in the universe.

Nowhere is this better showcased than with Veilguard, where people were whining that you couldn't make "attractive" Rooks. And when pressed, they clarified their problem was you had to work really hard to make one and couldn't just tweak a preset.

Except, you could. I did it in record time by taking 1 preset and adjusting like three settings.

And yet people kept insisting and insisting and insisting that it was "impossible." And then, people started spending hours in the character sliders or even modding the game to demonstrate how hard it was and what did they have to show?

That's right: More fucking babyface, because of COURSE it was going to be more babyface. These people have been soaked in one specific kind of beauty standard that those beauty standards have metastasized into an almost comedic hyper-exaggerated version of itself.

If what you took from that was "Make ugly characters or you're a misogynist" then you're an idiot.

It's important to remember that toxic beauty standards aren't just about how closely your face resembles an 8 year old's, they also influence characterization. And mediums where beauty standards continue to go unchallenged also have female characters who are rarely ever characterized as anything beyond what the most misogynistic men in the world find appealing.

The central point of this idea is: Are you willing to sacrifice the character's appearance to better serve their characterization (Older, visible jaw, scars, anything that detracts from what incels find attractive), or will you mold the characterization around their appearance ("She breathes through her skin," everything about Bayonetta, 2B being an emotionless doll).

It's not about avoiding making characters look good, it's about making them look good in the context of their environment. IE: Don't give the fucking swordswoman exposed thighs you fucking dipstick, nobody dresses like that at work.

Accept the objective reality that full-plate looks amazing and stop trying to "fix" it.

Sometimes I wonder what some of you people think an RPG is.

Tanking and Healing isn't obsolete. There are people out there who love doing it and it's their favorite part of an RPG. I say this as someone who has been a tank for a very long time.

The problem is there aren't enough of us, because the role isn't attractive to most of the mouth-breathers, and the DPS have a nasty habit of being extremely abusive toward tanks. In WoW, there's an artificial tank shortage because a lot of tanks straight up refuse to pug for Mythic+ and are instead joining guilds or finding groups on Discord, leaving the DPS players stuck in queues for hours.

And that's the real problem: Tanking and Healing are inconvenient for DPS players.

But the real problem with MMOs is that across the entire spectrum DPS players have been a stress burden on everyone else. FF14 will straight up ban players for "if you pull it you tank it" even though this is something we only ever say when DPS players keep ninja pulling, effectively making it permissable for DPS players to grief, but not for tank players to retaliate.

Three guesses what role Yoshi P mains?

And the problem MMO's have is they bend over backwards to appease DPS players because they're such a large portion of the playerbase, when it would probably be better if Blizzard addressed the Tank shortage by saying "Your abusive behavior is why people don't want to play with you."

This was how old school MMOs handled harassment: If you're enough of a fuckstick, people just won't want to play with you and therefore you don't get to play because most of the game is group focused. And over time that social contract has been worn away so now DPS players feel comfortable abusing anyone and everyone.

And the tank shortage is just a long-festering revival of that old social contract. You need a tank for these dungeons, and you're abusive toward them? That's really stupid, and now you don't have tanks to carry your scrub ass.

The solution was always clean up your behavior.

Increasing the numbers is fine. It makes things that previously weren't dangerous into things that are dangerous. If anything, increasing the numbers can create tactical changes.

Take Mass Effect 3 for instance. On Insanity, one major change is that Grenades ignore the shield gate. The Shield Gate negates excess damage when your shield is broken, meaning there's a few i-frames when your shield is reduced to zero.

With the shield gate, grenades can just be ignored and tanked.

With grenades ignoring them, they will always oneshot you no matter what. What this means is that grenades flush you out of cover. So on Insanity, just taking a fortifiable position isn't enough. You have reposition, rendering yourself open to enemy fire and more damage.

This compounds on everything else in the game. Makes everything else that much harder, and the only change we're currently discussing the grenades ignoring the shield gate.

That is how much tactical difference one minor change can make.

Just increasing damage can do a lot for the difficulty, especially if a boss already has a wealth of mechanics. The difference becomes things you were facetanking before now have to be actually dealt with and if you went from Normal to "Break Me in Half" you probably don't know how to deal with them.

I think when people get on the case of damage scaling, the actual problem is that mechanics that weren't fun on Normal are EVEN MORE not fun on Insanity, and the problem isn't the damage scaling, it's the mechanic itself.

