#witcher liveblogging <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[battlecries-dear]

"does the witcher know how lucky he is to have you?" AFTER THAT SONG?? AFTER THAT CONVERSATION??? this show is bonkers bananas im obsessed

[communistkenobi]

Nick I am SO glad you liked lotr so much, I watched these movies when they first came out as a child and I’m not exaggerating that it altered my brain chemistries forever. Something I always loved about them is the dialogue—I think they really figured out the balance between more flowery, “fantasy-speak” and more laymen dialogue, with both ends of the spectrum being really well-written and utilized to max impact when appropriate. A lot of that is ofc due to Tolkien paying so much attention to language craft, but also a brilliant job of adaptation by the writers (so much so that some of the most iconic lines from the films are film-original!) and speaking to the vast cultural impact of the films, I think many post-LOTR fantasy films have all sought to replicate that high-fantasy speak (most recently Rings of Power….) but I’ve always felt too many of them go for style over substance without realizing that LOTR dialogue was stylIzed without ever losing substance. Idk if this makes sense but to sum it up it’s a movie series where people will quote all of Theoden’s speeches from heart AND also instantly lose their shit over simple lines like “I can carry you” and I think that’s indicative of good dialogue writing lol

Also unrelated but one of my fave shots in the whole trilogy is the visual parallel of Frodo pulling Sam out the water in fellowship and Sam pulling Frodo out the lava pit in Mt Doom in return of the king like 😭😭😭

ITS SO GOOD!!!! I’m almost mad how much I’m enjoying them lol. I also knew that lotr was foundational to the fantasy genre but was unaware that it was like responsible for THAT much of the fantasy genre. As we were watching the films I kept turning to my brother and going WAIT THATS WHERE THIS FANTASY SHIT COMES FROM??

The movies have definitely renewed my enjoyment of fantasy as a whole. For the most part I’ve disliked fantasy and most of my experiences with it have left a bad taste in my mouth. and like lotr obviously has problems worth bringing up, but I enjoyed the films much more than I thought I would.

Also!!! In addition to the good dialogue. It’s been so long since I watched something that wasn’t extremely mean and cynical. I don’t seek out mean and cynical media on purpose, but it feels inescapable sometimes. Very self ironic, averse to vulnerability, always winking at the camera - shit that is so deeply unfun to watch. So like watching lotr and seeing dudes hugging each other and crying and being like love is going to save the world!!!! and being completely sincere about all of it is really refreshing and wonderful

[magic-multicolored-miracle]

The Witcher S3 Ep6: Everyone Has A Plan 'til They Get Punched in the Face

There is no aka this time, because how could I ever dream of coming up with something better?

(There was so much happening, I didn't even get to properly appreciate Jaskier's doorway lean)

You might, but I don't, Djikstra. The fuck?

Also why are you coming after the mages?

Not Artaud! He was chill. I think...who was he again?

Oof that sounded like a threat to Yen. Geralt don't take kindly to those

Do all mage chambers have hidey holes behind the walls?

I don't like that look...Jaskier, why did you tell him the barrier came down at dawn?

🥺 babies...

Don't be so fast to count my wife out, Lydia. Especially if she's in a place with friends

Well, that takes care of that. I thought she was a much more significant character...

I like Radcliffe. He's probably going to die

There can be more than one traitor, Tissaia, especially among men that think themselves all powerful

I don't think those are Redanian...

Well if you didn't want him to be rash, maybe you shouldn't have threatened Ciri

Just 50? I think you might need more than that, your current ones are folding like a hand of cards

Get fucked. Like, I kind of wanted to root for you and your duplicitous ass, but you don't need to be such a dick about it

Do we actually trust Cahir to do that? Or is he going to cart her straight home to Emperor CreepyDad? He serves so many masters at this point, and thus serves none

RIP Filavandrel! Damn!

Oh heeyyyy Fringilla! FrinFran reunited! And fucking shit uuuup!

Oh shit. I knew that ring was going to be trouble...

That. Was. Sexy. And the best way for Fire Fucker to die. Mom and Dad teamwork, no chance of resurrection

Ooh. These twins are neat.

God, Istredd 👀👀 Triss and Marti too honestly

Tissaia, don't give up...please...

Triss is not allowed to die. Especially now that I'm shipping it extra hard

That was an excessive number of arrows guys...

🥺 "my daughter" "come back to us" this family, I can't 😭

OT3 maybe? I'll have to figure out how to add in Cahir's name when FrinFran is so perfect...

Damn Tissaia. That...might also be killing your people but it's super badass

Get. Fucked. Vilgefortz. If you touch a single gorgeous hair on his head...

