#especially on replays

[elven-butts]

everyone say thank u to this mf whose hands have been living in my head rent free for the past decade for pulling me out of the art gutter

#art #digital art #garrett thief #thief 2014 #especially the concept art with the black nails 🥵 #im having so much fun replaying this game #also cameo of another master thief i love hehehe

[alliekitaguchi]

this is easily one of my favorite moments from campaign 2 -- when the mighty nein meet arcanist allura vysoren

#they're so HAPPY #travis marisha and liam's reactions especially get me #i'm trying to make my way (makin my way) through this episode and i've replayed this moment like 12 times #i LOVE them ur honor #critical role #mighty nein #allura vysoren #c2 #campaign 2

[collinnmckinley]

Call of Duty: MWII + MW2019 ↳ Infinite gifs of Cap. John Price [6/∞].

#god he was so hot here #cod #cod mw #cod mwii #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare ii #cod mw2 #captain price #john price #captain john price #codedit #codjay #edits* #gifs* #replaying this game just- #just makes you appreciate how goddamn good looking these characters are #especially him <3 #thicc thighs saves lives

[malhare]

>video about Frank Horrigan

>comments are turned off

Yeah that tracks. Frank Horrigan is the biggest example of the Fallout fandom just completely missing the point of a character, Frank Horrigan fanboys prop him up as some chad alt right supersoldier but in reality he's a tragic character who is completely misguided and brainwashed, throwing away his life for the very people who tortured and abused him. Frank Horrigan is an allegory for those who would sooner heartlessly destroy those similar to them than to admit that they are being used and abused too

#I actually really love Frank Horrigan as a character. Especially since he's psychotic #He's an awful person but his story tells a lot about the Enclave and the world of Fallout 2 #Augh Im in too deep now Im gonna start rambling abt fo1 and fo2 #I should replay them...... #Embarrassingly I never finished fo2 I could NOT beat Frank Horrigan he stomped my ass good #malhare.txt

[vault81]

guess what DLC I've started

#shitpost #fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #new vegas #fallout memes #i love this dlc #but i also fucking hate it #i always think I have a great time playing but when I replay i remember how angry it makes me #especially on hardcore mode #dead money

[lo-cinno]

I’m just saying

If I were able to play this on my steam it would’ve became my highest playtime game

#lock-ing onto death #a date with death #i hate mac <3 #on my xN playthrough now idk i lost count i keep reloading and replaying scenes especially that flower scene pls i love him sm #that scene has my heart

[sincaraz]

I could never be an umpire for many reasons but one of them is that I would curse at the crowd when they’re annoying me. “Ladies and gentlemen shut the FUCK up. players are ready. thank you” they have so much mental fortitude

#night crowds especially get so rowdy and people Will Not Stop yelling #I’m watching the jannik/ben replay rn and the crowd is pissing me off #rambles

[animentality]

Baldur's Gate 3's biggest writing flaw is the fact that they were so obsessed with accounting for every single player choice that they spread themselves out too thin, and ended up telling a half-baked story because of it.

Rather than giving characters long, thoughtful, UNIQUE scenes that enhanced specific companions' arcs and the overall story, or hell, actually gave you DIFFERENT DIALOGUE later on, they focused on making a story so general and loose that it could account for every possible way a player might interact with it...

And as a result?

It's so diluted with flavors that you cannot tell what the fuck you're tasting anymore.

It's mellow and weak, because it has to be mellow and weak in order for everyone to love the taste...but the result is.

You love nothing. It's surface-level and shallow, and you're forced to do the fanfic and analysis work for it, to account for its milquetoast, non-committal narrative shrugging. That's why the fandom is so big and fun and diverse.

It's a nothing cake, almost like a Disney project designed by marketing executives, trying to appeal to every demographic imaginable.

And some of you like that sort of thing.

But I look at it and say...it's a cake with layers of potential, but none of the decoration, none of the finesse, lacking daring decisions or inventive baker flourishing.

There I said it. Take me to church and beat me with a bible.

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #posting this at a weird time so no one will see it #listen im at 1000 hours now and i just #i love the mechanics to death #but the story bothers me more and more every time i replay it #the characters just.... #they feel so lifeless #especially in act 3 #the game just didnt have the time to focus on anyone #it decided to speed run through every character

[mwagneto]

i have sooo many thoughts on the absolute failure of detroit become human's message honestly like it's so crazy. kara's entire storyline is negated when alice is revealed to also be an android since not only does the "can a human child view an android as a parent" question completely disappear, suddenly everything you've done so far to "protect the kid" becomes meaningless since kara and alice are essentially the same age. and then the general issue of David Cage failing to make a good enough case as to why androids should be considered human to the point where the worst part about the bad endings is that it makes Hank, the only human main character, sad. and this is only like a fraction of the problems but i find it fascinating how even the main core and theme of the entire story falls apart as soon as you think about it for even a second

#like im not even gonna lie if it wasn't for hank i wouldn't save the androids 😭 #like obviously connor is compelling but i genuinely don't see the point in waking up hundreds of thousands of #androids and giving them all consciousness. and i ESPECIALLY dont see the point of #the demand markus makes that they want control of factories so they can make more androids #like brother we have enough of a problem. i could maybe see the case for freeing the ones that #already had existence forced upon them but why would you ever want to make more fr #and im not even gonna touch the . well. yknow. the race thing. bc that's a whole another post #im mainly just rambling coz I've been streaming myself replaying it to the gang and it makes me think things. #dbh #detroit become human #dbh critical #idk the tags. #anti david cage

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

This. This. This entire conversation with Morrigan actually makes me want to sob. She and my Tabris always becomes close friends over the course of DAO; that, paired with the fact that my Tabris always romances Alistair, makes everything about this hurt so much more when you take DAO's ending into account.