I actually agree with the people who say difficulty settings wouldn't improve Dark Souls, because Souslike games suffer from inherent mechanical failures that are the only reason it's so hard in the first place, particularly their input lag.

There's also the fact that... let's be fucking honest here: A lot of gamers pick difficulty settings the way men buy condoms, and when it's too hard (because "hard" means a different thing to every developer) they lash out because their ego is bruised.

There's nothing libertine about it. "Guilty pleasure" is how people coat their interests in irony for fear of mockery. It's not a real concept, it's just how someone bullshits their way through liking something others think is bad.

Let me show you something.

This is Valeera Sanguinar. She's the WoW version of an ugly ducking. She's a Blood Elf who hangs out in Stormwind and is the errand girl of the Wrynn family. Every time you talk to her, she constantly talks about how "my loyalties are my own."

Her only character trait is "White supremacist's ethnic girlfriend."

Now, because WoW's currents writers have a bug up their ass about Quel'thalas being Horde territory, Valeera is the only blood elf character the writers consistently remember exists. And because Valeera exists, she will always get a prominent spotlight.

This is also why Arator and Alleria are such a focus in recent years.

I think about Valeera when I think about the people who automatically and consistently reach for Ugly Ducklings when designing a character. And when you have a lot of people who do that, and you just let them, now you have Midnight where the identity of the Blood Elves has been sanded away because everyone made Ugly Ducklings.

I've always been a big supporter of things like Race/Class Restrictions in RPGs for the simple fact that the Creativity Paradox is a thing. Restrictions and rules cause people to be more creative, and "anything goes" destroys creativity

I would have less of an issue with Ugly Ducklings if they weren't always consistently the first thing anyone ever thinks of, and ALWAYS to avoid having to consider culture, upbringing and background in their character because those things get in the way of their projected fantasy of being the most special perfect snowflake in the whole wide world just because.

The whole point of working things like culture and class restrictions is for the flavor, and Ugly Ducklings (and all the removal of restrictions in the first place) are all about REMOVING flavor.

And in a way it's true. Israel's not rounding people up by the millions and shoving them into killing factories.

Yet.

Israel's not disposing of the bodies at such a pace the smoke can be seen for miles.

Yet.

But what does Israel do that makes them comparable to the Nazis? Let me count the ways.

Zionism is little more than Lebensraum with a Jewish coat of paint.

The notion of "Greater Israel" which is Israel's plans to annex and colonize the entire Middle East is nearly identical to Hitler's plans for a "Greater Germanic Reich." A large section of the land in the middle east dominated by an apartheid ethnostate where everyone else has to be "removed."

Einstein compared the deluded and deranged fantasizes of Zionist parties to the Nazis as early as the 40's.

Israel sees literally any threat, no matter how small, as an existential one. This is a core tenet of fascism that many holocaust survivors have commented on.

Just as Jewish people have their own term for the horrific and unforgivable genocide inflicted on them, so too do the Palestinians.

IDF Soldiers have straight up told people their job makes them feel like a Nazi.

Quote from Israeli general Yair Golan - "If there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe, particularly in Germany, 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here in Israel among us in the year 2016."

Quote from Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon - "The ideology of "Jewish supremacy", which has become dominant in the Israeli government, resembles Nazi racial theory."

Moshe Feiglin, a right wing Israeli politician, unironically quoted Hitler with regards to his opinions of the Palestinians - "As Hitler, may his name be erased, once said: 'I cannot live in this world if there is one Jew left in it,' we could not live in this land if even one such Islamo-Nazi remains in Gaza, and not before we return to Gaza and turn it into Hebrew Gaza." You literally can't make this shit up, they're out here quoting the bastard.

Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad, compared the settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank to Nazi pogroms - "My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century.

And that's only a small list. The comparisons between Israel and the Nazis most frequently comes from Holocaust survivors, Jewish scholars, and Israel's own military commanders. The people committing this second Holocaust know this is exactly what they're doing.

Comparing Israel to the Nazis and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians to the Holocaust is a neutral statement of fact.

Elves, or really any fantasy race, are often written badly because they're written entirely with their relation to humanity in mind.

Most people don't write elves because they like them and want to explore their culture and the nuances of how they live.

Most people write them because they want to have a long-lived, snobby elite around so their self-insert human character can show them up and beat all their records and humiliate their king and seduce their women.

In that scenario, the elves exist to make the human male character look special.

Whenever you hear someone say "The typical fantasy elves/dwarves are so boring" it's important to remember that the seemingly unwritten rule that humans MUST be the center of the universe is WHY they're boring.

