#this is a DLC thing they did for the game

[whatever----whenever]

I said my piece on gen 8 earlier (good). I do think that SWSH was lacking something with its story, the random dynamax being one thing but also the version exclusive gym leaders didn't get that much love, all the other ones had their specific moments (some more than others). They were the coolest ones IMO and they deserved so much more love, and atleast the ability to battle the others in the post-game. Also I think they should have had more characters, atleast like alt gym-leaders / type specialists (like Klara and Avery) for all the other types.

Peony was a steel gym leader in the past but the steel uniform is more befitting for someone else with the mech suit design.

I have evil hastily written ideas for how to fox some of the problems I had with the story and some plot developments. I came to the conclusion that a quest system, like a real quest system, would help spice up the game and incorporate the potential for characters underutilized or don't exist. (gay fanfiction in my brain)

The cutscenes are so nice, the characters have so much energy and personality, the one with Leon and eternatus is so freaking good.

I think the raids are fun but SV did them better. When you say dungeon raid do you mean the dynamax thing from the crown tundra? I never played it but I've heard it's fun. If you'd ever be interested in running them let me know. But not to soon I just reset my shield profile because I wanted another Urshifu and it was easier to just switch my pokemon to sword instead of spending $40.

Please send your shiny luck to me 🙏🙏 my luck in gen 8 is abysmal. I've found 2 the entire time I've played both games, a joltik and a chandelier. SV were much kinder to me (I have like 4 iron valiants)

I totally get the fresh feeling for the DLC areas, especially the first one, doing them post game makes them feel kind of easy. I know you can do the else of armor during the game but that sounds like a lot of work.

Ive decided to come here after the tiktok ban.

Funny bitches who like pokemon or Octopath hit my line PLEASE.

I will include a resume if needed

[endiness]

"Epic fantasy has responded poorly to too much oversight from above. I think that was The Witcher’s problem. You had that visionary: It was Henry Cavill. And they didn’t want to listen to him. So, well, there you go." — Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, anyway, just a friendly reminder that Henry Cavill massively over-exaggerated how much of a fan he was of the franchise and how much he knew about it as he hadn't even read the books when he first sought out the role because he thought that the books were based off the games (and for some reason despite proclaiming himself to be such a lorebuff, he ~curiously never bothered to check them out; he can't have ever googled or wiki'd the series, either, despite finding out that Netflix was making the show from the internet, because if he had, then surely he would've learned that the games were actually based on the books and would've read them; and somehow he also ~curiously never noticed that the first thing credited in the games is Sapkowski and the books.) He only read the books after Lauren told him about them and even then, he only read the series once right before he was cast in 2018. He also only ever really played the third game and even then, he never played the DLC for it.

By his own admission, he also didn't actually do any research or preparation for the role because, as established above, he hadn't read the books when he first sought out the role, he only read the series once after Lauren told him about the books, and he's really only played the third game.

"I asked my agent to put me on the spot and wanted to meet Lauren as soon as possible. I didn’t even need to prepare specially for the role. Because I breathe, I experience this universe every day. I’ve already had many opportunities to think about this character when I was playing the game. My preparation was already done before the casting even began!"

Henry Cavill was also directly responsible for a lot of the show's deviations from the books, or he at least had a hand in them, and the idea the he was such an advocate for the source material is actually just a massive pr campaign he ran against Lauren, the writers, and the show to deflect from his own responsibility for those changes and because he was mad about how he was co-lead with two women and the general prominence of women on the show.

He fucked up Geralt's characterization in S1 and made it inaccurate to the books by cutting his lines and either saying nothing or just grunting instead — often leaving his scene partners in the position of not knowing what was going on and if he was going to say his lines and even having to take his lines just in order to move the plot along. (Half of Geralt's dialogue was cut in the S1 finale, btw.)

"Henry tends to cut his lines, say less, which means I have to say more. So I had to improvise quite often." — Joey

Then in the press for S2, Henry Cavill started heavily pushing the narrative about how important adhering to the source material is to him and how much he advocated for a more book accurate, verbose Geralt — and not only did he virtually never take any responsibility for how it was due to his acting choices that happened in the first place, but he also lied about the whole thing and tried to act like Geralt was never originally written as being verbose and blamed Geralt's lack of dialogue on Yennefer and Cir's prominence — which can't be true as confirmed by Lauren. (Yennefer and Ciri's scenes were actually the ones cut in S1, btw.)

