Baldurs Gate 3 makes me feel like I'm back in 2009 experiencing Dragon Age Origins for the very first time. All the child like wonder and excitement. The Narative arcs, the companions, the realm of fantasy.
It's been really nice to have such a great hyperfixation.
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"Louis acting like a pimp to Armand" And what is a pimp exactly? Quickly. And, oh so sexual trauma survivors can't engage in kink now without it being all about that? Pet names? They can't be submissive anymore? Consensually? Sexually healthy? Be serious. I'd hardly say there's much power difference between them during all this anyway, except that Louis is freer than Armand and it's been putting a strain on their relationship. Louis wants more from Armand, and less of this 'being his past' for them both, and so helping Armand with this could fix that. It's healthy to want to help your partners get out of a rough patch?
I mean, the whole exchange was very clearly set up as a "I want to help you" after such a great moment of vulnerability Louis feels just how much Armand is desperate for it. Louis called Armand so they could work out a plan together.
And the bit with the umbrella was Louis' way of asking 'are you willing to listen to me?' and Armand said yes by unfolding it. Louis goes on and explains, Armand is allowed to argue against it, but Louis makes his point. And then he gives Armand a way to make his own choice in it too. Armand's already decided 'I want you, more than anything else in the world', but Louis still asks after if he's sure of his choice, and with a name, Arun, that is the one of his fullest agency, running the point home. Honoring the situation Armand calls Louis Maitre - as a way of being like 'I'll do as you've said then'. To make this work he's going to have to give Louis some of the control, yes. But it's the first time such a role is ever established, and it was his choice to do it. So so what if they do it in a very suggestive way? They can't like doing that? I think it's them having fun.
I struggle to find how Louis is being overly domineering here when really he's giving and offering Armand the most agency he's ever had. Same with finding it manipulative. The manipulation was more earlier in the episode I think, when he was stringing him along, giving mixed signals. He's no longer toying with him like that. Louis might be pushing Armand, leading him on to make a decision, but he doesn't mean bad by it.
But back to this pimp thing. I find it frankly offensive that this is where people are going with this. I get it, but to run with it being the case is, on many levels, wrong.
Louis told us episode 1 this was the only sustainable line of work to support his family and keep their standing, at the time. It was never his choice to be doing this either but his blackness allowed no other options. He did what he did so his family could stay in that house and maintain all their same comforts. It gave him privileges most black men didn't have at the time that he wanted to maintain and even have more of. Anyway, it doesn't and had never defined him the way 'being good at running things' had. And in that case he just likes having that kind of control where he can get it, which makes sense.
The world is what placed that kind of role onto him of what he was allowed to be able to run, not himself. And on that he actually treated the sex workers he employed well and respected them enough to give them more opportunity.** He recognizes they don't have much in the way of options either.
Louis employed sex workers, yes, but he didn't subject them to abuse, (like how Armand was)*. He didn't oversee things in a way that would go against their consent (see; episode 1 again)**. Sometimes a job is just a job. And Sex work is work.
Armand's particular past with sexual abuses may strike a particular cord with Louis, given all that, but the very last thing either is thinking is that Louis' pimping Armand out here. This is merely their decision as companions, and had nothing to do with adding another line in a laundry list of selling Armands body out to people at the command of someone else. Armand rescinds some of his control to Louis' wishes, because he wants him, and he trusts him, that's all.
If you aren't allowing Armand that choice, and are doubtful it's fully his, you're putting him right back in the box of being defined by his abuses. Putting him back into that space where he isn't given any agency over what he does. (Which is exactly opposite of what the intent of this scene is for)*.
*: (edit) added for clarity.
**: (strike through) numerous people are saying I'm misremembering these points so disregard it. (Thought he was siding with Bricks, it was the other way around). (Technically one aspect of those opportunities were for getting around the law). I don't have a perfect memory, it happens. Let's not get mad about it. Doesn't change much of the point which is that Louis, now, Louis then, was always considering more about the running things and for stated purposes. So I guess I'd say he may only have respected the SWers enough sometimes for what allowed him to do that, and there are moments he certainly expressed remorse over the fact, but he has a great deal higher respect for Armand that is genuine. It's incomparable. Please read my added notes in the tags, it should address most other concerns.
