#like i actually really like how the characters know theres a player

[aria0fgold]

I thiiink I processed a bit of my thoughts bout OFF but like, my mind was blown so there isn't much in it. One thing bout it though is that I really love the music in this game, like I be jamming to the battle music it sound so cool and catchy and it's actually stuck in my head. I also love the puzzles in the game, it's not too hard and it's also so nice to do! (I say that but I brute forced at least 2 puzzles. The puzzles right before Zone 1 and Zone 2's bosses... Trial and error even though the key to the puzzle was Right in the area but lazy in I don't wanna go back to look).

Also I love how, even if the game doesn't seem like much, it was hella enjoyable for me, must be cuz of the music. Like, I'd walk around so much finding a bunch of stuff and then battles happen with some banger music and it honestly felt like I just played that game for like a hour even though it was way more than that. Like, I really really enjoyed it.

For the story of the game... I have no idea what story is supposed to be there. But throughout it, whenever the Batter purifies a zone I start doubting if it's the right thing cuz everything looks so... lifeless... Like yeah sure, the spectres are also pretty bad and killing the poor Elsens, also doesn't help how Dedan makes the poor guys so stressed too but I was thinking if there was at least another way than just purifying everything but I'm stuck with the Batter. By the end the Judge saying that I'm the puppeteer but honestly I felt like more of the puppet for some reason.

I'm stuck with the Batter my guy, I won't proceed at all unless I do things that aligns with the Batter's mission. And in either endings, it's all bad in a way that, what's done is done. Choosing the Judge doesn't reverse anything, the world is completely lifeless and "purified," so in the end it's better to just keep being with the Batter and finish what we started. Which is pretty cool cuz I kept wondering Why was the game called OFF and then seeing the Batter ending and I'm like: OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH (it was the first thing that blew my mind).

Like, I feel like this game's story got A Lot of stuff for me to know (Time to read through what everyone's theories are. I'm not really good with those so I always enjoy reading everyone else's). Like, the thing that I kiiinda get is that there's a lonely child who doesn't like his dad and prefers his mom but the mom doesn't even visit him much. He made 3 friends which he turned into guardians of the zones, and a mom regarded as the Queen. And then there's Batter which I feel like was based off of Boxxer in that comic that the kid was given to by his dad. And like, gestures vaguely, yeah, it's neat :D (my train of thought broke I don't remember what I was going with that).

[vodkaslyme]

Friday Nights are so uncomfortable

[gothteddiesdotcom]

I think that part of what like. kills me about the whole media literacy and critical thinking aspect of enjoying media these days is that people refuse to like. contextualize that

A. Bad media can still hold significant meaning to people

B. Media made for a demographic you aren’t apart of is not inherently bad media

C. Media made for and consumed by the opposite demographic is not inherently shallow or flawed nor is it above criticism for its media tropes either.

[wheelercore]

Theory with no coherent proof on my part: brenner only visibly ages rapidly when a portal is open.

[sonknuxadow]

OKAY. I finished my playthrough of the murder of sonic the hedgehog. anyway i really loved it the art and designs are so cute and the character interactions were so fun and there were some parts that had me scream laughing. and the fact that this is just supposed to be a silly haha joke game but it doesnt even feel like that it feels like an actual fun little sonic spinoff game if that makes sense. wild that they went this far with the april fools joke this year

[raijinhasverybigpecs]

i mean i couldn't play smite for ixchel even if i wanted to on aus servers, for the birthday celebration the aus servers were dead all night

