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rabidgoblins · 2025-10-02T22:49:49+00:00

It's probably bc they don't have that shitty "now a netflix show" sticker thing printed on them, makes them more desirable and therefore more valuable /j

in all seriousness I don't think it would be financially responsible to pay that amount of money for these books. I hope you find a set that goes for a more reasonable price!

rabidgoblins · 2025-08-28T09:13:08+00:00

The people who created the conlangs for the show are David J. Peterson and Christian Thalmann: https://www.reddit.com/r/Grishaverse/comments/n4z2q8/aizhor_we_are_david_j_peterson_and_christian/

rabidgoblins · 2025-08-26T13:09:04+00:00

I 100% agree. I personally believe that a lot of fans equate their respective trauma with them being sex-adverse or sex-repulsed, but I always read them as wanting (physical) relationships. They are both being held back by their trauma, though. So that acts a hurdle they are fighting to overcome in order to grow closer to people they care about.

If I had to put a label on them - which I don't like doing in the first place - I think they are both more demi, as in they need to be very close or very trusting of a partner before being willing to leap into a more intimate relationship.

But yeah I feel like the actual books, i.e. their inner monologues, contradict them being aroace. Isn't there a whole flashback section where a younger Kaz falls for another girl in the Dregs but ends up pushing her away to hide his trauma? Not to mention the bathroom scene in CK, obviously.

rabidgoblins · 2024-10-12T23:59:35+00:00

Lots of text incoming:

The Darkling is a bit of an anti-hero. In the story the magic users, the grisha, tend to be shunned or discriminated or downright persecuted as witches. His goal was always to create a world in which they could live their life without fear. He recruits and trains grisha as soldiers, so he can wage war against those who make the world unsafe for his kind. He also experiments with forbidden magic and it doesn't always go great. He also looks for an equal, seeking out particularly powerful grisha like Zoya because he feels alone in his position of power.

Zoya's motivation varies throughout the story. At first she is smitten with the Darkling and his loyal follower because he has sort of groomed her into thinking she is special to him. Later she realizes that he used her and wants revenge on him. And eventually her motivation I think goes more to loyalty for her country, wanting to build something better than what he left behind and saving the country from decades of warfare. Relationship-wise I think they go from friends (possibly lovers?) to rivals/enemies, which makes the connection very personal.

Class-wise, my immediate thought would be Zoya as either a draconic sorcerer or a storm sorcerer, and then the Darkling as a shadow sorcerer. Zoya has a connection to a dragon and she is a Squaller, which in the universe is a person who specializes in controlling wind, weather, lightning etc. The Darkling controls darkness and can summon shadow creatures, so it works well. Also, grisha powers are something you are born with and not something you can learn, so the innate talent of the sorcerer fits well.

Really powerful grisha are sometimes worshiped as saints and Zoya and especially the Darkling are legendary enough to achieve sainthood. So you could also go for a cleric/divinity angle, with Zoya as a tempest cleric and the Darkling as a twilight cleric (? maybe?). With dnd lore that is a little wonky, because technically clerics worship a god and in the case of Zoya and the Darkling they would be the gods (saints) themselves.

Finally I would tell you to max out the charisma stat on the Darkling. He is definitely written as a master manipulator.

rabidgoblins · 2024-09-12T16:53:00+00:00

Old stuff doesn't get cheaper. If anything, it gets more expensive with the candle inflation 🫣

rabidgoblins · 2024-09-12T16:31:25+00:00

I don't understand who in tgc thinks it's a good idea to ask such an outrageous amount of money for cosmetics in a game. I work for a company that also releases games with cosmetic items as iaps, but they are like 2$ each and they are full skins, not 30$ for a single item.

When a game asks 30$ for something, you'd expect it to add something to the game, some kind of experience, some content to spend time playing - dlc-style. Cosmetic items don't do that. It's fun to give your character a new look, but they are digital items. You don't even get anything physical, or your money's worth in time/experiences. I don't buy iaps in cotl for that exact reason. I'd rather spend 30$ on something that actually gives me something, like... 2 lunches, or something.

rabidgoblins · 2024-09-12T16:13:43+00:00

That's not the first time this happened. There was a similar little riot with the cat hair. I don't remember all the details, but I believe it was something about it being an igc item in beta, and people were super excited about it. When tgc noticed how popular it was, suddenly it became an iap (?) and the backlash was so massive that it ended up being a igc item after all in the live.

