#just watched a playthrough of his campaign

[sagetoadtea]

I see your father in you

[4giorno]

my personal #1 wish for daniils campaign is that they will make us actually want to choose his ending

[fleshwerks]

Thank you for your rant posts on DAV. They’ve been cathartic to read as they echo so many of my own issues with the game and how it treats its own lore and insults its fanbase. I feel stupid for caring about the oppression of mages and elves given how they sanitized and wrote out these cornerstones of the Thedas setting and it sucks! Im glad I’m not alone.

I had very little hope for this game given its mess of a dev cycle and how the company has bled talent, I thought it would be a very messy narrative as a result. And it is! But it’s worse, because it’s not just messy, it commits the greatest cardinal sin of writing: it’s boring.

I think you nailed it. I'm at the same point as you, especially as someone who's huge into DA lore and the intrauniverse sociopolitics, as well as the expected (foolishly) aspect of your deeds mattering, either positively or negatively.

I have a whole ass Inquisitor who can now stop feeling bad in his steppe-sky burial about his indecisiveness during his tenure as an Inquisitor: BECAUSE NONE OF IT MATTERED ANYWAY. 'Oh, you delayed some suffering for like, what, 7 years? 7 years is nothing when you're doomed anyway. I can already hear the argument "but what you do even in short term matters, too."

Yes, in real life. But I don't do RPGs for real life. I play RPGs to be able to fantasise about doing a bit more than I can do in real life.

On top of it just about everybody being so blasé about what's going on. This is the worst blight ever, two actual gods are loose, but here we are at the dinner table, arguing about Taash' mom being a strict, traditional jerkass and Bellara joining the list of people who hate themselves for having ADHD, and holding her hand through it. Boring.

Veilguard commits another sin: everybody blames themselves for everything, but it either gets fixed for them, or they're feeling sorry and do the thing they feel so sorry about anyway.

My kingdom for a character who can go 'it is what it is, I'm not perfect, but I'm not sorry for existing and having an impact on this world, especially if the impact is caused by something I couldn't really control; all that matters is what we do next.' Which would open up the world at wide: tackling things that make your personal issues microbial in comparison. These people don't have the luxury of crying into their chicken soup. Not to say these things can't be addressed, but in Dragon Age, characters are supposed to support the overarching plot and the worldbuilding. Instead, the world puts itself on hold until you've solved Lucanis' granny issues or whatever.

If you've ever watched campaign 3 of Critical Role, that series has the same issue. The cast is made up of people who by and large have no real connection to the world or the overarching plot, and a large part of the viewerbase has come down onto the same idea: if the characters don't really care and only keep reacting, and reacting with quippiness and laughs and occasional 'oh no, that's bad, right? Anyway,'... why should we care?

Why should I care? Because everything I cared about as a player has been deleted, and the cast of Veilguard is mostly just dicking around until the plot reminds them that hey: we have the worst apocalypse going on since Solas deleted Elvhenan. Can we like... react more to it? We can do the therapy sessions later when people have stopped dying.

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that I'm going off on a tangent and I'm most likely projecting and reading into it too much/not reading into it enough. But that's the problem. Most players will play it once. You can't rely on subsequent playthroughs to make someone care.

Worst part is, companions aren't even boring. They're just miscast for this particular plot, exacerbated by what BW did to all the established lore. The tonality of the game itself and its place in DA canon is just wack.

I'm likely being incredibly unfair, but there's something to investigate here, because if you've failed to bring players into the lore and invest themselves in such numbers, it isn't just Mari here talking shit, it's a wider problem. Lest we forget, your fiction, your work stops being 'only yours' the moment you publish it and allow people play with your toys. The author is king, but the author is only the king of their own version of their story. The moment it's read and played by many, it's not just your story anymore, it's everybody's, who's engaging with it.

God dammit my English literature and language degree is catching up with me, I've turned into That Guy. Uck.

[stoutguts]

Been re-playing 09 recently, and like what if what if—

(the idea is low-key out there but just hear me out, also MAJOR ANGST, MCD, trigger warning/content warning for implied/briefly mentioned s*ic*de)

Price knows that he's in a vídeo game. Like, he figured it out after the first couple of resets,—after the first few playthroughs of the campaign. He has sentience across MW’s 1-3, while everyone else doesn’t.

No matter what he does, the outcome always remains the same.

Like a broken tape recorder, history repeats itself.

Forced to sit by and watch as his men die, again and again.

With their being absolutely fucking nothing he can do to stop it.

The plot is predetermined, and the programming just won’t allow it.

No matter how many times he tries to fight it, no matter how many times he tries to scream or say something off script, or move his body in a different way, it’s all futile.

First, it’s always Gaz.

Killed by Zakhaev, with that damned Desert Eagle.

Failing to protect him from the shot, time and time again. Even when he tries his best to shield him, it just phases right through him.

Then eventually it’s time for Ghost and Roach to go, and it’s never not devastating.

His transmission over comms is always just a smidge too late, no matter how many times he tries to warn them.

The worst part of it is that they’re not even able to recover the bodies,—Shepherd took care of that and then some.

But the most soul crushing of all—

Soap.

The bloody game has the audacity to give Price and the player some sliver of hope,—that maybe Johnny’ll make it out alive somehow.

Shepherd didn’t manage to kill him,—he survived that near death experience at the very least.—But that all comes crashing down after Modern Warfare 3–“Blood Brothers”.

The most brutal of them all, (in Price’s opinion), and it’s of course for the person he cares about most.

His (essentially) adopted son slowly bleeding to death, as they’re under heavy gunfire and surrounded by enemies on all sides. Before finally kicking the bucket from explosives planted by that bastard Makarov.

Of all people, why did it have to be him?

Yuri is gone before he even really got to know the guy.

So blah blah blah, the cycle continues over and over again, and the loop remains unbroken for a long time.

Price tries everything he can possibly think of, and eventually he runs out of options.

By some miracle however,—perhaps some fault in the game’s coding.—There comes an opportunity to end the cycle.—Price meanwhile, has slowly and progressively lost his mind,—until he finally snaps.

After he’d killed Makarov for around the 1,000th time, he can finally end his suffering.

As he watches Makarov’s lifeless body hanging from the rappel, instead of the usual lighter he pulls out to light his cigar, he gains just enough control over his body to pull out his pistol and pull the trigger.

