#And because I want to get the good ending that comes from doing sidequests

[utilitycaster]

I love the current discourse because a "woman with a crippling traumatic pasts, gets help of her party to heal from it and spends the rest of her life living a simple quiet life with her lesbian partner" is not the problem, and it has been done before in CR, it's Yasha

If you think about it, Laudna and Yasha's characters mirror each other in more ways than just a monochromatic palette, but one wound up being more interesting and earned her epilogue better and it's not the one that was present for all 100+ episodes of her respective campaign

Yeah; this has come up a TON but like. I have watched/listened to all or part of the following actual play series:

Critical Role (almost everything barring a few one shots, mostly from C1-era)

TAZ (afaik everything except a couple of the most recent episodes)

NADDPod (everything)

RQG (only main campaign and main-campaign canon sidequests, not one-shots, but I listened to all of that)

Relics and Rarities (all)

D20 (most)

Desiquest (first 2 episodes)

Into the Motherlands (first 2 seasons)

Burnt Cookbook Party (haven't listened the last few months for life reasons but intend to catch up, was otherwise caught up)

WBN (first 3 arcs, intend to catch up)

I also am a regular listener to NADDPod and Critical Role's talkback shows. I've been a regular DM since 2020 and had DM-ed one shots prior; I've been playing D&D and occasional other TTRPGs since 2016. I've read a number of articles on the topics of actual play as a form and TTRPGs and discuss it with friends. I'm saying all of this to make it clear: people can tell themselves that I'm stupid and uninformed and don't know what I'm talking about, and I think we all know they're just mad I disagree with them and am a better and more convincing writer to boot, and they're entitled losers who want me to write posts that make them feel good solely through what I'd call bullying but really it's more like if someone tried to shove me in a locker and accidentally gave themselves a concussion running headfirst into a locker, and I filmed it.

ANYWAY getting to the point yeah Yasha tells a story that hits the same core beats while also being a superior character on every level. She also had a difficult and abusive childhood (starting from a younger age) and experienced great loss and injustice, and also committed great harm. In her grief she was taken advantage of by sinister forces that sought to use and control her, and while she was able to escape with assistance, the bindings followed her. She continued to experience loss, and despite fighting back succumbed to her past controllers until her friends - not some stranger, but the people she'd met, coupled with her own abilities - broke her free, and she was able to meaningfully and rewardingly end her servitude. She messily worked through her feelings and in the process found love, and, having been forced to be a weapon and killer, made a choice to set that aside and find her own identity.

Any claim that Laudna's story manages to touch in a meaningful way on the same notes, when she never takes charge of her own destiny and simply drifts and flops about through various paths of least resistance until settling back in a rut, is a desperate and sad lie told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I say this as someone who thinks that Critical Role campaign 2 is the best longform campaign of D&D I've seen, and that Candela Obscura Circle of Needle and Thread, Moonward, and EXU Calamity are all some of the best shortform campaigns of actual play: there is nothing I can think of that Campaign 3 does, across the board, that something else in actual play (ie, in this improvised format) doesn't do in a far superior fashion. That's really it. It's mediocre at best. None of these were the casts' strongest character nor relationship and it's certainly Matt's weakest plotting. If you liked it, that's great, but yeah there's nothing special about it.

[n1ghteeea]

what r ur thoughts on each of the ghostbusters’ families? from what we see or hear about them

Ohhh boy do I have stuff to SAY!!!!

Egon: so first of all, I do NOT consider the woman we see in later seasons his mother. She could not have possibly been like this based on how Egon turned out. The only canon info we have about his parents from s1-2 is that once in college Egon got an A- and they didn’t speak to him for a week. So. A family of perfectionist scientists, valuing results over process, probably emotionally closed off, and who, though not intentionally, still ended up making him feel like he’s only of worth if he’s useful and perfect.

So, I’m not their huge fan, and I doubt they maintain a close relationship.

Also I dislike uncle Cyrus greatly, sorry to all uncle Cyrus fans, he evokes unspeakable anger in me, I want to hit him with hammers.

I must say though that Egon having multiple ancestors doing the most random sidequests ever is hilarious. Like wdym there’s a guy who summoned a dragon. Wdym there’s a guy who caught a witch.

The dragon is Egon’s son btw and he’s great.

Overall: 5/10, not a horrible family but definitely had a bad effect on him.

Ray: THIS GUY WON THE FAMILY LOTTERY!! Amazing, sweet aunt Lois who cares about him and his friends and can admit when she’s in the wrong. Cool cousin Sam who operates a whole farm by herself and is also super nice. A (dead) uncle who gave him a castle and a duke title! Fun (also dead) uncle who left his shop for him to inherit!! Like come on, dude won this life.

10/10, no notes.

Peter: ohhhh. Ohhhhhh. This poor man. Dead mom whom he clearly loved, but who passed too soon, deadbeat FUCKING dad whom Peter still cares about but never lets him see it because he is still hurt over this man choosing his conman life over his son continuously when he was young OUGHHH their dynamic is so unbearable to watch, I swear to god. Jim Venkman when I catch u.

Overall: 3/10 this dude is literally a walking catalogue of family issues.

Winston: this one depends on what you consider canon! In s2 he says he has no family, later he mentions he had a grandma who (from what I can guess) was nice. In s4 we suddenly see his dad who has a very weird conflict with Winston regarding his job that gets resolved with a snap bc writing SUCKS, and in EGB he mentions his sister.

Overall: 6/10 mostly bc we don’t really know anything about his family but he doesn’t seem traumatised by them. Points.

Janine: we only really see her family once and they seem very regular and nice, she seems to have a good relationship with them, so no notes here.

Overall: 7/10 points for being a good fam, but no points for not having personalities.

[okavara]

So I'm writing a fic, and i was just wondering: what actually stops people from visiting Dr. kel in the array?

Because like they should definitely send people to give mental evaluations, being absolutely alone can do serious damage to a humans mental health!

So I feel like Dr. Bao or someone just sends Dr. Ena or Dr. Max to check on him every 3 months.

The company/thing (yellow text) Dr.Bao works for is evil and we’re like 90% sure that staying in the Dunkeltaler forest is supposed to be mental torture for the canaries sent there.

Why mentally evaluate something meant to die as a warning system? If anything letting the entities play through their course on the canary’s mind is what you’d want. Insanity might be something else they’re measuring for when the canary ultimately dies. They definitely let Dr.Dee go off the deep end and didn’t give a rats ass about him as he sunk deep into alcoholism :(

Kel isn’t coming home, either.

https://x.com/MoniqueMonsters/status/1868339819077607796

Also iirc his contract was only meant to be a couple months long- they don’t expect him to survive more than a few weeks

https://youtu.be/9Pd3qYrrF-A?si=_v3ScMZLD1U7UM6x

(The vitals in the video are meant to be of Dr.Dee, video was made before his model. But they also speak of Kel here as well.)

So, truly, becoming a canary is one of the most tragic things that can happen to a person ;-;

Sorry if I bursted your bubble at all ;(

If Kel wants human interaction, he can listen to the radio or attempt to attach messages to his hashcode report forms, which get ignored. I think he’d figure that out pretty easily after no response from the 3rd or 4th attempt at communication.

Or weird entity time-travel or universe hopping bullshit can happen thanks to the weird supernatural everything going down in Dunkeltaler 👁️👁️ the world is your oyster. Isekai the Kels to each other using the green wisp if it fks up or the ASO in the void event.

I made Kel from day 40 meet cryptid Kel that way, and that was fun as hell as a little sidequest thought experiment to write! Especially with the truth he’s gonna be forced to face in chapter 4. Your ask may have inspired me to keep chipping away at it :)

I’ve been working on CotV slowly for a while, and I’m currently satisfied where it is because the main body of what I wanted to get out of my system/say with that fic is done! Soo I have slowed down my work on it by quite a bit. I am still working on it though! The other half/remaining third of it will also still be good :) I hope!!! ^-^

And of course, you can have Ena decide to get uppity and come in guns blazing (literally, she’s their weapons specialist) to check on her weird bug eating friend if you want still! In fanfic you can make anything happen! At the end of the day if you want mental evaluation to be the reason someone visits Dr.Kel, you can still absolutely do that. Nothing is stopping you!