[ganondoodle]

totk is like a highly polished alpha build of a game to me

graphic- fantastic, i just love botws style of graphics, its the perfect blend of something more realistic but very stylized and timeless

visual design- great, i cant stand anything sonau (zonai), and ganondorfs concept art is better than final (and still involves lots of annyoing stereotypes) but overall still pretty solid

sound design- phenomenal, it really is, the underground, the rain on the parasail? unmatched, already loved botw but they really outdid themselves here

music- possibly best in the series to me, like ... theres so many fantastic tracks, in isolation i love so many of them so much ... which sucks bc being connected to such a lackluster rest sours them badly

mechanics- working but undercooked/unfit for the world, its impressive they got ultrahand working at all, but its still clunky/quickly frustrating and badly balanced also contributes to utterly destroying botws world design- this ability was simply not made for this world and is in the end both detrimental to it and itself, bc that mechanic could have truly shined in a game REALLY build around it (... if they could manage to balance it well and stop handing you the solution, it would be funyn if it werent so sad how many times the game literally doesnt even make you engage with its main gimmick bc it just hands you the prebuild thing) time reversal breaks every puzzle/challenge, also unbalanced, ceiling jump is the most harmless but i still think it lets you skip too much

writing- worst in the series, where would i even start with that, not a single character is written well/interestingly, most detrimentally the main characters, .. like all of them, zelda, ganondorf, rauru... and the "story", its barely even bare bones, its plain cardboard with an old divine right propaganda slogan written on, continuity in a direct sequel is non existant, there is no follow up on anything, why did they call it that when they dont seem to have any love for anything botw did given how much they trample over everything it established, i struggle to believe they actually thought this was good, theres has to have been trouble during development

world design/changes- a joke, ... i dont know how people dont feel scammed by how little was actually changed, no, a few rocks sprinkled througout are not meaningful changes, i was one of the people not worried about them reusing the world bc i loved this world and was sure theyd meaningfully change it- god how wrong i was; the sky and underground are both like the bare bones with textures and placeholder rewards/points of interest, they both do not matter at all and their potential is yet again utterly, painfully, wasted and only add more points of destruction to the map in case of the sky, and both add confusion about everything, not the good kind of intriguing confusion, the bad nothing makes sense confusion it really does seem like they put some quick changes into every main point of interest where most players would go to make them think they changed things when .. they only changed these parts, barely, either bc they knew everyone would skip around the world anyway so it wouldnt be worth it, or bc its ... unfinished

game design/structure- baffling (bad), connected to the point above, but it truly is beyond me why they repeated the exact same structure as botw while removing what made that work, why would you repeat every point of interest of the previous game, i know zelda games always have their regions and thats where stuff happens, but they REUSED THE SAME WORLD, you CANNOT repeat the exact same points in the same world, you just cant, its the same places, the same characters, the same structure (aka dungeons being less interesting/easier titans (divine beasts) with a paint job in structure), you basically erase the well integrated ancient tech civilization to replace it with another, not well integrated, more boring and overly pushed into your face, ancient tech civilization and make them the answer to everything that ever was (BORING), the same story structure (but worse, like the memory system but remove what made it work in botw)- AND THEN repeat the same points in the underground too? thats bonkers, literally baby bananas

dungeons/puzzles - worse than botw by FAR, as mentioned above, dungeons are less interesting titans with a paintjob (plus an extraordinarily awful cutscene, which is repeated like FIVE TIMES almost word for word), they serve no purpose but to act like they are totally real traditional dungeons when they are not, they are laughing at you, shrines are back with a paintjob with less interesting puzzles (if they even have one given how many just give you a spirit orb knock off) that can all be skipped, though the puzzles can often not even be called that (put log over gap WOOOAH puzzle) among many awful and unecessary tutorial ones (its not bad to have easy ones, but aside from the few ones that take all your stuff away -omg restrictions in MY freedom tm game??- which are the best ones, to have none be even a little challenging or not utterly skippable without even using glitches, its like they didnt even try to stop you from cheating, which is like being given a skip button with no strigns attached, doesnt even let you feel smart bc you dont have to try to cheat)

