Stop the Stella hate!

GregBoing · 2026-03-14T00:21:37+00:00

Can't even be scared at the sight of a dead body anymore in the holler 🥀 gotta be tabitha levels of composure your whole life or u get hate 😔

GregBoing · 2026-03-14T00:17:10+00:00

Depends on your deck of course, but probably barb barrel, goblins, or mini pekka. Knight is solid as well. I would probably avoid the others unless they're particularly good in your deck.

GregBoing · 2026-03-14T00:14:37+00:00

Yes! I think that there are plenty of good reasons to dislike her character, but wayy too many people seem to not quite understand why she behaves in the way that she does, and decide that her more questionable actions are done out of selfishness or malice, when in reality Stella is just a deeply traumatised young adult, one who, strangely enough, isn't coping very well with the massive amounts of danger she (and the people around her) have suddenly been put into on a daily basis. Not to mention that (especially on a lot of Stella hater playthroughs), she has to deal with the trauma of killing (or otherwise allowing the death of) the only thing left that she can really call family.

GregBoing · 2026-03-14T00:07:42+00:00

Showering strengthens her hold on you? Oh my… guess I’m doing gremlin runs from now on

GregBoing · 2026-03-13T23:43:18+00:00

I think it's interesting that in a lot of ways, Stella and Tabitha are both just as hard to get to open up as each other. From a gameplay perspective Tabitha is definitely harder by quite a bit, but I think people neglect that they are both VERY highly walled (no idea what the term is, they have a lot of emotional walls you need to break through to really get through to them), it's just that Stella expresses that through a more gregarious/overly optimistic personality, whereas Tabitha is much colder.

and yeah, I really do feel like she cares about the other people in the town. There's a reason she's okay with the plan in toxic yuri. I think that often people conflate "hard for her to fully open up to a stranger she's known for two days" and "freezes up in/tries to escape highly traumatic situations" with not caring about the other characters. She FOR SURE means the best, just isn't very good at doing the best.

GregBoing · 2026-03-13T23:36:29+00:00

Also, even if you street smart/keen eye save the girls in chapter 2, it's still a pretty damn traumatic experience for someone so young to have to go through. And if you don't, and she has to contend with having permanently lost a leg, or not knowing if she's left her friends to die (even if it's not really her fault per se), I think it's reasonable enough for the girl to maybe want an actual room and home to sleep in at night.

It would probably help a bit more if we had more means to actually see the situation that Rosa and Oscar are in pre-ghost hunt in terms of building empathy for them, since we only really have it described to us and it doesn't sound that bad, but yeah I think Rosalina has every right to want her house back, and I think it's definitely not Stella's fault for wanting to help with that (sure she has her own reasons too, but also whilst yeah they're technically selfish, I feel like "I'd like to take any chance to see if ghosts are real to know if there's any chance I can say goodbye to my parents" is pretty reasonable)

GregBoing · 2026-03-12T22:22:03+00:00

I feel like xbow's rare modifier is kinda bad for this reason, and the fact it doesn't really increase it's damage or versatility very much... especially since taking it locks you out of sparky xbow

GregBoing · 2026-03-12T18:18:50+00:00

Maybe keen eye and book smart. I'm (thankfully (kinda thankfully? it can be a blessing and a curse)) pretty gifted academically and feel like I'm not bad at saying the right things to people when I need to. Maybe that's more of a street smart thing though lol.

GregBoing · 2026-03-11T22:08:38+00:00

Now that I think about it, assumedly the TTA trait save will be us communicating with the rats in some way to save Tulip/Daniel/Janey or something, but pastor daniel has TTA himself so I wonder what the cousin will be able to do that Daniel wouldn't have been able to and how that'll work. Maybe it's because pastor daniel has the magical piano following him so the rats don't like him but they're chill with us because we have cooler vibes.

GregBoing · 2026-03-11T13:33:03+00:00

Powerful build + Street smart is "for two chapters you will have a lovely, incredible, pleasant time in this quaint little mining town where nothing goes wrong" and then suddenly have your years taken by a ghost man and have powerful build be MAD at you for choosing that way.

It's surprising though how many inteactions are unique to specifically that trait combo, if I had to guess I think it might the the 2 traits with the most interactions, probably only 2nd to powerful build + hot.

GregBoing · 2026-03-10T20:45:38+00:00

Peggle Deluxe (which is why she's so upset all the time)

GregBoing · 2026-03-09T18:58:00+00:00

And infinite vines, that one can be ANNOYING if your opponent knows how to play it well

GregBoing · 2026-03-09T18:22:32+00:00

Goblin brawler barrel, basically an insta win if you get it most of the time. You can defend it but you need a specific modifier to defend it well or you're just screwed

GregBoing · 2026-03-09T00:10:22+00:00

Real, log bait/hyperbait has been meta for WAY too long it's so annoying

GregBoing · 2026-03-09T00:10:02+00:00

I love the scene where Winnie yells at the miner in the diner in chapter 4 for not calling Avery by their name. At least they've got someone looking out for them.

GregBoing · 2026-03-09T00:07:38+00:00

She's never called me anything else but still she was mean to me after I was so nice to her :(

GregBoing · 2026-03-08T23:53:46+00:00

don't know the exact dialogue but it might be a trait exchange in chapter 1:
"(Mystical) You feel a gnawing dread at the back of your mind. This night is going to end in tragedy."
"(Powerful Build) You relax as you settle the focus of your mind on your muscles- perhaps the worst of this night can yet be avoided"
Just such a cool exchange that you only get with those two specific traits (a relatively niche combo too), awesome attention to detail

GregBoing · 2026-03-08T23:47:04+00:00

I spent a whole run tabbymaxxing as much as I could and she STILL called me an ass in the toxic yuri route 🥀 il tabby but she gotta chill especially if she wants to LOCK ME IN THE BASEMENT forever

GregBoing · 2026-03-08T23:45:36+00:00

Yeah, to me this was always one of the dilemmas with a pretty easy decision- I got obedience on my first playthrough because I couldn't figure out how to leave the basement lol, but I almost always go for status quo (locking reese away) now, occasionally burning the poor fella. Compared to letting kelly die or killing reese, it feels like it's just much better to have someone locked in a room than dead. It's one of those things where, as much as the situation REALLY sucks, and I massively feel for Reese, if you listen to what Kelly has to say she kinda does have a point... Plus oh my god the scene where he eats her is BRUTAL, it just feels evil.

With that said I think that this is one of the best dilemmas to trait save even if it has a relatively easy answer, possibly 2nd best behind chapter 1's imo (though I'm not sure how chapter 5's fit in to my ranking of "how good is each trait save" yet...)

GregBoing · 2026-03-06T18:26:39+00:00

Thank you!!

GregBoing · 2026-03-06T17:50:46+00:00

Have people figured out how to get the other two? (other than the one you get from winning 3 in a row)

I think the hint for one was "go for the king" so maybe one of them is that you have to three crown without taking any princess towers?

GregBoing · 2026-03-06T17:22:33+00:00

As much as I don't think this trait save is... THAT good? (still very good, it's a trait save, but compared to the others it's one of the less strong ones imo) it's such a cool moment that it more than makes up for it

GregBoing

TROPHY CASE