[uchidachi]

What if…. What if the Veil is not so much something bad that needs to be destroyed, but is something important that Solas (mis)used in the past, and now it needs to be carefully taken down, repaired, and returned to its original state?

I’m struggling to think of a non-cloth metaphor, because “veil” is already a cloth metaphor, but I’m a sewist so this is what you get:

What if your family had an heirloom embroidered gown, with an intricate design panel, and it was really really important (for a Purpose) so it was preserved and handed down for years, until one family member (who thought they had a very good reason) had the embroidery panel removed and framed and hung on the wall.

And although the alteration might have been done skillfully, there was a consequence to this action — the dress is now unwearable, and maybe also the frame is damaging the wall? Idk the metaphor isn’t perfect. So many generations later someone decides that they want to reassemble the original dress (for the Purpose), but they lack the ability to un-frame the panel, so they hire some dude to do it (Corypheus) and this person totally ruins the whole thing. There’s a huge gash in the fabric, and many smaller threads are constantly coming undone.

(Pause for editorial: I think this may have happened because Solas thought Corypheus would be unwilling or unable to directly damage the Veil, only whatever was keeping it “up”. He was wrong.)

So the family pins the remains of the panel in place (sealing the breach & tears, the “measuring the veil” sidequests) and takes the time to hire a professional restorer to make it stable enough to remove from the frame.

Then, right as they are freeing it from the frame, the cat (rook) knocks over their ladder and they put a big hole in the wall. Now you’ve got a half-removed, still-damaged panel, AND a hole in the wall to deal with. Plus the original wall damage caused by hanging it up!

Do you see where I’m going with this?? So there’s a number of ways this could end now.

Maybe the wall will be fixed, the drill holes spackled, the embroidery panel restored pristinely, and the gown good as new. The cat is scolded for getting underfoot, but everything is returned to its natural place, and they all lived happily ever after…. HIGHLY UNLIKELY

More like: The family tries to repair both the panel and the wall, but both will bear scars of the attempts to part them. The restorer will do their best, but the gown will never be what it once was. And it was never going to be perfectly restored. Once the panel was removed, the dress was irrevocably altered. But now, with embroidery reattached, it may still be worn, and serve its Purpose.

And maybe you will commission a new, second embroidery to hang on the wall. One that was made specifically to hide the scars.

That’s my theory, at least.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2025-03-24

*poking spring with a stick* come on already

Listening: Bandcamp had a nice rundown of Math Rock this past week which includes an excerpt from Don Caballero's album What Burns Never Returns, who specifically do not like being called Math Rock. They're also probably why American Football by American Football has a house on it.

This isn't becoming a Bandcamp link for some reason. The album art looks like this: EDIT fixed now leaving this here though.

They are very Math Rock. Fortunately Prog-rock is another name you can call yourself.

Reading: More Banks, I'll have more to report once I'm done.

Learning many things about Windows, against my will.

Watching: Attended the British Council Five Films for Freedom film festival which featured a drag show, a very cool play about Why Being Nonbinary Is Fuckass, and the aforementioned five short films.

You can watch all five films here:

In particular I want to point out We'll Go Down In History, a docu about TRUK, an all-trans football club out of the UK.

Absolutely incredible thing.

The other is If I Make it to the Morning which is a Chinese language film about the horrible anxiety of your every action being scrutinized when people think you might be a bit fruity with it.

It's so great. Every sound is amplified and ever movement is so deliberate and agonizing. Sometimes the reason you feel like everyone is watching you is because they are! And if you bring it up they'll all get mad at you!

Making: Some more household prints, some more sewing. Bits and pieces. A lot of photography at the Drag Show because I had decided to bring my camera along with and everyone was cool with it. I will sort through those but I really do need to cull it because a lot of them are dogshit and I don't want to dump that much junk into my storage server. I wish I had a faster lens! f/4 is good but it gets rought when you're in a darkened theater. Someday I will have a 24-70 2.8. Someday.

Playing: Slowly, slowly making my way towards the end of Cyberpunk. Oscillating between clearing out the Dogtown story and following up on sidequests in the City. Finished up the Kerry storyline mostly. There's a few Cyberpunk missions that really stand out in terms of offering you a diversity of choices, and I can feel something good coming near the end of the Dogtown missions. It feels like the early early Malestrom mission where you're flooded with opposing points of view and conflicting interests.

Ante 8 of Balatro White Stake. Haven't touched it since, I'll get back in as soon as I crash on the couch for a while probably. 9" PC tablet is a great formfactor for card games.

Tools and Equipment: I made some Mac and Cheese with Spinach and Green Beans Thing earlier in the week and it did totally fuck me on the first day because I remain lactose intolerant even when most of the lactose has been removed from the milk and the cheese. Here is a pitch for lactase pills. They're pretty cheap and if you have garden variety lactose intolerance they can handle most common milk products. I got a bottle for about CZK 10/pill and they work great.

[blackjackkent]

OK. Rakha is running dangerously low on sidequests; the final showdowns in the Foundry and with Gortash loom large. But we do still have a bit of side stuff to get through, so next up on our list is... [drumroll]

...the Hag Support Group.

Lol.

Realistically, there's no reason Rakha HAS to do this, and she'll probably be a lot happier if she doesn't. But *I* want her to smack Ethel in the face, and really that's the important thing.

This is definitely a case of Rakha's curiosity getting the better of her, because she only knows about this because of a flyer that she saw on a billboard when she first entered the Lower City.

Rakha actually IS in some ways the target audience for this flyer. She offered her eye to Ethel in return for a tadpole removal that didn't materialize, and even this many months later, she is still pretty angry about it, and until recently would have gladly welcomed the opportunity for bloody vengeance.

That was back when the Dark Urge still plagued her thoughts, though. Her mind is a little clearer now, and I think perhaps on some level she does wonder about the idea of meeting other survivors.

Wyll encourages it, I think. It'd be good for her, he says. People to talk to about what happened. Maybe people she can help in turn.

Barren's Coop, Rakha discovers, is a rather squat and sad-looking little house in Heapside Strand, but shows no sign of recent activity.

(A/N: This little hiccup in the quest is such an odd choice honestly. The only purpose, as near as I can tell, of Barren's Coop is to be a building that holds a set of documents that tell you to go somewhere else. AND the door is locked. So my attempt to play this entirely based on what Rakha knows without metagaming does get a little bit stymied here, since realistically the most likely thing for her to do here is knock, receive no answer, shrug, and move on with her life.

However, I suppose we can say that Rakha's introduction to morals and common behavior has been a little piecemeal, to put it mildly, and she has come to regard locks as more momentary inconveniences than something actually intended to keep people out.)

Inside the building are a bunch more copies of the flyer and not much else - besides this notice that Jaheira picks up off a rather battered desk:

(A/N: Once again - the game doesn't REALLY give us a compelling reason to investigate this further, but that's okay. Rakha has her own compelling reasons for interest.)

This seems briefly like the end of the trail - except that Rakha, on the way out, discovers another grubby sheet of paper sticking out from under a pile of flyers.

Once again taking advantage of Wyll's prodigious ability to ask directions (something definitely no one else in the party is adept at), Rakha follows this trail down to Old Garlow's, which is on the other side of the central wall, near the Counting House.

(A/N: Another reason this little diversion is annoying. :P Getting to Old Garlow's requires going all the way north, and then all the way south again. )

Old Garlow's is even squatter, and even sadder-looking, and ALSO has a locked door. At least until Rakha gets done with it.

And hey, this place actually has people talking about hags in it, and an ominous giggling noise happening from upstairs, so that seems promising.

[butterflydm]

The news about Tanchico does confirm that when Rafe said a closer adaptation of TSR, he really meant a close adaptation, because that was definitely the easiest storyline to shift to another city that would appear again later on if he wanted to combine storylines (Perrin's plotline could only happen in the Two Rivers, and Rand's plotline can only happen in the Aiel Waste).

So I think a reread of TSR is in my future, lol, so I can refresh myself on the story beats.