He tried to act like he was inspired by Doug Cockle's performance to make up for the lack of Geralt's dialogue — which can't be true because he only decided to use his "Geralt" voice in January 2019 but filming for the show started late October/early November 2018 and meanwhile he started cutting Geralt's lines from the pilot episode.

And he tried to act like the lines he was cutting weren't even really that important anyway so it didn't really matter that he was cutting them — which can't be true as confirmed by Joey.

Whenever Henry Cavill went on about how important adhering to the source material is to him in the press for S2 as if Lauren's vision of the show was somehow contradictory to that and the books, he was actually just mad about the prominence of women on the show. (Ciri is the main character of the main book series, btw, and women move the plot forward in the books in massive ways and are absolutely integral to the story.)

(In the press for S2, he also went on about how important men being three dimensional characters is to him as if women being three dimensional characters on the show somehow came at the expense of the male characters.) (Also, here's a quote from him during the press for S2: "I believe that real men are very sensitive. They are very capable of doing things which can be violent, if possible, or necessary. But at the same time, they are incredibly capable of love and caring amongst men and towards children and family and all sorts." Weird that he doesn't specifically list women as people that real sensitive, violent men can be loving and caring towards and reduces them to just being part of "all sorts." 🤔)

Henry Cavill also fucked up Geralt and Jaskier's friendship — beyond, y'know, just cutting Geralt's dialogue in scenes with Jaskier. (Imo given everything he's said, I think it's likely a lot of the dialogue he was cutting in their scenes was any, all, or most affirmation on Geralt's side of things that he cares about Jaskier and that they're friends and, in general, just any positivity toward Jaskier and their friendship .)

"In the books, they are very, very close friends. That is so obvious. They speak to each other fondly. The opportunity is different in this story because Jaskier turns up and he’s not an immediate player straight away. We sort of had to show that essence of Geralt and Joey playing the complete opposite, which creates a wonderful dynamic. If I were to play it more directly like the books, it wouldn’t quite have the same sense of two fated friends. They’d just be like, “Hey, buddy!” Instead, Geralt cares deeply for Jaskier, whether he wants to admit it or not."

He cut a sex scene between Geralt and Yennefer in S2 because he didn't understand Geralt and Yennefer's characters and their relationship dynamic as it absolutely would've been in character of them to have sex after reuniting.

"We wanted it to be emotional rather than sexual. It was really, really important and we had to lean away from what was originally on the page. […] That's not how they behave. How they behave is they just want to be with the person and emotionally recognize their existence again in that shared space."

He nixed even the idea of Geralt and Triss just platonically finding comfort with each other — which is what happens in the books.

"The thing that was important to me, which we took directly from the books, is that Triss asks Geralt to spend the night with her and, in the books, he actually says yes once she says just basically lay with me, nothing is going to happen. Henry felt very, very strongly that when we were playing this scene he still believed that his one true love, Yennefer of Vengerberg, was dead. He was still mourning her. So he didn't actually want to go that extra step and have them have any intimacy whatsoever." — Lauren

He didn't want to play Geralt struggling with fatherhood in any way in S2 nor with any character flaws and only positive character traits (because he was overcompensating for how he fucked up Geralt's characterization in S1 and was embarrassed that redditors were dunking on him for it and that even the show was completely harmlessly making fun of Geralt's "grumpy snowman" characterization) — all of which resulted in the domino effect of Yennefer's betrayal, Eskel's death (which in itself led to Vesemir trying to create new witchers and Lambert's harsher attitude toward Ciri), and Voleth Meir being the big bad of the season.

