#YES the overall game was good

[tethys-the-aquatic-sea-godness]

One other thing that bothers me in Bhaal plot of BG3 is that they made it sound like Bhaal created his Bhaalspawns as... servants? Puppets? And that's never been the purpose of the Bhaalpsawns? Ever? Every new Bhaalspawn he created in BG3 is counterproductive to his plan.

Bhaal knew in advance he would die, so he divided his divine essense into many mortal vessels. Then he charged his faithful (cough) high priestess Amelyssan to ensure every Bhaalspawn was killed after his passing, so that his power could be returned to him and he could be reborn.

Thats' the plan. A plan that's impeded, not helped, by more Bhaalspawns. It means splitting more of his essence.

Bhaal never wanted those spawns, he never intended to keep them, he never wanted a 'perfect child', they were fuel, born to be consumed for his return.

And that Larian has to make their dark urge the one true most *specialest* Bhaalspawn is just... pathetic. Can't find another word for it. They're trying to push aside Gorion's ward entire storyline, two incredible previous games, just to shove in their perfect, most special Bhaalspawn of all Bhaalspawns. And what flesh and blood of Bhaal is the Dark Urge made of? When Cyric killed him, he didn't have a mortal body, he was possessing one. Is the Dark Urge made of the dead flesh and blood of the guy he was possessing? Doesn't feel that special, but sure, go ahead.

I'm not saying their main charatcers shouldn't have been special somehow, it's part of the salt, but they should've have made it special with their own story. Not by trying too hard, and failing, to match the previous two games. I don't know, make the main character special reguarding something Illithid? You know, the supposed main focus of this game?

And yes, they do fail. The original game gives you the opportunity to become a god, in this one, your great evil achievement would be to be to work for a god. Congratulation, you've got a job. The one where you control the brain would be the only one where you truly achieve your evil overlord dreams. Surprise, surprise, that's the one connected to Illithid plot, not the Bhaal plot. They can do good work when they're not trying to one up their predecessors.

[mellowthorn]

i finished my da2 replay with anders rivalmance and i chose to kill him and now i can't stop listening to "i'm not calling you a liar" and it's making me very very sad :(

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

you’ll have to forgive me but i cannot get this au out of my head

so here are the twins and xiao

(as it always seems to happen with my posts, check the tags for my rambles)

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 19 / 31 * PLAYING HOOKY 」

10:15

Hill Valley Courthouse

“Good morning, Citizen Wilson,” Edna says curtly, a dangerous look in her eyes as she exchanges the expected pleasantries. Today’s smile is sharper than usual; today she has fangs instead of teeth, Goldie notes quietly—something that kicks his self-preservation drive into high gear because nothing good happens when the viper bears her fangs—and adjusts accordingly, proverbially twisting himself out of reach of that venomous bite of hers.

Mama used to tell him he was too perceptive for his own good. That he had a smile that could charm even the Devil himself and a tongue coated in silver.

It sure served him well back in law school. It would’ve made him a damn fine lawyer. It makes him excellent at his job now and keeps him out of trouble, mostly.

He knows what has put her in a sour mood before the explanation even comes out, which it inevitably does with alarming speed and disgust well before he can return the greeting. “I have urgent business to discuss with my husband, but I see his office has been untouched all morning. Have you heard anything from him?”

Goldie gives her the same bright smile he always does, flashing perfectly white teeth. “Good morning, Citizen. Lovely morning, isn’t it?” Edna’s mouth twitches at the edges but she says nothing, favouring expectant silence as she awaits the answer to her inquiry.

His mama taught him right. Taught him the value of honesty and virtue. That lying should be avoided unless it was the lesser of whatever two evils were placed in his path and then when he used that silver tongue of his, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Right now, he knew exactly what he was doing, lying to the most dangerous person in Hill Valley. And he knew exactly what would happen if he got caught.

But knowing what would happen if he didn’t, well, that left only one conscionable choice of action open to him.

He didn’t know all the details. Emmett had refused to elaborate on that meeting with Citizen Martin McFly, even after the usual prodding that often got him to open up and share some of his woes knowing they would be held in the utmost confidence.