Tanchico means Egeanin, I would guess. Otherwise you'd move their story closer to everyone else's action. So the show likely plans to keep the pressure on re: the Seanchan.

It does make going to White Tower feel even less likely (and I already had the likelihood of it pretty low) because that would be a LOT of ping-ponging for Elayne and Nynaeve, to go from the west coast to the middle of the continent and then back over to the west coast in the space of something like two or three episodes purely dedicated to traveling around. At least for Egwene, the White Tower is kinda 'on the way' to the Waste. The White Tower is definitely NOT on the way to Tanchico from Falme, lol.

The biggest question that I have is how long we'll get before the characters split up into their various plotlines and if any of them come back together again at the end of the season. From what else Rafe said at NYCC, it sounds like they are not dipping very far into TFoH at all, because he talked about focusing on a single book this season. There will definitely be things from books 1-3 in there, because we know Elaida, etc. have been cast and need some kind of introduction, but the main focus will be book 4.

A pretty good chunk of TSR does take place before anyone goes to the Waste, so I wonder how much of that we'll get. I do expect us to get the official final breakup of Rand & Egwene, though I doubt it will be comedic like it is in the books. I feel like they shouldn't rush right into Rand & Elayne afterwards (which is a major reason that I do hope they're planning to reunite Elayne & Nynaeve with Rand's side of the storyline at the end of the season, because that gives some space in between the breakup and then Rand and Elayne having serious emotions about each other), and Rand & Aviendha are built for a slow-burn. Plus I would expect Lan and Nynaeve to get some time together (their only time together in s2 was Nynaeve's vision in the third archway) before they split up (for the rest of the season?).

If Doman is the one who carries Elayne & Nynaeve to Tanchico, then that's the set-up for him to meet Egeanin there. Then Elayne and Nynaeve could potentially take a Sea Folk raker at the end of the season to reunite with Rand's half of the cast? But that really depends on how quickly Rand's side of the story is moving.

I definitely don't remember all the plot beats of Nynaeve & Elayne's side of TSR, so that reread is in order, yeah. But their TFoH plotline of having Nynaeve and Elayne just wandering the continent for most of s4 because Nynaeve can't remember the word 'Salidar' would feel like such a random & pointless sidequest especially since Rand & Elayne and Nynaeve & Lan still need a lot more weight in their romances at this point (and I'm saying that as someone who likes a lot of their circus arc in TFoH).

Even with knowing that they'll be following TSR more closely, I am definitely expecting a lot of surprises in s3. They did a really good job in putting in some elements in this season that I was not expecting but that I really loved (having Mat be the one to give Rand the wound in his side was so galaxy-brained of them; and having Elayne be the one to heal it really tied together her original meeting with Rand into the different way that the show has introduced her).

[torchickentacos]

Pokemon AG Watchthrough- Ep005- In The Knicker of Time!

We open with Ash fighting a random guy with a beedrill in the woods, standard dull opening tbh but that's okay, because this episode has a rather interesting, eclectic COTD to make up for the lack of. well. everything else 💖 (guys I promise that I adore AG).

A zigzagoon runs across the path after the opening battle and Max apparently has mad beef with zigzagoon??? Why is he frowning lmao.

Anyways, Max is all "Yo, I never knew zigzagoon could get that big!" Note that this zigzagoon was running on all fours in a serpentine pattern on the ground between bushes and such. They're like oh cool it's just a big zigzagoon.

Its pokedex picture..... Baby.,,,,,

So anyways, the big zigzagoon approaches the smaller zigzagoons, and in the words of Digoenes, "Behold, a man".

Anyways, zigzagoon dude takes off the fursuit in favor of his regular clothes, and May assumes that the zigzagoon disguised itself as a human. I love all two of her braincells. Also her limited sense of personal space.

Any PL fans here??? This is basically that scene from Diabolical Box where Luke tries to tear Inspector Chemley's face off, assuming it's a mask.

Anyways, Nicholai introduces himself and his questionable philosophies, such as "We thrive on communing with nature while exposing our knees", quote. We have met the first green-haired freak of AG!

May enters her first real battle with another trainer, which goes badly ❤️

May, quote: "Knickerbockers. Naturalist. What is wrong with that guy?" I love how petulant she is in early AG, I'd forgotten how snarky she can get. She's so easygoing by the later seasons (which isn't a bad thing! I do really enjoy her characterization, but the snark is kinda funny ikdjfhdjkgjkhf).

Anyways, Nicholai made fun of Norman for raising such a shitty battler so Max is on a whole-ass revenge sidequest and is trailing him in the woods. Nicholai wants to catch a zigzagoon to beat Norman with (which. good luck bud), so Max gathers fruit to attract all the zigzagoon to the other side of the woods where Nicholai can't catch them. Good job, buddy. To be fair, this is exactly the kind of plan that I would expect a, like, seven year old to devise.

Ash and co. catch up and disperse the zigzagoon. Zigzagoons are all still pissed off. This guy is now back.

May was right. What the fuck is this dude's deal ljfnkdgjkdf. Pied piper if it was weirder.

His costume is actually kind of terrifying with the hood back??? Zigzagoon's neck is, like, snapped, and his head is coming out of its tongue??????????

Anyways, he catches his zigzagoon and makes more remarks about shorts and then Team Rocket Team Rockets all over the place, resulting in the explosion counter going up to 11.5.

POV: Me digging for things to talk about in early ag episodes.

😀👍❓

He can fly. Explosion counter is now at 12.5 as TR blasts off.

Nicholai and Ash battle, episode ends. Overall? Not a terrible episode! Still rather dull (it is early AG, after all), but there's enough chaos throughout to keep me from doing something else and giving up on my watchthrough for another ten months. So that's a win. That gets it like a seven I think.

[klysanderelias]

So I've been playing through Shadowrun Hong Kong with the audio commentary enabled (side note, what a pain in the ass to try and balance the audio out with this, AND no subtitles?) and it's really interesting-

Partially because I'm slowly remembering how this story goes and it's interesting to jump back in with a lot of those memories still hazy, because I kind of know what's going on? But not enough to be like 'oh right, THIS guy'.

But also because like, the audio commentary is a nice addition and something I wish more games did, I know the other big games I can remember that had it were half-life 2 and left 4 dead, both valve, and I remember it being kind of underwhelming, and the commentary for Hong Kong so far is.. also underwhelming 😅

Mostly because commentary in general is kind of dogshit - it's often a group of people in a room just kind of off-the-cuff talking, and it's often just shouting out the great work the art designer did etc etc, but also I think that a lot of people are looking for trivia or tidbits rather than deep dives. It's fun to hear that they based the portrait of Kindly Cheng off the landlady from Kung-fu Hustle, but I'd much rather hear more about why they chose certain plot elements, or character choices, etc. The best so far has been about Kindly Cheng, because she's a major character and so to a certain extent it'd be hard for them NOT to talk about writing her, but sometimes I'll open a commentary track and it's like 'oh yeah we were originally going to have this harbor completely dry but we ended up actually expanding it out from our original reference' or 'it's great to have a small team making a text-based rpg because it's really simple to add little connecting events and dialogue rather than having to get like five people in a room between animation, voice acting, writing, etc, it takes us like twenty minutes and we're done'

Which is, y'know, I like hearing about the process, but I'm really champing at the bit to hear like, they've talked a very little bit about the overall plot and why they chose the Yama Kings, how it takes aspects from the tabletop rpg, and I'm just grabbing my screen like 'talk more! say more about this!'

Partially because I'm coming into this without full knowledge of everything so I'm like, hey, am I sure that Hong Kong is good? Because the plot is about how there's a place that's genuinely cursed because of qi and I'm wondering like, how is this going to be portrayed? Am I going to be happy with the implications of that?

And the answer is, y'know, probably not, because Shadowrun is fantasy enough that ancient spirits and magic flow are real observable actors in the world, and so sometimes, uh, y'know, slums exist because the vibes are bad?