A mass recall of copies of MW3 ensued after the discovery of this “glitch”, due to a outrage within the fan base and community. No matter what the developers and devs tried too, it couldn’t be patched. The game was then rewritten to where Price is the one to die, while Soap lives and is the one to kill Makarov instead. Re-released in 2013.

The idea came to me while listening to/was heavily inspired by the song “S.I.U” by Maretu btw.

If any of you know that song or are familiar, you’re a real one.

Also, completey unrelated, but is it just me or like does 09’s Makarov not sound and look like fucking Ben Shapiro lmfao??? He more so sounds like him though, or at least he reminds me of Ben Shapiro—

[ladyhedoniste]

Oxventure spoilers!

I'm genuinely so happy with what I've seen so far from the new Oxventure D&D world. The character choices they've started making and the their role-playing skills have grown so much since they first started playing.

The characters they've chosen to play are interesting and fresh, and I'm glad to see they're going in directions they haven't always gone before.

I also really enjoyed watching the Wyrdwood Unraveled first video on Patreon. Zack and Johnny discussed some behind the scenes stuff from the Geth days that many of us had been thinking for a long time, about how it was time to say goodbye once it got the point where the Oxboxtra folks had outgrown their first campaign and become better players than the campaign they were playing, and that Johnny had been nerfing a lot of fights during live shows.

I'm really glad that there was a lot of discussion and planning that went into figuring out the tone of the new series, and pushing their own boundaries so that the stories they told could progress and mature.

As for the first episode, I am beyond myself. I could gush all day about the choices made.

Jane: playing an absolute darling Cleric, so sweet and capable. It was nice seeing her play merciful when it's not usually played in TTRPG's because it's usually inconvenient.

Mike: the pass-ag barbarian, not just defaulting to strong but dumb, seemingly starting to carve a new path (Hopefully. It's a little harder to tell with how low he was rolling, but we've seen him as Barnaby in Blades; I have faith).

Ellen: once again playing against the *idea* that everyone has of her play style (people forget that Merilwen was actually Truth Neutral, like, all the time), and wow, she was really channeling posho elven bitch.

Luke: Of course he went for the really hard but very interesting mechanic (having seen him do the Dark Souls randomized playthrough, I really had to laugh). I mean come on, the luck pervert thing ("Nat 1! Praise Cadence!") is so fucking funny. I'm really looking forward to seeing the story evolve in regards to Happen's good luck/bad luck deal.

Andy: I fucking knew he was going to be playing my favourite character...characters. They're both fun. I love that Robin is just some sweet but very basic stat guy who does his best, and I love that Morven is a seemingly the woman of my dreams, a cool spooky revenge witch. I'm really glad that Robin didn't die off immediately, because that would have been such a bummer to go through in the first episode after the thing with Corazon, and also Nate, even if that was supposed to happen.

I am extremely optimistic about this series, and where they are going to take it, in ways that I wasn't really anymore in the two to three seasons before the G'eth series ended. I'm really happy for them :)

[estrellami-1]

Cutesy prompt, also derived from my life but just because I’m thinking about getting a switch after falling in love with animal crossing playthroughs lol:

Modern au, no upside down : Steve hasn’t really been one for video games he doesn’t like the jump scares and the violence there’s enough of that in real life if he turns on the news, but Robin gets him hooked on animal crossing playthroughs on YouTube and he falls in love with how comforting and straightforward the game is, you plant a seed and you see it grow to a sapling right away there’s a sense of accomplishment. Steve usually drives Dustin and the kids to their Dnd nights at a game shop and while it’s pricier than he would usually splurge on he’s been thinking about buying a switch to play animal crossing himself so he decides to go to the one game shop he knows off the top of his head, the one he takes the kids to, that just so happens to be owned by eddie who does weekly DND nights. Eddie talks with him about the pros and cons of different consoles and games and maybe suggests that if he’d like he could come over to his place to try it out first hand and maybe join him for dinner while he’s at it?

(Okay side note while I was writing this I thought of twists that could be added to it, like maybe after hearing his reasoning for liking the calmer games eddie writes a sweet low stakes type of campaign for Steve and convinces him to join them for a campaign to show him it doesn’t have to be violent or scary. Or maybe they have those play in store to try it out kind of things and eddie offers that he can try it out in the store until he’s ready to buy and Steve keeps coming back to the store under the guise of trying out the console but really just to spend more time with eddie. I could think of more but I think it has potential)

💜

Ok so I’m like Steve, I don’t play video games. I’ve played Minecraft and my favorite thing to do is farm 😂 I’ve never played Animal Crossing so my apologies if anything is incorrect! I do think this is a SUPER cute prompt though and I’m so excited to see where y’all take it! 😉

Admittedly, my love, I did not complete this prompt the way you had specified, but I felt like I hit enough of the major points and got to a good stopping place for now. Feel free to send another ask if you want me to continue! ❤️

Title Screen - Part 1

“Robin, what-” he flails as his phone is ripped from his hand.

She judges him. “Sudoku, Steve? Really?”

“I like it! What are you doing?”

“You’re gonna love this. Promise.”

He throws his hands up and waits for her to hand his phone back. When she does, it’s open to YouTube. “Trust me,” she asks. “Just watch the first video.”

He reads the title. “A video game playthrough? Robs, you know I don’t like video games.”

“I know you don’t like violent video games. This one isn’t violent, Steve. Promise.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but she’s his best friend and roommate for a reason, so he plays it as soon as she leaves the room.

When she comes back in to ask about dinner, she’s got a smug look on her face. “Fine, you were right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It’s cute. I like the bunny.”

Robin chuckles. “I thought you might. Y’know that video game store the kiddos love? I think they’ve got it.”

“Probably,” he allows, very much not thinking about it. Or the very attractive employee who seems to always be there when he is, shopping for the kids. He sets his phone on his chest. “How’s Chinese for dinner sound?”

“I’ll marry you,” Robin says.

Steve chuckles. “Wanna call it in? You know my order.”

“Orange chicken.” She makes a face. “Yeah, I’ll call it in.”

“Thanks.” She waves him off, so as she leaves, he calls, “I’m serious! Thank you! I love you! Marry me!”

“I’ll leave you at the altar!” She calls back, and he cackles.

He plays the video again.

Three days later finds him inside the video game store. Not for him, he swears, but Dustin’s birthday is soon-ish, anyways, and he needs a present, and he had been talking about some figurine or another.