UI/controls- awful, you cant tell me this was tested by real people playing for longer than 10 minutes at once, how did the ghosty sage control scheme and arrow/weapon fusing get through this, HOW, its unbelievably tedious and detrimental to any fun (as im doing with my rewrite, a crafting system would have been so good here ..... like a proper simple crafting system, have the materials, craft your new arrow types in stacks etc) the ghost sages are not only utterly useless in combat, but clog your screen, play distracting animations as soon as you look at a slope, you constantly accidentally activate them or the wrong one bc its mapped to the main interact button!!! if you use them say goodbye to your framerate, fights are now spent chasing after some ghost guy whos actively running away from you, they do not invoke a feeling of 'connection' to my 'friends', they are invoking feelings of hatred and frustration

performance- ... passable (if you dont have the sages out .... well, it runs better than pokemon scarlet so i guess its fine, the lag when closing and opening the menu is rly annoying, especially combined with the finger and patience breaking menues and how often you need to open a game pasuing menue, but fights with a monster horde AND the sages out? yeah no its as bad as pokemon scarlet at its worst, not to mention the chaos of having five useless ghost scramble around you getting knocked around by enemies)

price- a scam, this game is not worth 70 bucks, its just not, if you get a used copy and dont spend more time in it than it takes for you to just go straight to the main points, or if you dont care about anything else but dicking around with a clunky building system ... then you can have some fun with it yeah ..... still not worth 70 money, theres probably better building games out there for less too

it jsut feels not done, not finished, its presentation and some parts are highly polished and their marketing for it is unlike anything i have ever seen, but its so .... unfinished, no amount of epic visuals is gonna let me not think of this game being half done at best, after what, 6 years of development no less? with most assets already being there and being reused unaltered??

(i am holding tightly onto the theory of it either having an extremely troubled development that is being hidden bc of their reputation, or some sort of neglect in order to focus on other more lucrative projects, this is just all too weird to me)

[scalpelsister]

dark justiciar shadowheart is genuinely so interesting to me as like... a facet to her character. like it really hammers home how desperate she is for shar's love and affection (+ the validation and love from other worshipers of shar). like in a lot of ways I get that it seems shocking to others / some fans because it really does contradict some of the morals we see her express BUT imo that just speaks to the level of desperation she feels. her comments on how shar "must" love her for her to survive the shadowcursed lands, or the bit where she talks about shar nurturing her and loving her and sounds... almost more like shes trying to convince herself more than shes trying to convince you. theres a bit about other sharrans not thinking she had earned her name, and of course the mother superior not thinking she was ready / worthy of being a dark justiciar. like shes just so completely desperate to feel unconditionally and securely loved, and to earn the approval of others that shes entirely willing to injure herself in the process (as well as.... the people who actually love her, of course).

not to mention that mechanically, afaik, she can only end up there if shes encouraged to by the player. ie... she needs to know someone else approves.

[the-s1lly-corner]

can u do tadc cast (or probably just a few bc this prompt isn’t very creative) x a reader who looks like the player from animal crossing? ball hands,,, maybe weirdly good at crafting things,, gets stung by bees sometimes mayhaps. Maybe they speak animalese and nobody ever knows what they’re saying LMAO

TADC cast x reader whos like an animal crossing player!

depending on what time it is when i finish writing this, i think imma take a short break to stretch my legs and make something YAHOO!! hope you enjoy this anon!! this reminds me, i cleared out my island by making it totally flat... but i never actually... got to decorating it... huh.... commitment is scary, guys

CAINE:

i think as a funny haha gag thing, how funny would it be if he could actually understand you. like you cant talk, and the noise youre limited to is to your "emotes", but somehow someway for some reason, caine can understand you... genuinely impressed by your crafting and even sometimes asks you to make random things just to see if you can make it! expect some really odd and random requests! not at all phased that you can pick things up with your weird orb hands, hes used to the digital world and its weirdness... thinks...