I don't think it's going to be that shallow, of course, I'm putting my faith in the game, but it's definitely hard not to look at the game thus far and go 'hmm, these maybe aren't the themes I was hoping for'

Do really like all the characters so far - Duncan sucks, because he's SUCH a cop, but also they don't shy away from like, yeah, he's overly aggressive, and he's got anger issues, and he's willing to hurt people for convenience, and they're not posing it as like 'well but that's what cops HAVE to do'. And Is0bel and Gobbet are great, really happy with their characters so far. Also going around talking to people in Hoei and again, lots of natural-feeling diversity without it being uncomfortable - sometimes you got a rigger-doctor in a wheelchair with a bunch of amputations, no one's talking shit about him, he's genuinely the most friendly and social guy in the place and everyone wants to party with him! /I/ want to party with him!

It's just like, y'know, the thing I really love about this team is that they're so committed to having a cast of characters with basically no white guys. Just the most anti-gamergate shit. No there isn't a sex sidequest, stop asking, be fucking normal around people.

And unfortunately, not everyone who plays the game understands this, because I've already seen edits of Is0bel's portrait to be white and red-haired in the fucking community pictures under the game in my steam library. But y'know.

[utilitycaster]

My friend has shared with me his dropout and i'm thinking of getting into the dimension 20s; do you have any ranking for them or recommendations? Any notes on the pitfalls or really cool things on any given series/dm's styles? I have to admit i've been a little hesitant to jump in, not just bc i was watching c3 but bc some of the d20 fandom discourse trickled onto my dash and for lack of a better term i "got the ick." I've resolved to myself that it shouldn't matter since i don't engage with dropout fandom anyway, and so we're currently watching mentopolis

Hey anon! So some quick thoughts:

You are correct to simply avoid the fandom, but also...the bad is very, very dumb and obnoxious, but the worst of that fandom skips half the series anyway. if it's not D&D they aren't showing up.

Mentopolis is a great series, great pick.

Of the Intrepid Heroes campaigns (Brennan GMing, cast of Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Zac Oyama, Brian Murphy) the only one I didn't care for was Neverafter. A loose ranking is that A Crown of Candy is I think the strongest, and then Fantasy High (3 seasons) vs. The Unsleeping City (2 seasons) are both good and it's just a matter of taste (i think fantasy high is a stronger story, unsleeping city is a stronger and more consistent world, characters are all great, and it mostly comes down to whether you do or do not want to watch a narrative about high schoolers, which is valid). I do like Starstruck Odyssey but it gets VERY chaotic, and I think it's only ranked lower than the previous two because it doesn't have as much time.

Of the sidequests run by Brennan, I am a huge fan of Escape from the Bloodkeep, Pirates of Leviathan and the Seven (both set in the same universe as Fantasy High but you can watch as standalone if you don't mind Fantasy High spoilers), Never Stop Blowing Up, and I haven't seen the latest Dungeons & Drag Queens but I did like the first one a lot.

Of the sidequests run by other GMs: Aabria Iyengar's A Court of Fey and Flowers, Jasmine Bhullar's Coffin Run, and Matt Mercer's Ravening War (ACOC universe prequel) are the strongest ones. I enjoyed Shriek Week at the time but unfortunately the GM turned out to not be a great guy. For more Aabria, Misfits and Magic season 1 was good but it did make me go "you know, I think I'm over the whole Harry Potter pastiche thing, even if this one is done very well" and so I didn't check out the second, but definitely give the first a try if you are interested! I did not personally like Burrow's End but it has a fantastic cast.

Similarly: wasn't a huge fan of Tiny Heist just bc D&D was not a good system for it; it is also a great cast. I feel similarly about Mice and Murder. I have not watched Time Quangle but that's a series of one-shots I think all with Intrepid Heroes characters.

[stopmyhearts]

this is for @smallerontheoutside and @daughterofheartshaven (but also anyone else who's interested) who wanted to hear about my DnD character

first maybe a disclaimer that I'm a rather casual player and me and my friends usually play pretty loose with the rules, also half of our rulebooks are in english and the others are in german so we're constantly chaotically translating things too (which I will be doing here as well) just so you know that I don't really know that much about DnD actually

so her name is Esvele Falbdrache, the last name translates as Paledragon or something like that

here's my best artistic rendition of her:

and like my ideas for her backstory and stuff are pretty disorganized and not all fixed, they just sort of end up crystallizing when it comes up in playing so I'm just going to ramble about a lot of things and you can ask if you want to know something else or want me to elaborate further on something

so to start, she's a ranger and currently level 13, we've played curse of strahd with her and are currently in an adventure that my friend wrote herself that also uses some elements of baldur's gate because she's a fan of that. she's got pretty high stats overall cause I was very lucky rolling the dice, her highest are wisdom and dexterity though, and her lowest is intelligence which makes for a fun combination. my favourite thing about her is that she's got some fey ancestry and is a fey wanderer because of that so she's insanely charming, she's got a wisdom boost on all charm talents, and some pretty cool spells and a dancing shadow. she recently gained the spell of summoning little fey spirits too which is so cool too, and she's got misty step and is super good at being sneaky so that's really helpful. She's chaotic good and really impulsive so she will often just start fights if there's an injustice though. in curse of strahd she got the sun-sword? which we just call the lightswitch because it can emit daylight which is her main weapon. she's got an ex-girlfriend who's a werecat, dead parents and trauma from that but she doesn't talk about that (aka I didn't know enough lore at first to create a cohesive backstory and never got around to it). she's very much a wandering spirit. on the topic of girlfriends, she's a lesbian but kind of useless about it (all of our characters are, trying to romance someone but failing is like the sidequest for us and we are also all so bad at playing flirting and tend to end up in giggles on the floor), though recently we've had a new character played by our DM's brother join us who (the character) is a very sleazy guy who keeps trying to get people to model for his magazine and she's had a bit more success at being charming enough to get people away from him and also beat him at a beauty contest out of spite (and actually also because I decided she was wearing Romana's Meglos outfit for that which our DM loved). she did recently get nearly turned into a vampire because she just followed a pretty woman without thought though. she also has a bit of a loose thing with Esmeralda from curse of strahd. another fun thing is that in our most recent session (like two months ago rip we've been busy) Esvele became a quasi-goddess. we'd planned to just sort of trick these people into helping us but with a combination of a 20, some spells and the bit of fey charm that kind of got a lot bigger, so now she has some protection-based boosts too. don't let that trick you though she is still very cringefail. she's an alcoholic too, i think I haven't said that yet, she and our cleric always carry around flasks of some vile brew and get drunk when something bad happens. we've had some very funny fails as a result of that

uh yeah that's pretty much it? like i said you can ask questions if you want, either I'll have an answer or I'll make something up which is how most of this came together in playing anyways

[thevideogameshutterbug]

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) Thoughts - Beginning At The End

No photos this time (I might add a few later). But I've got a lot of thoughts (and photos) about this game now that I'm finishing it up, but I just got finished my last sidequest in the postgame and I wanted to gush about it.

Spoilers, by the by. Quite a few of them.

----

The Mysteriums were a lopsided a pain the ass but man am I glad I saved this quest for last.

I've been thinking a lot about how much this game seeks to embody why Peter's beliefs in having empathy for the people he fights and getting to know who these villains are as people matters, and this quest - as well as Quentin Beck's final words to cap off the story - are such a perfect capper to that.

Nothing is as it seems, especially when you look at heroes and villains. Anything can change for anybody faster than you could ever realize it. When you take the masks off, it's all people making decisions. A good person can go down a dark path, a bad person can decide they no longer want to be that person any more. Not everyone is going to, but it's important to know that such a thing is always possible.

Heck, this game has an almost ''unprecedented'' number of reformed villains for a superhero franchise: Sandman, Mysterio, Tombstone, Mr. Negative, Prowler technically Lizard, all people who understand they did wrong and whose only motivation now is trying to make their way in the world going forward.

Jonah has a podcast early in the game where he insists that people never really change (about either Sandman or Lizard, iirc), advocating for criminals to be just kept in prison in perpetuity (which, I like this version of Jonah, but goddamn is he hard to like sometimes). Wraith advocates just killing these guys because naturally they're never going to change and they might as well be removed from the equation. And naturally, Symbiote Peter eventually starts considering the idea that maybe the best way forward is just to kill everybody who could be a threat.

