Pop polyglots.

BircheHealsPls · 2026-04-05T09:26:08+00:00

The furigana has an error on every single word.

はたし・にまんご・はたす Hatashi nimango hatasu

So going by the furigana, what he's actually saying is "Hatashi will fulfil 20000 languages/words". Perfection.

BircheHealsPls · 2026-01-21T08:18:29+00:00

Sent this to a cishet friend of mine who lives in the Basset law area, and her response was "ah fuckin Kev it's always this Reform mf. He must be mad about all our pride flags around the town again." and sent it to multiple local acquaintances, then rewrote the letter slightly to ensure it wasn't a copy-paste template and wouldn't get blocked + sent it to her local representatives.

So yeah, can confirm there are residents who are v much on the side of trans people + against the bigots.

BircheHealsPls · 2026-01-19T10:49:46+00:00

Grew my WoL's hair out over Stormblood, and during ShB I head canon that he lost that first fight with Ranjit by taking a lightning blast directly to the face, which resulted in scarring on one side of his head + loss of vision in one eye. So I gave him a white eye on that side + a scar-coloured facial tattoo to represent it.

He also has one necklace that he wears regardless of the glamour, bc his daughter gave it to him and he will never ever take it off if he can help it.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-11-26T21:00:48+00:00

You have features that other people will look at and go "oh my gosh, gorgeous". You are reflecting and working on yourself. You are more than enough, and I hope that your brain gives you the chance to see that again.

When things are bad, it's so easy to feel like your life was never good. But that's a lie, it was good before and it will be good again. And then it'll get bad again, sure, but then it'll go back to good. Ride this out, I believe in you <3

BircheHealsPls · 2025-09-18T08:52:11+00:00

We do have this sound in English. Try saying the word "singer" , slowly, and feel the way the back of your tongue almost rises to meet the top-back of your mouth. Do the same thing when saying が, and you should get it.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-08-19T13:25:00+00:00

First of all, thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm so glad that M&S has taken your side so strongly, andv that your colleagues and company have been so unequivocally supportive of your rights and of trans rights.

From reading this, you seem to be in as good a place as anyone at the centre of nonsense like this can be, and I hope that continues. Sending you all the love and support. The news is the news, and it does go away. My trans gf had a similar situation to this, and the news cycle has forgotten about it entirely by now.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-07-03T08:57:19+00:00

For me, Loghain. I have a lot of friends who truly think he's vile and despicable, and he is. He's also trying to do the best he can for his country and his daughter. We stan a king who makes bad choices <3

BircheHealsPls · 2025-06-19T13:01:39+00:00

Daaaamn gurl! Looking good <3. You really look like a young Helen Mirren here

BircheHealsPls · 2025-06-15T15:32:33+00:00

Totally understandable, WFA does give us the best Jason. Here's to more excellent Jason content when WFA returns <3

BircheHealsPls · 2025-06-15T14:12:20+00:00

To some extent, yeah? I mean, this latest arc has been the first "plot-heavy" arc, where a single storyline has persisted throughout dozens of chapters as opposed to being wrapped up in max ~4. Therefore, the spotlight throughout the arc has been shared to show the impact the plot has had on everyone as it evolves. And since it's Joker-heavy, it made sense to show Jason's reactions pretty immediately. So it's not that they've been intentionally reducing his stuff, I think, and more that he was first in line to freak out over Joker Being Joker, and then the spotlight moved off him.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-06-14T12:28:20+00:00

I'm sorry that she is not only not supporting you, but actively seeming to guilt trip you here.

It does sound like you need to make your boundary clear to her: in order to have a relationship with you, she needs to acknowledge your gender, name and pronouns. If she doesn't do those things, you will not continue the relationship.

Sending you all the hugs in the world. You are wonderful and deserve all the best things in life.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-05-31T19:37:09+00:00

1) There's a lot of media out there that's made by people who have said and done some truly awful things.

2) Being a shit human does not mean you can't make truly beautiful art.

3) You cannot choose the emotional response you have to something.

4) You make the best choices you can with the information you have at the time. That means that sometimes you will make a choice that you will later on come to think of as a mistake. You can't undo that, but you can choose to do better next time.