POMNI:

hey at least theres someone the same height as her in this place...!/hj

tries hard to understand your funky emotes and body language but shes at a loss... i mean at least you can still pick stuff up and try to write, so at theres some method of commutating asides from simply trying to learn how to read you! though, she is a bit unnerved by your silence and how your face is mostly stagnant when you arent.... emoting.. a static smile can get a little unnerving when youre standing next to the person and understand thats its a real person.. you know?

a little confused on how you can just pull things out from thin air, but does admit that it can be useful... has probably tried to ask you to make an exit out of desperation because hey if anyone can make one it would be you so whats the harm in trying (my girl is losing it)

RAGATHA:

i think you guys bond over the crafting; since ragatha makes stuff too, like pillows and clothing and plushies and the like! sure you guys may not be making the exact same things, but you both create and thats enough to bring you two together! doesnt mind that you cant talk, in fact i think after the chaos of a day in the digital circus she embraces the calmness around you... scolds you for constantly being stung by bees, though... though she tries not to be too mean or harsh since its not like youre trying to get stung on purpose... but please just be careful... she worries about you, afterall!

honestly ragatha doesnt have individual fingers, so the fact you can function with balls hands doesnt phase her

JAX:

really touching on the fact you have an inventory that you can hide stuff in i think he would slide you things to hide for him; especially its hes going a "imma do something to someone as a prank then run and use you to hide the evidence" ... you know usual jax antics where he tries to get the reader to help him with his trickery. whether or not you actually aid him is totally up to you. probably makes fun of your short height and the fact youre always getting stung. probably points and laughs when he watches you run around while literally being chased by a swarm. promptly screams when you make a run towards him, thus bringing the bees to him. you have probably bopped him with your net after he says something particularly not-nice, me thinks... or maybe you just dont like him and youre constantly bopping him, i mean i do enjoy it when the reader doesnt like a character but you can easily ignore this little aside if you want this to be a friendship or romance!

KINGER:

OOOOO imagine you come with the basic ring/inventory of tools (net, shovel, watering can, fishing rod, ect) and you can just pull it out of no where.... oooooouuugh imagine taking your net out around him and (wordlessly) offering to go look for bugs with him,.. kind of panics when you get stung by the digital bees; probably helps you patch up... honestly i think given that kinger is all about bugs, i think its a safe bet he would know how to treat bites and stings... so hes your man if youre really bad about avoiding bees and the like! can see tropes that trope where like "whats that? little timmys stuck in the well?? (but thats not what you said/meant)" because youre like emoting and trying to direct his attention somewhere but he gets it. so totally wrong and commits to it before you can stop him. i just think thats funny

ZOOBLE:

thinks youre... odd. though... imagine you can change up your style and appearance by simple interacting with a mirror and wardrobe. i think they would think thats cool, that you can just... do that... zooble has to rip their body parts off (sounds way worse than it actually is, LMAO). probably gives you this look when you walk into the tent to show that once again, youve been attacked by a swarm of bees.... how do they always only sting your left eye...? is that just how your digital body shows the injury, or do they just... no nevermind, theyre just going to give out a sigh before taking you to caine or kinger for medicine. definitely gets onto you for constantly messing with the digital bees, though...

GANGLE:

honestly between all the characters i can easily see her being an animal crossing fan... and while she may not remember all of her old life, i like to think that subconsciously she would recognize you for what your digital body is intimidating... bonus if in the real world animal crossing was her comfort, so naturally, she instinctively finds comfort in you even if she cant totally pin point it... though, she has trouble understanding you outside of your emotes... but even then when you do an angry stamp or shed tears she cant quite pinpoint why youre upset... oooo please make her an art easel! i think that would be a great gift for her and she will be absolutely over the moon!

[pressureconfessions]

Idk how to properly word this but hear me.

I personally dont ship sebastian with painter, but it annoys me to see the people who do ship them get harassed for it?

Its not incest since they have no actual family ties to eachother(biological,adoptive, step siblings, none of that)specially considering one is a computer and the other is a guy who was turned into a fish,i know that zerum and zeal have said they see eachother as family but like..there is NOTHING to back up that fact in game OR in the official wiki, the average player who doesnt go after stuff the devs have said about a character would NOT know about this, theres no lines about painter from sebastian, the things painter says about sebastian really dont feel like hes talking about someone he sees as his brother

And theres also the fact they've CANONICALLY only known eachother for **2 DAYS** theres no way someone can build a familial or romantic relationship in 2 days

Sorry for the rant, im just tired of seeing people get harassed and screamed at for "shipping incest" when its really not the case :P

.

