I'm gonna say it, I do think that even the laziest person imaginable should have a roof over their head, food in their stomach, and access to healthcare
a lot of people are reblogging this saying that most "lazy" people are actually just disabled or that the concept of laziness itself is a product of our society's obsession with productivity. this is all true, but it is not my point.
even if someone WAS just lazy and simply didn't want to do anything but lie on the couch and watch tv, they should still have these things. it's irrelevant whether some people aren't actually lazy because everyone, including hypothetical lazy people, should have their basic needs met.
if we have the resources to do it, there is no defense of letting people die because they don't want to work, and much less because they can't.
I don't want lazy people to have basic necessities because they "actually" deserve them because they ARE working or CAN'T work. I want lazy people to have basic necessities because they are people, and we shouldn't leave them to die when we have the resources not to.
What if Cailan had a chat with Alistair before the Battle of Ostagar?
Word count: 1276; Rating: G
Read below or on AO3.
"He wants to talk to me now?" Alistair crossed his arms and lifted his brow in surprise.
The new Warden nodded wordlessly, likely still reeling from their Joining. It had felt a little cruel to perform the Joining so soon before the battle, but darkspawn waited for no one. Last he'd heard there were two hours left before the horde reached Ostagar, in the small hours of the night. When Alistair looked to Duncan, casting about for a less childish way to ask if he had to go, his commander gave him a firm look. So much for sneaking in a quick nap.
With a frustrated sigh, Alistair brushed his hands through his hair and stalked toward the king's tent. He couldn't imagine why the man wanted to speak to him. Had he heard about how Alistair had told the new Warden that Loghain was the one "keeping the lid on the pot"? If so, he wasn't going to apologize—everyone knew it was true. Anora ruled, Loghain strategized, and Cailan did fuck all. Literally.
Or so he'd heard from men deep in their cups.
When his guard announced Alistair and held open the tent flap for him, he ducked inside with a frown. Inside Cailan stood before a tall looking glass while an attendant buffed his golden armor. Seeing Alistair in the reflection, he motioned for the attendant to stop.
"Leave us," he commanded softly, and the elven woman bowed before scurrying off. Cailan smoothed a hand over his hair as he turned to regard Alistair for a moment. "Do you know who I am?"
"Is this a trick question?" Alistair jested. Maybe it wasn't the best time to joke around, but what was he supposed to say?
"I mean," Cailan clarified, "do you know who I am to you?"
For a moment Alistair felt like he was ten years old again in Eamon's study, being told sternly that even though his father was a very important man, he was to get no ideas of grandeur in his head. It would be a "very bad thing" for Ferelden if he got any bright ideas in his head, Eamon had said, as if Alistair even knew what that meant. All he'd really known in that moment was a twinge of anger; if his father was the king, why was he sleeping a hay loft and shoveling horse dung?
As he'd grown up and gotten an education in the monastery he'd understood it better. Ferelden was only recently liberated from Orlais; a war of succession would cripple the already shaky country. He was a prince who would spend his life in service to his country one way or another, but never at its head. That was fine with him. Maybe he wanted a family - maybe he envied the boys who had families to write home to - but he'd been shown his place.
"Does it matter? I'm a Grey Warden. I fight darkspawn."
"I was glad to hear you'd found your place." Cailan moved next to a small writing desk, his fingers trailing over a piece of parchment. "Becoming a Warden was admirable; I'm actually quite jealous."
"Yes, it's all rainbows and sunshine."
Cailan chuckled. "You're funny. Good. I feared you'd hate me."
"I don't think anything of you," Alistair sniffed.
"Fair enough," Cailan reasoned, spreading his hands in a bit of surrender. "When I heard you were in the Warden camp I envisioned us riding into battle, side by side, and how happy that would have made our father. The Theirin blood casting down the darkspawn, just as it should be."
Alistair crossed his arms and shifted his weight uncomfortably, wondering where Cailan was going. He didn't think he was going to like it. Something in Cailan's eyes made his stomach tie itself into knots.
"Of course, that's inadvisable since I have no heir." Cailan paced back to his mirror, preening. "So I've given the order to your Warden-Commander—you will light the beacon in Ishal to signal Loghain's troops to flank the bastard."
Alistair started to object, but Cailan held up a hand that kept him to an undignified splutter.
"If I fall, you will be king. I have decreed it."
"That's absurd," Alistair scoffed. "I refuse."
Again Cailan chuckled. "You can't refuse a royal decree, brother."
"Then un-decree it or whatever," Alistair shot back.
"No."
"I don't know the first thing about running a country." Alistair ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Cailan had lost his mind. "Eamon would be far better suited."