Where did you just send my boy?!

You should have known better my guy. Philippa and Djikstra are never far apart

Go Ciri! Rage your little heart out! And hold your own against a trained soldier like Cahir, even on the defense

Ooh! It's the moment Bonnie's been waiting for!

You are one man against five on horseback, bitch...what are you doing?

...where is my beloved bard in all of this chaos? Honestly also my beloathed one?

Am I...rooting for Stregobitch in this moment? I feel itchy and uncomfortable.

Shit, now what?

Ooh, Renfri's brooch/gem glowing is new and fun. Is it just for effect, or Significant?

Where is your other sword though? I feel like Vilgefortz is a two-sword situation

Oh yeah, that really helps your case that you're the good guy...

Oh look, he's been impaled

Shiiiiit...Geralt might actually not walk away from this one...

Why? Why only you? Who the fuck are you? You still haven't given a good reason for shit

🎵Get fuuuuucked🎵

Wait, he was on the beach, how'd he end up in the water?

Triss and Geralt having a Little Mermaid moment?

That's probably not a good thing, but it was really cool so...

[araglas1989]

Witcher Season 3 Episode 1 liveblog

Allright we start with Geralt killing the Professor and with yens Letter 😅

[im-the-queen-of-stardust]

Just a thought, but are there gonna be questions about stuff that hasn't happened yet? Has everything that's happened to Arthur been predestined?

[sibeal]

bloody baron is a tragic figure but also a figure i would like to strangle

[cassiefisherdrake]

I've been playing sporadically because Life, but when I do, man. It's just as good as I remember. I end up playing it for hours and hours at a time. When I do finally log off, I just wanna go back and keep playing it. The gameplay is just so good. I still have my tiny complaints, but it feels great to play again - I'm already back in Novigrad and going on quests with Triss!

I'm starting a replay of the Witcher 3, which I haven't played since my first and only nearly 200hr-long playthrough in 2018. I'm excited to return and hope it's as fun as I remember.

[bomberqueen17]

liveblogging the aubreyad 1: Master & Commander

ok so. i'm going to liveblog my reread of the Patrick O'Brian Jack Aubrey series of books, in potentially more or less detail, because it's something to do and it's funny. Starting with book 1, Master & Commander, copyright date 1969, which I definitely first read in like 1991 when I was waaaaay too young to understand approximately half the references. There will be spoilers. There may or may not be an accurate representation of the entire contents of the series. We'll see how long I keep this up. I wish I could write it in the entertaining style of my Wee Precious Flower Prince Geralt Witcher 3 playthroughs of yore but those were written under 1) quarantine confinement, 2) incredible amounts of gin, 3) after collaborative sessions, and I just can't make that happen solo.

But I will do my poor, reduced, older and more sedate best. I promise that while these books are not quite as dramatically crack-addled as Witcher 3, they are weirder than you think, which is critical.

OK so. We start off swinging with the meet-ugly. In fair Port Mahon we lay our scene, in the year 1800 (or 1801?? we also start off swinging with never quite having the tiny details quite laid down), we meet our fair hero Jack Aubrey, a six-foot, well-built, yellow-haired lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a cheerful high-spirited cove who immediately pisses off the unpleasant little man sitting next to him at this chamber music concert by singing along to the music. Relatable reaction by the unpleasant little man, to be sure. Aubrey is having a bad time, though— he has not been promoted and he doesn’t have a ship so he has nothing to do but get in trouble, and his spirits are too low to get into a fight with the unpleasant little man, though he briefly considers it. We soon find out that the sole bright spot in Jack's life is that he's fucking his boss’s wife, which seems like a bad idea but who are we to judge. But lo! He gets back to the inn where he’s staying only to find a letter informing him that he has been promoted! He is now the master and commander of his very own ship, which we are informed is a sloop. Also throwing us into the deep end of Listen Baby It’s Just Vibes. The nautical language and technical shit comes fast and thick and if you just sort of roll with it you figure it out. Don’t Worry About It. There Will Be Context Clues.

Now that Jack is professionally fulfilled he is happy, and so the next morning when he happens to see his unpleasant little man from the previous night, he shows his true colors: he immediately bounds across the street and wholeheartedly, unreservedly apologizes for being a dipshit, like the golden retriever he really is at heart. The unpleasant little man is so shocked by this that he loses all his unpleasantness, has a really nice conversation with Jack, and immediately gets distracted by the sighting of a rare bird. Stephen Maturin is now successfully introduced, exactly as he means to go on as well. He is a physician, but his patient died and he's stuck without money to get home, literally sleeping rough because no one will answer his letters and he's out of cash. Jack meanwhile has a ship with no surgeon on it, and a vacancy, and they like one another, so it seems a simple solution. And so Stephen shall go to sea.