[rox-and-prose]

I have this horror game idea that has probably already been done where you fight grotesque abominations while the main character narrates what is happening on screen, alluding to the fact that he's telling this story to the person who is behind all of the goings on. Towards the end, you have a pretty gnarly fight with a series of hideous monsters in one room and then theres a cut scene as the final boss enters. You don't see their face but you know it's them because the main character starts his narration (perhaps seeming a bit more smug than you remember).

The screen fades out and then back in so you dont have to listen to it all again and, as he repeats his final narration, the camera starts to pan around and it's revealed that you the player were being shown monsters and demons and hideous monstrosities not because thats what they were, but because thats how the main character has been portraying them. You have been enacting his narrative. He isn't hallucinating or suffering from any mental illness or injury that might cause a distortion like that. He knows full well that he was killing actual people the whole time, but in his opinion the people he was fighting were monstrous and so he doesnt feel like theres a difference.

The story may not totally line up in other ways as well. People spared may be revealed to have been dead or hiding from him etc but the ultimate point is the main character was lying, exaggerating, and othering the whole way through in order to justify his actions.

The ending from that point could go several different ways but I like the idea that the final fight is actually you playing as the "final boss" defending against the main character and, possibly at the start of the fight but possibly just as you finish the fight, the narration picks back up, but it's the "final boss" narrating this time.

idk.maybe thats just like faux edgy and really cliche but i think it would be slightly interesting as a concept

[necrokunn]

Mr. Qi headcanons + SDV headcanons in general (1/2)

Okay, I've seen people being interested with the lore and headcanons I cooked up for Mr Qi, and by people, I mean two. (You know who you are) I'll be making two parts, first is what I cooked up for Qi's backstory and the 2nd part is my whole psychoanalysis on the guy's personality (its long) But before I actually dive into Mr. Qi's backstory, I need to tell my headcanons I have of SDV in general. So for what I have for SDV is that- well its a game, but not just any ordinary game. This universe is set in a universe where I just put all my ocs in it so I dont have to organize everything in specific universes, and well- MAGIC EXISTS IN THIS UNIVERSE!!

My idea for SDV is that it works like Greed island from HxH. If you don't know what Greed island is, its a game that takes place in the real world, a console teleports you to an isolated/uncharted land and thats where the game takes place. SDV is a highly sought after game, but theres barely any copies of it, and instead of one developer, theres actually two. The first one is obv CA and he works outside of the game (but I'll make a different character so I dont disrespect the guy) and the other one is Qi, who works within. Qi isnt really known as the co-developer of the game since he prefers to be anonymous(?) so that it comes to as a surprise when players (especially exploiters) realize that he isnt an NPC. I havent really written Qi's backstory in full detail but I already have like- main key points, he's a guy who seeks something out of the ordinary, a challenge, anything that is unpredictable to him, he led a mundane life back then, but then just decided to test his limits. With what? Idk yet, like I said I havent really written it in detail.

Qi kinda looks after the valley kinda like how Razor does on Greed Island, keeps out the trespassers who got into the game via traveling and not by console, or people who find a way to exploit. So anyways, digressing from Qi's backstory rq. Every story is already written and fabricated within the game. This is when my farmer oc comes into the picture, her name is Millicent, Millie for short. Shes like every other player, except for some reason- her choices, her actions- somehow changes the game Like it slowly get it's own storyline, no longer limited to the code, kinda like becoming sentient in a way. So of course, this intrigued Qi and decided to give her challenges far different from what he usually gives to other players.