"Eamon will advise you." Cailan spoke to him as if he were discussing the weather, not the fate of a country. "Take Anora as a queen, she's good at it and she isn't hard on the eyes. A bit dull in bed, but there are ways around that. I can recommend some discrete women who are very good at what they do. Once you're comfortable, put her aside and take whatever queen you want."
Alistair's jaw hung open; he'd actually been rendered speechless.
"I won't see the throne fall from Theirin hands, not so soon after we got it back. And the fact that you aren't educated like a noble? It's perfect, really. You aren't hampered by old ideas like Loghain, or even Eamon."
As Cailan paced the tent, Alistair wasn't sure if the king was fully aware of his surroundings, he was so wrapped up in his speech.
"Think of it, brother," Cailan went on. "What if we were to ally with Orlais? The old guard is still too hurt to consider it, but we could be a force. We could push back the Alamarri and the Nevarrans together."
"Because that went so well the last time."
"You're thinking of the occupation. I'm talking about a true alliance—equal footing."
Cailan's eyes were bright with passion when he looked at Alistair, and the Warden wasn't sure how to react or what to say. Politics weren't his thing, but he knew enough to know it would ruffle a lot of feathers, and that was putting it generously. He didn't want to be in a position to even have to consider it. All he was good at was swinging a sword.
"Just listen to Eamon, you'll be fine." Cailan waved his hand dismissively. "In any case, it won't matter. In a few hours we'll be victorious, the darkspawn horde will be crushed, and we'll be celebrating."
"Right." Alistair drew out the word and did his best to keep his skepticism hidden.
"I look forward to getting to know you afterward. I'm sure you have plenty of exciting tales to regale me with."
Since he didn't think he could say "no, thank you," he tried to deflect. "I only just started."
"Well, they don't have to all be conquests of the battlefield." Cailan winked at him and then laughed.
If it was meant to be a joke, it went flying over Alistair's head.
"In any case, I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humor. Duncan's so serious sometimes." Cailan shook his head with a rueful smile. "You're dismissed, brother. I'll kill some darkspawn in your name, and father's."
When Cailan turned away from him, the guard who had ushered Alistair in was at his side, gesturing for him to leave. There was so much more he wanted to say - points he wanted to make - but once again what he wanted didn't matter. Becoming a Warden had been the only choice he had made for himself in almost twenty years of life, yet he was being sidelined from even that.
Would the day ever come when he would be his own man?
so alistair’s rose. alistair’s rose that should be half dead and falling apart because he’s been carrying it around for weeks. i know we all ignore that but like wtf.
the blight canonically prevents things decaying. what if the rose is actually still as fresh as the day he picked it, and will stay that way forever. what if the rose is tainted, just like them.
I started playing video games at the age of 7. My mother's friend gave me her PS1 and all of her games because she needed to focus on her coursework at law school.
I'm a woman, and it was another woman who passed on her passion for video games to me. Not a man. Not a father, not a brother. An aunt.
I will be forever grateful to her, because from that day on, I never stopped playing video games. It has been my greatest passion throughout my entire life.
I had some male gamer friends in primary school. But overall, I always kept my distance from other gamers, because being a girl in gaming often came with suspicion, annoying assumptions, disdain, and insults. Being called a "Sims player" or an "e-girl" and things like that, simply because I happened to be a gamer with a vagina, was exhausting.
That's why, when I see dudes claiming that female gamers never existed, that modern gaming is being ruined by women, and other nonsense like that, it always makes me laugh. Because they assume that, just because we didn't want to be around them, we didn't exist.
The idea that they were such unpleasant people that female gamers simply didn't want to interact with them is completely foreign to them.
So much for an "egirl sims player".
All these games are the ones that really shaped my childhood. I had many more games, but I can't make a complete list because it would be way too long (and I can only upload 30 images anyway).
I bet most gamer dudes didn't even have a collection of games like this when they were kids. A lot of them were stuck in the same World of Warcraft × Call of Duty cycle, and now they act like they're the "real gamers."
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · Why are RPGs with optional romances so rare? · I was browsing the Steam Late Summer Sale and honestly, I didn't buy anythin
I want to talk about:
Sex in video games.
Of course, I understand that the majority of games can't afford to be labeled 18+, or simply don't want to. And that's okay.
But when a game is already labeled as 18+ and still gives me the black screen treatment, I just want to scream.
Yes, I know Fox News did a lot of damage, and fuck them. But also, I'm not American (and I'm very happy about that), so it annoys me even more!
I want sex to be taken more seriously in video games.
BG3 did an amazing job with that (but it's not an American game, so that's why, haha). Same with Cyberpunk (again, not American 😎).