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im flattening again, and i have now lost count of how many times i’ve done this tbh! i feel like im faster now tho, and i actually dont hate the process of flattening at all anymore so i’ll share the order i do it in! i think flattening is kinda a lot the first or even second time you do it so yea, i’ve done it over 10 times and this is how i do it now☘️
step 1 is items.. i get rid of and/or store all items on the island as the first thing!
the storage sheds and largest amount of home storage are lifesavers! flattening used to be so much worse before 2.0✨
step 2 is rivers and ponds! i get rid of all water..
looks sad but instantly opens up your island! also makes you commit to flattening lol, no going back now👀
step 3 is buildings and bridges/inclines! get rid of them all, send them to the beaches! Its no longer that expensive honestly(used to be 50k to move a villager house im never forgetting it nintendo!)
this takes a while bc you can only move 1 building and remove 1 bridge or incline per day! However after these steps your island is already very empty, and at this stage i would normally pick out an area for my first new build and clear that first🪴
1/2
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i'm gonna be autistic about borderlands for a sec, everyone stay with me okay
i do not understand why the borderlands games try to make moxxi so important to jack, i dont get it, genuinely it doesn't make sense
so, spoilers for BL2, the pre-sequel, tales from the borderlands, and BL3 moxxi's heist- the general info you need is that jack and moxxi canonically dated for a period of time between the first game and TSP, how long this was we arent sure but we can make a guess that at the VERY most it was less then six months of them being together
we can piece this together by the vague timeline of TSP happening about a year or less after the first game
(this is estimated by the fact that Athena said she worked with jack five years ago, meaning TSP happened five years ago by the time the second game takes place and five years is also the amount of time that's passed between the first and the second game so- TSP took place in a very short few month period after the first game)
now we know that they couldn't have been together for long because moxxi was together with BOTH mordecai AND jack during this only a few month period of time between games- this is confirmed in a line of dialogue from BL2 where mordecai says moxxi left him for jack at the end of BL1 but then in TSP moxxi and jack are already broken up, which means they could have only been together for a few months for the timeline of five years to make sense! at the VERY most they were together for like, three months or even just a few weeks. all that matters is that it was not very long
in BL2 there's also a line about jack destroying moxxi's fighting dome because he thought she cheated on him, which is a thing he does AS handsome jack not as the normal dude jack he was when they broke up, the reason for which is still unknown but we know it was Vaguely Messy which is like whatever, sure, that sorta makes sense for him to do but what DOESN'T is the games trying to convince you that jack is in love with her.
okay you still following? cool
in TSP jack is visibly uncomfortable around moxxi and doesn't like working with her, even going as far as asking her to stop calling him 'sugar' a request she just, ignores and continues doing anyway, also during TSP is when jack gets together with nisha, his canon girlfriend he's had through the five years between BL1 and BL2. jack is INSANELY in love with nisha, we see this in the after credits art of both TPS and BL2 same with the way he talks to her/about her in TSP and in outside game material where he literally stutters when talking about her AND in the way he proudly displays her hat in his office in TFTBL alongside his most prized possessions.
he LOVES his woman with his entire heart, he gave her a whole town to prove it!! nisha is his everything outside of hyperion so, tell me, PLEASE why BL3 tried to tell us that jack was still in love with moxxi? because i do not get it at all
what im talking about here is 1. in moxxi's heist timothy is in love with moxxi, this is made canon in TSP where he fumbles through trying to flirt with her and in the heist dlc this is brought up again and timothy has a line about how jack asked moxxi on a date during his reign as handsome jack and sent timothy to go as him because he was busy but like, why would he do that? we know that jack is insane about nisha why would he then?? ask his ex that he visibly hates on a date??? and then 2. they added a fucking painting of her in his office in the casino.
i do not even know where to begin on how much i hate that detail
when you get to jack's office in the casino there are two paintings you find, one is of angel- makes sense, is his daughter who he loves even if he is really bad at it, it's the same as him having the picture of her in his office on helios, he loves his daughter a painting of her being here is in line with everything else!! plus it's really pretty and i like it
then across from that is a painting of moxxi, which makes no fucking sense!!! why isn't it nisha!! it SHOULD be nisha!! the woman he is CURRENTLY TOGETHER WITH AND MADLY IN LOVE WITH????
i have DETESTED this detail since i first played the dlc, as much i love moxxi's heist and credit it as my favorite borderlands dlc the whole 'moxxi is jack's true love' thing makes me so confused?? they dated for MAYBE three months between BL1 and TSP and then he got into a five year long committed relationship that is never properly explored in the games and then the devs have the gall to say they wish they had done more with nisha like!!! good news you still could have!! but you didn't
anyways, i apologize for this, it has just been bothering me for months and i had to get it out and see if anyone else had noticed this and was bothered by it?? because it makes me go a little insane every time i think about it
then again maybe the character writing in BL3 is just bad
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