#now it just feels like a completely different story and characters

[meanbossart]

(sorry if this is common knowledge, I'm still relatively new here) have you ever played with a different tag/durge or is du drow your one and only?

I hope this isn't weird to admit, but - out of 5 runs of this game (not all completed, but the non-complete ones have reached act 3, at least) 3 have been with DU drow.

There was the original blind run; then I replayed it pretty much exactly after I, uh, paid for the game; and a tactician run, all with the same character. I don't know why, I guess I just feel compelled to play this game like its a linear, pre-written story.

But I have had two other characters!

This is Gustav. The concept behind his campaign way was to make an evil durge who tried to take a turn for the better in act 3, but was too fractured by his own guilt to really succeed. Unfortunately, this resulted in a profoundly depressing and lonely experience.

He killed like half the cast and the rest were locked out because I ruined their lives. Had a fling with Lae'zel but ultimately romanced Astarion. Killed Nightsong but later had Shadowheart turn away from Shar and save her parents (which resulted in possibly the saddest moments/implications I ever experienced in a game). Refused to help Astarion Ascend in the manner that results in a fight to the death.

It got too miserable, and I ultimately abandoned the run LOL but it was a fun experiment in the worst possible iteration of a "reformed" Dark Urge.

And this is Izzantar('Drada) Godseck! He's a lolth-sworn mercenary and an existing character from my fic A Novel Experience. I live-streamed his entire run on twitch and I'm at the very last leg of it. Where we last left off, we had bare-fist beaten Raphael to death in his own house with 4 monks.

His run has actually been super fun, as Izzantar proved himself to be an excellently bad BG3 protagonist. He doesn't give a shit about what everyone else is going through, and, surprisingly, that frequently results in your companions making the morally-good choices, which he keeps chastising them for to no avail (he's not evil, it's just his culture!)

It's actually really funny to be playing a game where your tav does not seem to be taken seriously by the group at all LOL

He doesn't really get along with anyone except Lae'zel (his romance option) and Minthara (Sort of? Might be more of a case of drow compulsory-het), and kinda chose to live vicariously through Astarion for a bit to disastrous results (He's now ugly AND ascended).

Oh, also, he never fed Gale. Not even once. Dude cramped so bad he eventually just left. Fortunately we now have Gnale (Gnome Gale) who doesn't ask for boots in exchange for casting cloud of daggers at environmental bottlenecks.

[theforsakenprince]

Forsaken as a revenge story fascinates me but not because of anything really related to the revenge story itself but rather the context surrounding it. like, "revenge is wrong" stories are everywhere and almost expected at this point, and Forsaken is no different, really. Forsaken says going on this path of revenge will turn you into a monster, but... we as the player don't really care? And why should we! Uldren killed one of our favorite characters! And every expansion before this has us killing something, so it's not really out of the ordinary.

This feeling is especially reinforced by how much Bungie tried making the young wolf a self insert during y1 (which REALLY did not last long). We, the player (if you played d1/y1 anyway) are angry at Uldren for killing off the most popular character at the time. It's PERSONAL now. And sure, the ending does feel like we're kicking someone who's already down (Ghost says it himself: Uldren's already done for), but we got the bad guy! The end, right?

Nope! Our actions have immediate consequences! Ghost is scared for us. We have to watch Petra struggle with the events of Forsaken while trying to lead a city of people stuck in a perpetual 3 week loop. Mara is obviously not happy with us (and we know we have to deal with lightbearer Uldren at some point). We may not feel bad about killing Uldren, but it doesn't feel great either. And unlike most past Destiny expansions, Uldren isn't an obligatory unequivocally evil big bad alien we need to shoot because this is an fps, he's... just some guy we barely knew anything about before now. Sure, he was a dick to us, but watching his descent into madness throughout the campaign is downright uncomfortable. All our past enemies, in comparison, have been rather straightforward: they're trying to kill us? well we gotta kill them first.

Forsaken also marks a MAJOR tonal shift. It literally kills off the comedy relief. Every release after Forsaken has a noticeably more serious tone (and while humor isn't completely absent (Saint, Crow, Fynch, and Nimbus have their moments) Forsaken's story is a particularly dark one, and it seems to carry over the rest of the year as we first start to consider the "line between light and dark"). It was definitely much more noticeable at the time of release, but Cayde's death has an impact not only on the characters but the tone of the story overall (he is the perfect example of characters continuing to haunt the narrative imo) and clues us in as the audience that shit is about to get Real.

and what happens the next year? We find a Pyramid ship.

this post is kinda all over the place but MAN not a day goes by that I don't think about Forsaken and how good it is as a self contained story and as an expansion that sets up a lot of the major players leading up to final shape! it's not really controversial to say that Forsaken is one of destiny's best expansions (story wise at least I'm not touching that power grind with a 10 foot pole) but I feel like a lot of that sentiment comes from the fact that it came out after curse of osiris/warmind which. no hate to either of them but anything that came out after them would look really good in comparison.

anyway uhhh forsaken good uldren did nothing wrong (JOKE I feel like I have to specify this is a joke people have taken this statement from me seriously before)

[dimension20npcofalltime]

Round Four (Semi-Final) - Bracket One [Dimension 20 NPC of All Time Sidequest Edition]

Lukas vs Doug Meat

Propaganda under the cut (May contain Major spoilers for Burrow's End and Never Stop Blowing Up)

Lukas - He/Him

Campaign: Burrow's End

Who is he?

Lukas is a child stoat that is being educated in The Last Bastion of the Light's daycare.

Why is he the NPC of All Time?