“Hey, welcome in!” Very Attractive Employee says. “Can I help you find anything?”

Steve smiles, shakes his head. “Thank you.” He walks around, doesn’t necessarily look for Animal Crossing, but doesn’t necessarily walk away when he sees it, either. He picks it up, examines the case. Robin’s got a Switch, and he knows she’d let him borrow it. The one part he’s not really sold on is the price. He sets it down, looks at it for a minute longer, as if that would make the price change.

“If you’d like to try, I can put it in the system,” Very Attractive Employee says. His voice is soft, and something about it sounds familiar.

“I dunno.” Steve sighs. “I don’t want to impose, and I know most of the beginning is a bunch of talking and naming yourself and the world, right?”

Very Attractive Employee frowns. “Have you played it before?”

“Ah… no. I, uh.” He’s strangely embarrassed to say it. “I’ve watched playthrough videos.”

Very Attractive Employee grins and motions him over to the trial station. “Yeah? YouTube, right? D’you know who?”

“Uh…” Steve pulls his phone out, opens YouTube. It’s one of the first recommended videos. “HFClub?”

“Ah.” He stills for a moment, then smiles at Steve. “Well, if you’d like to try, it’s available.” He gestures to the console. “And believe it or not, this isn’t a super high-traffic store. It can get kinda boring being the only one here. If you don’t mind me watching over your shoulder, I don’t mind you staying until I’ve gotta close up.” He grins at Steve. “Whaddya say?”

Steve smiles tentatively back, takes a seat, and picks up the device.

He was right; it takes him a good amount of time to get past the opening, but he does have fun, especially with Very Attractive Employee imitating the other characters.

When he looks up again, it’s dark outside. “Oh, shit,” he murmurs, checking his watch. Somehow he’s spent three hours playing. “Shit, man, that’s dangerous,” he laughs.

Very Attractive Employee chuckles. “I know, right?” He shifts. “I’ve seen you in here before buying other games, and you don’t hesitate. Can I ask why today was different?”

“I usually come in to buy things for these kids I used to babysit. This one is purely selfish.” He grins and stretches, grins more when he notices Very Attractive Employee’s gaze is drawn down to where his shirt has ridden up.

“Kids?” He finally asks.

Steve hums. “You might know ‘em, actually, there’s one with curly hair, usually wears a trucker hat. A redhead who will put the fear of God into you. A bitchy kid with hair that could be great-”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Very Attractive Employee waves his arms through the air. “Dustin? Max? Mike?”

“Holy shit,” Steve says, and begins to laugh. “Yeah, exactly.”

Very Attractive Employee looks at Steve for a minute before saying, “So you must be Steve!”

Steve gapes. “They talk about me?”

“Oh, man.” Very Attractive Employee chuckles. “Dustin never shuts up about you, man, he loves you.”

“Oh.” Steve stills. “I, uh. Kinda thought they just tolerated me.”

“No way. Well, maybe Mike, but you know how he is.”

Steve chuckles. “Yeah. Do you know them just from how often they come in here?”

“Oh, no. I’m their DM. Y’know, Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Oh,” Steve nods, thinks. “Eddie, right? And- fuck, what was it. Elf Club, or something?”

Eddie chuckles. “You mean Hellfire Club?”

Steve snaps and points at Eddie. “That’s the one. Man, they love you too, every time I see the brats it’s always Eddie this and Eddie that and Eddie killed our characters but it was great.”

Eddie chuckles. “That’s good to hear. Can I ask why you’re just now looking at this for yourself?”

Steve sighs. “I know the kids love your campaigns, but I don’t like anything too horror-y. I don’t like jump-scares, and it feels like most video games have some element of that. My best friend got me hooked on the videos, and I decided to try it out.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, this is definitely a very calm game. Feel free to come back in any time to continue trying it out, though. If you want.”

Steve smiles at him. “I might just take you up on that offer.”

Fic-specific tag, once again, is the fic name (no spaces): #titlescreen and as always, my writing tag is #starambles and you can subscribe to either or both to follow along with this fic! Let me know what you want to see happen next in this ‘verse!

[teine-mallaichte]

I am seeing a lot of takes about Anders today… a lot of people hypothesising as to if he would have done what he did had people been better friends to him, had people listened, had people let him know they cared… and in some cases had people just not gaslighted him, because seriously in some playthroughs is it totally possible to gaslight him…

So I thought I would add my thoughts to the discussion…

I may have a slightly biased view… and I may be projecting slighty... because when DA2 came out I had been experiencing psychosis and mania on and off for 5 years, and had only been out of hospital a few weeks. I vividly remember watching Anders deteriorate throughout the game, watching how people brushed off what he said, how he withdrew, how he hid behind a façade… and I really felt for him.

Now, supposedly Anders was written to be bipolar. I am not going to get into that here because some of the incidences when this has been mentioned by the writers were… well not worded well at best, and at worst ableist… but anyway, as a person with schizoaffective disorder maybe I related to him a bit, I even sort of have my own version of Justice as I have a practically constant auditory hallucination called Nigel who loves to pass judgment on things that I, and those around me, do.

Anyway, I am getting off topic…

The thing is I kind of feel like the chantry explosion had to happen. I have been involved in advocacy work and campaigning, and honestly change is hard, getting people to listen is hard… even harder when people view you are a unreliable narrator or see you as “paranoid”, “dramatic”, etc.  And in Thedas no one was going to listen, we saw that over the YEARS that Anders tried literally everything to create even a small amount of change – nothing worked, no one cared.

Would his friends actually listening and supporting him change this? Probably not… at best perhaps it would have delayed the inevitable, or led to a slightly more thought out plan.

However… that dosen’t mean that Anders did not deserve better! The guy was falling apart in front of our eyes. He deserved at the very least to be listened to. He spent years looking out for everyone but himself, neglecting himself in favour of others, putting himself in potential danger just to save one more mage, that situation would break anyone eventually.

So no… maybe people listening and supporting him would not have prevented him blowing up the chantry, love could not save him.

but maybe that is also not the point.

and I repeat there is a high chance I am both biased and projecting 😂

[trills-n-clicks]

Hello, welcome to my blog!

Hi! I'm Trill, or Click. I go by They/Them pronouns and I will be posting multiple(?) series fics. My main WIP being a story of a Task Force of 5 meeting TF141.