And that concludes the first part for what I have cooked up for Qi

If you have questions, ask away, I don bite and I really like to interact with yall

Also have the first ever doodles I made of him

[frostops]

mutual's post about gwyndolin yesterday got me thinknig about the fandom tendency to reinterpret characters like gwyndolin as transmasc actually despite that never making any real sense, and i just saw a tweet about how naoto from persona 4 should have been a trans woman which is just the same thing with all the same problems so i need to talk about or ill go insane.

another character this happens with is chihiro, and does it actually make sense to look at a character who was only thought of as a boy by the rest of the cast when they found a penis on said character's corpse, and say that this represents transmasc experiences? Not really. its not engaging with the text in any way. the transmasc reading of chihiro is not a real interpretation of chihiro's arc in danganronpa. its a way to ignore the problems with the way chihiro is written. people who see chihiro as transfeminine do so because they recognize and acknowledge the transmisogyny in the writing. if chihiro was transmasc, then there wouldnt be transmisogyny in chapter 2 of THH. but there is, and liking danganronpa doesnt mean you should ignore that.

but it feels worse when people do this persona 4. not only is a transfem interpretation with naoto inconsistent with the text and ignoring the problems with naoto's arc, its also ignoring the game larger conservative politics regarding gender. this is moslty focused on the handling of kanji's sexuality but theres also the crossdressing jokes, yosuke being the most homophobic towards kanji and being implied to actually be gay, teddy in general, and a lot else. naoto being a trans woman doesnt fix any of that, and frankly, it doesnt even fix the game's treatment of naoto after their gender is revealed. once the player knows naoto is a girl, naoto becomes fair game to be sexualized and objectified. the comments about the size of naoto's breasts and naoto being forced into a swimsuit competition are already results of the games shitty gender politics, but if you actually had a serious reading of naoto as a trans woman, youd have to contend with things like that. youd have to contend with the fact that in this hypothetical reading of naoto, the second naoto comes out as a trans woman, all of their friends treat them like a sex object. thats already one of the games many flaws, but some people who do the whole "naoto is more like a trans woman actually" try to reframe these scenes as actually progressive if that was the case.

[softness-and-shattering]

Im not the first person to complain about fatphobia in baldurs gate 3. Its just a lot worse than not being able to make fat player characters, tav or durge. Its that there are almost no fat people at all in this whole world.

Ive played close to 300 hours, and I havent fully explored act 3. There's some characters who are quite large. Halsin is tall and broad but he has a trim six pack. So does Karlach, despite being buff she has quite a narrow waist. Weird to be a barbarian without serious core strength. Korilla and Hope are very curvy, but no belly.

I can only think of two actually fat characters are neither are great. One is Glut, the myconid sovereign who asks you to betray Spaw, when you have no other reason to dislike Spaw. Firstly, the name. Glut - Glutton - he's fat. You dont have to also name him fatso. He feel entitled to a colony of myconids and is happy to kill Spaw about it, its just an ownership rulership ambition there's no justice to it. And if you refuse you have to kill him. So firstly he's non-human, non-humanoid, the hobgoblin specifically states than myconids have way less going on mentally than the player character and its kind of unclear to me if they're a hivemind or not. In that fantasy grey area of if they're properly people rather than unusually conscious vegetables. And he's also basically an asshole.

The other fat character is Thisobald Thorm. To begin with he's undead, and the son of a major undead villain. Not a great start. Second, he has four legs. Yes there are lots of unusual human variations and I suppose a person could have four legs and that would be fine. But why make that Thisobalds 'quirk'. Its clearly that he's soooo fat that he cant possibly move around on two legs so lets give him another set and make him monstrous. He needs to move around because he can be a mini-boss battle and it would be soooo hard to animate two big legs, or even two comically small legs. Nah we gotta give him four, evoke monstrosity. And then, the ways that encounter can go, is you either totally ignore him, or you interact. If you interact, you have to kill him, and if you talk your way through it he literally explodes from being too fat. Theres lines about his stomach seems like its going to burst open from all its holding and then it does. And then theres no body left behind, just the pile of gore thats also left behind when you raise zombies. He cant even be a humanoid corpse, he explodes so violently from sheer fatness that nothing recognisable is left behind.

And yes I know the excuse is that hes drinking this super intense poison alcohol brew and thats what gets him. That doesnt make it better. I dont know of any toxic substance that makes a person explode. Its not otherwise explosive. That isnt a thing that happens. There's no point someone gets so fat and so full that they explode. Its a gross outcome for a character you're intended to be entirely disgusted by. (its also not any kind of representation for people who consume various uh tabboo substances but I cant really speak to that aspect).