I would love to see a fantasy story that subverts this specifically by making the "snobbery" something that the humans made up because they're insecure and racist. Like an elf rolls her eyes at a human, and that guy just starts flying off the handle at how "haughty" she's being.

But that's a touch on the nose.

One of the reasons I love the blood elves is because they don't exist in orbit around the humans. Since they're part of the Horde, they define themselves around the Horde. They fill a number of niches the Horde didn't have and their culture around survival and cold fury was always so interesting.

Also their architecture?

I don't know who on the Burning Crusade dev team decided "Hey, the elf kingdom? Let's base that off the middle east" but it's SO FUCKING GOOD! Silvermoon is still the most unique city in the history of the fantasy genre. Elves are usually Celtic, but for some reason Blizzard decided "Nah. Ottoman Empire."

This is also why the recent decision by Blizzard to focus all their time and attention on their pwecious Alliance High Elves is so fucking boring, because the High Elves only exist as an exotic companion for humans. Their entire existence orbits around humans the way shit fantasy like Forgotten Realms or Dragon Age does.

I make fun of zoomers when they behave like idiots. Boomers think zoomers are going to be the death of society. Ironically the same attitude the zoomers have about everyone.

When it comes to basically any discourse about "Gen Z" people have this nasty habit of over-pathologizing the things zoomers do, as if there needs to be some kind of societal explanation for why a bunch of 17-22 year olds have the manners and social morays of a dead wasp nailed to a spider.

Remember that "Gen Z Stare" from last year? There were articles and videos trying to explain the complex social web behind why zoomers just stare at people like they're buffering, but then you hear actual zoomers explain what they think it is, and you realize they're trying to look at you like this-

-and fucking it up because they're not a cartoon character and have no idea what their face actually looks like without seeing it in a phone screen.

Listen to them explain it: The think they're giving you deadpan, and the funny part is they don't know they aren't.

And there's no deeper secret behind this: When you are the special combination of a douchebag and an idiot, you think behaving like a sitcom character is cool. You think it makes you look charismatic when you mimic a fictional character, when in reality it makes you look dumb as fuck.

And that's a universal thing among stupid kids. My brother spent most of his teenage years mimicking John McClane to the point that when I first watched Die Hard I thought "Why does he remind me of C******?" before I realized that was what he was doing.

Hell, my sister tried to threaten me by quoting Metal Gear Rising two years ago. Some people never grow out of that.

And making fun of stupid kids is a time-honored human tradition.

But... unlike the Boomers and Zoomers, I don't think we're in any danger from this. Kids being stupid isn't a new thing, it's practically mundane. Kids were throwing tantrums over the Nintendos of yesteryear just like the Ipads of today. We're going to be fine. They'll grow up and cringe at how they behaved. Most people do.

Larian lied. Viconia, Sarevok, Jaheira and Misnc's stories in BG3 are unique to this game and creations of Larian.

Viconia in particular had her actual ending (destroying her enclave after a betrayal and telling Shar to go fuck herself) retconned to not happen just so they could give that exact story to Shadowheart.

Sarevok's canon story after BG2 is that he was dead. He committed suicide. Furthermore after losing his essence he can't pass it on to anyone else.

Jaheira left Faerun never to return, and Minsc died of old age.

None of these endings have ever been contested. Only by the books, where everyone was dead.

Their stated values were lies.

They don't care about abuse victims. They only want to hurt people. It's right there in how they talk. A lot of people don't care about justice, they just want blood.

Have you ever wondered by the American prison system continues to exist despite all evidence showing it only increases the risk of reoffending? It's because Americans are sadists and enjoy the cruelty. They'll weaponize empathetic language about "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent" but the reality is they don't care about the innocent. They don't care that it's only making crime worse. They're happy about it: More people for the meat grinder.

The reason you're having trouble accepting this is because you follow an ideology that says people are inherently good. That all cruelty is the result of capitalism. You're not ideologically prepared to accept the depths of human cruelty in people you would otherwise consider "normal."

A lot of you guys did this when Courtney was crashing out as well, being just so darn confused at her behavior. I, of course, had already gazed into the pitch-black abyss that is Courtney's ashen soul so I had no issue processing the sheer wanton cruelty she exerted on those kids who followed her into her little groomer hidey hole.

In a sense I find that childhood bullying is extremely honest, because it's done purely for the rush of power that committing violence gets you. It's not about trouble at home, or a loss of agency, it's because they were big and you were small and it made them feel good to hurt you.

