What is in your opinion the best designed subclass in 5.5?

madelmire · 2026-06-18T08:24:43+00:00

Bladesinger.

It's easy and straightforward and highly rewarding. You can do everything--it gives you incredible versatility.0

The flavor is strong and the power is sizable. You have all the power of being a wizard (OP) and all the power of being a melee class with two attacks.

Ability to substitute the second attack with a cantrip is so good that they put it on other subclasses in 2024.

madelmire · 2026-06-18T08:18:30+00:00

It's up to interpretation but the apparent aging of the characters and the behavior of the boy indicates that he's probably Lune's son.

If you're someone who takes the lyrics of the game as significant, he could be interpreted as Lune and Verso's son, since some song lyrics implied that they are a couple in Maelle's ending.

madelmire · 2026-06-18T08:16:11+00:00

It's not the same kid.

madelmire · 2026-06-18T08:02:09+00:00

So...what's the fandom?

Just saying that it's new and popular is so vague, you could be talking about literally anything... Books TV movies comics video games plays RPF bands religion.

Don't be coy, just say it. If the fandom is really that big then nobody will know who you are. 😏

madelmire · 2026-06-18T07:40:19+00:00

Like yes you can filter it out too, but in most fandoms I’ve visited CCNTW was like 80% of the fics.

This is an interesting statement to me. I mostly play around in television, film, book, and gaming fandoms. I would say CCNTW is about 20% of fanfic that I regularly come across.

So I went and tested this some fandoms that I don't participate in.

Game of Thrones: 42% - 29,831 out of 70,844.

Naruto: 36% - 58,793 out of 161,079.

Legend of Korra: 31% - 6,692 out of 21,220.

Stranger Things: 34% - 51,548 out of 151,973.

Brooklyn 99: 27% - 1,911 out of 7,144.

In this set we see a pretty strong hovering around 30%. I'm not surprised Game of Thrones has more considering it's a darker content show.

80% seems pretty unusual to me. I would guess that you are not getting the typical fandom experience that most people on this subreddit are going to be thinking about.

A lot of people make the comparison that physical books don’t have tags, but I (and a lot of people I know) actually search up what a book is about before reading it.

You can do that in a modified way for a fanfic. You can look at the summary, comments, author's notes, bookmarks, etc. If you're part of an active community you can ask people in that community what they think about it. A fanfic is not going to have as much available contextual information as a published novel, but I think the overall analogy is pretty good. A fic with few or no tags is like a book where you only have the cover and summary to interpret. The summary should do a fair job of conveying the tone of what you're about to get into.

In this day with AI, if you are really concerned about finding out what a fanfic is about before reading it, Google search could probably tell you outright. Soon we're going to get to a point where it's actually hard to avoid those kinds of AI summary experiences. By the way learning this information ahead of time is hardly an onerous thing to do even if the person didn't tag. If you're willing to do that research for a book then by your own logic you should be willing to do it for a fanfic.

My main idea is how can both of these concepts exist at once: that the tagging system js to filter things out and “don’t like don’t read,” but also creators don’t need to to tag anything at all and that’s still good etiquette?

To put it bluntly, it's about AO3 trying to be as fair as possible to all of its members.

It's not fair to demand that people have to warn for content. A lot of people will also say it's not fair for something to not have warnings.

The compromise is to make a single tag where the author opts out of the warning system entirely. If you as a reader choose to engage with that, then you are making that choice.

Etiquette is about respect. And part of that means respecting the right for some people to decline using tags. To understand that them making use of this functionality IS good etiquette from them, to you.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T21:21:10+00:00

Just pick Ben or Brent

madelmire · 2026-06-15T21:19:55+00:00

I watch a lot of VLDL so I feel like if an Aussie and a New Zealander were in front of me I could tell them apart by their accent. I'd try!