I suppose, really, that’s the genius of this series. The characters are round, complicated creatures, with obvious and consistent surface qualities but also equally consistent, apparently-contradictory, deeper qualities. Even minor characters sometimes possess this level of depth. Even the cartoony-awful little shit Harte (sometime captain, then admiral, the boss whose wife Jack has been fucking but in Jack's defense so is everybody else) has depths. Unpleasant depths, but he's got reasons and motivations and you do really believe in him; this pays off in book 8 in particular.

We meet Jack's first command, the Sophie, the loveliest tiniest little ship ever, staffed by a pack of utter weirdos. TOM PULLINGS makes his first appearance (he is my favorite supporting character throughout the series, so he will be capitalized henceforth) along with his delightful henchman (the other senior midshipman) Mowett who is James in his first and last appearances and most of the others but for some reason becomes William for a while in the middle, most notably in book 8, and has thus passed into the movie as William. Those are our master's mates, or senior midshipmen. In O'Brian's typical fashion we don't get really concrete physical descriptions of them in the normal sense, but instead get really evocative but nonspecific ones. TOM PULLINGS is "a big shy master's mate", elsewhere specified to be sort of gangly, long and thin, young, with a country accent and foremast-jack antecedents (i.e. started out as a regular sailor and was promoted, instead of the more normal approach where a family of means sends a son to sea as a midshipman), who absolutely blossoms under Jack Aubrey's leadership-by-enthusiastic-example, and we will see him through most of the rest of the series continuing on this trajectory with great competence and charming humbleness.

James Mowett gets a great introduction. He's had a few lines prior to this, mostly repetitively described as (and shown to be) cheerful and generally enthusiastic about things, running around and getting to be the one to fetch Stephen from the shore, and later we find out that he is a prolific writer of somewhat-terrible poetry, which we'll get plenty of excerpts of over the course of the series. But his first real description is:

“James Mowett was a tubular young man, getting on for twenty; he was dressed in old sailcoth trousers and a striped Guernsey shirt, a knitted garment that gave him very much the look of a caterpillar."

There are also the youngsters. Meet my beloved son William Babbington, a miniature midshipman of between eleven and thirteen who has every venereal disease and gets drunk a lot. He also cries and swears a whole lot, mostly while sober. I love him immoderately and we will see him in several more of the books. He never gets much taller or less obsessed with womanizing. Adolescence was hard in the Georgian era. (Yes, this is the Georgian era; the Victorian era does not begin for another thirty years.)

“'I suppose you grow used to living here,' [Stephen] observed, rising cautiously to his feet. 'At first it must seem a little confined.' 'Oh, sir,' said Mowett, 'think not meanly of this humble seat, Whence spring the guardians 'of the British fleet! Revere the sacred spot, however low, Which formed to martial acts an Hawke! An Howe !' 'Pay no attention to him, sir,' cried Babbington, anxiously. 'He means no disrespect, I do assure you, sir. It is only his disgusting way.”

Throughout this series, O'Brian so so so vividly shows and describes the many phases of awkwardness that young men go through especially in military settings. It's incredibly vivid; the breaking voices, the smells, the idiotic capers, the weeping, the complete lack of foresight, the incredible cruelty and also loyalty and bravery, the sheer adolescent enthusiasm coupled with shocking laziness.

We also get some insight into contemporary social mores through the introduction of Marshall, the sailing master (a warrant officer)-- 1) he's gay and 2) Jack Aubrey is extremely his type. Different people's different attitudes toward this unspool throughout various points of the book, but the critical point is that Jack Aubrey himself has absolutely zero gaydar and while he has heard the rumor about Marshall's tendencies, he doesn't care about that stuff, studiously avoids enforcing any of the regulations against it, and he absolutely never at any point relates this to himself, and never ever realizes why the man is so driven to excel at his job. Not even when an injury to his head and face gives Jack a horrible haircut and worse appearance, and Marshall is horrified and dispirited about it; Jack never twigs just what's amiss.

To be fair to Jack, many many many of the men aboard also respond to him in a similar, though crucially different, way. This is a common thing in this kind of cooped-up little setting; you have a guy who's in charge and gives you positive feedback and like, immediately you'll die for that guy, which is kind of how the military works because you may in fact have to literally die for that guy and it's easier if you're intrinsically motivated in some way. And Jack is very, very good at this in most cases, at taking the measure of the people under his command and getting them to respond to him.