‘It’s too dangerous to get you involved. The less you know, the less Edna will be able to try and force out of you.’

‘You’re planning something, aren’t you?’ Emmett says nothing and Goldie sets down two cups of coffee, sweetened with an additional cube of sugar each from their secret stash to cut the bitterness of the last few days. ‘I’ve been around long enough to know that look in your eyes.’ When Emmett’s brows fly up, he continues, ‘that’s the look of a man having a crisis of conscience.’

For a moment, he thinks a weary sigh is the only answer he’ll receive. ‘Let’s just say he forced something out into the open that I’ve tried to not think about for the past decade or so.’

But he was able to intuit enough of it based on the scraps of knowledge he did have.

Whatever he’s up to, whatever the reason Citizen McFly had for racking up a Demerit count that should have sent him straight to the Citizen Plus ward and whatever the truth was behind that memo that suddenly appeared on his desk overnight, Goldie knows in his heart that his absence today has everything to do with the kid.

He only hopes it's worth it.

So, Goldie lies expertly and efficiently, thankful for his long-time familiarity with Edna and her methods and Emmett’s forethought and preparedness, inasmuch as could be fabricated in an official memo left with him without revealing the true nature of whatever it was that consumed him. Without that, navigating the live minefield littered with Edna’s follow-up questions and scrutinising glares would have been near impossible.

[felix-krain]

I love Sonic Frontiers guys!

[mariyekos]

One day I'm going to finish my FFXVI mega essay, but for now I think my thoughts on the game can be summarized like this:

When making FFXVI, the developers sure knew what they wanted to do, and by god were they going to do it.

Were they also going to do other things that would make those first thing better? Were they going to do other things that make a good game overall? Ehhhhh...they were going to do what they wanted to do, and invest all their time and effort into that, so surely that would be enough! Surely!

[stinkrascal]

now that ive beaten bg3 idk what to do w myself... i miss her already...........

[hmmwellok]

i love how, after spending a week with harry's antics and then finding out he used to be a gym teacher, kim just goes for the conclusion that gym teachers are just superhuman like that

[ontargetmadders]

This is all because of ange btw. His pull is obviously massive considering he literally convinced timo to come in 2 seconds lol

[sysig]

Hey baby, did it hurt when you, oh geez, yeah it did, sorry for asking (Patreon)

[agentark]

stream of consciousness talk about the hunger games prequel below

I find it really interesting that people don't like how certain last names (that we already know from the trilogy) show up in the prequel book (e.g Lucky Flickerman is the host/commentator and we can presume that he's Caesar's relative - father? idk if it's stated)

I've seen people say they wish there were other people involved, that they didn't like recognizing so many names, but that's the whole point.

Like, there is very little upward mobility in Panem, whether you're district or capitol. Every single citizen is entrenched in their role from the birth. Not only that, but legacy? tradition? those are cornerstones of this whole system - so Heavensbee Hall/Hilaria/Plutarch? Arachne/Seneca Crane? Lucky/Caesar Flickerman? There's a reason Plinth and Highbottom are not names we see again if I'm remembering correctly.

Anyway, to me it just screams, "This is how it is, was, and will always be." The people with power and influence, the people who made it out of the rebellion with their wealth intact, they're going to be the first players in this larger game and they are never going to stop playing.

Not to mention, the man that Snow becomes? He's keeping people who can play their part close, and people he can manipulate closer.

[revvywevvy]

ok ok ok ok.

so. hear me out here. i have no idea where i'm going with this bc this literally just popped into my head on a whim but. what if. pyrlina childhood friends to lovers au.

soulcalibur storyline be damned I NEED this

[vaugarde]

i dont wanna sound like a person thats like “if a character is mean then theyre written poorly” but truly what makes or breaks a villain to me is whether or not youre supposed to find them complex and well intentioned deep down and they obviously arent

[god-of-a-thousand-demons]

I’m really about to replay p5 for the third time just for joker. He’s my favorite character you could keep the entire rest of the game but as long as he was there I’d play it a million times

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

Worst Part/Best Part of Ravi’s MSQ journey so far—GO!