So yeah, anyway, a friendly reminder that the conspiracy theory that Henry Cavill ragequit the show because he just cares about the source material oh so much and he's the only one in the cast and crew to know anything about it and he's the only reason why the show followed the books in any way whatsoever is, actually, just a conspiracy theory based off nothing more than Henry Cavill saying that he cares about the source material while all of his actions and everything else he's said, as established above, proves otherwise. 👍

[allthedrugsforcreativity]

Two lovers are playing Sonic Adventure on a holy night

[bongosinferno]

A devastating and confusing thing about the Fallout setting, when you explore the pre-war aspects, is what the creators think about pre-war America. In the first games we only get hints of the pre-war world, but they seem to be some sort of wild fascist nation invading Canada. In Fallout 1, the first thing we're introduced to of the pre-war society is seeing a soldier shoot civilians and laughing.

Now, for the first 2 games and New Vegas we don't really know much. What we know is that there's a fascist military group known as the enclave who were a sort of US deep state even before the war, and that the government teamed up with corporate interests to preform vaguely MKULTRA-ish experiments with the Vaults. Basically, the government was an extreme version of the 50s American jingoism and McCarthyism.

This is well and dandy, I guess issues come up more when we get to the later games, especially 4, where it seems like none of this extreme plotting and societal civil unrest which would exist is seen. The society as presented in 4 also seems quite progressive, gay people are featured in the opening, and none of the baggage of say, civil rights not existing are included. Now on a baseline, I don't want settings to be more conservative, homophobic and sexist etc., but it becomes a very confusing setting when it's displayed both as this jingoist extreme thing with fascist tendencies aswell as a progressive place where everyone is seemingly equal. If you're focusing on the 50s as your setting, and American nationalism in the 50s, then you can't have McCarthyism spoofs and anti-communism as a societal paranoia norm while also general equality is the norm without misunderstanding why McCarthyism and nationalist jingoism is bad. A massive harm done in anti-communist paranoia is how it degrades and vilifies any progressive movements (women's rights, civil rights, homosexuality) as being morally un-American and therefore connected to communism. To ignore this just makes any critique of MacCarthyism and jingoism weird!

Basically, pre-war America in Fallout 4 becomes this both sides thing where America is both pure and equal and white fences in every instance that we see as the player (the intro), while also supposedly being this dystopic MacCarthyist hellscape that's broadcasting gladly about their war crimes in Canada, and wants to root out communism. I guess the only fix for this issue without getting into the fine print like they had to do is just not to focus too much on the pre-war world.

[lizzybeeee]

DATV Mini-Rant about the lack of Lyrium Potions in this Game

A small thing that immediately made my stomach drop when playing DATV was the fact that there are no lyrium potions.

I did an elective on game design in university and chose Origins as my game of choice for my final essay because I always loved how much the game incorporated the world/lore in its game mechanics! Call it pathetic or sad (I won't blame you lmao) but this series was the first video game that engaged me so deeply with its story-telling that I wanted to dissect it. That's why I'm focusing on the lack of magical cocaine in a fantasy game series.

Lyrium is a substance that serves as a game mechanic and a major lore/world-building element. It's use is essential if you play the game as a mage or have party members that are mages - it replenishes mana in game, its use is central to being a mage within the story (harrowing, rituals, etc...), and it's a major export/plot relevant resource that is important to the world at large.

So imagine my surprise when I boot up DATV for the first time and there's no lyrium potions as a mage character. My main interest in the game series was for its lore and story (RIP) so I didn't look too hard into developer interviews or videos about the combat itself - it would either be good or bad, but that wasn't my main draw to the game. I kept playing, wondering if I would ever unlock another slot for potions, perhaps, but then it was abundantly clear that it wasn't the case.

It's a small thing, but popping a lyrium potion mid-combat has the same effect that hearing people say 'Maker's breath' and 'Thank the Maker' does. It's this little bit of world-building that reminds me that I'm playing a Dragon Age game. It's not just a 'mana potion' or some other glowy blue magic vial...it's this substance that's important to the world and that has a reason to be there beyond rejuvenating my mage.

It's the major export of Orzammar -> the pillar of its economy.

It's the substance that allows waking mages to enter the Fade -> it allowed me to save Connor Guerrin with the aid of other mages.

It's the substance that the Chantry uses to leash it's templars through addiction -> an addiction I encouraged Cullen to overcome in DAI.

