if i look back, i am lost
DEAR READER
tannertan36
taylor price
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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$LAYYYTER
Cosimo Galluzzi
noise dept.
ojovivo
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Kaledo Art
PR's Tumblrdome
@theartofmadeline
Jules of Nature
#extradirty
will byers stan first human second
shark vs the universe
One Nice Bug Per Day
art blog(derogatory)
seen from Malaysia
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@adolescentvidulch
ive gotten so much mileage out of this tweet. every time i see something on the internet that makes me mad i just think to myself "people in real life: hey man how's it going" and i keep it pushing
@bonos-grindcore-sideproject This is so good
99% of ramblers quit right before they conceive of a coherent thought. KEEP TALKING
So... What was I saying..?
The 101 podcasts with the highest "Yes" percentage from the 647 polled by haveyouheardthispodcast from October 25th, 2023 to July 28th
Thank you for all your votes. I have harvested your data to join in with the trends. —Mod Nic
How many of these podcasts have you heard?
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All 101
Today's Connection are wild!! as they be on April's Fool. I still nostalgic about emoji Connections.
hello autistic critter community i'm so curious about this
which member of the mighty nein is the most autistic-coded?
fjord stone
beauregard lionett
caleb widogast
nott the brave/veth brenatto
jester lavorre
mollymauk tealeaf
caduceus clay
yasha nydoorin
none of them seem particularly autistic to me (fair enough)
The Last Unicorn dir. Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin, Jr. | 1982
lovely!
'Hoe scaring music' hoes arent scared of entry level pitchforkcore brandon. They are bored and waiting to go home so they can listen to Merzbow, Boredoms, the Gerogerigegege, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Nurse with Wound, Einstürzende Neubauten, Brainbombs, Egor Letov, Death in June, Current 93, La Monte Young, Moondog, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Luigi Russolo, Popol Vuh, Fishmans, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Les Rallizes Dénudés, Rainbow Caroliner, Taj Mahal Travellers, Fushitsusha, Peter Brötzmann, John Cage, Scott Walker, Unwound, Dead, Frank Zappa, Morton Feldman, Captain Beefheart, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Nang Nang, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Nara Leão, Basic Channel, Raymond Scott, Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Noah Howard, Terry Riley, Peter Sotos, Lula Côrtes e Zé Ramalho, Boyd Rice, Mahmoud Ahmed, Henry Flynt, Kazumoto Endo, David Tudor, Aporea, Half Japanese, Mega Banton, Secret Chiefs 3, Keiji Haino, Ramleh, Otomo Yoshihide, John Zorn, Joe Meek, Robbie Basho, Phil Spector, Faxed Head, Harry Partch, Wesley Willis, Fred Frith, The Residents, Sun Ra, Sun City Girls, Hans Krüsi, Royal Trux, Jandek, Yat-Kha, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Pärson Sound, The Dead C, Comus, Cromagnon, Eliane Radigue, Arthur Doyle, Shizuka, The Red Krayola, Henry Cow, Magma, Opus Avantra, Pan.Thy.Monium., Murmuüre, Ksiezyc, Gong, Cukor Bila Smert', cLOUDDEAD, Muslimgauze and Kaoru Abe
Not to be vague but not again please
anyway this is obviously a wild shift in the topic of conversation, but I was talking about it in the group chat last night as a distraction and would like to continue the distraction if I am being honest, so, with the caveat that this is based off of Fandom Osmosis Observations and a few reads of reviews and I have at this time played neither of these games, some thoughts about BG3 vs. Veilguard and what I've seen. many thanks to @captainofthetidesbreath for actually knowing things about video games and answering my many questions.
also just putting this up front with all said caveats: if you disagree that is great, I am very open that this is an outside observation and I could be very wrong but I am going to block people who get hostile without warning, and make this nonrebloggable if too many people get hostile. You are always permitted to disagree but like, I don't really care about your opinion if you're not someone with whom I have a pre-existing rapport unless idk you're like, actually a BG3 or Veilguard official story writer who happens to be on Tumblr. If you're a player? You have all of your own biases and they are not mine. Save it for someone who wants to get in a fight about this; I am not that person.
Essentially, what I've seen in terms of criticism from Veilguard that isn't just rampant transphobia comes down to the following:
why am I not playing my previous character from Inquisition again
why am I limited to a fairly consistent through line for the story
But first, I'm going to talk about BG3. What's funny is I seem like a much more obvious candidate for playing BG3, as a longtime D&D player who has come around on Forgotten Realms as a setting. However, while I looked at it for a while, I eventually lost interest for a couple of reasons. One is that apparently all the characters are WAY too eager to romance you which is like, a fun fantasy for 10 minutes but would probably annoy me in the long run. Another is that everyone who watched early reviews and kept abreast with the game told me that there was a clear favorite companion (Astarion) and that many of the characters had most of their interesting flaws sanded down (eg: Wyll was apparently much cockier originally; Shadowheart even more petulant; and as these are perhaps the two characters I was most intrigued by, reducing them to something blander destroyed much of the appeal). But perhaps the most interesting one is that as a boring goodie two shoes sort of person, my thought back when I was like "yeah, perhaps I will play this" was "oh, I do not want to have a murderous urge within me."