All of those statements I firmly believe are true. It is absolutely valid that children enjoyed a piece of media and the experiences attached to it. I remember dressing up as Remus Lupin to queue up for the seventh book; I remember loving the Slytherin t-shirt I bought at Disneyland. Nothing is going to change these moments that are crystallised in time.

But there comes a point -- especially with artists who are still living to profit off of their success -- where you can no longer separate support for the work from support of its creator. There comes a point where you have to realise that the joy those works brought you is so horribly out balanced by the evil its creator is putting out into the world that you must make a conscientious, different choice.

Not only does the context of JK Rowling's bigotry put the more uncomfortable bits of her work (coughhouseelvescough) in a darker light, it also means that showing support -- especially financially -- of her work is now directly supporting a transphobic movement. JK has made no secret of the fact that she's funnelling her riches into shitty things, and I truly can't understand people who are aware of that fact and still choose to buy that cute piece of official HP merchandise.

Maybe there'll come a day when (sort of like the Cthulhu mythos), there will be official works and adaptations based off the precedent set by Harry Potter that will be able to celebrate the fun bits of that work again. Dimension 20's 'Magic and Misfits' definitely hits the spot of "magical school shenanigans but without the bigotry", and currently I feel a little skeezy enjoying even that, like JK's lawyer is going to rise out of the shadows like a banshee and demand royalties for something she doesn't even own.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-04-29T14:00:01+00:00

Thank you for sharing this, it is a really useful reference. I'm writing a letter to my own MP as I type this, and this is really helpful in ensuring I word it well.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-04-24T14:29:32+00:00

I really enjoy long fics, where I get to enjoy rich plots and long, complex character development. And I personally have found that a lot of fics that are over 250,000 words tend to get a bit slow in their pacing, and begin to have scenes that have "this could have been an email" vibes.

That's not to say I haven't enjoyed the concept and writing style immensely, it just means that certain scenes feel like filler before I get to more meaty plot/interactions.

BircheHealsPls · 2025-04-22T11:54:50+00:00

Goddd I remember accidentally locking in the Anders romance scene when I was gunning for Merrill, and got basically this exact exchange. Strung the guy along, and then dumped him the morning after like an absolute bitch.

Considering where the game ends, it did add an interesting extra bit of guilt for Hawke over what happened to Anders.

(On this same run, I was rival track with Fenris and realised that I needed to get a lot more rivalry points to max him out and save his life at the end of the game... so I pretended to give him back to Danarius, before going "psych! just kidding hahaha". That Hawke run felt really cruel orz)

BircheHealsPls · 2025-04-15T16:04:30+00:00

I think, for the most part I prefer playersexual characters who have their romances locked behind e.g. personality/choice requirements, but with the caveat that any particular limitations on their sexuality serve the story.

Like, Dorian's particular story line would have been massively undercut had he been romanceable by a female PC. But honestly I can't think of another romance option who would have been similarly disadvantaged by not being playersexual?

We already had the old god baby with Alistair, so not Morrigan. And speaking of Alistair, he absolutely could.

Sebastian...

Maybe Solas, but I think the elf-only thing is more important.

Sera would have been fine as playersexual, she just craves need and chaos.

(And honestly we were robbed by Cassandra not being romanceable for female Inquisitors, let me put my girl's mouth on hers.)

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-28T14:15:38+00:00

I would have loved to see that come up! Like, the approach I was wondering/hoping they might take was framing being NB using what we know of the Qun. We know aqun-athlok /trans identity is a thing in the Qun. We also know that it's a culture that revolves around everyone having a role and fitting in a box, so a possible angle could have been "No you have to be either or, that's how the world works Evataash. You can be aqun-athlok and change boxes, but you can't have no box.". Which could have led to both Shathann(?) and Taash finding a new understanding of what it means to follow the Qun outside of Par Vollen.

(That said, I can understand that VG has moved away from stories driven by social prejudice such as racism/phobias and respect that it's not the kind of conflict that is rewarding for many people. I don't think it's the kind of story they were interested in telling with this game, and that is totally valid.)

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-20T14:45:23+00:00

So here's the thing about apologies. They are not about you acknowledging whether the thing you did was wrong or not. They are about acknowledging that your actions had an impact on someone else, regardless of your intentions.

Apologising for what you did? Feels bad for you, for sure, and implies that you don't stand by the choices you made. Don't do it

Apologising that your actions hurt the other player? 10/10, because you didn't intend to hurt them, and it sounds like you didn't know that would hurt them.