(We can return to Mowett for an explicit example: “'You may light up the sloop, Mr Mowett, and show her our force: I don't want her to do anything foolish, such as firing a gun - perhaps hurting some of our people. Let me know when you have laid her aboard.' With this [Jack] retired, calling for a light and something hot to drink; and from his cabin he heard Mowett's voice, cracked and squeaking with the excitement of this prodigious command (he would happily have died for Jack), as under his orders the Sophie bore up and spread her wings.”)

Anyway so back to the plot summary: a very good side plot throughout is that the ship's first lieutenant, James Dillon, is an Irishman, and he and Stephen Maturin were both involved in the Irish rebellion in 1798. When they meet, James recognizes Stephen, and cautiously sounds him out about having met before, and Stephen very coolly replies we've never met but you must be thinking of my cousin who looks just like me but uglier, *so* ugly, he has the face of an informer, and everyone hates an informer and james is like Ah. You Are Absolutely Correct Sir We Have Never Met. This subplot develops into a delicious meditation on divided loyalties and the agony of staying true to oneself while doing what one must do. Highly recommended, A++. Begins to give us some insight into the various depths of Stephen, who doesn't understand tides or wind and hasn't the sense to come in out of the rain but has a deep and complicated history and identity and above all an incredible capacity for ruthlessness, absolutely none of which Jack understands.

Stephen and James in dialogue when they're finally in privacy enough to discuss it (Stephen is the first speaker, James the second):

“I speak only for myself, mind - it is my own truth alone - but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have -for what they are - are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.'' "Patriotism will not do?'' "My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile." ''Yet you stopped Captain Aubrey playing Croppies Lie Down the other day.” "Oh, I am not consistent, of course; particularly in little things. Who is? He did not know the meaning of the tune, you know. He has never been in Ireland at all, and he was in the West Indies at the time of the rising. [...] But as for that song, I acted as I did partly because it is disagreeable to me to listen to it and partly because there were several Irish sailors within hearing, and not one of them an Orangeman; and it would be a pity to have them hate him when nothing in the manner of insult was within his mind's reach.”

uhhhhhhh but meanwhile: Jack Aubrey and the Sophies wreak havoc in the Mediterranean and make a lot of money and enemies, to the point that the local merchants band together to commission a fairly serious ship expressly to fuck them up. They meet this ship unsuspectingly, manage just in time to disguise themselves, and Stephen hails the ship and asks them in bad Spanish if they know anything about treating the plague, could they send a doctor over, could they spare any medicine. This scares them off and they go away. But now the Sophies know what this ship looks like and what armament it has. So the next time they meet it, they fight it, and so the tiny 14-gun Sophie with 82 men and boys aboard manages to capture the 32-gun Cacafuego with 319 men aboard, and it's very gallant and dashing and probably should not have worked, but it does.

And a little later, the Sophie accidentally meets a pair of very powerful French ships and gets taken in return despite doing some really heroic evasive manoevers.

The French are super nice to them, and we meet a French ship captain named Christy-Palliere who becomes a recurring character, who has English cousins and speaks great English and is both charming and nice, saying things like gather ye rose pods while ye may and being generally gallant. Until some even more powerful English ships heave into view, and the tables turn, but even then Christy-Palliere remains gallant and well-behaved.

We end the book with the court-martial. Any officer who loses his ship for any reason has to go before a court of sea captains to ascertain whether he did everything in his power to avoid losing his ship. So all the officers of the Sophie, including the midshipmen, including the surgeon, have to testify about this. (I feel like the other warrant officers should also have had to testify? but they weren't there and i'm not sure why. TOM PULLINGS is also not mentioned in the scene which he absolutely should be present for, so it's possible that they were just omitted for time.)

“They had each received an official notification the day before, and for some reason each had brought it with him, folded or rolled. After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy.”

Spoiler: the jury decides that there's not really anything more a 14-gun sloop could have done against two French ships of the line, so they exonerate Captain Aubrey for the loss of his sloop, and thus ends the book.

[terresdebrume]

Fic writing tags index

Note: All tags linked here will contain a mix of snippets, liveblogging my writing process, requests for beta, and other writing related musings. Every fic published here can be found on my AO3 account, where it will generally be proofread, edited, and slightly longer. Note 2: The way I tagged my writing stuff has been quite inconsistent up until now, and I'm only tagging my more recent posts so... if you see a post that doesn't fit in the system outlined here, that's why. Please send the stragglers my way so I can corral them in with the rest of the things :3 Note 3: For the purpose of keeping things convenient for me and this post reasonably short, I will not be listing all my fics here. If you wanna see all 370+ of my published fics, please head to AO3. Some fics have individual tags but they'll probably be mixed in the relevant series tags