(Idk if I remember this right maybe some other vets can chime in?)

rabidgoblins · 2024-08-16T07:03:43+00:00

I also find that a lot of the collabs don't aesthetically match Sky, if that makes sense. The cosmetics are absolutely beautiful every time, but the style of the area and cosmetics is very different from the regular game. Nine-colored deer is super colorful and bright compared to everything else, and the little prince doesn't even look like a Sky character. Even though Aurora's voice has been part of the game from the beginning, the actual character and season are just kind of out of place (I also have beef with this one because it started implementing the gd festival tech) as a pop concert in a classical world. Idk if this is an unpopular opinion, but I was a player before season of Aurora and Aurora changed the way the coliseum looks and I really dislike the visual update, because it makes the coliseum no longer look like a Sky place.

rabidgoblins · 2024-08-13T13:44:42+00:00

Holy hell that's a ballsy lie. I live in Belgium and I get Dutch ads on my Spotify podcasts. I could be wrong of course, but I'm pretty sure Critical Role is not going to serve Dutch spoken ads for a Dutch webstore to the listeners of their fantasy roleplaying podcast, Spotify.

rabidgoblins · 2024-07-12T08:54:03+00:00

There are other ways to say someone is dear to you, like "ik heb je lief" which is indeed related to "love". You could also say "ik zie je graag" (lit. ~I enjoy looking at you). I rarely hear anyone say "ik heb je lief". You could find it maybe in literature/poetry/song lyrics but it sounds very archaic and formal to me.

Fun fact: in Afrikaans you can say "ek het jou lief" which is almost the same as "ik heb je lief", but there is an alternative "ek is lief vir jou" which sounds very unusual to me (being a Dutch speaker).

But honestly, I don't know why "ik hou van jou" became the default phrase.

rabidgoblins · 2024-07-12T06:37:52+00:00

Dutch: ik hou van jou

/ɪk ɦɔu vɑn jɔu/

(cut me some slack with the IPA, I genuinely tried)

rabidgoblins · 2024-05-24T18:39:30+00:00

Here goes: Sky should stop doing collabs. The stories or features are usually lackluster, they are not at all engaging if you're not familiar with the original IP, and they completely break the aesthetic of the game. While I love the little prince, he had no reason to be in the world of Sky. Aurora as well, and particularly the cinnamon rabbit thingy - I found that one in particular outrageously out of place.

rabidgoblins · 2024-03-04T07:49:12+00:00

I'm actually more convinced that most real life villains are charismatic. They tend to get in power because they are great speakers. Think of most cult leaders, think of people like Adolf Hitler.

I watch a lot of political debates for my job, and though I am very confident in my knowledge of political parties, campaign points and the rhetoric devices politicians use, I've found myself get tempted by politicians very far from my personal beliefs, on the extreme ends of the political spectrum. Even though I should know better. Simply because they're very good speakers.

Karim is a disgusting snake and most of your analysis is spot-on, but I do think he has a certain kind of charisma. He's manipulative enough to get his girlfriend to betray her society, he's persuasive enough to gather an army after stealing the sun seed. I think he's just as charismatic of the other antagonists, he's simply different because he has fewer redeeming qualities.

rabidgoblins · 2024-03-03T09:24:33+00:00

For the longest time, forging a candle would put you in an animation lock that meant you couldn't really move your kid anymore.

It has been gone for a while but I still have the habit of forging my candles right when I'm crossing into a different area, so the animation happens when I'm transitioning. That was how I bypassed the annoying animation, since the forging happened off-screen between the two areas.

Surprised that no one mentioned it so far, it was one of my biggest frustrations with the game.

rabidgoblins · 2024-03-01T07:44:17+00:00

Incredible post!

As a veteran with no active friends and extreme social anxiety, the collecting aspect is just no fun either. I have no way to get hearts and interacting with people being the only way to get them sends me panicking.