I write for COD, specifically the MW2 campaign (I have never played the game, I have watched playthroughs) I will not write for most of not all KorTac characters (I have no clue abt most of them). Everyone else is pretty much fair game.

My Navigation Information: ~｡⁠✧•°•✧⁠｡~

I try my best to write m!, f! and gn!character stuff, but if I make inaccuracies, you may criticize (just not too harshly please!)

I currently do not write for reader-insert fics or smut, I will try to do these at some point, but I am not taking requests for them.

I am currently writing for oc-insert fics (you may request a fic with 2 OCs of your own!), fluff, angst, canon characters/canon characters(though it will probably be inaccurate), OC/canon characters and OC / OC.

My requests are OPEN for now. I will try to respond to the ones I get :).

Series:

Task Force Arachnid Masterlist

Drabbles:

soon...

Head cannons:

soon...

Imagines:

soon...

Full length single parted:

soon...

More to be added!

[leofrith]

hii so i‘m way to invested in everyone‘s baldurs gate plays. can we see your tavs? I would love to see them haha😭

YESSSSSS i will happily take any excuse to talk about my tavs. 🥰 i'm sorry this took so long. i wanted to have their Lore™ a little more set in stone before answering this, but then i proceeded to make uhhhh 2 more tavs and a durge. 🤡

i am listing my characters in the order i created them. they're all good/neutral aligned because being mean in video games makes me break out in hives. aaaaand this is going under a read more because it got really fucking long. 🥴

marqwyn stoneheart

race: human

class: eldritch knight fighter

background: soldier

romance: gale

my first tav who i adore. ❤️ i stole her name from the very first character i created for a now abandoned dnd campaign (though she's nothing like og marqwyn). she's a former flaming fist who left their service due to the corruption she witnessed there. after leaving the city she became an independent soldier for hire—but she's a terrible mercenary because she's a bleeding heart who will help people because they need it, regardless of whether they can pay her or not.

she has dragged the party into many an unnecessary brawl because her charisma is literally in the negatives. we love a girl incapable of talking herself out of Situations. she also used to have two brown eyes before deciding to get herself volo'd during a brief moment of desperation-fuelled insanity.

her backstory has changed a lot since i first made her, mostly because i didn't really have anything in mind when i started playing. 😬 i also had no fucking clue what i was doing when i first started and it certainly shows (tons of missed content, didn't take enough long rests, completely missed lae'zel for the first ~30 hours of gameplay, have done quests in an extremely questionable order, etc.).

i romanced gale with her because the wizard had me by the jugular the second he opened his mouth, and buff wife who hits things with her big sword and her squishy wizard husband who casts counterspell is something that can be so personal. that being said, i do want to rework her character and do another playthrough with her, probably romancing wyll, because her playthrough is a mess.

i will now dip into the alternate canon that lives in my brain in which my next three tavs are allowed to coexist, so just stay with me here and trust in the vision ajgjsdgf

meadow moonwillow

race: mephistopheles tiefling

class: storm sorcerer, bard of the college of lore

background: entertainer

romance: karlach (or enya in the canon that exists in my head)

i made her specifically for my karlach romance run, because best girl deserves a little sunshine to match her own. meadow was born to play gigs in dive bars, but was cursed with a natural talent for magic. 😔 she'll use it because it's useful in a fight, i guess, but she'd much rather insult people to death. if there is shit to be disturbed, she will disturb it.

her and gale are best friends, because i think having some friendly spell caster competition with his bestie who (begrudgingly) lets him teach her wizard spells would be good for his mental health. her and wyll butt heads a bit at first, mostly because meadow's way of trying to comfort people is through humor, and her attempts to make him feel better about his new devil form come off as insensitive (inspired by the way i accidentally insulted wyll at the tiefling party in my meadow playthrough by joking that i was jealous of his horns. king i swear it was meant as a compliment!! 😭). eventually they become really close, which is certainly a necessity when you're both going on a vacation to hell with no set end date.

also my choice of name for her definitely has nothing to do with the fact that i am in the middle of watching the sopranos. definitely not.

landric sparrowsong, "the wrath-bringer"

race: human

class: oath of vengeance paladin, tempest domain cleric of ilmater

background: sage

romance: gale

his backstory is probably the one i've thought about in the most detail, mostly because he's a walking tragedy and i live for that shit. 🧍🏻‍♀️

he was once a school teacher and wasn't much of a fighter at all before his little village near baldur's gate was razed to the ground and his wife and (or so he thinks 👀) daughter were killed, at which point he took up his oath of vengeance. his favourite pastimes now include self-sacrifice and violently murdering evildoers, hence the "wrath-bringer" epithet.

he has been alone—mostly by choice, because he can't lose any more loved ones if there is no one left alive that he loves—for over a decade by the time he's infected, but the forced proximity means the companions very quickly get under his skin. he's very protective of meadow especially (when they're both in the party at the same time in the universe that exists in my head) because she reminds him of his daughter.

he is god's favourite sacrificial lamb, and is consistently the first to go down in a fight (inspired by me, constantly getting him killed by taking far too long to figure out how to play a support class). naturally i paired him with gale because i think the idea of a guy finally opening his heart to the love of another after over a decade of self-imposed solitude out of fear of being hurt again, only for gale to decide to take on a suicide mission just as they're finally realizing their feelings for one another, is soooooo good and tragic. ☺️

he has a soft spot for children, but being around them makes him sad and withdrawn (for obvious reasons), something that the companions notice pretty quickly once they get to the grove and see his cold exterior totally melt around the kids there. he carries a journal which he adds to often, either little blurbs or sketches of people he meets in his travels, ever observing from afar as an outsider.

he was actually a war cleric of mystra when i first multiclassed him because the idea of this man finding solace in his goddes during the worst years of his life only for that same goddess to tell the first person he's truly loved in years that he needs to kill himself is sooooo. anyway. but i decided to change it because war domain just wasn't doing it for me and also have you seen ilmater's whole deal?

also if he bears a close resemblance to my favourite unromanceable assassin's creed npc, that's just a coincidence (lying).