A perfect little boy without whom the campaign would have been very different. Started off as comedic relief and added depth to Lila and Jaysohn, but ended up creating an incredibly emotional moment in the final battle of the campaign. Also, I love Aabria's voice for him and he deserves the world.

Showed up, followed the party immediately with no questions, had a funny voice, got addicted to mint, completely useless. THE MOST NPC ENERGY of all time

He brings so much fun to the twins’ side of the story. it’s clear that aabria just like, forgot that they’d cleared his nose with the mint when she started him with the stuffy voice again, and then everyone just went with it.

Doug Meat - He/Him

Campaign: Never Stop Blowing Up

Who is he?

Doug Meatskin(previously Doug Meat) is one of Kingskin's goons.

Why is he the NPC of All Time?

I’m sure he’s been submitted already but seriously he is the best character. he is the mvp he is the goat he is the second president of the usa in the eighties like how there was two popes one time.

The "party adopts a random background mook so they're a character now" of all time

He loves his mob boss boss. He's co president of these unites states of America. La familia.

That's my fucking president right there <3

It's GOTTA be Doug. The loyalty, the emotion, the love for the people he trusts. And his name is DOUG MEAT

He’s buff, he’s emotional, he has unknown depth and vague feelings for his drug lord boss.

DOUG MEAT!! he is a lover he is a fighter he has ideas for how to improve a criminal gang!! most loveable NPC of NSBU he is gorgeous and wonderful!! he just wants to hold someone's hand :((

It's Doug Meat, man

DOUG MEATTTTTTTTTTTTT

He stapled a mask to his face just to remove it within five minutes of talking

I just love him so much <3 (you do not have to use this I just don’t really know what to say sorry)

[fernsnouveau]

What if I just pretend we're still in the post-Elation hiatus before the Ladynoir Ghosting and before the confirmation that Edgy Murder-Noir is supposed to be his consistent characterization now, and there was still a sense of potential for the story?

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[wa3jetisbestpony]

revstar fans we need to put on the best talent show this towns ever seen and save ReLive!!

[ganondoodle]

im not lying when i say that i was just finally getting "over" totk, like i hate it still, but the immediate anger and need to rant has died down-

and then the elden ring DLC fucks with me in a very similar way, just even moreso focused on my favorite character in that entire franchise, completely unexpectedly, and the more i learn about it the worse it gets and now i feel even worse bc i dont have the energy anymore to get as angry as i did with totk and its just kinda ... depression and sadness ..

it was like the interest i could fall back to when zelda annoyed me too much or i needed a break from that and i was honestly thinking about doing more with it but now

i know i know i can always draw 'my own stuff' but being a fan of a piece of media or character is just fun and .. furfilling to me in a different way and now i feel so empty again ... and finding new things to obsess about is easier said and done bc i dont 'decide' to stop liking something and neither can just decide to obsess over something so im just kinda left hanging here ... and in a way, i still like it and care about it, frustratingly so, and dont WANT to just stop and find soemthign new ...

[mayomkun]

Finally done with teen wolf rewatch. Phew

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[paimonial-rage]

My favorite works in no particular order:

Tipsy Tales (Anemo Boys)

Symbiosis (Ayato)

What Destiny Has Brought (Fischl)

Hello How Are You (Gorou)

Follow the Wind II (Kazuha)

Of the Same Coin (Mika)

Songs of the Wind (Venti)

Nothing Lasts Forever (Yae Miko)

Sharing a Drink They Call Loneliness (Zhongli)

Of Hopes and Prayers (Zhongli)

[sonknuxadow]

we still don't know who that random tailstube human is . man

[13eyond13]

one of the lesser talked about fun things about intentionally reading more books is finding new stuff to be a bit of a hater about tbh

[torgawl]

a bit obsessed with the idea of kusakabe dying as a form of sacrifice to specifically protect/save somebody else. it's consistent enough with the theme of the past generation achieving no meaningful feats against significant threats but it's also ironic enough that someone without a technique and who claims their philosophy is primarily self-sacrificial - although he tends to stay from his own ideals in critical moments, proving he's not only brave when necessary but he does have a sense of responsabilty and guilt - ultimately redeems themselves through death resulting in the achievement of something his colleagues have failed to do. not that i'm wishing for him to die, i hope he doesn't. but it would also make a clear-cut distinction between him and a character like mei mei, who narratively serves a very similar purpose (besides her being a foil to nanami). to have someone be awarded by their selfishness just for it to not be worth much within a world and system that runs and sustains itself due to the sorcerer's labour power, whose only means of subsistence is to sell themselves away. a class of people who is doomed no matter what path they choose to take, as long as they do not break free from their duties and as long as the system doesn't collapse. a death that could serve as a symbol of punishment towards solidarity and altruism but a win for revolution.

[fightaers]

this is controversial ……… but i think the only men sakura feels like would never disappoint her or be disappointed in her but rather is completely fine to being completely open and genuinely working with her is……… only sai and shikamaru……..

[sherlock-is-ace]

i find it fascinating how intrinsically different i am from my family for the simple fact that I'm queer and they're not... They respect me and love me, even in their ignorance. And I can't really ask for more than that, but they'll never understand what it's like to be queer, they'll never see the world the way I see it, and that's absolutely mind blowing every time.

[twistedmadara]

i love this story, i love the history inspiration, i loooove the artwork, right now i especially love to see these characters grow. i love seeing the different directions their character arcs are taking them and at what stages they are in their personal development and that all characters get exposition, i love to see what events are impacting which characters which way, i love the lore, i love the gore and the intensity and that so many characters die dramatically (though at some point my heart might need a break), i fucking love everything about this manga right now and i am so glad that i am barely a third of the way through