General tag (for writing woes, comments and other stuff aside from fic) : Matt writes

HBO War fic

Category: HBO War Fic (So far exclusively Band of Brothers)

Series: Domestic Postwar Webgott

Series: The Limo driver!Joe Verse

Dead Boy Detectives fic

Category: DBDA Fanfic

Series: DBD Microfic (Complete)

Series: I'm down on my knees (In progress)

Series: Messrs Payne and Rowland's Adventuring Agency (Drafting)

Stranger Things

Category: Stranger Fic

Series: Steve in the City

Saint Seiya Fic

Category: Saint Seiya Fanfic

Series: Times Between Us (In progress)

The Mortal Instruments

Category: TMI Fic

Series: Immortal Instruments (In progress)

The Witcher

Series: Witcher of the Rings

[battlecries-dear]

"i cant take you inside im sorry" "then take me here" oohoohoh h i have melted into a pile of goo on the groundf................. the potential in those two simple lines..... goo i tell u

[reinvent-and-believe]

i love you brotherhood of sorcerers meeting. i love you yennefer proposing this fucking conclave (girlfriend whyyyyyyyyy but also i’m here for it). i love you vilgefortz starting the applause for yen with your beauteous noble totally trustworthy face. i love you tissaia and your prim smiles and your bad judgment. i love you triss enthusiastically pounding the chair for yen. i love you sabrina silently thinking about the 37,000 other things you’d rather be doing than sitting in this meeting. i love…is whispy beard dude artaud terranova? fuck it, i love you too artaud terranova.

nothing but love for these messy batshit magic motherfuckers.

witcher 3x04

“i’ve known you since your voice cracked. never seen you sleep past dawn.”

god, it’s so good. we see hints of it all in the books, right? that very personal, very complex, VERY emotional loyalty cahir feels for emhyr. the way that, even after being a man on the run fleeing execution, he still can’t help hoping to win emhyr’s favor.

so i love this. i love that we get a look at why cahir is so faithful to him, that we get to see this intimacy, this gracious father act emhyr gives him, throwing open his curtains and tutting him for sleeping in and welcoming him back personally with open arms and giving him a special mission.

cahir, his prodigal son.

it’s so good, and it really helps to bridge what’s always felt to me like a very big divide between netflix cahir and book cahir.

[antivanruffles]

I posted 2,195 times in 2022

That's 1,465 more posts than 2021!

658 posts created (30%)

1,537 posts reblogged (70%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@antivanruffles

@spaceguylewis

@doctoraliceharvey

@azureliongoddess

@the-lazy-old-fox

I tagged 1,801 of my posts in 2022

Only 18% of my posts had no tags

#horizon forbidden west - 233 posts

#gifset - 166 posts

#kate liveblogs - 100 posts

#kotallo - 98 posts

#hxh - 81 posts

#aloy x kotallo - 77 posts

#kotaloy - 69 posts

#hunter x hunter - 68 posts

#kate plays the witcher - 64 posts

#kate watches criminal minds - 49 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#i am too stressed and too overwheled with work shit to have fucking dealt with that unprepared

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

"Ah shit, my tenses!"

-- Any writer editing their own work.

513 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

#4

Since we can post boobies again....

Indecent :O

808 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

#3

I see people are discussing the "Matt Mercer effect" on twitter, and since it's twitter I'm going to avoid it.

But you know when you should aspire to be like Matt as a GM? It doesn't have to do with voices, and acting, and building sets and having ~production value~

You should aspire to be like him in being considerate to your players. Talk to your players, get to know them and figure out their interests, what will hold their attention. Manage their expectations before going in to the game.

If you shoehorn people into your strict ideas, with no wiggle room or without the ability to adapt then you are a crappy GM, and you should be more like Matt.

927 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

#2

Since it's Anniversary Week for Critical Role, put in the tags what your first live episode was.

Mine was The Echo Tree.

1,824 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Every use of blaze gets you an extra hour in the ball pit

2,475 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[magic-multicolored-miracle]

Ack!

Blegh!

No thank you.

I can handle throats slit and heads beheaded and all manner of excessive blood and violence.

But hands should not bend that way. Or snap back into place like that.

I hate it.

[araglas1989]

The Witcher season 3 Episode 2 liveblog

Uh visions starting to come more often... Poor ciri

Hehehehe Jaskier is working with Geralt again. Geralt shows him the fortified door "is that a Gigant metal Spike hiddem in your secret door of mystery or are you Just pleased to..."