Two fat people, neither entirely human or allowed to be a person, one an asshole and one with no good ending. Like. cmon. You figured out how to animate dragonborn faces, and tails, you can have people be fat. It isnt actually a monstrous trait its actually super normal, its weird and urealistic that everyone in all of Faerun is slim. That doesnt happen in real life. The gender/sex options, and the vitiligo, thats fantastic. Yes keep representing and letting us play as all kinds of different people. Add some body types that arent just tall short/slim muscular too! For the player and the NPC's.

[thepumpkincorsair]

So, I watched the first episode of “Those About To Die” on Peacock.

I enjoyed it, and Im willing to do write ups if folks would be interested…

Since I wana talk about details, and I dont wana spread spoilers, everything is below the readmore.

What I liked: 🔵 And what I disliked: 🟠

Total Ranking: 8/10 - very good, worth the watch 👍

🟠 It dove into the Intrigue right away, which made it hard to watch while doing other things, but I can appreciate a show that grabs you by the shoulders and shoves you down into the couch to pay attention.

🔵 It wasn’t boring, quite the contrary, I felt fully engaged throughout the episode. Theres a lot of small moving parts to the story, and it orchestrates together incredibly well so far, even for Episode One. The writing is very well done, which is a lynchpin for me on a show like this. You cant pretend to be an intrigue type series without a proper plot. And, in my opinion, they’ve set their plots well right away. Tenax getting those shares in Blue was a great con, which had clearly been going a while, but we only saw the tail end of it. I see this little setup as a great look at how the writers DO their work. Connections matter, money does more than talk, and if you play the game wrong, you die. Don’t trust anyone.

🔵 I REALLY enjoyed the historical aspects of the first episode. Like, yes, this plot happened, its a historical fiction and a number of these characters exist in history, but its not just that. Its the small details, the different knives in different cultures, the veterinary care of race horses, the deities from more than just the main roman pantheon, the drinkware, the VARIOUS clothes from various cultures and climates…. And yes, women often went topless when they were a sxwrkr. Gotta advert.

🔵 ON THAT SUBJECT: can we talk about “3 sesterce… and Im tighter than both of them.” MY BOY, YOU ARE RIZZIN TOO HARD AND I LOST IT. Please, please let him be in future episodes. Omfg….

🟠 I am forced to concede the accuracy isnt PERFECT, the horses wore modern driving bridles to go with their ancient styled chariots. However, Im realistic about how many horses are trained today to pull anything without blinders, and how much safer modern bridles are. I’ll also note: I absolutely saw the animal handler grab the horse differently (calmly) before the riot surrounded it, then direct the horse to dance in the crowd. Great training with the horse! Bad camera angle. Lol

🔵 I also really like this cast so far. Everyone fills their roles incredibly well.

Hopkins doesnt even need an introduction, the mans a legend and brings all his experience to the stage with him every time. -chefs kiss-

Rheon was great in GOT, he plays calculatingly unhinged exceptionally well. But I wont lie, seeing him in a more commanding, level headedly calculating person?

Hashim….. HASHIM!!! Im SO excited to see where his character goes. We haven’t seen much of him in Ep 1 just yet, but he’s clearly going to be one of the main players. Im not familiar with him as an actor, but I’ve enjoyed his performance so far, and I REALLY appreciate the story being told.

Martins is also incredible. She does a fantastic job of knowing the danger her characters children are facing, but also knowing she HAS to play her cards right to save them. She personifies the strength and determination of a mother perfectly.

🔵 Quite honestly, I have to give points to that whole plot-line in general. That point of view is something we’ve had hidden from us (in America) for so long, that I think a LOT of people have… become calloused. I hope seeing it will potentially help others come to an empathetic understanding. This isn’t glossing over what happened, or whats likely to happen to any of the three children.