It's the substance used in the Rite of TRANQUILITY.

It's the substance that allows my warrior character to take on the templar specialization in each game -> Alistair and Ser both talk about lyrium and its relevance to training (in DA2 you just do it lmao)

It's the substance burned into Fenris's skin by Danarius.

It's the literal blood of the Titans -> lyrium veins are literal veins (such a cool design choice in DAI to make them look like blood capillaries!)

And all the time in DAO, DA2, and DAI my mage characters were downing this substance like there was no tomorrow.

Even though the combat changed in DA2 and DAI they still kept lyrium potions for mages. Even though they simplified herbalism from DAO in the next two games, they still required the player to interact with the world and find the ingredients for these potions. It was this gameplay mechanic that linked the player to the world -> I know that I need blood lotus to set shit on fire, elfroot for healing potions/lyrium potions, etc... It was cool game design, having game mechanics and lore interconnected like this.

(Not saying that picking up dozens of elfroots was fun or the best game design, btw -> but it's just an example of how they linked the world and game mechanics together, and I like the intent behind it! Cool design does not equal effective design lmao)

What do we get in DATV? No lyrium, whatsoever, just healing potions.

Potions we don't even have to work to find or get crafted! Just break some green shit and there it is! We don't pick up ingredients or discover unique flora to each of these Northern Areas for our own use. We don't loot potions or ingredients from corpses, sacks, boxes, chests (etc...) to replenish our own stock. A healing potion in this game is not a potion you craft, made from ingredients you found, it's a button I press on my controller. It's lost that immersive link - especially when your companions can toss another one at you while being effectively immortal in combat.

The only new flora we hear of is Broma's Bloom which I did like the lore behind! It's used in dye to colour the Warden's armour and its growth is a sign that the damage of the Blight is lessening. I love that! That's a cool bit of lore! Especially since it's named after Andraste's mother in a land that is supposed to be extremely religious. Geographically unique flora and fauna (biodiversity) is just as important as architectural design when designing an area - DAI did this amazingly well with the different creatures and plants we could run into in each area!

The first time we meaningfully talk about lyrium is when we go to Kal Sharok for the first time - a decent amount of game time since the beginning of the game, depending how fast you play. And then, when we get there, the lyrium looks like a bunch of crystals from a 'grow your own lyrium' kit. The absence of lyrium from the game world and mechanics is something that was very hard for me to overlook considering its importance to every previous entry. Especially since in this game we address the fucking Titan's and what the fuck happened to them.

Just...imagine playing a mage in Dragon Age and not using lyrium?

This game is a death of a thousand cuts - so many small, meaningful world-building elements and mechanics brushed off - before fucking godzilla comes along and nukes it all with the handling of the main story/lore.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[dykedvonte]

Jimmy killing himself because he knows he is incapable of living an life without Curly and knows that in the miracle chance they were found and saved they would not let him have contact with Curly and he hates the idea he'd actually have to take responsibility.

Even if he lied, its only a matter of time before Curly is capable of showing or telling what a monster he really is, no matter what delusions tell Jimmy Curly would never do that to him.

He understands that he was the monster in everyone's worse moments but refused to accept that at the end. So he made sure that he died without the possibility of it being actualized as he's the only one that saw death as an escape rather than a release. Jimmy truly didn't believe Curly had anything to escape from even after everything and let him have what he perceived as glory as the sole survivor and thus Captain of the Tulpar.

[puhpandas]

I miss u fnaf fandom I miss people having new interesting stuff to talk about like we did with SB and ruin and a large alive fanart and fanfic community and not ok this game had no comprehensible plot and this games plot was already revealed 2 years ago and its still like 6 months or more until it comes out

[valkyurii]

it’s funny how things have gone full circle with malenia. she was so hated when the game first came out, but then people grew to like her. then the dlc came out and now people hate her again lmao

[smalltimidbean]

I finally finished Bugsnax

[mellorocket]

If there's one thing I love about RE8, aside from the story and all that, it's that it's such a Huge love letter to classic gothic works.

