#*loud exaggerated coughing* Borderlands 3.......

[princeinsomniavoid]

I finished my replay of Tina's Wonderlands yesterday [Minus all the post game stuff and some side quests to finish up], and good GOD I forgot how much of a DEATHGRIP the Dragon Lord has on me.

I mean minus the fact that the game is literally designed to make you project onto the Fatemaker, because it's basically your own dnd character, the dialog towards the DL that some of the voice options have is really,,,, *vine boom raised eyebrow semi-opaque gay flag*

And also just like... ALL of the Dragon Lord's dialog during the final gauntlet up to his boss fight is literally so???? He's literally pleading with you to have even a SHRED of self awareness and autonomy over your own role in the story, laments over the COUNTLESS Fatemakers that have come before you and who will come after, how everytime He's struck down, the game resets when Tina finds new players to use his story for, and how he has to look at each new Fatemaker over and over and over again and knowing that just like him they're all bound to this vicious cycle of make believe.

Only unlike him they don't have the penance of self-awareness, instead going through the motions, sticking to the script of Hero vs Villain. God can you even imagine? Staring your own death in the face over and over again? Knowing that even after your death it'll all just start again at the whims of a God ignorant to your suffering?

Don't get me wrong, I love Tina, she's like a sister to me in a way. But hoooly shit.

The fact that you as the newest Fatemaker in the countless iterations of this game, choose to break the cycle? Out of every one of them who reach the end and treat the Dragon Lord as just another enemy. When you step up with the sword drawn- and he fucking BARES HIS NECK AT YOU by the way, like full on pulls his armor down so that you can have an easier go at ending his life- you decide to stay your hand, and use the Sword of Souls for something other than bloodshed, probably for the first time.

Anyway uh.... game good, it sucks that literally no one played it- especially not fan-artists/fic-writers. Did you know that theres literally only 2 Dragon Lord/Fatemaker fics on AO3??? Literal crime.

Huh when did that get he- *A comically timed piano falls from the sky killing me instantly*