enya sparrowsong

race: human

class: beast master ranger/circle of the land druid

background: urchin

romance: lae'zel (or meadow in the canon that exists in my head)

enya is landric's very alive daughter. i made her in the character creator with no intention of actually doing a playthrough as her, which is a lie i tell myself every time i open the character creator. 😔

ideally she would not even be filling the role of tav at all, but that's obviously not an option for an actual playthrough. she spent her childhood hunting and gathering in the wilds and later pickpocketing her way through the darkened alleys of baldur's gate to survive. in the version of her backstory that lives in my head, she eventually caught the attention of jaheira (by trying to rob her), who then took enya under her wing. the harpers became a family to her, and she is with them in the shadow lands when we meet them at last light in act two. also depending on my mood on any given day, enya and meadow are either bitter exes or couple of the year.

she is generally very abrasive with most people she doesn't know well (her and lae'zel are very perfect for each other), but has a soft spot for animals and orphans. she likes her solitude and it takes a lot of effort to earn her trust (there's a reason she's survived alone as long as she has) but once you do, she's ride-or-die.

she has a raven companion and her preferred wild shape is a wolf, but i've also had a lot of fun using her wolf wild shape and a wolf companion for twice the mauling in combat (and twice the torment for shadowheart—thank you sam for pointing out that she would fucking hate this 😭). i also like to think that she's been helping shadowheart get over her fear of wolves.

her relationship with her dad is deliciously complicated!!! but that's for another post.

idunn

race: high elf

class: necromancy wizard/gloom stalker ranger

background: haunted one

romance: astarion

i haven't played as her much yet, and she's my first durge so i don't really know a ton about that whole background. but her brain is currently scrambled egg and she doesn't remember her past so i figure it's fine if i don't know anything about it either.🧍🏻‍♀️

she's trying so very hard not to kill people, and making up for the lack of murder by being incredibly rude to everyone she meets [astarion approves]. i named her idunn because i like the name but also in large part because i think associating the dark urge with the norse goddess of rejuvenation and vitality is really funny.

aelius lucilius

race: drow half-elf

class: light domain cleric of selune

background: acolyte

romance: shadowheart

he's my newest tav and the one i've played the least, so i'm still working out his backstory. i honestly just really wanted to romance shadowheart as a selunite, which is working out great so far because the shar is already out of the bag and now she loudly and openly hates his fucking guts. 🤪

[thisaccountisagainstmywill]

I've begun an evil Honor mode playthrough with my Old Man Gaming Squad. And it's slightly less chaos this time around but by FAR more of a disaster. I'm playing Bazahl the Duergar Rogue this go around. We've been trying to do an evil game where we don't kill everyone, but instead do the actual evil plot line. (Hint: It's not going well.)

The beginning of Baz's real bad night. Night events keep triggering on me for some reason this session. This session I started with the Lae'zel "Oh we're transforming, I better slit your throat." I am not the face of this playthrough (or the last one), so I failed all the checks to convince her not to hurt me.

Someone asked "What happens if you just give in?" We do science in this house so of course I tried. Well, kids the news is: She kills you. Then after she kills you, she goes hostile and fights the rest of your camp. And for some reason Gale goes hostile too. (Boy's confused but he's got the spirit.) So because of the issue with killing Gale causing an end game state after three days, we're scrambling to fix it. Lae'zel we can handle being gone. She killed me and me is important we have no other rogue. We try bonking Gale. But bonking is bugged. We force restart the game, no good. We scramble around and eventually have to just kill Gale, we can't end combat we're in camp and we have no potions. His projection spawns and we go through all of that. Gale gets rezzed and we're Gucci. Sometimes a Wizard just needs his reset button pressed. In the mess of trying to get the other players back into the game I end up having to play through everyone's Dream Visitor Night 1 so they can get in. So I get to see everyone's Dream Visitors.

My dream visitor is real damn fine for someone I just hit random on a bunch of times. (✿◡‿◡)

The old men, however, were boring in their picks. Lae'zel is gone in the morning (we bonked her out, so she might be alive) and I'm alive again. We're good. We can go to the Grove, evil campaign back on schedule. WRONG We invade the Grove and everything goes fine. However, for some reason Minthara 'My Queen and Light of My Life' Baenre's sexual advances dialogue keeps triggering on my character despite never having spoken to her. Against my better wishes I turn her down. My Queen went immediately hostile at the party and now every Goblin is hostile. Its Honor Mode so we can't reload.

Moments before disaster.

Afterwards I'm getting yelled at going, "Why didn't you just sleep with her?!" Me: "Have you seen her scene?! " Old Man: "No!"

Me: "It's pretty explicit! It would be like watching porn with my uncles." Old Man: "Oh fair, I guess. But I would have done it."

Me: "I know you would've....that's so weird. Why did it trigger on me?"

Sleep well my bonked out Queen. I hope I see you at Moonrise. But I doubt it. Now every single Goblin back at the Goblin camp is aggressive. We've ruined our chances of having a nice and normal Evil Campaign. We're going full murder hobo. No one will survive. Zarys and the Underdark vendors are the only vendors we have left in Act 1. Everyone else is dead but we need to get to them still.

Conclusion: Honor Mode really isn't the place to be testing out new story paths. ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

[torque-witch]

Meet the Witch - 2024 Edition

Honestly I have not introduced myself in a LONG time because I've had this account since 2014 ish - so in case there are new people here this can be a good reference point.

So hi, hello - this is me in 2024. You can call me Cara but most people here know me as Torque! My pronouns are They/Them and I am currently 32 and married. I live in Pittsburgh, PA.

Most people know me for my devotion to Hel, Norse goddess of Death and my art of her!

(My hair is a bit longer so I just pull it back - but I barely take pictures anymore. Anyhow -)

What's new?

Still chronically ill and disabled; in 2024 we are still recovering from medical trauma that induced two phobias, POTS-like symptoms and a mystery digestive issue that is probably the severe IBS my meds that caused the trauma were controlling.

I am currently and hopefully to stay fully self-employed after finally getting off my feet from said trauma that left me pretty house-bound for a year. Somewhere in there I got a job with a catering company that truly was terrorizing, never reported me for taxes and therefore fucked up my finance history.

But, in 2024 so far I have done a good amount of shows and toured again briefly with the Oddities & Curiosities Expo group in cities outside of PA and that was incredible! I grew a lot as an artist, and it really helped me to work through some of my phobias and continue to stabilize.

You can find my Etsy here but I am focusing most of my efforts on shows! It would be best to follow my Instagram to keep up with events and new products!