But more than just RPG romance options, I want to see more ambitious games centered around sexual themes. Simply because I'm an adult, I'm a gamer, and I love sex.
And I hate SO MUCH when hypocritical people give the "just go watch porn" answer. Because, fuck you.
Don't make music-themed games, just go listen to music.
Don't make sports games, just go watch a match.
Dumbasses, all of them.
Suddenly, just like with romance, we can't have this thing they're so ashamed of in our games. And they'll give the most idiotic answers, all of them, like an army of bots unable to think for themselves.
Anyway, I had a lot of hope for Subverse, years and years ago. Unfortunately, the game didn't really deliver. But it's still a nice game and... they tried. I can at least give them that. They tried to make a cocktail game centered around sex. Which was already more ambitious than 99.9999% of sexual-themed games ever made.
I keep checking Steam or Nutaku to see if a sex-centered game is going to be more than visual novel #5,112,984,25 that looks exactly like all the others.
Sometimes, an indie developer tries to make something different.
It's always very low-budget (not their fault), very janky, buggy, 100% waifu-oriented, with very basic gameplay and writing.
*sigh*
I know that a Mass Effect/BG3-level game in terms of budget and ambition is probably just a dream. Though, dreaming is free.
But... please. For Spirit's sake, it's 2026. Can we move on from the puritanical, dumb American era once and for all and finally get games for adult gamers that aren't afraid of the human body?
Can we?
I wish GTA had more than cringe prostitute car sex scenes. These games are supposed to be mature and explicit, after all.
It will always be so interesting to me how violence, pure violence, and horror, are completely acceptable in games.
Killing things is the most basic thing we do in video games, even in games made for kids (well, of course, it's less graphic in those cases).
But romance, nudity, and sex in my 18+ video game?
Oh no, no, no! How dare you?
Killing is perfectly sane and normal, but the human body? Love and sex? Fucking hell, absolutely not!
Hypocrites, hypocrites, and Americans.
(well, not all Americans, some are okay. Some.)
I'm not asking for romances and sex to be everywhere.
I just wish that gamers and developers would stop treating certain human experiences as if they were unworthy of being explored in video games.
I was browsing the Steam Late Summer Sale and honestly, I didn't buy anything (the first reason being: STOP FUCKING BUY GAMES THAT YOU WON'T PLAY IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS), but also because I didn't find anything that I really wanted to play.
When I checked my cart with a few interesting games, I said to myself: "I'm in the middle of my 500th Mass Effect playthrough. I plan to replay DAO, DA2, Inquisition, BG3, and all the Divinity games over the next few months. I also have many long games I haven't finished yet. I'm not going to play these games anytime soon."
But the thing is, I've always loved real RPGs. And when I say RPG, I mean ROLE-PLAYING GAMES. And I already have played them all.
I believe that 99% of the games sold as RPGs (including JRPGs) aren't actually RPGs. Just being able to control a character or assign them some stat points isn't enough to call a game an RPG. I should be able to do what the name says: role-play.
A game where I can only sit through the story and watch passively, then only play when it's about moving the character and fighting things, has nothing to do with role-playing. I have to follow a story and the choices of a character I have no say in. Where is the role-play exactly?
At this point, Tekken is also a RPG. There's a story, and I fight things. Apparently that's enough to call a game a RPG, judging by the endless list of non-RPG games that are labeled as RPGs.
Then there are games that actually try to be RPGs, where the game gives me some options to participate in the story and make a few choices, maybe even create my own character and give them some soul.
I'd say these are more like lazy RPGs. There's an attempt, but it's way too shallow for me to consider them actual RPGs.
Some people call Elden Ring an RPG. I'm still waiting to find the moment where I actually get to role-play my character in the story. Yeah, I can make one choice. That's... something, I guess.
Finally, there are actual RPGs. Games where I can create my character, MINE, give them a soul, customize them (so, not The Witcher).
And role-play my character throughout the story. I don't only participate when it's about smashing things. I actually have a say in the story, in conversations, maybe even in the plot and some character arcs.
Now, we're talking.
That's an RPG.
This is, I believe, the peak gaming experience.
Because some argue that what matters most in a video game is the gameplay. Others would say it's the story, or the visuals.
I'd say it's the cocktail.
Gameplay, story, visuals, writing, music, game design, gameplay features, quest design, and so on.
It's the whole fucking cocktail, where I can shake it up and there's so much to feed me.
Of course, it's hard as fuck. Making a full-ass RPG with everything it needs costs a ton of money, resources, time, and, more importantly, talent and ambition.
Talent and ambition.
Well, talent isn't easy to find, but ambition? I call most "attempt RPGs" lazy because I can easily tell that the ambition left the room a long time ago.