OKAY UHHH. ALL OF IT

Jk LMAO

We're making a sandwich out of this, we gonna start with aspects of MSQ that she likes, put all the MSQ shit she hates in the middle, and then we're gonna end with which sections of MSQ she enjoyed the most! :> Buckle up, friends, and let me spin you a bit of O'ravi's tale! ����☕

Best part of MSQ, as in "the aspects she likes the most": getting to meet such a huge variety of people, see all these incredible vistas, making a positive impact on people's lives, the friends she's made along the way, just- the incredible depths of love that she gets to experience. In some ways, it's her ultimate dream come true- she set out to become a minstrel, she wanted to see the heart of humanity, to learn of other cultures, she wanted to just...it's hard to put into words, but she wanted to live life to the fullest. To experience fully, to understand fully, it's sort of like- you know how Y'shtola's dream is to uncover the truths and secrets that lie at the heart of the world? O'ravi's dream is very very similar, except instead of being like, based on knowledge of the star, it's centered around people- their histories, their folklores and languages and songs, the love and loss and hope, the rage and sorrow and despair. O'ravi loves the star, but her truest love has always been people, not unlike Venat. And being the WoL is the only path that allows this dream to be reality.

Worst part of MSQ, as in "the aspects of it she doesn't like": she has a whole ass list and it is LONG. Really long, and it includes watching people die, people using her for their own political ends, having to put up with people she fucking hates, being everyone's Ace In The Hole, people making her play the kingmaker, people acting entitled to her time and energy (this is the biggest reason why she currently dislikes and distrusts Wuk Lamat T^T*), having to kill people literally constantly, the pain that all the fighting leaves her in and the toll it takes on her mind and body (she used to ignore it/not give a shit but she can't do that anymore)... Long story short, there is a Reason(TM) why she's a dark knight ldfkjghdkjgh, and she might be a paladin now but that doesn't mean she's hung up the greatsword. Far from it. (She has hung up Shattered Heart (formerly Zephirin's sword) though, much to Aymeric's relief fdklgjhdkgj. Not sure what sword is her main one now.)

*IT'S NOT REALLY WUK'S FAULT, O'RAVI IS JUST REALLY FUCKED UP AND HAS BEEN BURNT TOO MANY TIMES BEFORE 😭 I believe that she means well and is just overenthusiastic but O'ravi 100% does not, tbh she almost resents Wuk Lamat for sins that she hasn't even committed yet, just on account of the way she, like, approached O'ravi like the fact that she was gonna agree to help her was already a done deal and assumed the answer would be "sure let's go" without really even considering the possibility that she could - and had the right to - say no....

Worst part of MSQ, as in "time that sucked the most": base Endwalker and Stormblood (base + patches). Somehow those ended up being a lot worse and a lot harder than post-Vault Heavensward, because at least in Heavensward she had the support of her friends and the Fortemps, it was a conflict she had very personal stakes in and no one was forcing her to be there (unlike SB), and she had hope that she could save Estinien. Endwalker was just....a different can of worms which I'm putting under a cut in a bit.

Stormblood was bad because she absolutely did NOT want anything to do with that war and she didn't believe for a second that winning it was possible (Nidhogg and the Horde had reasons she could understand and she was still semi-naive and optimistic back then, but the Empire felt incomprehensible and unstoppable and she'd become extremely pessimistic by then). She just wanted to go back home to Ishgard and be left alone to grieve her friends. To sum up her biggest issue with Stormblood: Hien found it odd that she was dead silent most of the time, and he once asked for her thoughts about his plan to flood Doma Castle. Her answer amounted to "I don't have any thoughts because there's no point in thinking, it's not my job- I'm just here to be a good obedient weapon and kill whatever you tell me to. Why would I waste my time having an opinion on something when what I feel/think/need doesn't matter to anyone?"