But this game doesn't just counterpoint that by having its ultimate evolution be monstrous like most superhero works: instead, this game makes a strong point of why that mentality doesn't work - this is a fantasy story, but it's also a good point for real life.

Coming from a law family where I had a lot of interaction with formerly incarcerated people, and living in an inner city relationship where - again - anything can happen to skew a person's life in ways nobody thought they would go, it's not just a more realistic point - it's an essential point: people always change, and any belief otherwise is just an excuse not to examine the world around oneself. They can change for the worse, they can change for the better, or just kind of laterally shift, but they always change. A failure to recognize it is a failure of the self, not the other.

There's a strong trend of former villains in this game being taken advantage of by other villains, with the new villains doing so with the expectation that nobody will come to the former villains' aid, trust them, or aid them in any way (Mysterio's partners try to frame him, Tombstone and Negative get abducted by people who were sure no one would come for them, Sandman gets driven mad and dumped onto the city to be tossed into prison). And it's absolutely amazing to be Spider-Man in this game and be the one who fights tirelessly for everybody, even the people who have spurned their chances before, because that's who Spider-Man is.

Even if their stories still don't always end positively. Because it's still the right thing to do it, and it's a worse crime to stop.

Man, I love Spider-Man.

As a final note, I especially like that none of the former villains really expect to be forgiven and several never are. This might be the philosopher in me talking, but it's not in forgiveness that one finds redemption, but in the capacity of change in and of itself.

[ayebibs]

I just finished Veilguard. I have so many thoughts. Very raw and unpolished under the cut. I have no one to talk about this with so my dash must suffer. Probably will ramble on more later too.

Tldr; I am highly critical but I had a fun enough time and still love dragon age.

Definitely felt the loss of my world state choices. Especially if this is a soft relaunch and I may never have my characters or thedas mentioned ever again.

Hot take, I don't care for Morrigan that much. She's fine and I like her, but I love Varric more and would much rather have seen other past companions. Someone give me back fenris and merrill. Also, why is Isabela in basically every game. I like her but? I cannot determine the reason. Am I missing lore?

Speaking of Varric, I clocked his death immediately (no one but rook ever spoke to him?) His death felt cheapened by the poorly executed twist for me. Disappointing and annoying to me.

So much good lore (and much of it wasted). Why did everything feel so surface level except in the crossroads? That part of the narrative was so much tighter. So much could have been done with the Titans, in my opinion, and I think so little of that was explored.

Such a satisfying ending, but the rest of the game could be such a slog sometimes? Like, the ending lowkey reminded me of Origins and fighting the darkspawn and archdemon with the help of the people you built relationships with along the way, which was very cool. But I felt like all of those faction relationships were very shallow. Maybe we should have been able to talk to more people (with menus and branching dialogue) in the factions and do more sidequests to feel more attached?

So much marketing about the focus on companions but the romance was less of a focus than it has ever been and I didn't feel connected to, like, anyone except for Davrin and Assan. I didn't feel a single ounce of regret with my choices (I'm sorry, I don't get the hype around Harding... she was fine in inquisition but really didn't stand out to me. She had little depth imo as well...). We barely got to talk to them and learn their history and likes outside of caracitures of who they were. Yes, I get it Neve is a noir detective, Lucas is coffee man and spite is coffee demon, bellara is quirky and autistic coded. And none of those things make well-rounded characters.

Really wished I had romanced anyone but Lucanis because I thought he was bland (sue me) and Zevran doesn't exist for whatever is going on in that revisionist take on the crows. Also, I hate the sleeping together before the final battle trope. So much of that build up and romance should have happened earlier. The romance simply felt new to me and I didn't feel invested at all.

Speaking of revisionist history, how the hell was the enslavement of elves in tevinter barely mentioned? Or racism? I saw an excuse about someone having to write that and like... bffr. You can't just ignore hard topics. That is where the depth and nuance in dragon age comes from (not nuance in slavery mind you, but think fenris' opinion on mages because of his history). As the inquisitor, my lavellan constantly experienced racism and I loved it because I am female minority and have experience with those issues. Working around it or plowing though sometimes was gratifying and fun. I don't people see racism in a video game and automatically think "oh no bioware is racist?" If that's the issue.

Davrin was my favorite companion and i really wished I had romanced him. Might replay as a grey warden man and do that because I think that would be very cool plot wise. I think I also got what I wanted out of his companion quests. Like, they answered what I wanted and had a satisfying ending.

Also, I liked Bellara so much more than I thought I would, especially because I chose her at the very end and she becomes blighted. Her dialogue is very rough though and not appropriate for the tone of this game 97% of the time.

Still cannot get over how bad the dialogue was. Truly egregious. Very anachronistic and took me out of the story nearly every time some characters opened their mouths. The main offender being my Rook who could literally only be nice and very "go team." She sounded like my manager trying to convince me that our job is made of one big, happy family no matter what dialogue I chose. Also, I wanted to throw my controller at my monitor every time Neve said "the job."

Taash's storyline really could have been something great because there were glimmers when I really loved them, but the anachronistic phrases and lack of skill with their storyline really killed it for me. I have a lot of thoughts on this because I really think it was EXTREMELY lazy and showed a real lack of care for either nonbinary rep (which can still happen with own voices) or simply writing for a piece of existing media. I could think of many easy ways to improve it. Some glimmers are even in the game. Like when the spirit addresses Taash as cousin instead of sister? Why not more of this? Also what was with the push ups for misgendering and then immediately being like, oh saying sorry a bunch makes it more for the person who fucked up? Like... the pushups are different?? And definitely don't draw more attention to an insulting or dysphoric moment?

All that aside, I was decently happy as a solalavellan girlie. I can 100% see why people don't like Solas and might have chosen endings that end badly for him, but I feel strongly that he was the best written character in he last two games.

Had a fun enough time. Happy the game finally got made. Ending really saved this from being a 5/10 for me. Would rank around 7/10 rounded up.

Don't think the game needs a dlc, but there is always a part of me that wants to play through rebuilding in the aftermath of a near world ending fight that destroyed everything. Like, take me to Ferelden. Is my husband, the king, okay?

Desperately, desperately hoping that there is another game that is a true return to form to the first three games (yes, even 2 because the characters are so, so well loved) and more like the ending of veilguard. Also that we get a return of world states meaning something. Hate to be that bitch, but genuinely hoping Baldur's Gate raised expectations for story-based, rpg games and Bioware survives to bring back my favorite game series to what I loved so much.

Fingers crossed the next one (is made at all) doesn't take 10 years.

[faorism]

niche crossover of the day that im too lazy rn to clean up and post to ao3 but may in the future: alec hardison (leverage) plays bg3

hardison balances playtime with hacker hours well, which means he moves through hyperfixations but has learned through working with the crew how to prioritize when there's a friend's life on the line. (there will be no more repeats of his crew sitting on a bomb without him right next to them.) sometimes though his partners lose him for a week after a new release, but now that they live together at least parker can drag him to bed for cuddles (and to sleep) and eliot will kept him fed.

it should go without saying that hardison loves baulder's gate 3. he heard such good things about it during early access from his dnd buddies, but hardison refuses to play EA because he will end up encountering bugs and basically writing the code that the devs will end up doing anyway, so why waste his time.

he plays without any prior knowledge, doesn't even know the characters really except from glimpses at their promo pics. but he's excited. he downloads the game, kisses his partners """goodbye""" for the foreseeable future (as long as a job doesnt spring up, but even then it would be a quick one because eliot sprained his ankle and needed to rest it no matter how much he complained he was good).

he decides to play his chaotic good halfling wizard mendula from two campaigns back - fresh enough in his mind to remember the character, but not too recent so that he wont feel conflicted if the tav storyline doesnt allow for precise oc characterizations. hardison gets super into it, but he doesnt linger on side quests, not yet: he wants to get a feel of the game without mods and follow its arc. hardison doesnt usually romance on a first playthrough, but wyll!!!!! wyll was right there being perfect and beautiful and righteous and black and bi and yeah, hardison had to fan himself off during the dance sequence

his party is wizard tav, shadowheart, wyll, and lae'zel, and barely switches them out. when astarion drains him dry and kills him, hardison is so annoyed he kills astarion. he feels very proud of himself when he sniped wyll's devil karlach without much fuss. then he skips a lot of the companion sidequests because he just wants to rush to the end. he gets married to wyll, then starts right over and plays wyll origin, now able to take his time and understanding the mechanics of the game. he also downloads QOL mods that have already come out for EA, and he has notes about ones he will make if no one else does when he's ready for playthrough #3. he purposefully avoids any major ones (so no Polyam Mod for him, though he does eye it, but he wants to see how multiple romances play himself).