"not your best" 🤣

Entrance codringer 🤭

Huh backstory from emrier interesting 🤔 also yay lesbian dwarf

Oh istridd is his name! And He is searching for ciri 🤔

Awwww Geralt is noble again

"I will find you after rience is dead"

"or he is finding me when you are gone" awwww🥲

[macgyvertape]

BG3 Act 3 thoughts and liveblog part 3

The city of Baldur’s Gate is a technical feat, I love a seamless giant city in video games, the only other one I’ve seen on this level is Novigrad from Witcher 3. That city was fully open world but didn’t have as many unique npcs with their own dislike and interactions.

My character wasn’t too fussed about collateral damage with Wulben’s plan until he told Barcus “be quiet the adults are talking”. So diplomacy and saving innocent lives it is, and she’ll keep the bomb for good measure too. (I’m acutally really curious if I can save it for a final boss fight). 

I wonder what happens if you don’t kill the vampire hunter in Act 1 then go to the Gur camp in Act 3? My character chose “you owe them revenge… if nothing else you owe them that” because she understands wanting revenge intimately and pragmatically the more people attacking Cazador the better the assault goes. I’m not sure if in other playthroughs Astarion has any interest in redemption like Ulma mentioned, but I doubt he does in this playthrough considering he’s with my character who hasn’t ever mention redemption for herself or him

I enjoy the utility of detect thought and maybe I should use it more next playthrough outside of when dialogue prompts me. Was cool to use it on Jaheira so she could communicate ambush plans 

Karlach is really the best of the original companions to take along on Harper missions, in universe my character's motivation to help the Harpers and Jaheira is to make Karlach happy

Oh shit the Steel Watchers think Karlach is an earlier prototype model of them, I don’t know any other way to get across the bridge that doesn’t involve going through and having an time limited audience with Gortash. But I made a save point here so I can explore all the options

First big change I noticed was having Karlach in your party gives her lots of interjections because this is her personal questline. Also there's a big difference between if you run up the middle where Karlach starts the discussion first and Gortash makes a thing of D!urge not having their memories “To think you and Karlach traveled together all this time, and she hadn’t the faintest you were one of my nearest and dearest” vs if you go around the side a Steel Watcher will stop you and Gortash will address D!Urge character first “crawling back from bloody disgrace - its my favorite assassin! Gods, you’re a sight for sore eyes” and then talk to Karlach at the end. If Gortash talks to D!urge first Karlach has a great threat to him at the end “Thanks to you, I don’t hope for things anymore. I just take whatever it is I want. See you soon, motherfucker”.  There's also some very different dialogue from Karlach if you commit to an alliance even if you tell her later you don't mean it vs remaining non committal

I find Gortash really interesting, he’s smarmy and a pompous dude who stops his ceremony just to chat with my character and talk about how my character is his favorite Bhaalspawn and how much he likes her. There are so many implications of a past loaded mutual history, and this is new context for the Act 2 note written by D!urge to Bhaal talking about how much they liked Gortash. The game tells you he's sincere about his alliance offer which contrasts his past betrayal of Karlach. I am confused that he’s talking about his evil plan in an open room with a audience of nobles and guards but none of them comment

How I headcanon this playing out for my character: for the audience with Gortash she took the companions she trusted most: Astarion, Karlach, Gale and thankfully had told them she was a Bhaalspawn since Gortash was super open about how my character used to be “former ruler of the cult of Bhaal”. My character had known since Moonrise tower that she was formerly involved in this plot but hadn’t realized she was a founder. Which in an awful way makes her feel better than if she had just been a minion. She wouldn’t be able to tell anyone but Astarion, she thought the way the religious hoax was plotted out was well done.

My character's line of “I’m back now, and a reckoning awaits” I personally interpreted as vague; she wants revenge on Orin but also thinks the Elder brain is too dangerous and too hard to control now so better put it down. She remained non committal and didn’t make a pact with Gortash even though she was really tempted, the biggest reason is she didn’t want to be bound by any godly pact and keep her options open. The other big motivation is however much she might have liked Gortash in the unremembered past she knows and likes Karlach more now and Karlach wants him to die. Thirdly from what she can tell it takes three people to handle all three stones and unless Astarion is going to be the third anchor she’s not going to do world domination with just anyone.

Talking to Gale and Karlach afterwards they are both extremely pissed that D!urge was behind the plot in the past, and they both want time away from you but then are back to normal the next time you talk to them. Astarion seems to have no reaction to it?? No other companions in camp mention this at all.

Its frustrating that I now have to not long rest because if I do then the kidnapping even kicks off. Lae’zel was grabbed but there are other quests I want to do first so I reloaded. I’ve been playing this with a guide to time sensitive quests, and the kidnapping event will result in a companion dying if you don’t do it quick enough.