[kore-cryptid]

i finally played outer wilds for the first time in the past month, i cannot stress enough how much you need to play this if you havent already

it took me 5 years of going "oh ill get around to it" Do It Do It just load in and give it 20 minutes of your time just Give it a chance its so fucking good i haven't stopped thinking about it for weeks it blew my mind in So many ways

from the story and the world to the way the game is built how the Fuck did they DO THAT HUH????????????

its such an experience dont be like me and go "ah ill get to it" just Go Now Please im foaming at the mouth and BARKING

[daily-hanamura]

[shannonsketches]

ngl gang I finished both my dissociation fixation games and got a rejection letter for a job I was a shoe-in for after a month-long, three-pronged review/interview process and I am not having a great time

[itseghost]

FIRST DA2 PLAYTHORUGH EVER DONE. if eel sick

[dykedvonte]

why do you hate Joshua Graham or Honest Hearts so much?

This DLC and character represents a bigger issue with fandom spaces I have but particularly fallout fandom in general.

Fallout tends to tackle a lot of topics controversial and not. The first two games it’s heavy cause they are the most satirical and direct with how anti-war, nationalism and etc… they are. 3 loses this as it’s very clear once you play or learn about all the games that Todd and a bunch of guys at Bethesda just liked the 50s post apocalyptic aesthetic and refuse to actually critique the ideals of the time period like the earlier titles.

New Vegas is the game that really gets back into it a degree it almost seems like it’s taking too much on. There are things done exceedingly well while other things are done horribly wrong . I’ve made posts about it before and plan to make a big series of posts (it’s a lot of writing) but my biggest gripe is with Honest Hearts and all the gross and white savior esque depictions it has of indigenous peoples. The entirety if FNV does not do the injustices faced by indigenous people correctly on any count. My two biggest complaints are with the Khans and the tribes in Zion but I’ll talk about the former on a different post.

Both characters of Daniel and Joshua are the most accurate depiction of white saviors I’ve seen and I hate how the DLC tries to justify and defend them. The DLC treats Joshua like this man who has repented for his past actions when he is just retracing his steps after his cruelty bit him in the ass. He was one of the worst parts of the Legion and it is all but explicitly stated that if you don’t force him to be non-violent he will turn the tribes of Zion into the legion 2.0. The Dead Horses and the Sorrows are horribly infantilized by both Daniel and Joshua who both use them for self serving purposes guised by religious duty. The White Legs are the horrible stereotype of violent and savage indigenous and I personally think a lot of their interlinking with Ulysses, his hair and Ulysses character in general are distasteful and very telling of how BIPOC or POC where involved.

But outside of the game it’s the weird obsession people have with these characters ideologies and trying to make them seem more interesting/philosophical than they are. Tumblr is an echo chamber and many fans of Fallout are not the people on this site. Many people are not educated in the issues these characters convey and how poorly they do or used these characters as a poor introduction for their takes. Contrary to what a lot of people believe in, fallout has a prediomeny white cis male fanbase. More importantly a large portion of the fanbase is white.

You can joke how FNV made you trans or see the numbers on post/fics or diverse headcanons but these are kiddy numbers compared to the millions that consume the franchise and aren’t in those more aware spaces or don’t engage in the spaces the same way someone like me does/has to. Their views shape a lot more than people realize and it’s exhausting to be in a space where people don’t correct the more subtle yet toxic aspects of it but also adopt them into some weird quirky view point on the characters or issues. Some people don’t realize and some people don’t care.

My main issue is just the idolizing of these sort of thing in this fandom space and people try to acts like a game like fallout whose tagline is “War never changes” and has never had a game not revolve around political or militaristic factions issues isn’t that deep or doesn’t relate to real issues. I think it’s mainly caused by how over powered you can become and how you can strong arm your way past these learning moments as majority of people who play this game do play it as a power fantasy where they can do so as they please (which of course, go ahead it’s fun) but never take in parallels or lessons in the story as if it was just another first person shooter.

Also like another personal gripe is Cazadores spawn like hell whenever I’m there and I have not found a mod that works to mod them out so I have to play Indigenous Racism the DLC while getting jumped by giant wasps WHILE helping Mormons. Like I cannot catch a break.