super high school level ivalice

Astarion: "He is so afraid. So, so afraid. Of everyone, besides you, who he ought to fear most."

Gale: "He thinks he might end the world. But you and I could do far worse."

Karlach: "She thinks she is finally away from the monsters. Poor fool."

Lae'zel: "She came all the way to this world, just to die here."

Shadowheart: "The gods fight over her, but is she truly that special?"

Wyll: "He has his own devil, just as you have me. Aren't you a foul pair?"

Wyll (if he's been turned into a devil): "He is an insult to the name of devils, posing as a monster with that sickly good heart."

and then, later, when you're arguing not to kill them:

Astarion: "You like him for more than his looks, but he will never believe that. Why not make him a pretty corpse?"

Gale: "He would forget his god for you. But you won't for him, of that I know."

Karlach: "She's as good as dead anyway. She won't be saved by the power of love. Not yours."

Lae'zel: "She is only using you. Don't you know that?"

Shadowheart: "She was starting to trust you. The only one she ever has. Pity it's coming to an end."

Fictional small town in the middle of nowhere in real country: par for the course in any genre

Fictional major city in real country: standard fair, but it's usually clearly based on a real city

Fictional suburb of real major city in real country: strange but I can see the application

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who are not punished by the narrative by the end of the story.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who win.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who make evil look fun and cool.

😈 You are allowed to make your fun, cool evil character the protagonist.

😈 You are allowed to glorify, romanticize and eroticize evil characters and villainous acts.

and when it released for ios? holy fuck were they DROWNING in money. when they took a weekend to put the game on sale for a dollar, down from five, a couple months after release, they made as much in that one weekend as they did since its release. it was among the top paid apps for weeks.

with critics, peggle was among some of the top downloadable, mobile, and general best games of all time at the time of its release in 2007 and onwards, and it only shot up in popularity as they made it more accessible to more people. and this was in a time before candy crush.

the thing about simple addictive puzzle games is that they make you feel competent, confident, smart, and cool for being good at them. not everybody can learn how to aim in a shooter or the best strategy in an rpg. but anybodys grandmother or baby brother can play a simple puzzle game, and the nature of these games and the way they make you feel only makes you want to play more and more.

however very very fucking few people who play simple puzzle games that you can master on the toilet would be going to E3 in the early 2010s. remember in 2012 when every ~hardcore gamer~ would screech about ‘fake gamers’ who only play candy crush? thats what peggle was. it was THE crack mobile game from the pre-candycrush era.

no one who was excited about peggle was going to E3. the hundreds of thousands of people who played peggle were not the type of people who would consider going to (or even giving a shit about) E3.

but it sold like hot cakes, and candy crush was churning out content like a madman, and EA owned popcap now, so because the game sold amazingly, and because they wanted to keep cashing in on it, and because corporate drones who controlled the scripts didnt comprehend that their consumerbase isnt one homogeneous mass, they decided to announce peggle 2 at E3 2013.

but not just “oh by the way peggle 2”, no. peggle sold like skyrim, it sold like black ops, clearly they should be saving the best for last, they should announce it like it was the craziest most incredible announcement of the night!

thus:

Minthara Baenre shenanigans

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

In chapter 299, the main character unleashes a special attack (???), and immediately after, her boobs DEFLATE BACK DOWN TO A REASONABLE SIZE

And then later in the match, she has to use another special move

And now she's completely flat-chested