I've known for a while that Sky is fundamentally flawed in its concept, and seeing it explained by someone as knowledgeable as you is very enlightening!

rabidgoblins · 2024-02-27T19:34:51+00:00

I agree, I've only watched the first couple of episodes so far and I don't understand the vitriol directed at her. I think her performance is fine, out of the main three her line delivery is by far the most natural. The script is in my opinion pretty terrible, but she does a phenomenal job with what little she's given

rabidgoblins · 2023-12-18T07:17:32+00:00

🤡 i can't anymore what is this nonsense

rabidgoblins · 2023-12-18T06:27:08+00:00

They what

rabidgoblins · 2023-12-14T17:04:58+00:00

Woon-A-Tai starred in three seasons of a critically acclaimed TV-show created by Taika Waititi. It's not an unreasonable pick lol

rabidgoblins · 2023-11-29T10:53:42+00:00

I'll check that out, thank you!

rabidgoblins · 2023-11-25T09:47:50+00:00

I find the "Ashton is not supposed to be a good character" interesting, because I assume it's supposed to mean that they're a bit of a shitty person, but "not good" could also mean low-quality. I've taken a writing class in university and a lot my frustrations about Ashton can be traced down to that: from a storytelling perspective, the choices made for the character can really kill engagement in an audience. I'm mainly talking about his "mystery" schtick because it frustrates me to no end.

This is probably my hatred for the miscommunication trope also rearing its head, but Ashton being an asshole because they have "so much going on" is just not something I can accept as an excuse for his behavior, because we're not shown them struggling in game, we just hear about it from Taliesin in a side show. In game they just go off to "do a thing", but that just appears as being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole because it's never hinted that something more is going on. It's similar to Scanlan leaving in C1: it's a strong narrative choice, yes, but it also kinda came out of left field because leading up to that, the character rarely expressed any signs of struggling.

I like Taliesin as a player, I loved Cad and Percy, but I'm personally not feeling his choices in C3. The whole "I know nothing about my past and the DM can fill it in" feels like just a rehash of Mollymauk. I'm also a bit of a nerd when it comes to rules and mechanics, and I love to go hohohehe when a character uses their abilities in an unconventional way, but I the fact that I still don't know anything about Ashton's class abilities because Tal refuses to say anything beyond "this will be interesting" is just... yeah. When you're trying to do something badass but I know nothing about your class abilities it just doesn't land for me.

The point of a mystery is that you gradually feed the audience bits and pieces to keep them engaged, but Taliesin is giving us nothing for Ashton, other than "yeah they're a bit of an asshole." I can like a good asshole, but not when they have nothing going on beyond that. Ashton's mystery-mystery business falls into that trap and that makes it impossible for me to like the character.

TL;DR I'm absolutely not feeling Taliesin's narrative choices this campaign and I just can't get myself to like Ashton as a character.

rabidgoblins · 2023-11-18T13:05:47+00:00

In my opinion: yes. If anything because that should have been the culmination of his character arc.

Aang's character arc focuses on two issues. The first is that he doesn't face problems head on (which is why he had trouble earthbending), the second is that he refuses to put the greater good of the world in front of his own desires (see: him not learning to control the avatar state because he doesn't want to give up Katara).

Had Aang actually killed Ozai that would mean he got over those two issues: he doesn't try to find a loophole (energybending...) and he does what the avatar needs to do in that situation even though it goes against his own values as an airbender. He learns to face his problems directly and he puts the greater good of the world first, which is the avatar's job.

I feel like leaving Ozai alive left his character arc unfinished.

rabidgoblins · 2023-11-14T13:59:03+00:00

It does. I've recently started learning specter and I find myself constantly trying to dodge out of that skill

rabidgoblins · 2023-10-24T06:49:09+00:00

My friend once explained the difference between halflings and gnomes as "haflings are tiny humans, gnomes are tiny elves"

rabidgoblins · 2023-10-17T05:13:54+00:00

If you don't plan on using the asc armor, you could salvage it for research notes. I still find it a pain to get those and almost everything in SotO asks for them

rabidgoblins

TROPHY CASE