It became very apparent, through watching people play through and post on my dash, that if you didn't specifically play as the Dark Urge, and didn't specifically resist that urge, the story didn't really cohere. I have to admit, I know the premise of BG3 very well (tadpoles), and I know a lot of shipping trends (put a pin in that), and I know some of the more obvious points within it (Astarion is a vampire, Gale and Karlach both have bombs in their chests somehow, Shadowheart bleaches her hair) but I don't really have a great sense of the ending, and I did not avoid spoilers.
It feels like BG3 is designed for people who have one of those massive spreadsheets of D&D characters they haven't had a chance to play that are meticulously kept and thoroughly realized...and don't really leave room for modifying to fit the campaign you will actually be playing in. It feels like an OC sandbox simulator unless you do actually pick the choice the writers actually wrote for (Durge), and while it's not technically playersexual...it kinda is. I mean, I am a big fan of the trend in video games towards making it possible to romance anyone because it conjures up the idea of a world of high-powered bisexuals running around, which is very enjoyable for me, but the criticism of the Mary Sue archetype originally was never "how dare you fantasize about being cool." It was "wow, the characterizations are all warped beyond recognition solely so that everyone is in love with this character, and that makes for a dull and unsatisfying story." If you're everyone's type, and it's for romance and not just sheer lust, then either everyone around you is boring and wants the same thing, or you are sort of bland and inoffensive, or else the story is bashing characters together without a good basis for a compelling romance. This is also compounded by the fact that the companions can't get together with each other if you're playing your own character and not an Origins character.
None of this is to say it's bad to like BG3 and again, I didn't play it; but it is why I ultimately said "you know, given the effort involved to play it for me, a person without a gaming system, it's not worth it."
Veilguard has specifically intrigued me for going against a lot of this. You have a lot of choices in your character build, but they're all fairly thematically consistent: you did something within your faction that was well-intentioned but upset higher-ups and so you need to step away for a while. This establishes a personality for you! We know why you're part of a faction but also something of a free agent at the moment. We know why you're here and why you might be a good candidate for the current mission.
I'm not going to go into detail for the choices because while I'm not avoiding spoilers I don't want to spoil a relatively new game for others, but a lot of choices are fairly parallel, not in an "illusion of choice" way - they have consequences - but in terms of hitting similar themes. You can only save one city and both are places you have seen and places your companions have connections to; while the exact details may differ you are telling a consistent story.
I also think the fact that the companions can romance each other in your absence is important too! They exist even when you're not there. They are not just here to woo you, and indeed, they might be a better match for each other. I've been informed this is true in Inquisition as well, and I think it's a much more rich world if you, as the player, as the person who can ultimately decide the fates of your companions, aren't the center of their personal life. I also think it prevents the ability to sand down companions to be more agreeable to you as a player if you have to make an NPC/NPC romance compelling (and I will freely admit that, in a move that is not at all like me, I was pretty well sold by a potential in-game NPC/NPC romance, which is usually not the thing that gets me into works of fiction).
I'm not the right person to speak to the Inquisitor not being a significant character because I did not play DA:I, and I get that 'well, this is a new game with a new protagonist, as there has been for every Dragon Age game' is still not necessarily an adequate explanation. Nor is "hey, maybe it's good to attract new players" even though as someone who is highly attracted as a new player that is my opinion. However, I want to go back to the point about Resist Durge being the strongest option in BG3 in terms of story by a long shot. When I was trying to learn more, I said "ok, so just like how you're Tav in BG3 and Rook in Veilguard, you're Lavellan in Inquisition, right?" and was told that you are not - that's just the elvish Inquisitor option. Obviously this is anecdotal, but the fact that one option was far and away the most popular and thematically resonant is an indication that perhaps bringing forth the Inquisitor is carrying over some of the limitations of that game, whatever they may be. The true argument is "they are trying to tell a specific story here, and it is about a different POV than the one you previously had."
And that's really my point. I know I'm not an expert here - in fact I'm usually quite hesitant to write meta about things in which I'm not highly steeped, and very critical of those people who do - but I think an outsider perspective is useful here. The thing that is drawing me to video games is a new way to experience a fictional narrative (the other game I have been meaning to play - and even own on Steam- is Disco Elysium). That's not what everyone wants! But it is what I want. And so I want to be put into a developed, thoughtful narrative, and I don't mind if my choices are restricted in order to support it, and if I am playing a person I did not entirely choose. In tech, there is a saying of "make it easy to make the right choice (and hard to make the wrong one)" and so if you need your protagonist to hit certain beats, you should make that the required protagonist.