"Let's make light RPG #46,181,578 that looks exactly like all the other ones."
At some point, I can barely tell the difference between one and another. Just like the shitload of roguelites or all the base-building survival games that keep popping up on Steam like friggin' popcorn.
Some are cool though, that's not my complaint. Of course, there are always some that are good and fun.
But my issue is that the true RPG experience is so rare.
Games like the ones BioWare used to make, and now Larian etc... They are rare. Throughout the entire history of gaming, you can easily count them and reach the end of the list because there just aren't that many games that offer the full cocktail.
I want to live the experience. Some movie-games are great, and many gameplay-focused games are great (I mean, I consider S4 League to have the best gameplay ever made, and nothing has challenged it since).
But they'll never stick in my gamer head and heart the way RPGs like Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, or Baldur's Gate 3 do. I will never be as obsessed, as devoted, or as crazy about them as I am about those games. Because those games gave me the WHOLE EXPERIENCE.
They're not perfect. Hell, I keep ranting about Mass Effect day and night, and Baldur's Gate 3 is far, far from being as flawless as many people claim it is. But that's because I love those games. I care.
Every game has flaws and things that could have been done better, but I'm not going to write about them, or even think much about them, because... I don't really care. I played them, enjoyed them, and then I moved on to the next game. It was nice. I don't regret spending my money. But that's about it.
Living the RPG experience is peak gaming.
Because video games are the apotheosis of art. They're the combination of writing, cinema, and music in a simulated environment. It's being inside the book, the movie, the song. It's living it.
Reading, watching, or listening passively is far less engaging (though it's still enjoyable) than actively living the experience. That's why gaming has become such a huge medium nowadays.
And that's why I think RPGs are the best genre this medium has to offer.
The real RPG.
Now, going back to the title of this post, I think that real RPGs with optional romances are even rarer. We could count them on our fingers. They're that rare.
When I say optional romances, I mean more than just kissing and banging like in Fable or some visual novel/J-"RPG" games.
I mean discovering a character, building a bond with them, and maybe even writing part of the story together. That's why BioWare was so unique.
Because, unlike traditional Western RPGs like Bethesda's games, where you do create your own character and have a say in the story, romances are either completely nonexistent or extremely, extremely basic. Fable levels of basic.
BioWare created a formula, a whole cocktail, that is now being copied by younger studios like Larian, CDPR, etc. They understood, before everyone else, how impactful a good companion could be for the player and, therefore, for the overall gaming experience. And being able to build a real bond with that character, rather than simply marrying or sleeping with them, is incredibly powerful.
Why is romance seen as something so trivial, so useless, almost shameful, by the majority of game developers?
Romance in the gaming industry had its own genre: Dating Sim. Basically, visual novels with romance options, sometimes featuring some very basic gameplay, and maybe a few extra features if the studio had the ambition and the budget.
But they have always been extremely niche, dominated by a male audience (with their female-oriented counterparts being even more niche), and were kind of treated as a joke by the industry. At least until recently. Now they seem to be entering a new golden age, which is cool.
But somehow, romance is still perceived as something "girly", which is idiotic considering that the vast majority of visual novel players have always been men. And even if it were something mostly enjoyed by women... so what? As soon as something is perceived as girly, it's automatically ridiculed and considered stupid or useless.
he gaming industry still has some fucking stupid stereotypes about romance. Making great games doesn't magically make developers immune to them.
Adding romance options to an RPG is like adding cheese to your sandwich. It's not going to save it if it sucks. But it's definitely going to make it even tastier if the overall game is already good.
So why is it still so, so, so rare? Why do so many new RPGs still come without the cheese?
Hell, why can't we have romance options in non-RPG games too? They don't have to be as deep or as complex as romancing Astarion, but I wish they were a more common feature in video games.
Something that isn't regarded as useless, stupid, or shameful.
But as something that can make an already great game even better.
A game with cheese.
My answer:
The thing is, I don't really know the reason why.
Some people might answer: because it's expensive.
But many features are expensive, and they're still present in games. Things like crafting, housing, collecting, building, etc. So why not romances too?
And not every RPG needs to have BG3-level romance complexity. Mass Effect romances are not complex at all! They're basically just a bunch of dialogue options, some cutscenes, and that's it.
Same thing with Cyberpunk. The romance options are very optional and don't have a huge impact on the game. They don't take much time; it's just a few dialogues, some cutscenes, and that's it.
But they still work. People still love Liara, Garrus, or Judy.
So I don't really buy the "it's expensive" answer. Because, honestly, I think that's only part of the explanation. If a game can have an entire building/housing system, it can have a few romance options.
For me, the reason is that developers, and many players too, are still influenced by stupid stereotypes.
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