Otherwise I've just been focusing on adulting and trying to fix our finances so that we can actually buy a house someday (hopefully).

A fun fact is that I started listening to ATEEZ in mid-2023 and got to see them in concert in DC this year as a bday gift to myself. It was absolutely the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. They are PERFORMERS.

If you're still on the fence about listening to Kpop, you're missing out! I poo-pooed it for a long time as cringey, but ATEEZ has very progressive lyrics and most of the fan-base in real life are alternative women and enby's in their 20's and 30's. Seriously the most fun I've ever had.

Other than that if I need to state it again, this page is for representation and acceptance of all forms and hate will not be tolerated. It's impossible to write out all the ways that people can be hateful but basically don't be a nazi or phobic in any way.

Not much else happened this year except a bunch of small-town drama associated with said catering company (story time?) and shit with our previous landlord (we moved). I made some really good local friends that I'm so appreciative of, and joined a DnD campaign for the first time!

My character is Ashaf Tendara, an Arcana Cleric archeologist who accidentally found some ruins of Ubtao and now unfortunately because of one of the sessions, their way of spell-casting is just screaming T-rex noises for ten minutes straight (Ubtao is related to dinosaurs somehow). We've finally emerged from the poop dungeons in said campaign, and some of those interactions I've wrote down are truly incredible. My Mage Hand is also a spectral sticky hand. My husband's steel defender's name is Duke Poop'em because of said poop dungeons.

I also read manga, watch anime and still read young adult fantasy at my big age (Adult SciFi is sooooo dense omg but it just takes me longer lol) and watch cozy game and horror playthroughs on YouTube. I listen to podcasts a lot about the paranormal, true crime and reddit readings.

Basically I'm a chronically ill and online shut-in artist with some witchy stuff sprinkled up in there.

I hope that was exciting and super informative. If you have any questions please send them in!

-Torque

[fallenneziah]

Hii! So I’m new in the Call of Duty fandom but I don’t play the games like on the ps5, etc… I only play Call of Duty on my phone and I got addicted and began digging deeper so here I am! Since I don’t/can’t play the different games of cod do you recommend any channels on youtube that does an amazing walkthrough of the games? I really really want to watch some walkthroughs but I don’t know whats the order of watching each game?? Does each game connect to each other? I’m still kind of confused since I’m still new😅😅. I’m sorry to disturb you though but I hope you can help me😭

Hey anon! That's absolutely alright, I do know of some YouTube channels that you can watch that I would recommend! (I'll link videos and channels as well so it's easier for you)

If you are interested in the gameplay as well as the actors, Dan Allen Gaming is always a good place to turn. He does interviews with the call of duty actors, sometimes plays some games with them, and it's all around fun.

It's great for me to get a different aspect of it, especially the characters and personalities of each individual aside from gameplay which I enjoy. And you might too.

Hallow is another YouTuber who does pretty good playthroughs. Such as the likes of Spider-Man games, but he has a full playthrough of the Modern Warfare Two game without any commentary. He also goes through the first Modern warfare in the reboot trilogy.

Another series I saw was from Typical Gamer which has a couple-part series of the game, this time a walkthrough.

CecliusPlays HD also has some commentary and his walkthrough goes mission to mission so it's not as much a sit through.

These alone are all of JUST the 2022 reboot of modern warfare 2.

TheRadBrad also does playthroughs for both modern warfare 2 and 3.

Shirrako has a gameplay video for Call of Duty Vanguard as well.

GTA 4 PC also has a playthrough of the 2009 game. (I'm having trouble finding ones for the first game if anyone has that, great)

Gamer Max Channel has a walkthrough of the modern warfare 3 game from the og trilogy.

KAHVERENGi AYI does a full gameplay playthrough for the Call of Duty Ghost's campaign.

SycoSquirrelSSU has a playlist of their Call of Duty Black Ops walkthrough.

These are currently the only YouTubers on YouTube alone that I have watched for commentary. I usually watch them so I can go back and see little scenes for fics and stuff. And on Twitch you can find some of the Call of Duty actors who also play in Warzone if you're ever interested.

I hope this was helpful and you can find what you're looking for. Welcome to call of duty 😊

[marrowhyena]

Anonymous Coward asked: Have you made any playthroughs with 100% achievemets? I have watched only few of your series but in those you only completed the main story leaving much of the side quests unfinished. Would perfecting the game be too time consuming or grindy for your channel since you seem to explore many games in rather fast pace rather than consentrate on only few games?

I used to be an achievement hunter before I started doing LPs, and let me tell you, achievement lists are bad. There are so many awful achievements that will ruin your fun if you play with them in mind, or they'll require you to do several entire playthroughs and challenge runs at times.

Not to mention that people generally watch LPs to see reactions, so if you're researching and pre-spoiling the game so that you can plan your achievement route, you're ruining that as well.

Generally speaking, perfectly 100%ing games is a tedious process that's made even more tedious when trying to make content out of it. Certain quests or activities just look miserable to do and it's best to just opt out.

Secret hunting is functionally unfilmable because you don't want to clog up your playthrough with eight hours of unedited footage of you wandering around looking for The Thing with nothing of note happening in the process. So you're gonna edit it down, RIGHT? But then you're just left with footage of "I'm gonna look for the thing [cut] I found it." What does the audience get out of the experience really? The chance to say "I guess he found it. I guess he did technically 100% the game, what a journey."

The Yakuza series is one of the most brutal examples for completionists because I'll spent 50 hours playing the entire main story and every side story in most of them, but then there's the pocket racing campaign, the bowling campaign, the batting cage campaign, the cabaret club, the hunting campaign, the fishing campaign, and don't forget to finish the entire menu of every restaurant and unlock the entire skill tree-

It's just not worth it. It's how you make bad videos, as you get increasingly bored with the game, forced to now play all of the parts that you'd been previously eating around because they seemed like a pain in the ass. And every time you make a playthrough longer, there's opportunity cost. That's days of the schedule that could be going to a new game instead of trying to wring the juices out of this already long playthrough that your own audience already stopped watching.

But the funny thing about this question is that I'm usually seen as the completionist guy. So many people just rush the main story as fast as possible to get to the next game, whereas I spend mountains of time in every playthrough doing side content. I'm the guy who specifically takes his time and often takes 50% longer to beat a game than HowLongToBeat suggests.