I think a story is stronger if your choices matter but if there is something of a foregone conclusion because it gives the writers thematic throughlines. This might sound a little silly given that this blog is largely dedicated to Actual Play but the thing is, most actual play does have, if not a foregone conclusion, at least a strongly intended conclusion of "work towards uncovering this mystery and achieving this goal", though the success of said goal is not guaranteed. I would argue that when a campaign lacks that, it tends to suffer in all aspects. RPG video games almost always have a foregone conclusion, but that's its own liability. In actual play, lacking a forgone conclusion means you spin off in any direction and it's anyone's guess if it's coherent. In an RPG, having this conclusion but not supporting it through the rest of the game will make it feel contrived. I feel a lot of Veilguard criticism is focusing on small contrivances early on that really mostly matter to a highly specific subset of potential players that prevent much larger and less forgiveable contrivances later on.
Anyway. Again, I am an outsider here, and I'm not here to say that it's bad to have a more open-world, sandboxy game with a self-insert-y OC type; but I have to be honest, I'd rather explore that in a true sandbox of fanfiction or original fiction, which is significantly cheaper and in which I can actually tell the entire story I want to tell. I don't want to be given more choices if a lot of them will be profoundly unsatisfying as a narrative. I don't want to cut through the world like a hot knife through butter. I want to be affected by it, and that's very hard to do with a character whose only trait is "self-insert whom everyone wants to fuck" or "guy that already carries the baggage of years of personal headcanons and highly variable choices that are hard to account for for every single person who ever played the previous game."
realizing that people who equate cynicism with intellectual rigor are often just being lazy and pathetic has been so helpful tbh
Genuinely so sweet that LeVar Burton stepped in as undead Thordak at the request of Lance Reddick’s wife.
THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Thordak Spawn Explorations
By Christine Bian
Who would you most like to see as the big bad of the Fjorester wedding oneshot?
Isharnai
Dragon turtle
Halas
Sabian
Avantika 3.0
Uk'otoa
Gelidon
Other/see results
Ok but as someone who has generally been enjoying this season of TLOVM but certainly has some degree of expectations for episodes 10-12 and generally has standards for what makes a good story, people knee-jerk defending literally any adaptational changes in TLOVM with "DO YOU HATE CHANGE" are not fucking helpful. This is true anywhere, honestly, from adaptation to major twists in stories to real world politics. If someone expresses dislike of a change, jumping immediately to "OH YOU HATE CHANGE????" is, in fandom, utterly counterproductive, and in politics and activism, breathtakingly lacking in empathy and also utterly counterproductive (it's not terribly empathetic in fandom either, but that matters way less).
Some people do knee-jerk hate change simply for being change!Change is very difficult and the familiar is comforting! But quite often they have valid concerns about specific changes and dismissing them will not help your argument. And even if they did hate change simply because it's change, do you think it's helpful to just point accusingly? Or do you perhaps need to craft an argument on why, at the very least, you support this change, and why they might consider doing so as well? Do you like change simply because it's change, because that's not any less instinctual and lacking in reasoning than the reverse.
Yeaaah.. The third season is my favorite: less quips, narrative payoffs from the previous two seasons, tension between VM members (including sexual), and clever adaptation decision (e.g., smashing together the Hells and Yenk and Zerxus—chief kiss). BUT my least favorite parts is Ripley in 3x07 and Raishan in 3x09.
*clenching my teeth with worry over the next three eps*
By taking screenshots of around 3:02:42 in the Beacon live show experience cut of Episode 98, @dadrielle, @secretsalute, @lord-have-mercer, @fjordgofurther, and I were able to make out the first few paragraphs of Braius's backstory:
Braius creates PAINTINGS and ARTWORK in service to his master, leaving them throughout the land. He’s a talented artist, actually. But his subject matter is really, really [hard to read—“cringe”?] He wears a signet ring with the symbol of Asmodeus. When he left the Platinum House in disgrace, he also was shunned by his parents, ZEKE and ALMA. Zeke is a hot, horned minotaur. Alma is a human woman, a horny human woman. Dumped by SUZY GREENE. She was his childhood sweetheart. Kind, tall, with strawberry blonde hair and an infectious giggle. When she dumped him, it sent him into a downward spiral. He still writes her LETTERS from time to time, and gets the occasional reply. But it’s more like stalking your ex on Facebook. Every time he hears from Suzy, she tells him about her wonderful life— she’s married to a preacher, has 3 kids, a nice house, does yoga. It infuriates him that she has the life he wanted with her.
moon over exandria