Think about the kind of bargaining people do in their 20's. Calling themselves "gossipy bitches" like it's a positive thing. They are freely admitting they enjoy hurting people.

That's what people like Brittany and Ant and Sai and Crim are. They enjoy hurting people. It gives them a rush and power they don't have otherwise, and there's no explanation behind it other than pure sadism. If you were to put them in power they would be monsters. And there are many MANY people like them.

People get confused when they ask me what should be done with pedophiles and my answer is "Psychiatric Hospital" and the reason I feel this way is because despite the sarcasm or hyperbole I take no actual joy from hurting people. I didn't even have the nerve or the will to kill the woman who had been raping me for years when the opportunity came.

I own a gun, but I'm all talk. It's for bluffing. If a mugger or assailant called my bluff I wouldn't have it in me to shoot them because hurting people doesn't bring me any joy. I'm not a bad person.

So I prefer solutions that actually solve the problem rather than slake bloodlust I don't have.

Talking about having empathy costs you nothing. Talking about having empathy for good people is the easiest thing in the world. And these people's empathy and leftism leaves their body so fucking fast the instant they have anything close to an excuse that lets them absolutely lose it on someone.

You ever see the film The Green Mile?

There's a guard on the Mile named Percy who enjoys having a power trip over people. He's cruel, sadistic and giggles at the torment he causes.

He's also a cowardly little shit who can't handle the consequences of his own cruelty.

There's a moment in the film where he scares Delacroix, causing him to trip and hit his head on the floor, and laughs about it. He is promptly grabbed and groped by Wild Bill, and is so terrified that he pisses himself.

When he's put in charge of Delacroix's execution, he leaves the sponge dry so that it hurts more. But when Delacroix screams, smokes and eventually catches fire, he can't handle the results of his own cruelty and tries to look away before Paul forces him to watch.

I think about Percy when I think about people who are giddy and eager for blood. You think you are, but the reality is that the moment you get it you're not going to like it because you are not prepared for what it means to take the life of another human being.

"Tourist" in terms of fandom is a No True Scotsman fallacy. It mostly arose in anime fandom as a way to dismiss people who made criticisms of anime that weebs didn't like hearing (mostly regarding the misogyny).

It's really popular among uncritical fans who consume mindlessly and never think about anything as a way to demonize people who make them think about things they don't want to think about.

In more niche fandoms, it's a way to preserve groupthink and demonize people with unpopular opinions.

What people are doing when they call people tourists is exactly what they're doing when gamers say certain video games aren't "real video games." They're not just invalidating an opinion they don't like, they're invalidating the very presence of a person in their space. It's a very distinct form of othering, and excluding them in such a way they don't ever have to be listened to.

As a way of denying the legitimacy of a critic, it's about as aggressive as it gets. If you're someone like me who criticizes the tropes and problematic element of a genre, and the community has collectively decided (based on nothing) that you just hate that genre outside a few aesthetic preferences, they've put the job of discrediting your work on easy mode.

Elves are my favourite fantasy race, and I've gone into EXTREME detail as to why. But all that gets erased because it's easier for some unwashed neckbeard to just say I "have a fixation."

It's why those few anons were surprised I had no interest in Frieren even though it stars an elf: They were operating on information that wasn't true.

A lot of this gatekeeping that fandom gets on, from the "Fake Gamer Girls" of yesteryear to the "Wokeism" and "Tourists" and "Puriteens" of today is largely bad people hearing something they disagree with, and clapping their hands over their years going "LALALALALALALA!"

Refusing to Show Evidence - This is self explanatory.

Emotional Blackmail - If someone responds to requests for proof or doubt with a big emotional spiel about "Believing the Victim" that's a massive red flag. Victim and Accuser are not synonymous, and this kind of emotional blackmail is unnecessary when you have an actual case. This goes double for "But if it's true then it's really bad!" That warrants more scrutiny, not less.

Mockery - Turning the subject into a punching bag casts doubt, because sexual abuse is a serious topic and should not be funny. And if the accuser is treating it as a big joke, it's clear they already had a bug up their ass about the accused before these came out.

Hyperscrutiny - Spending more time scrutinizing the response to the accusations than presenting evidence. Again, if you have proof you don't need to do this.

Association Fallacy - If the proof of accusations is just shit from their social media the accuser is twisting into "self reports." Proof of actual wrongdoing is the only acceptable thing to submit.