But true completionism? Shit's folly.

If anything, I sometimes 100% a game after the series is over, off camera, with the game muted and podcasts or video essays playing in the background. That's what I did for Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding. I plat'd them both. But that wasn't exciting or interesting gameplay, it was life-filler. It was downtime busywork, unfit for a show. Me grinding through it while half paying attention was the intended experience, and I should never make videos about those parts of games.

[Smile or comment on the answer here](https://retrospring.net/@Boring_Keith/a/112661525969055712)

[nevarran-hahren]

hey, hi there, I changed my username

@whispering-depths » » » @nevarran-hahren

still me! just reflecting the ebb and flow of my monomanic hyperfixation from bg3 to dragon age

also feel like I should do an intro post since it's been awhile, soooo

I'm mik! 29 yo, librarian, cross-stitcher, hobby artist, she/they is cool. this is my fandom blog, non-fandomy things will be over at my personal blog (@queenofcarrotflowers-s). my likes and follows will come from there as well. I like to post about my ocs sometimes, usually art or screencaps. but mostly i reblog things.

I'm usually super inconsistent with remembering to tag things, but I am diligently using both the "#veilguard spoilers" and "#datv spoilers" tags on *anything* related to da4 for the foreseeable future. please blacklist those tags if you wish to avoid spoilers.

» non-exhaustive list of fandoms/interests you may see here:

dragon age

baldur's gate 3

disco elysium

stardew valley

dungeon meshi

dropout tv

the sims

beastars

blue eye samurai

» my ocs (general oc tag):

Dragon Age (canon world state)

warden shira tabris (dao): city elf duelist/assassin rogue, romanced alistair (prev zevran). (she/they)

hedy mae hawke (da2): human apostate force mage/spirit healer, purple hawke, romanced anders (prev isabela). (she/her)

inquisitor janne lavellan (dai): dalish hunter/champion warrior, romanced solas. (she/her)

lorna "rook" ingellvar (datv): dwarven reaper warrior of the mourn watch, romanced lucanis (prev taash). (they/them)

Baldur's Gate 3

sorcha agaric: foundling, raised by myconids. half-drow circle of spores druid (they/she) - completed my first playthough with sorcha as a dark urge romancing astarion, but in my revised version of their story she is not exactly that. if i ever replay with them, she will romance both shadowheart and halsin.

juno: "drow" dark urge way of shadows monk (redeemed), romanced astarion (prev lae'zel). (they/them) - playthrough complete (twice lol)

tiresia allseer: urchin/orphan, tiefling wild magic sorcerer, fears her own power after a traumatic childhood experience, romanced gale (prev astarion). (she/her) - playthrough in progress

artemisia silvershield: disgraced noble, human-turned-tiefling fiendish warlock, romanced minthara. (she/her) - multiplayer playthrough abandoned, plans to revisit for future evil run

DnD/TTRPGs

gwinnera "gwin" strongbrow - gen z hill dwarf wood sculptor and art school dropout, college of creation bard with a glorious pink beard and space buns. travels the country performing live chainsaw woodcarving routines with their girlfriend, a fire-eating tiefling bard. (she/they) - created for a modern-day setting "oops! all bards" DnD campaign

hazel hawkins - 89 yo wandering occultist/researcher/folk magic practitioner, increasingly batty, cool lesbian grandma to the party. was selectively mute as a child, now never shuts up. will try to play matchmaker. got yeeted by a giant eyeball monster in the campaign finale. (she/her) - created for a call of cthulhu campaign

» other links:

my art

etsy shop (I sell digital cross stitch patterns that I create!)

ao3

feel free to say hi or reach out to chit chat about any of the things i've mentioned! i don't bite, but i *am* bad at starting conversations myself

x

[vgilantee]

Hello! Me again, Isekai mess writer.

I want Ghoap, obviously. I need reader to already know that's a thing based on gameplay, head cannon in their world. Reader immediately clocking their relationship even though they think they're super sneaky.

I adore Daddy Price, Sweet Boy/Feral in bed Gaz, Down bad but won't admit it Ghost and Nasty Dog Soap.

Basically the premise is that reader just appears. The 141 are just immediately like wtf considering their base of operations is highly guarded. Probably some interrogation in which poor reader just spits it all out that a "God" yeeted them into the game. Soap might be a bit touched that reader for so attached and also a bit creeped out about the dedication. Ghost is spiralling thinking of Johnny's death and how reader basically died trying to change it. Price is trying to hold onto reason/simple explanation and Gaz wondering when his life became an anime.

Basically I want reader to be their guide through everything, they've played enough to know exactly when everyone comes in, where everything is.

Makarov will be taken out. No question.

What about after? Reader is essentially a civilian consultant to their taskforce. Do they all get together? Is the taskforce together prior to reader? My brain is on fire.

okay it took me a minute because Work, and also anything I ramble about is based on context clues from this ask because again, only anime I've watched is the first 6 (??) seasons of one piece and the first episode of that volleyball one. but here are my thoughts.

ghoap but they haven't labelled it so they think that they're being sneaky. lingering looks, softened eyes, hands brushing when they wall by each other.

maybe price pushes them behind him when the reader starts rambling about how they're video game characters and she starts giving plot points and details (maybe even bits of ghost's backstory because she's read the comics?)

simon and gaz grabbing johnny's hand when she blurts out "and soap will be shot in the head by makarov" because she sounds desperate but they still Ned the reassurance that their johnny is still there and alive and safe

you say the reader basically died to save him, does that mean like died in "her world" to get put in the video game, or is there going to be a death loop?

"Look I know you don't believe me. I wouldn't either if I were you. I sound like I need to be institutionalised. But I swear, everything I've said is true. I don't know why or how I'm here but while I am I cannot let Johnny die, not when I know how I could save him."

I personally haven't played the game or watched a playthrough, so I don't know the campaign very well, but maybe she tells them about graves and shepherd?

"I doubt you would have included gaz falling out of the helicopter in your report. and i mean if you did, not him saying he's 'hanging from a bloody rope'"

depending on whether you want ghoap to be the only relationship from the start, or have them full subtle poly, little touches and sitting too close are always good. maybe John gives simon a light pat on the arm, or simon gives gaz a tap on the chin with his knuckle. little things too intimate for just team mates.

not sure if any of that helped but if it at least got the gears turning then I count it as a win!!