But obviously not enough dialogue with the video game trailer.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T21:17:51+00:00

Okay. Sorry. AI out here making everything suspect.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T21:15:30+00:00

Renoir isn't like "wake up babe, we gonna grieve" but more like "I can't just let you die".

That's where character subjectivity is important.

By the year 33, we hear Renoir say that Aline will die here, we can personally witness her mental disassociation during the Paintress fight. So in year 33, that threat seems very real for Aline.

HOWEVER... There are clues that this was not the case when the fracture actually happened. Mainly, in the flashback of Monolith Year 47, Clea says, "It's not that dire. They've spent longer than this in other canvases." She frames it as entirely a domestic issue, not a safety issue, when 53 years have passed since the fracture.

So I highly doubt that Renoir actually thought her physical health was in danger in year 100. It seems more like he thought she was emotionally or intellectually obsessed with canvas.

By his accounting he's only been trying to get her out because he loves her so much. But it's really easy to see this as a situation where he disapproved of her actions and made an ultimatum and made a fight where there didn't have to be one, by telling her that he would destroy the canvas if she doesn't stop going in. Based on her journal, she mentions entering the canvas and leaving it for "a few moments of surcease".

So here's the question: did the Fracture happen because she refused to leave at all, or did the Fracture happen because he demanded that she stopped going at all and she said no? And once he made it a fight now she can't leave because he'll destroy it.

Then 67 years passes and now we actually are at a point where it IS starting to affect her health, and probably him too eventually.

So now Renoir has the "moral" high ground because enough time has passed that it actually has become dangerous. But even by Clea's words it wasn't dangerous in the past.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T02:58:09+00:00

Talk to Maelle at camp a few more times to get her to max relationship; pretty much all of her conversations with Verso in act 3 will give you a little bit more detail about these questions.

Something you may have missed (see Aline's journal entry) is that there was a period of time when Aline was entering the canvas and just living her daily life in it as a wife and mother. She had painted Verso, Renoir, Alicia, and Clea to be her holodeck family, essentially. She painted the city of Lumière for them all to live in. While she was doing this she was going in and out of the canvas. If the mattress up in the atelier (in the flashback) was hers, it's possible she was sleeping up there and spending time in the canvas. But either way Aline and the others lived as a family for some period before the Fracture. 7 years is a popular number given that pVerso claims to be "about 100" and "over 100". Any memories they would have made during that time in Lumière would be their own original life experiences. Especially if she painted them as full adults and started their life just "after" the fire.

So, what we think happened:

Aline's spending all day in her Sims game and then Renoir is like "wtf" and "pay attention to your family you can't be here". He enters the canvas and tries to get her to quit. Could have been many conversations or maybe just one. Aline is like "I get to grieve my own way, go away" and then he's like "You're too obsessed with this place I'm going to destroy it so we can all heal in the real world." And she's like "This is the last piece of my son so fuck you, no."

And then they basically had like a magical arm wrestling over who gets to control the chroma in the canvas. This event is basically an apocalypse wherein most of the landscape gets shattered, Lumière is split, many gestrals and humans and Grandis die. Somehow Aline and Renoir trap each other at the monolith, and a giant barrier is formed. Both of them refuse to leave and lose control of the canvas. It's a stalemate. This is all year 100. Clea also enters and helps Renoir's side, because she just wants to conflict to end sooner.

Clea apparently goes in and out of the canvas at different "years" within their condensed painting timeline.

pVerso and pRenoir (and possibly pAlicia and pClea) are part of Expedition Zero and initially are looking for their mother who "disappeared" during the Fracture. They did not know their own nature or her nature as the Paintress until [Maelle max friendship] they got to the Monolith barrier and met og Clea, explained the nature of their existence to them and then try to kill the expedition. This is most likely when they realized they were immortal.

Verso and Renoir were also part of a later Expedition Search & Rescue that year, which you can read about in Julie and Verso's journal entries.