Yeah it was really fucked up lfdkjgfdghldk. (For the record, I do like Stormblood, this is all just O'ravi's feelings about it, and they're extremely negative because it was the lowest point of her life by a landslide. She was overwhelmed by trauma and grief and it kind of broke her, she was afforded no time to process anything that happened before she was thrown into war as the Alliance's #1 Weapon. Her opinions are not my opinions, please don't come at me FKJGLHDKGJH)

Endwalker fucking sucked because uhh.....well. She held herself personally responsible for the Final Days. The rest of this is going under a cut!

It's kinda hard to get into details but between the time loop and the fact that she personally slew Zodiark, not only does she believe the blood of everyone who became blasphemies is on her hands, she also believes she doomed the Ancients - and Azem, personally - and sacrificed them on the altar to save her own people, her own timeline, her own life. She considers herself the root of all Final Days-related suffering and death both for the Ancients and for modern Etheirys, and the whole time she's practically praying that she'll be killed to end the Final Days. She believes that fate demands it- that all she is MUST die to redress the balance. If everyone else were to flee on the moon, she would be obligated to remain on Etheirys until the bitter end, because she caused this. She burned the world. All of it is her fault, she deserves to die, and there is no ending to this story in which she lives. For her to survive would be an affront to the gods, to fate, to the people she's wronged, to everyone that ever lived. She adamantly refuses to listen to anyone who says otherwise or any evidence to the contrary fgljkdhk.

I know in-game the narrative treats the concept of WoL becoming a blasphemy as kind of a joke because in what world would that ever happen lol, but uhhhh, it does almost happen to O'ravi after what I call her day from hell (the Final Days of Thavnair, where Ahewann dies and Matsya's friends are killed and he and his friends' baby almost turn to blasphemies, etc). She has a breakdown after the meeting with Shirabaht and the dignitaries, and it takes the combined efforts of Ardbert, Estinien, and probably Fray to stop her from turning. The guilt and self-loathing and sheer fucking stress from all that happening just turned into wholesale despair. It only happened that once, though.

The only reason Endwalker DOESN'T rank as being a worse time for her than Stormblood is, ironically, her unshakeable belief that she had to die at the end. Because dying at the end was her best shot at redemption and atonement, and the thought of being able to atone, even if only in part, became the hope she could hold onto. She wasn't sure if she could save Etheirys, but being able to give it her absolute all without the distraction of being worried about her survival was sort of a saving grace sdkjfhlkdjgh. Idk it's weird!!! It's a lot!!! It was a bad weird time!!!

Her other saving grace was whatever the fuck she had going on with Aymeric FKGJHDFLJGHD. That's a post for another day but the tl;dr of it is they had a sort of star-crossed lovers thing going, she threw caution to the wind and decided to kiss him and be open about how much she loved him despite the fact that they'd never get to be together the way they both wanted, they were sort of just making the most of the scraps of time they had because time was running out

Best part of MSQ, as in "time she enjoyed the most": ARR patches and the first round of ShB patches. The ARR patches were her highest point for a long time, she had everything she wanted, all the adventure and purpose and thrills she could ever want. It was also before grief shattered her and she was made to pick up the pieces, before most of her idealism and hope was ripped away from her. It wasn't perfect, though, much as she used to think it was.

The first round of ShB patches were for the most part such a joyful time? Norvrandt never for a moment took her for granted the way Eorzea does, and they don't idolize her to the point of dehumanizing her either. There's a sort of kinship that she has with the people of the First, because they've known such horrible loss and kept on living anyway, same as she has. It's more of an even playing field, as it were. She can breathe easier there. She was also sort of drunk on the joy of being reunited with G'raha and the fact they both survived; the very complicated feelings she had about Emet and Amaurot were sort of buried under that fdlkgjhdgjk. She loved helping people, and then getting to go home to the Source and reunite with the people she thought she'd never get to see again (Aymeric, the Fortemps, and her family most of all!), and so that all outweighed the problems of Elidibus's Weird Stupid Bullshit by a lot. Most of the second round of ShB patches were good too, but she was so emotionally fucked up by the Seat of Sacrifice (as well as her own insecurities getting really bad) that she couldn't enjoy those as much.

tysm to anyone who read all this, and tysm for asking this meg!!!! this is probably more than you bargained for FGKJLDHGJH but you asked a very good question!!!!!!