🔵 I also want to gush over actually SHOWING the wider Roman Empire, we get to see the direct effect of their influence in both Africa and Spain so far. Egypt was their bread basket, and without that grain, youve got problems. The Berber Coast has animals, and people they want, and we see money exchanging hands for the purpose of those ends. We see how the locals were told they’d be treated fairly, paid properly, and even eventually become citizens, like the Spaniards, only to have those promises thrown aside as soon as the Romans have better money to make. These people gave the Empire everything it wanted, but the Empire is never satisfied.

We also get to appreciate how far west the empire went when the Spaniards are trying to sell their horses. (Plot-bunny: Andies are dancing horses, exceptionally athletic, and a prime choice for chariots, though, a standardbred is the usual choice for modern cart racers)

🟠 I will say the CGI isnt the best. You can tell exactly when they change from live action to CGI. But this is a minor issue for me tbh. Its passable CGI, and they use it to avoid putting animals or people in danger which, obviously, I appreciate. A chariot wreck was shown, annnnnd it was pretty darn accurate to how messy those would have been. Not good times y’all. Not good times. Also, the ramifications of a major concussion. Oof. At least the guy would have barely knew what was happening? Still.

🔵 The sound effects were enough without being over the top. Often times when theres gore to show, theres all these extra squelching noises and gratuitous blood… not this time. It’s actually… pretty durn accurate. Don’t ask how I know. I don’t wana tell you, and you dont wana know.

Overall, it was a really solid first episode, and I plan on watching the rest.

[swifty-fox]

HI so for the mota hockey au:

any out of pocket viral moments of the boys? magazine photoshoots press tours etc what are they like? are clegan out and proud or are they more like go on keep guessing?

Bucky has a LOT of notable moments. He's just a teenage girl and puberty is so hard it makes him so hormonal.

He gets sent to the penalty box for BLATANT hooking one time which is a pretty iconic out of pocket moment you dont really get tendys serving penalties. usually another play subs in for their penalty but refs are prob like Fuck you Bucky you're such a menace you pay the price.

He drops the gloves with a rival teams goon that absolutely boards the fuck out of Gale a la Scheifele/Evans hit. Normally we love a good Goaltender fight but this hit was too scary. people still take notice bc they're like look at Bucky defending his BOY

John is a very Seguin type character. As I mentioned he has a similarly nude sports illustrated photoshoot. But also very messy party phase with Curt much like Segs and Marchy

theyre messy bitches who know how to have fun okay.

He's got a LOT of really famous soundbites, just the most out of pocket shit professional yapper w the cameras fr. it's mostly him hitting on Curt and Gale. There's a mic'd up clip of him singing "Baddie Friend" by kevo jefe perfectly word for word.

Gale's really bad with the cameras he clams up a ton and just kinda defaults to hockey mumbo-jumbo. he does get one Hockey social media clip where he gets to talk about space and that gets him a little excited. The clip of his one skate goal does some pretty big numbers just because Holy Fuck Dude.

he gets gif'd a lot for chewing on his mouthguard like Tkachuk. nasty boy. the fangirls go a little feral over those ones.

In terms of their relationships there is some plot stuff I'm cooking but John doesn't really care for the most part. he isn't ashamed but hes also like well im here to play hockey and im single nobody needs to be privy to my sexuality so he's kinda just closeted bc hes too lazy to do otherwise. you bet ur ass he wears pride tape every game and practice after Gary fucking shittman tried to institute the ban

(Shoutout to Travis "It had to be done" Dermott who called garys bluff like a PRO you my number 1 bbygirl i have a puck signed by him)

Gale is definitly closeted and it's a plot point in the au his journey with it. hes not closeted to himself but there are factors making him NOT want to be open with things.

I do think once theyre established in their team, they both have the C and a couple cups under their belt; when gale is ready - yeah they sit down with management and draw up a coming out plan. The team is so supportive of them they love their Bucks squared.

It's internet breaking

Please bear in mind hockey is REALLY homoerotic like these straight men kiss and hug and call eachother handsome and pet names constantly so theres a LOT that Clegan can actually just get away with and have plausible deniability

( a few seasons ago Marchand started licking other players and the NHL had to release a statement like 'its not against the rules but wtf bro stop')