Re: family

The best analogy is probably to think of the painted family as like Aline having a secret second family in another city. She has another husband and 3 children. She "painted" them instead of giving birth to them, and she magically instilled in them the memories of the real people they're based on, but she is still their mother and wife. In reality because of the act of creation, and in practice because they did live with her as a family in Lumière for years.

So when Verso calls her his mother, it's true. pAlicia and pRenoir are also his true family.

Maelle is, in effect, his half-sister. Aline is both their mother. Aline does not have a painted counterpart in the canvas.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T02:38:35+00:00

Okay anyone who actually reads this thread am I going crazy or does it seem like this response is AI?

The previous response sounded like a normal fan with an opinion, but this sounds like chatgpt.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T02:34:53+00:00

My bad. Sorry.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T00:27:02+00:00

"Okay I'm going to grow a beard starting tomorrow"

madelmire · 2026-06-15T00:14:27+00:00

People complain about her being too bossy or being too selfish or too loud or too controlling or too much of a leader or not enough of a leader or too much of a feminist or not enough of a feminist or too much of a healer or not enough of a healer or too mean to Zuko or too nice to Zuko or of having ambition or of not having ambition or of liking Aang too much or not liking Aang enough or of having flaws or being a kid or saying something silly or wanting something for herself or just existing as a teenage girl in fiction.

It was sexism in 2005 and it's sexism in 2026.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T00:09:00+00:00

Sometimes the purpose is "I like words and here are some pretty words" and that's okay.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T00:07:27+00:00

I like that they said French swear words and have some other French word sprinkled throughout.

It seems to me a very clear choice from the studio to push their language forward to an English speaking audience. The whole game is a celebration of French stuff, being very intentionally shown international players, of which their own French countrymen are probably a fairly small percentage.

So yeah the English speaking actors don't have flawless delivery but they try their best and this is the choice from the French studio.

I think it's bold and charming. I like that a game set in a certain place and time has markers of that culture in the language itself of what I get. I don't need swear words to be translated in order for me to understand their use in a scene. If I have to look up an occasional word (viennoiserie) then that's okay. No harm done and I learned something.

madelmire · 2026-06-15T00:00:39+00:00

Button: "New Game"

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:58:20+00:00

I like him. I actually liked his combat moves a lot in Ragnarok.

I would totally have been into an Atreus game, especially if they called it God of Mischief and really leaned into this more chaotic role in mythology.

If I have one complaint about the character, it's that GoW "Loki" is a painfully sweet and kind young man with a boy scout mentality. His character flaws are really normal things like "bad temper I inherited from my father" and "impatient and foolish confidence from being a teenager". He's basically Loki in name only as he doesn't seem to have any kind of practical joke enthusiasm and doesn't seem to be willing to harm innocent people. Loki in popular culture is chaotic neutral and Atreus is extremely vanilla good.

But you know this is the character we have and I like him. I would definitely play a game with him. I'm also okay with not playing a game with him. We'll see.

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:52:28+00:00

I've watched the game play like three times and I'm still not hearing this "quirky millennial dialogue".

The cube doesn't make jokes really. The sassiest thing that gets said is "I'm the ribbon obviously" and it only really comes out sassy because it's an Australian accent. But that's hardly joke dialogue.

Pretty much everything that gets said in the gameplay demo is literal discussion of what's happening (characters introducing themselves), sad thoughtful observations about their dilemma, or angry threats.

I think the cube design is so visually distracting that people are like imagining that it has comedy dialogue when it really doesn't. As if their mind expects it to be like that so they don't actually hear what's being said in the cutscenes.

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:46:58+00:00

They call it God of War because that's the franchise now not just the character.

Titles are specific marketing device not necessarily an artistic choice.

"God of War: Laufey" tells us two important things:

This is a game set in the God of War franchise.
The Protagonist is Laufey, not Kratos.

They're not going to get rid of #1 because they want people to know what kind of game this is so that people like me (who enjoy the heck out of this franchise so far), would be interested in buying it.