he plays will as accurately as possible, which means engaging heavily with the very companions hardison spent ignoring because wyll? wyll cares (and fuck, hardison loves him for that because yes yes, that's him too!). and......

ah. okay so. maybe hardison shouldn't have ignored the companions so much since they do add a lot to the game! and..... maybe, just maybe, hardison was too hasty killing astarion and karlach the first go around. maybe a lot. he thought they would be companions for evil tavs/origins only! he played kotor and [insert game references here, i dont play games like this usually...], so he thought he knew what was up.

anyway, he is drawn so much to these two out of the novelty of them that he puts them into his party (the fourth spot he switches around, thought once hardison gets him, halsin is a fun mainstay because BEAR. hardison gets up romancing both astarion and karlach (and a little halsin, HALSIN IS SO EASY TO FLIRT WITH, larian WANTS you to fuck him)

and....... okay. okay. maybe romancing them both at the same time was a mistake because. because he loves them both. so much. for very different reasons. hardison feels so deeply and then he's forced to make a decision, and hardison crumples a bit. considers downloading the polyam mod but opts out of it to suffer vanilla game logic to its very end.

when he breaks up with astarion, who plays it so damn cool, hardison had to walk away from the computer to mourn by burying himself in his nearest partner's arms (eliot, this time).

he finishes the game, makes wyll go to avernus with karlach (as he made them do during this tav playthrough) and... thinks about astarion.

hardison had carried over the breakup scene save this whole time, and he decides fuck it, and goes back and tries it the other way this time.

he didnt know karlach will just... die on the pier. wtf. wtf. or wyll will go and there wont be any interaction with astarion?? hardison is Distraught. he downloads the polyam mod and while it doesnt force the issue, he can just feel at the edges that nope, this isnt authentic

finds partner's arms again. parker this time. she asks whats wrong with his make believe people, and he pauses for so long that parker thinks he fell asleep or didnt hear her, and then he quietly says that wyll has a heart big enough for two, a romance can be fairytale when made for three, dont they know there's nothing more beautiful than being held between by both the people you love?

parker kisses his temple as tears legit well in his eyes (and he feels embarrassed) and she yells for eliot for emergency group hugs.

eliot, with hardison squished between his two partners, usually doesnt get involved with hardison's gaming but this time he's just like, okay what is it about these characters that's getting to you like this? and why them together? who are they?

and hardison had already talked about wyll a little because disney prince. so he reiterates some of that with a major case of projection. and then when he turns to talk about the companions, hardison stops. and just.

oh.

a black man who was forced to make impossible desperate choices when he was still a teen, which got him into trouble as a consequence, and then being alone and wandering for years until he ran into a pack of different people come together for a common purpose. trying to be good, the best he could be, and hiding behind a flashy name to hide some of the more raw parts underneath. ravenguard and nana have strikingly similar cheekbones.

then theres a rogue with a deeply traumatic past who can be selfish and kinda insensitive and likes shiny things. a pale thief who likes a little bit of chaos even when running good alignment, and who can't help sticky fingers reaching for unsuspecting belts and also... well, also is a top, through and through. a top who likes to bite. vicious when upset. also... also touch adverse and who at first laughs at sincerity and then basks in it but only once your commitment is fully and well established. the only bit of code hardison wrote as he played his wyll origin was to remove astarion saying dont touch me when you switch to him; hardison flinched every time, hearing the cadence of parker's voice scratching at him when she's triggered.

then, a barbarian who handed from one handler (who ended up being a totalitarian dick) down the road until being owned by the literal devil. body put through hell, scars littering a body that spells strength at a distance. once escaped from the nightmare, only wanted their own perseverance. their own life. wanting so desperately for a touch, to be loved, to be held in a way that didn't spell murder. "heartless" after years of working for, again, literal devils, but so full of life and kindness and (also eliot is more coy about it) a deep sense of joy for the world. kind to children. protective of children. wary of deals too good to be true. willing to die than return to a life they once lived. death feels imminent, despite the protestations of everyone around them. really good bedroom eyes.

so.

yeah.

maybe... maybe

hardison couldnt get the words out to say all of that. all he says is, they're a lot like us. (like with astarion, if hardison spelled out the exact overlaps of the characters.)

the games dumb then, parker says. or at least broken. if the game isnt right, just go fix it?

and hardison has protests about the limits of what is possible within someone else's game and...

parker is like, you made a guy hold up a bank in like, 10 min? on a laptop with spotty internet and without a mouse or any preparation?

and this takes some time between other projects he really has to get to, but.... he does it. codes like a motherfucker and bribes eliot & parker into mocap and also genuinely pays the VAs to voice lines for him. shit hardison does for the love of his ot3:

script out unique banter for karlach and astarion in your party that hints of their attraction to one another

code in an extra option when astarion or karlach confront you for to prompt them to consider their own feelings for the other (different from the current but i want to be with you both! line)

a short nighttime cutscene that with dialogue that implies the three have just finished talking and have agreed to be together. they are all holding hands

include astarion and karlach in each other's act iii scenes (they arent the most chatty, admittedly, but they are there and integrated)

outside of camp, if you three are standing near each other, you can cast a spell that cuts to astarion and karlach kissing either of wyll's checks (this is admittedly somewhat buggy but!

edits out astarion cowering on the pier from the sun, just rushes the three to avernus which hardison doesnt have to edit; just uses astarion origin version for wyll.

nexusmods community begs desperately for him to do this for some other ot3s and he is willing to hear them out for shadowheart/lae'zel/tav, he absolutely refuses to break up karwyllstarion and only offers wyll pov. will not even allow for edits being made for a tav/karlach/astarion mod. he deeply pisses off some people, but overall this mod is downloaded a fuckton as the only truly viable polyam romance option in the game. people start writing fanfic specifically for this one mod and eventually it is just integrated into canon lore that karwyllstarion exists as an option

[kozykricket]

big minecraft & terraria thoughtdump

just gonna say, exploration/basing/traversal/whatever in minecraft is a complex topic, because of how many differing views there are on how much travel should even be necessary and its really freakin hard to think about in an INFINITE WORLD as well. big random thought dump time

like i think terraria does the gameplay of exploration better than minecraft ever has or will do it, and thats fine its just because of what terrarias designed after

ah right i have an idea for a post on me having maybe possibly figured out why i like when terraria makes me go on sidequests to biomes vs i dont like when mc does that (its probably mostly bc i view terraria as an exploration game, and also most of the rewards are just relevant to the core gameplay loop, and. well. its a careful balance. locking some qol behind certain things is cool, but sometimes its too much. either way i know vanilla terraria does it greatly) anyways, i think minecrafts in a weird spot but . i do think more unique ore, animal, and hostile mob distribution in biomes... would help increase the desire for players to do stuff outside of just their home base. to actually have more wildly different biomes with outposts at them especially if like, crops grew faster or animals had shorter breeding cooldowns in the "right" biomes but the issue there is like. god i dont care how nice it can be to make paths, i am NOT making infrastructure to anywhere further than like 300 blocks away from my general base area. that'd just get a bit frustrating but also minecrafts kinda. for that? its made for that? idk i also feel like i have a lot i could say on When Tedium is Good vs When Its Bad in games i play a lotta tedious games but theyre like, enjoyable tedium . then theres adding qol to reduce that Fun Tedium is kinda... saddening (calamity m od reference) but adding qol to reduce tedium that really isnt interesting gameplay to anyone is like, yea thats good so i think qol is a careful thing to balance but i think mc needs more qol tbhh. stuff like how we got editing signs in 1.20

um. what else... i just think like. minecraft exploration is weird because ill see something really cool thats far away and itll be like "woah! thats so cool (imagines building something awesome there) well anyways. never gonna come back here" and sometimes the world can get kinda repetitive to the point you just Run Through it. not really any small interesting things to grab along a journey. its gotta either be a significant structure you end up finding (which can end up being either a giant big side adventure which is cool but. i might not wanna commit to that. or its just a desert temple aka a 1 minute excursion where like, why did i even have to do any of this) i think terraria underground exploration nails it with more stuff than just ores, like life crystals and simple cabins with loot. they feel nice to find but then again. i dont wanna ALSO overanalyze whyi love terraria. ive already done that for minecraft and its both a blessing and a curse ill just say i love npc happiness, i love exploration, i love everything terraria has. except master mode and i love many things in minecraft, but i will always be a birdnester. i want to bring everything home with me. even though i think the game should prooobably design around reducing birdnesting just because like, the modern game is Definitely designed around exploration clearly ...i could make a whole post on the differences of the Vibes and Goals of modern mc vs old mc kinda tempted to wonder how many things id change about modern mc to keep all of its features but make it feel like old mc in a way. like, okay, i'd make stuff like frogs and sniffers far less animated. id make things in general feel less intentionally designed.. this post is long. im just gonna stop it here