[riddlerosehearts]

Okay now EYE must ask you - how are you liking BG3??? How far are you?? Tell me about your Tav!!!! (Please and thank you <3)

hi!! 💖 i only started the game a few days ago and it was an impulse decision i made after having previously told a friend of mine that i definitely wanted to play it but that it'd probably take me a while to get around to it (and, because i thought i wouldn't play anytime soon i hadn't really been trying to avoid spoilers). but, i have the PC version and while it generally runs just fine, my computer is kind of slow and the game is so big that it took hours to download and install. so i kind of went ahead and started to come up with a whole character idea during that time LOL. sorry if my explanations of things get a bit too rambly/disorganized. i'm actually not very far in the game at all yet, i've been spending a ton of time doing stuff in the druids grove and i'm supposed to go find halsin but i haven't even gotten karlach in my party yet! i've recruited all the main companions except for her but i am excited to meet her. gonna put the rest of this under a cut for length.

my only background with DND is that i listened to the first campaign of the adventure zone and i've watched the legends of vox machina show. i also have a friend who's super into her own DND campaign and another friend who's told me a lot about dimension 20, specifically fantasy high--and i've considered trying it out for her but haven't gotten around to it yet! i think she actually told me the same thing about the episode lengths making it easier to get into than critical role, because i had tried critical role and it was just so long that i couldn't stick with it. but, yeah, i've also looked at the forgotten realms wiki a bit but i've never actually played DND. i have played skyrim and final fantasy 14 and some other similar RPGs with customizable blank-slate protagonists, and in those types of games i always have to make OCs to roleplay as--usually i'll think up a basic idea to start with and then flesh the character out as i get into the game. they're never really self-inserts but i do often project onto them a little.

so, in games like these my first character is usually an elf that specializes in elemental/destructive magic. idk why, that's just what i've always liked. in ff14 i started out as a black mage without knowing it was the hardest class to play LMAO. soooo i went into this planning to create a high elf sorcerer, but as i started writing out ideas and thinking about what to do, i ended up creating a half-high elf bard. they're transmasc/nonbinary and in my head they use he/they pronouns, but i picked the nb option in the character creator and that causes npcs to actually use they/them in dialogue which i think is so cool. i love that the character creator is so inclusive in regards to gender.

anyway, i named them elenion, which is something i took from the lord of the rings universe because i'm a huge nerd. in LOTR it's an elvish word that basically means "of the stars". here's a couple screenshots i took when i first started. let's just ignore the fact that this hairstyle clips into elf ears (and also that the face preset is from a mod i downloaded).

i didn't really give him a tragic backstory or even the most interesting story haha--i'm wanting to do something bigger and angstier with another character on a second playthrough when i'm more familiar with the lore and world of the game. and i'll probably also end up changing or expanding on some things about this character later, but for now i just kind of made a normal guy with normal problems. i had this idea that his father, a human who attracted the attention of a beautiful elf woman, was also a bard and was a very successful musician in his youth. so elenion has always shared his father's passion and dreamed of being like him, being able to effortlessly tell incredible tales and inspire crowds of people through song, but no matter how much he studies and practices he never feels good enough. if he seems confident it's usually just because he's gotten really good at faking it. he's also pretty reserved and often avoids having to talk about himself by asking a lot of questions. see, i kind of wanted to specifically find a way to not roleplay the usual sort of loud, flirty, goofy bard, lol. not that i dislike those kinds of characters or anything though!

however, bards are meant to be super charismatic, witty, and persuasive and of course the game strongly encourages that with the dialogue options and skill bonuses you get. so my way of explaining this is to have elenion be a bit like raine from the owl house, in that they may be shy, but they're very firm in their ideals and are no pushover when it comes to protecting themself or their allies. they're clever and have a snarky side to them, and they're genuinely friendly and caring in a way that gives them a sense of quiet charisma. which reminds me that one of the spells i gave them at the start was sleep, and it's made me imagine that when they were a kid they tried calming a crying baby by playing a lullaby on their lute and accidentally ended up casting their first spell.

oh, and, i also wasn't really sure at first where in the world i wanted elenion to come from but i decided on something pretty quickly after getting multiple of those dialogue options suggesting that the protagonist is baldurian! i pictured them growing up in a somewhat small town with their family but moving to baldur's gate as an adult, hoping that if they left the comfort of their home and started to journey out into the world a little they'd eventually find their spark and become the bard they wanted to be. unfortunately they've had little luck so far because even after all this time they can't see that maybe their whole fixation on trying to be just like their father and achieve the exact same kind of success that he had is holding them back. the fact that their father died the year after they moved away hasn't helped either. and now, in the middle of traveling to a historical site that they'd wanted to see in person and use as inspiration for a song, they've been abducted by mindflayers and are struggling with the massive upheaval that this has brought into their relatively mundane life.

so. yeah. my tav for this first playthrough may not be the most unique or exciting character but i like him! i like figuring out what kind of choices he'll make and thinking up new ideas for what he likes and how he sees the world. also, i find it funny how in your reply to my ask you said you thought you'd be into gale but then you fell for astarion--because i thought that i'd be all over the edgy, brooding, snarky vampire man, but it turns out gale is so charming and funny that i'm probably going to romance him first. i'm also pretty intrigued by shadowheart and wyll but i'm so early in the game that i can't even say who i think my overall favorite companion will be because they all seem so interesting!! even karlach despite the fact that i haven't actually met her yet, i've seen a bunch of cool gifsets of her and my brother told me he's been romancing her on his playthrough. i really need to go find her soon.

i'm sure you can tell from everything i wrote here that i am definitely enjoying the game LOL. i can already tell that there's just so many different things to do and see, that i will both need and want to do a lot of different playthroughs and that it's going to be something that sticks with me. nothing wrong with using guides and walkthroughs btw! i do it too because i'm worried about missing too many things and have the world's worst sense of direction even with a minimap. honestly i probably need to look up some guides for certain mechanics that i don't feel like i've really figured out yet. there's a sarcophagus trap in the ruins early in the game that got me SO stuck and got my whole party wiped and then i looked up a video and found out you could turn off the whole trap system by pushing a switch... i felt so stupid askjdfgf.

anyway, i think this got to be way too long of a reply so i will stop here! but if you ever wanna tell me more about your tav or anything definitely feel free to and i hope you're having an awesome day!