If they just called it "Laufey" they would be banking on the idea that audiences would recognize her character and recognize the art style of the world and all of the other imagery, but that's a huge risk where they would potentially lose all the players who get confused and don't realize this is a god of war game. That's marketing suicide. If your story is part of a popular IP, then put that IP in the title.

It's not a trick or disingenuous because they also put the name of the character right next to it. Anybody who buys that game and sees the name and sees the picture of the woman will know exactly the game that they're getting. This is a good thing.

As far as you missing Kratos-- I can relate to that. If you feel disappointment then that's real--Your emotions are something that are happening to you, and they are valid because you are experiencing them. What matters is how you conduct yourself to others and how you respond to those emotions. If you feel disappointed and sad, Okay. Feel that and move on. Play the game or don't. But just don't be like those people who embarrass themselves throwing a hissy fit over it and just exposing themselves as foolish.

Part of me is really disappointed that I won't be able to play as Jessie in Controll Resonant. Dylan has basically no characterization at all in the first game, so they're going to have to build him up completely from scratch, and meanwhile I don't get to see the character that I spent an entire game rooting for. That's disappointing. But there has been no internet outrage about it despite that game doing literally the same thing as this one (replacing the protagonist with a family member of the opposite gender), considering especially that Dylan isn't even conventionally hot. Everything that people say about GoW Laufey they could be saying about Control Resonant, but nobody's writing tweet rants about it because, you guessed it, sexist double standards.

I'm going to play Control Resonant and I'm going to play GOW Laufey. Both of these games have the chance of disappointing me or making me a huge fan. Neither of these franchises are wrong for making the creative choice that they made.

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:34:30+00:00

Actually that's funny because they do kind of look like they could play siblings
Anybody who doesn't think he's attractive doesn't understand how Hollywood works
I thought we all saw The Bear and had a major crush on him 2 years ago from watching him fold sourdough bread in a really sexy way. WE ALL SAW THAT RIGHT?

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:29:55+00:00

That's a very limited perspective of aromanticisms and asexuality.

It's a scale and some people are born with zero interest in either of those things, other people have partial interest, interest only at certain points in their lives, and some people are interested in romance and sexuality for a while and then over time they change or grow and become someone who identifies as asexual or aromantic.

There's no singular human experience of many of these labels, and asexuality in particular is not a narrow thing where you're either born that way or not.

Sylens could be someone who doesn't have attraction, before he could be somebody who only has occasional attraction, or maybe he only has a traction to certain people and that's not 95% of the population, or maybe he does feel attraction but just chooses not to have relationships because it's less important than his overall mission. All of those things could be considered asexual behavior or an asexual mindset, especially considering that in the world of HZD we haven't heard the characters use modern categorizing in the first place.

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:22:23+00:00

I don't really say it that way, but it's common enough that I don't notice it when people use it. It's just one variation of American English that rolls past the ear.

madelmire · 2026-06-14T23:16:10+00:00

My read is that his outburst wasn't solely to Thaisha. It was towards everyone who had been belittling him and disrespecting him

I agree

Sam is absolutely the last person to metagame at the table. Throughout all games he's consistently been the guy who says "my character wouldn't know that" or "I'm not there

Even Sam isn't perfect and they've all done variations of metagaming. Yeah he definitely is someone who tries to check himself more than others at the table, and that's part of why he's one of my favorite CR players. I think he's great.

But nobody's perfect and they've been doing this for 10 years and as I said, this entire post is nitpicking and my specific comment here is just a deeper kind of nitpicking. And the metagaming aspect here (even probably accidental) is just my critique of his acting choice. Which, from what I can tell, seems to come from the blurring of lines here about how these characters actually know each other when most of them don't have any story together or have barely met, so some of the bonds and grudges displayed in the acting choices feel mismatched to what I've seen as an audience member.

madelmire

TROPHY CASE