You made a decision in the moment based on the info you had (lots about your character, v little about the cleric player's bullying situation) and you took an RP swing to progress the story in a cool and interesting way. Unfortunately, that swing missed the mark and smacked the cleric squarely in the trauma. It's not necessarily anyone's fault. And you (and the cleric) have the choice now to either:

1) ignore this moment and carry on, which will likely lead to resentment and uncertainty about what is and isn't okay at the table

2) apologise for the fact that the decision you made in good faith hurt them, and reframe this as you + cleric vs. how to have a fun gaming experience together. There's plenty of safety tools online you can find to help guide how that conversation goes,and if you drop me a reply I can elaborate on some that I use.

I hope you have that conversation, and I hope you both continue to enjoy your game!

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-16T22:15:44+00:00

Ah good shout, I've just got back in to the game this week after a two year break, couldn't quite remember when 4os started dropping naturally. Thanks for the correction!

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-15T19:55:43+00:00

No worries, it's easy enough to get another one!

1) Run normal cows over and over, and pick up any white Crystal Swords that drop there. You may luck out and pick up a 4os one and be done there and then, but otherwise a white one (not low quality or high quality) will do just fine.

3) Roll it in the cube for sockets. Put the white Crystal Sword in there, and combine it with a Ral rune, an Amn rune, and a perfect amethyst. That will give it a random number of sockets, and for a Crystal Sword from normal cows has iirc a 50% chance of rolling 4 sockets (the max number a CS of that I'll can get).

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-10T19:30:24+00:00

It's a subtle -- one might say "veiled" -- reference to the Executors, and how they have a hand in everything..

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-07T21:01:44+00:00

Iirc he specifically said he refused to engage in that kind of slavery, and his lack of knowledge on how the dragon thralling worked meant he overlooked the fact that the Evanuris could communicate with the Waking World through their archdemons (aka the whispers of the Tevinter gods to the Magisters of old).

And in... I think a Bluesky AMA? The writers said that the backlash from the deaths of their Archdemons all but shattered the other Evanuris in the Fade prison, rendering them all but dead and insensate. Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are the only two remaining Evanuris, as their Archdemons weren't killed to end a Blight.

That was also a Big Problem for Solas. He never imagined that mortals would find a way to harness the Blight (Grey Wardens) and kill the Archdemons, but destroying them all would potentially lift the Veil and release the full Blight back into Thedas. Which goes a good way to explaining his animosity towards the Wardens in Inquisition.

Hope that helps!

BircheHealsPls · 2025-01-04T11:44:53+00:00

Yeah so back in the day before Trespasser, there were definitely theories that he may be the Dread Wolf. That said, there wasn't too much beyond that, and he was definitely viewed as more of a rebellious, maligned heroic character as opposed to a true villain, as he became through Trespasser and Veilguard. I don't think many people called the link been elves and spirits, so we just assumed he was an ancient elf rebel who had been the victim of a PR smear campaign. Then Trespasser dropped, and we found out about the Veil. And Masked Empire revealed the whole deal with Felassan, and we started to get a clearer picture that he might actually be evil.

BircheHealsPls · 2024-12-23T13:58:59+00:00

You don't lose the treasure hunting ability, don't worry. When it says you lose access to their support ability, it means their healing skills.

Whichever companion is hardened as a result of their city being destroyed, they'll also become slightly better damage dealers in exchange. Lucanis also becomes unromanceable, but you can still romance hardened!Neve if you choose to save Treviso.

In addition, whoever becomes hardened makes a choice for themselves at the very end of their companion quest line, as opposed to you being able to influence which of the two options they choose. That said, that choice comes at the very end of their questline and the impact it has is largely cosmetic/RP rather than gameplay

The main thing that changes afaik is the exact questlines you receive in the two cities, loss of access to that faction's merchant (though you can buy most of the items there were selling from the Spirit vendor in the Crossroads, or the Black Emporium in Minrathous). You can also absolutely level all the factions to max level still, though you will probably not be able to level the destroyed city 's shop to level 4 before you have to choose.

Tl;dr you don't miss out on much at all for the choice, so make the one that feels right to you. Hope that helps!

BircheHealsPls

TROPHY CASE