#speedran to finish this before 1am

[ask-glitched-misfortune]

|| @rnotsleeping

[rustycottoncandy]

Who makes a drawing right the day before it has to be delivered? ME, I'M THAT IDIOT.

See that thing above this text? See that drawing? IT WAS OH SUCH A PAIN BUt also cool. ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN.

First thing I did was the tree in the center, which by the way caused me to let out an UGH in frustration at one point, then I continued with the stuff on the center and the top left and right made me ask other people for help because I didn't know what the hell to add to them.

On the process of this speedran piece, I panicked a few times and joked with my art teacher killing me if I didn't finish today.

At various points, I didn't know what to draw so I added animals. You can find fish, a frog, a crow, a bunny, a snake, a cat and a fox.

I drew this with such speed and strength that when I wasn't moving the pencil across the paper, my body suffered. Like literally it FUCKING SUFFERED. You know when you have too much energy? But like, too much? ACTUALLY TOO MUCH? FOR YOU TO HANDLE? SO MUCH THAT YOUR BODY FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE? like that.

The hardest part to fill was the top right cause I didn't know what to add, but I eventually filled it up.

My dad was with me in the living room the whole time I did this and he sent me to bed right after I showed him the finished product at fucking 1am. Writing from bed.

ANYWAY, I guess I should go to sleep right now so byeeee!

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

Finished* act 2 a little by surprise today

*by which I mean beat Ketheric. Act 2 is probably my least favorite (not saying much, there's still a lot to like), so I was prioritizing the story stuff, but I didn't really realize/remember that freeing Aylin basically cuts off your chance to explore Moonrise Towers at all. I did a much more thorough job exploring the rest of the map than I had last time and found several areas and enemies I had never seen, but completely missed out on infiltrating Moonrise prior to the Ketheric fight. I think there's some amount of exploring there that I can do before moving on to Baldur's Gate; I also did make a save before actually starting the battle with Ketheric, so if I *really* want to I can roll back to there and do some exploring before redoing the battle. (I probably won't but. nice to have the option.)

Biggest changes from my first run were:

Prioritizing Thaniel/lifting the shadow curse. I was curious if you could actually lift it significantly earlier in the act; it seems like the answer to that is "not really." Ketheric's dead and the curse is still there - seems likely that it only triggers when you're on your way out. I did find and fight Oliver well before waking up Art Cullagh, which changed the progression a little bit, but not significantly (you still have to fight him again to reunite him with Thaniel). The most notable change from that quest was having Halsin join me for good much earlier, and I played a good chunk of act 2 with him in my party (sorry Wyll :( ) - last time he didn't sign on until I was basically in act 3, by which point I wasn't going to switch him into my well-established party. I'm enjoying running with him (he's a good combat healer), but so far he seems to have an odd dearth of general world dialogue. Hard to tell if it's a bug or not, but I wasn't getting a voice line at all when I clicked on his portrait or switched to him in battle.

Found Zevlor! I found the rest of the tieflings last time but never found Zevlor; this time was the opposite way around (since I didn't really get to explore Moonrise). I like Zevlor and think he's a cool character, but saving the rest of the tieflings as well is the main reason I'm considering reloading that save.

Speedran the Gauntlet of Shar as much as I could. I really wanted to free Aylin (she's a powerful ally, plus impossible to pass up the top-tier lesbian love story), but man that quest is long. It's felt a bit clunky both times I've done it now - getting through the Gauntlet is basically required to beat Ketheric as far as I can tell, but there’s not much of a hook to pay attention to it without Shadowheart in your party.

Found the third Thorm sibling (the bartender) and defeated him without fighting him, and helped He Who Was with his whole... thing. Again, wild how I just missed some huge fuckin chunks of the map last time around.

Also had my lovely mushy Astarion romance scene where he admits he's catching feelings and shares a little more about his relationship Issues. It's a little surprising how much more extra depth and content there is to the character you're romancing - I wish you could get a little more of that with characters you're equally close with but not romancing. (Lae'zel's approval rating is almost as high as Astarion's but it feels like she's not opening up at all.)

GOD okay I have to stop it's nearly 1am on a work night this game is Doing things to me