Rescuing Florrick was one of those quests on a timer, much easier to complete turning everyone invisible and just running out

I’m progressing Wyll’s personal quest and the the obvious answer for me and my character is telling Wyll to choose breaking the pact. Wyll’s father could be found some other way and its obvious Mizora is manipulating circumstances to entrap Wyll with more terms and conditions if he signs another pact. I’m also noticing more companion reaction bugs where Karlach had nothing to say about Wyll breaking the pact!

Interesting dialogue from Halsin about how he doesn’t think he was a good leader and how he’s not sure what to do now that he doesn’t have the purpose of fixing the shadow curse, because yeah it doesn't seem like organizational leadership suits him.

I don’t even remember Aradin (searching tells me hes from way beginning of act 1) but he tells my character he wants his cut for telling me about the Nightsong? Obvious answer is piss off. 

My character was trying to get Lorroakan to brag enough to give away his plans and was not expecting Gale to cut in and start arguing about why his own plans for power are better. She figures its a wizard ego thing but is delighted to hear Gale have some ambition that isn’t blowing himself up, though she’s rolling her eyes a bit that Gale still brings up Mystra. 

Of course my character made sure to pick up the appendix for the necromancer book while breaking in to get the books with Gale, she knows she’s a Bhaalspawn now and she knows the truth of ithillid powers so she’s seeking power outside those two spheres of influence

My character wants options, Gale’s point about the gods never granting people such blessing strikes a real chord with her considering she’s scared of how much control Bhaal would have over her if she became his chosen.  There’s a lot of baggage Gale has with Mystra and he’s definitely falling prey to hubris, but if she didn’t trust him so much she would persuade him to not do this. He really convinced her with “it’s our future that I’m thinking of - we can’t rely on anyone else to do it for us” about the possibilities from reforging the crown vs simply destroying it. 

Told Aylin that a wizard was after her and warned her it was dangerous but of course she went to fight, least my character could do was head after her to protect an ally. Both Gale and my character got inspired by killing Lorroakan which was an easier fight with silencing arrows and summoning ghouls. Alyn doing the DC Bane back breaker as she talked about being indomitable was hot af. 

Poor Rolan, dude really went through it, guess that heavy foreshadowing that his internship was a bad idea all the way in act 1 really panned out, nice seeing a happy ending for Rolan and the other 2.

Very amused by the kill rats in cellar quest just like in Baldur’s Gate 1

BG3 Act 3 thoughts and liveblog part 1

I couldn't stop comparing DOS2 act 3 and BG3 act 3, since act 3 is a bit underbaked in both games compared to the other acts, but wow BG3 just has so much more polish and content.

The prologue reveals my character is a Bhaalspawn, I feel like it's just so widely known at this point

Defining character moment for Astarion “the problem with what Cazador has done is he did it to me”. Since Asatarion really wants this she’d help him sacrifice his “siblings” what matters to her is that Astarion is safe, but she’s worried about the unknown details but is still planning as if its possible. The dialogue options of “a killer isn’t worthy of respect” is fucking laughable my character would never say that lmao. 

When the narrator was saying you have a bunch of options what will you do, for my character it felt best to say “when the moment comes I’ll do what feels right”, since she's more of an opportunist

Ooof that fight with the gith was rough even on easy mode.

My character wanted The Emperor to prove he was the protector, but then tried to read his thoughts anyway. She’s also very grateful Lae’zeal wasn’t around when this happened considering Orpheus is real and a renegade mindflayer has him prisoner

Learning that the protection against the Absolute comes from Orpheus being trapped really puts a damper on my character’s plans to not get rid of the tadpole and associated powers. It's too dangerous to count on Orphues being imprisoned. Also the Emperor was a successful power player in Baldur’s Gate, so she’s more wary of his plans and agenda than the fact he is a mindflayer. 

My character did turn down the Emperor’s offer to evolve her, sorry she just is too attached to how her body looks. She also thinks this is a line in the sand she’s not going to persuade her companions on, unlike the tadpole powers. (personally it's the fact that it messes up your teeth, huge personal squick). I guess had my character take on so many parasite powers it gave me a fucking 21 score roll to not evolve. 