[mariyekos]

As Azure Fades Analysis, Part 1

Azure Dragoons: Aging and the Impact of the Eyes

@scrollsfromarebornrealm made an EXCELLENT analysis post about the newest short story from the official FFXIV sidestory website, and in my attempt to respond to it I ended up with something so long it probably won't fit in a single post. So, I decided to split it up before i hit the image/text limit.

And yeah, in case you didn't know there's a new official FFXIV short story out relating to Estinien and Haldrath. Go check it out, because it is AMAZING.

First things first, as is typical of me: I will be discussing both canon and headcanon here. I will do my best to make it very clear when I am discussing something explicitly stated or heavily implied in canon, and when I am discussing headcanon. Some of this will come from the new short story, but I will also make references to the whole game, so get ready for sources galore!

Introductory Sources:

(Above: from the new story)

(Above: from the quest Heart of Ice)

(Above: from the sidequest Thar be Dragons)

Hraesvelgr's Line, and the Lifespan of Elezen

Alright with my sources out of the way, I actually interpreted the new story and Hraesvelgr lines differently! First, when I read Hraesvelgr's line, I took it as him saying that Estinien would be old and unable to effectively fight by age 50, rather than that Estinien would be dead by then.

Elezen live to be 100-120, but Edmont and Charlemald use old face models by age 56 I believe, so it's not like they stay spring chickens forever. I'm taking the fact that Haldrath and Aureniquart have young faces as the devs wanting them to be recognizable, or maybe aging a little more gracefully. It's been 20 years, so I would put them at mid 40s, maaaaybe mid 50s since Estinien and Aymeric are 32 in HW, which means 32 is a perfectly good age to still be fighting. If elezen live to 100-120, then 45-55 could definitely fit for "a brawny man well into his middle years."

In canon, it is heavily implied if not outright confirmed that transformed heretics can live for centuries (see: Thar be Dragons). In my long-established headcanon, Estinien ends up aging slower because of Nidhogg's power. In that HC, Hraesvelgr doesn't necessarily know of the impact that Nidhogg's Eye had on Haldrath, since Hraesvelgr basically peaced out after handing Nidhogg his own Eye. This new story is making me re-evaluate that HC... In Canon, the actual Eyes of Nidhogg are gone at this point, but Estinien spent some time a few days according to Lucia, but it's months/patch time in my HC again possessed by Nidhogg with the Eyes in his flesh, and there's no denying there have been lasting effects. Going purely on canon, Estinien can do the clone thing now, and is a huge powerhouse. The dragons recognize the bit of Nidhogg that resides within him too. Stuff like scales is pure HC that I happily accept but acknowledge isn't canon as far as anything we've seen. But imo that could partly the modelers being lazy since that would require excess effort .

(Above: Estinien making clones, à la Nidstinien. Source, with video)

Haldrath, Estinien, and How They Age

Now, Estinien's lifespan might not be impacted at all by what happened with Nidhogg. But since heretics can live centuries, and we know Estinien has been impacted somewhat...I think it's possible Hraesvelgr's assessment about Estinien being spent by 50 was wrong. Especially if we go with the idea that in his isolation he didn't know what happened to Haldrath beyond just that Haldrath had the Eyes (general had, no knowledge of the merge). Plus, his "spent" assessment came before Estinien ended up melding with the Eyes. If we go with the assumption that Hraesvelgr does know about what the Eye did to Haldrath, it could also be that Hraesvelgr told Estinien he would be old and infirm by 50 because he assumed Estinien would get rid of the Eye before it had any lasting effects on him, like all the other Azure Dragoons. By getting rid of it, he'd get old too.

(Above: from the new story).

Haldrath was still able to slay dragons during his middle years, after all. He collapsed because of Nidhogg's growing influence. Which admittedly could've been better-able to get him because maybe in aging he was growing weaker, but I think you could say it was more prolonged exposure to Nidhogg making him vulnerable than aging-induced-weakness.

(Above: Thordan upon revealing Haldrath in the quest Heavensward)

In the new story, Estinien mentions Haldrath's aging corpse. In the quest Heavensward, Archbishop Thordan VII makes reference to the body's lack of decay. This preservation is why I HC that maybe Estinien would end up aging slower- maybe the aether would be enough to maintain him as he is, just as Haldrath was. Now we didn't take of Haldrath's armor so who knows what lies beneath, but what I find interesting is that his corpse apparently did not change. He most definitely didn't turn into a full-on dragon. He's still an elezen (albeit with an eye in his chest, which is notably smaller than the Eyes bound to Estinien! I really wonder if there is meant to be a lore reason, like the Eyes tunneling deeper into the flesh over time, or if that was just a visual thing to make possessed!Estinien seem creepier). It could be that Haldrath neither decayed nor transformed because Nidhogg's power could only transform living beings, not dead ones. Haldrath's body never rose on its own to return to Nidhogg, after all.

Dragon Eyes and Consciousness/Control

Which brings into question how much consciousness is afforded to the Eyes... Vrtra can operate Varshahn and his true body separately, but given the scene when he freezes as Varshahn while he calls to Azdaja with his true body, maybe Dragons can only instill consciousness in one Eye-containing vessel at once. Haldrath kept both Eyes, even if only one merged to him (and why only one...? just to make sure the story could happen, or maybe because Nidhogg was weakened by the attack and only one could...?). Estinien had both Eyes when possessed too. When Nidhogg speaks through the Eye to Estinien in the lv50 DRG quest, we don't see his true body (with Hraesvelgr's Eye) and whatever that's doing. Maybe Nidhogg can only keep his consciousness in one place/with one Eye (so it's rendered moot when both Eyes are together).

Maybe dragons can only use their Eyes operate living beings (Varshahn is made by alchemists, so he's special). Maybe there was some sort of seal on Haldrath's dead body that kept Nidhogg from making it rise and deliver the other Eye unto him, even after Berteline/the next Azure Dragoon(s) held the Left one. Maybe he just didn't feel like going through the trouble to reclaim it because he could wage his war perfectly well with Hraesvelgr's Eye and wasn't going for extermination/didn't need full power until HW. Maybe the writers just needed an Eye in Haldrath's body and let the reason for Nidhogg not reclaiming it slide to make an awesome story moment.

(Above: comparison of Eye sizes. Also Estinien's Eyes move)

Summary on Aging, HC and Canon

In any case! Back to canon: 1) Transformed heretics can live for centuries. 2) Haldrath's body ceased to age and did not decay after the Eye merged to him. 3) The Eye was able to remain in Haldrath's body for a thousand years and was still functional when it merged to Estinien (it wiggles in the CSs).

HCs from this: maybe Estinien will age slower and be able to maintain his form. Maybe he will gradually be transformed into a dragon or more draconic being over time. Even a drop of dragon's blood- supposedly- is enough to transform an Ishgardian, and Estinien got fully blasted with Dragon Essence upon possession. We even see a middle form during the Nidstinien fight! Nidhogg's shade (dragon form) might just be an aetheric projection rather than flesh. But back to HC, I interpret that as Nidhogg attempting to actually warp flesh, before going to his Shade and then returning to the form that his body- Estinien's body- recognizes best as its own.

...All of this is a really long way to say that I don't think Estinien would necessarily be dead by 50. Well. Unless we take it with the idea that Nidhogg would have taken full control of him, and that the "youthful vigor" he would lose would be his ability to reject Nidhogg's influence before being lost as Haldrath was. For some reason that did not occur to me until this very moment, over an hour into writing this, despite the fact that that was probably what scrollsfromarebornrealm was implying... And/or that scrollsfromarebornrealm just meant that Estinien would probably get himself killed by 50 because yeahhhh, that man did NOT seem to care about himself enough to be safe and survive that long. Especially if aging meant he grew weak and then said weakness had him fall in battle (rather than Nidhogg's corruption straight up killing him by 50. Which is also an intriguing possibility).

"Becoming the Azure Dragoon is a death sentence."

The quote above comes directly from @scrollsfromarebornrealm's post. While I'm not looking at it as dragoons being too old/weak to fight by 50, I do wholeheartedly agree with the idea that (nearly) all Azure Dragoons die young. Partially because of the dangers of their job, partially because of the risk of Nidhogg's influence.

First, Alberic. Alberic retired 20 years ago and he's fine! But two things: 1) Alberic was 24 when he retired (don't feel like taking a picture, but in my Encyclopedia Eorzea it says he's 44, and it's been 20 years). 2) Alberic is a hyur. Haldrath held onto BOTH eyes of Nidhogg for 20 years before he could no longer handle it, and drank of Ratatoskr's aether. Most Azure Dragoons were probably Elezen given the racial distribution of Ishgard. Alberic, a hyur, does not bear elezen/dragon blood (as long as he's purely hyur, which I am assuming he is). In addition, he probably only had the Eye for a handful of years at most, since he was only 24 when he rejected it. It makes sense that he would walk away from Nidhogg with relatively few impacts. He didn't die in battle and he firmly rejected the Eye when it threatened to take control of him. I think retirement for an Azure Dragoon (followed by at least two decades of survival) is EXTREMELY uncommon in Ishgard's history.

(Above: from the new story)

A few things here. I'll start with the point I was trying to make: "While the Eye lent him strength, in harboring Nidhogg's undying malice, it was also slowly corrupting his being. Ere long it would finally consume him..." In other words, the Eye is most definitely a death sentence. It will kill Haldrath eventually. Possessing an Eye long term- at least as a part of one's own flesh, though since it seems possessing it long term binds it to the Azure Dragoon's flesh you could just shorten that to "long term" only- will corrupt the Azure Dragoon to the point of no return. The only options left at that point seem to be Getting Consumed And Becoming Nidhogg's Puppet (Estinien) or Being Killed As To Not Become A Puppet (Haldrath). It was too late to reject the Eye, which is what Alberic did to make his escape.

Back into HC territory, I now want to pick up an old fic of mine about a previous Azure Dragoon basically having to be put down upon being too far gone due to Nidhogg's Corruption. Not to the level that the Eye melded to their flesh as it did Haldrath and Estinien, but mental corruption, and maybe attacks like the one Haldrath has. Ishgard would be wary of another Azure Dragoon being claimed by the Eye not only because they don't want Nidhogg to have a new pawn, but also because they can't afford to lose the second Eye with the first still bound to Haldrath. They also probably wouldn't want news of the Azure Dragoon's corruption leaking to the public, since the Azure Dragoon is supposed to be a hero and that would be Not Good for the Azure Dragoon's image. So maybe Ishgard kills Azure Dragoons who are too far gone (whether they're actually too far or whether the people in power are paranoid about it).

A different HC I'm not sold on but thought of is that the stress of being Azure Dragoon could lead to an early grave. Yes Dragon blood does extend the lives of transformed heretic, but it could be that without the transformation, the stress of it all causes damage to the insides of Azure Dragoons in a way that prematurely ages them and/or just causes them to die young. Alberic at 44 has some white hair. Which 44 year old men can definitely have without anything bad happening, don't get me wrong! But that could be a fun HC interpretation of that.

So yeah. I HC that Azure Dragoons die young as based on 1) them potentially needing to be killed to avoid falling to Nidhogg, 2) their jobs being so dangerous they're killed in battle (and the Eye retrieved) or die from wounds, 3) the stress of the Eye causing irreparable damage that leads them to die young even after relinquishing the Eye. Plus, as @scrollsfromarebornrealm points out, Valeroyant died 2 years after fending off Nidhogg. We don't have many named Azure Dragoons so even one early death is suspect!

Haldrath and the Two Eyes

(Above: from the new story)

Yes, one of these is a repeat of the one above. But I really want to empahsize something in this because my eyes (haha) are SO wide at this. Haldrath refers to an Eye, singular, being what is corrupting him. Not the Eyes plural. And only one of the eyes has fused to his body, which matches what we know. At first I thought that maybe he only had one or something. Yet he tells Berteline that he will "entrust [Nidhogg's] eyes" plural to her.

So this is odd. Haldrath only mentions drawing on a singular Eye, and only a singular Eye has fused to his body. But he entrusts both to Berteline. My thought here is that maybe he stopped drawing on the power of the second one once the first fused to him, unwilling to give up the strength afforded by the first, but wary of drawing on the second lest it fuse to him too. I do wonder if he thought Bertiline would be able to pry Nidhogg's Right Eye from his corpse (in addition to presumably taking the Left Eye from him, which is the one Estinien has), or if when he said he was entrusting the eye to her he meant he was entrusting his dead body (containing the Eye) to her to...keep away from Nidhogg, or something. In the Echo Flashback to Haldrath following the events of The Aery, we can see Haldrath holding both Eyes and then storing them. It's heavily implied (if not outright stated) that Haldrath never met with any of the Knights Twelve again, save Aureniquart on his deathbed, so I assume Haldrath would've also had the Left Eye on him at his death even if only the Right had fused to him.

But yeah. Haldrath says he's been corrupted by One Singular Eye. It could be that the second just isn't mentioned here because it hasn't fused to him, and maybe I'm reading too far into this (see: me going feral over Estinien saying "Then you and Alphinaud threw my eyes off a bridge, and I’ve never known peace since."). Yet he must possess two to entrust both to Bertiline. Interesting.

I do wonder if anyone ever attempted to pry the Eye from Haldrath's body. It is possible they thought he was a Holy Object and didn't want to disturb him so never tried. It's possible that those who knew of him were worried they might also be corrupted if they touched the Eye, so they didn't want to try. It's possible they tried and failed. Who knows. But it seems like the Eye remained undisturbed within Haldrath's ageless corpse until Thordan used Primal Powers to fuel his ascendance to a God-King.

End Note

I honestly don't know what to say anymore other than Wow.

This one short story has blasted my mind open. I'm not sure how many words this giant essay is, but it's been about 3 hours so I think i should stop for now, despite the fact that I've hardly even begun to talk about some of the most intriguing parts of the short story! (See: Estinien being able to see Haldrath's memories and attributing it to Nidhogg, a more in-depth analysis of corruption, being able to hear Nidhogg and him sounding like the wind (hey remember that dragoon helmets are designed to make the sound of the wind going through it seem like a dragon scream, thank you levequest), whatever the hell was in that drink (I think it would be fascinating to explore it being an intentional flashback on the part of the Alchemists, using the blood they took from him...maybe fic worthy hmmmm), the parallels between Haldrath and Estinien losing their burning passion to fight, Aureniquart and the pain of being told to kill your liege-lord plus potential backstory there and some lines about loyalty...needless to say there's a lot more to talk about!)

So for now I am going to stop here. There's a lot to think about. Haldrath did not die in battle as I'd assumed, but due to the Eye's corruption. He entrusted the Eye to a successor, as Nidhogg had already begun to call out to others. He asked to be killed. This has big repercussions.

If you've read this whole thing, thank you! I hope my rambling was somewhat interesting. If you want to discuss anything here, reblog or reply and I would love to talk xD. I don't have every lore piece memorized, and I've definitely forgotten some things, so if I'm missing some crucial information I would be happy to know!!