EDIT: the next day I got spoiled on the Emperor’s seduction scene and it’s friendly manners being all a front; real fucking surprise pikachu face moment for me. That my character who manipulates, lies, and seduces people might encounter someone who emotionally manipulates, lies and will seduce people. I didn’t fully trust it and thought it might have its own agenda, but still I was a little too trusting that there might have been some genuine emotion. Like DAMMIT I was rewatching Felix rvb scenes before I started the game and he has a line “Funny how an act of sacrifice like that [getting hurt] buys you so much trust”. Which is exactly what the Emperor did, where it knelt down and made a big show of how it trusts me not to hurt it and when it calls on us for that dramatic rescue that while genuine was an excellent opportunity for it to be revealed. Apparently the 21 roll is because I used so many tadpoles which the game treats as buying into The Emperor’s promises. Its repeated lines of “just like you” and “i’m on your side” to establish common ground and then presenting itself as a criminal with “a heart of gold” in its backstory. I/my character was skeptical on some details considering it also presented itself as a major power player, but bought into it’s use of “allies” when what he meant was “pawns”.  

Gale had the comment “you’ve not taken this power for yourself… why offer it to me” and I wish I could respond like what Astarion said, that don’t want to sacrifice my body. Astarion had a whole lot to say on the subject but Karlach only had 1 line about being surprised I hadn’t taken the power/transformation. Funny to see how other companions had lines about how they hadn’t done any tadpole powers and they weren’t about to start now. 

My character’s made an enemy out of the undead lich Gith queen, whom only Orpheus can oppose, and there’s an entire Gith resistance working to free him as well. So that really kills any plan of using the Absolute for herself because she’d be better off with Orphues fighting the Gith queen

Really Astarion and my character have come so far from act 1 where he was warning me about how easily Cazador could kill me to now where he’s saying if Cazador comes for him he’ll strike back and he’ll have my character along with him 

The one group my character has been consistently nice to with no promise of reward is kids, so at this point she’s just resigned to them showing up at camp as long as there’s someone like Withers, Halsin, or Wyll to keep them from getting hurt. 

My character is helping the strange ox yet again. It won’t reveal what it is but she’s really curious, and it hasn’t seemed to kill people, so she’ll help it because it might be a useful ally in the future

I love Biscotti what a GOOD DOG (love the animal writing in this and DOS2)

I think its funny that for a while I was thinking that Astarion wasn’t that pale, but in the bright light of Baldur’s Gate he really is. I think it's due to my monitor that has super high contrast

Surprised Halsin has the most dialogue in the refugee area mostly about how he’s rapidly becoming disillusioned with the city, and I tried a earlier save without him and the other companions like Astarion or Karlach don’t speak up if he’s not there.

Community meme about Gortash: I can excuse him being the chosen of an evil god and using his power to found a murderous evil cult but I draw the line at him and his PMC making surveliance cop robots. Bane is just the god of cops and Gortash works for Boston Dynamics

I like to think a bunch of the companions have been a positive force on my character so she’s helping the refugees in her own manner (lots of intimidation), and wants to see the Tiefling refugees make it after all the struggles. That there were explosives in toys justifies her being nosy and helping

Karlach really wants to go to the circus, unfortunately my character is a vicious murderer lmao. Thankfully she’s great at [persuading] and charming. Astarion, Halsin, and Karlach seem to be the best “go to the circus” group

Incredibly cool to hear my bard character perform along with the other bard in the circus

The dinosaur and the magic cat in the circus are being mistreated, Halsin is right to be mad about it. I used Astarion to pickpocket the key, then mage hand to open both cage doors

My character doesn’t like clowns and after she felt that murderous urge there’s no way she’s getting on stage. I watched the different versions of sending Halsin or Karlach up on stage but sending Astarion up on stage really is the best version. Role playing it as after he made that comment about clowns being a horror and with how both Karlach and Halsin approve of picking Astarion while he doesn’t approve if you pick someone else; its some light hearted group teasing of a guy who usually has a joke at others expense “You love the spotlight, don’t you… here’s your big chance”. Yeah he says he’s going to kill me but he’s not seriously upset.

Astarion and my character both enjoy killing clowns, see we’re great together

My bard character was pissed about the Djinn scamming with the spin the wheel game so of course she went back to rig things to get the jackpot. 

Ok so my character gets her meteorites back, that she’s a Bhaalspawn, she’s not surrendering to the D!urge or worried about atoning, but that she’s being encouraged to slaughter her line and that its the woman who hurt her before is a opportunity for power and revenge coinciding nicely

For now the only person my character is telling is Astarion, this is a big thing to confess and she wants to play this close to the vest for as long as possible. While she did have earnest suspicions since the oubliette, she’s more afraid about standing up to a god and the loss of control. I personally like how Astarion comforts you after that dialogue a lot more, especially the way he says you must try to beat Bhaal and not become a slave.

[eerna]

why did no one gif that scene where the witchers bully Ciri for getting her ass handed to her in training, but then we get a half hour timeskip and see that there’s a crowd gathered around the training course and everyone is cheering her on and talking about how great she is because each time she fails she gets one step closer to completing the course. that was peak TV right there