Her confusion over why my Tabris didn't send her away. Why she didn't abandon her after they learned of Flemeth's plans. Why Tabris went out of her way to slay Flemeth and bring her the true grimoire. She asks Tabris why, and is baffled when the answer is, "I did it because I'm your friend," as if it's that simple.

The way Morrigan looks at the warden, the way her voice cracks when she says, "I want you to know that while I may not always prove... worthy... of your friendship, I will always value it."

She knows how this will end; Flemeth sent her with the wardens with the end goal of stopping the blight and obtaining the old god soul through the dark ritual. Morrigan knows that Alistair and Tabris are the only Grey Wardens here, and assuming they don't find more, one of them will have to die defeating the archdemon unless they agree to do the dark ritual.

With that context, her asking Alistair, "And what if a Grey Warden has forced to choose between the Warden he loved and ending the Blight? What should his choice be?" suddenly has so much subtext weaved through the words that I'm gonna start foaming at the mouth. She's practically telling Alistair that a warden has to die. She's scrutinizing his reaction to find any hint that suggests he would agree to the dark ritual in order to save himself and the woman he loves. And when he doesn't choose, she has her answer.

Morrigan made comments to Tabris about him, almost hopeful that their relationship was just a physical thing between them and not actually riddled with feelings... and then gives disapproval when Tabris says she loves him.

She doesn't want the warden to die; hell, she doesn't want Alistair to die, either; whether because she does actually care about him or because she knows it'll break her friend's heart if she loses him, or both!

Things would be so much easier if the only two Grey Wardens left to defeat the blight didn't fall in love, wouldn't they, Morrigan?

She knows that in the end, no matter the outcome, she will lose the woman she called sister and it's devastating.

Morrigan, who has never known true friendship. Who grew up isolated in the woods with an abusive mother and terrible implications for her future. Who discovered said mother planned to take over her body just as she did with her other daughters. Who doesn't understand kindness as it was rarely given to her without a catch. Who isolates herself from the others in camp. Who finally has a companion she cares about... and in the end, if her plan works and the dark ritual is completed, she'll end up pregnant and alone and wearing Tabris' resentment like a tender wound on her heart.

Or Tabris will reject the ritual, and will die to the archdemon.

Or her lover will.

I just- the dynamic between the warden, romanced Alistair, and Morrigan is so good and painful and rich that I'm gnawing on furniture as we speak.

#dragon age origins #dao #alistair theirin #dao alistair #dao morrigan #dao tabris #warden tabris #i'm replaying dao right now in case my recent written posts haven't made that obvious #the relationship dynamics the warden has with each of the companions is so so soooo good like there isn't a companion i dislike #i play into the slow burn with alistair's romance but it's not even just the romance aspect it's also their friendship too #playing dao and not romancing alistair would feel wrong at this point for me it's so crucial to the entire story and its development #and i love morrigan's friendship with the warden and how gutted tabris is when she comes clean about everything and offers the ritual #and then bails once everything is over and tabris is torn between hating her and feeling hurt and not wanting morrigan to be alone again #i talked more in depth about morrigan and the ritual in a previous post but it's a lot... especially when it comes to the witch hunt dlc #oh and then there's the friendship between tabris and zevran like don't even get me started on that sksksks i won't be able to stop #even a character like oghren who is the last person you'd think tabris would ever become friends with since he's y'know *oghren* #but i'll go on the record and say there's more to oghren that gets overlooked and overshadowed by his glaring flaws #and i don't wanna talk about leliana... she makes me too sad like ever since my last playthrough where i accidentally triggered her romance #while i was deep in alistair's romance i have a really hard time not reading into the things she says to tabris #in my last playthrough i dunno what i did but she confessed to tabris even though she was fully aware that tabris and alistair were togethe #and it was a *mess* okay like it really felt like we killed marjolaine and leliana was in a vulnerable position yet was hardened enough #to be like 'i know she and alistair are together but i'll take my shot anyway and attempt to break them up' like.... noooooo leliana D: #and the rest of the game it felt like she was bitter and still in love with tabris and i felt *horrible* #i just said i don't wanna talk about it but hhhnnngggg i'm taking extra precautions to not have a repeat of that this time #excuse my tag ramblings i'm just very passionate about dao and the companions okay #also want to note that this is my interpretation of morrigan's motivations based on how i play the game and my warden #so others might view this reaction and the warden/romanced alistair/morrigan dynamic differently and in that case #i would be interested to hear that different interpretations because those are always fun to read

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Man i always forget just how much Liam's entire way of thinking and making decisions is centered around Bethany in Act 1

#i mean i Do Know but also every time i replay it really stands out again #guy's conditioned to put the safety of his family and especially his mage sister first #and add this to him being protective by nature and it getting Even Worse after carver dies *and* them being in a city that is #infamous for its strong templar presence and harsh treatment of mages #the main concern is Always ''will this put bethany at risk'' #wary about helping anders cus it might antagonise the templars. defensive w fenris cus he makes a comments about magic #etc etc #laya plays dragon age #oc: liam hawke #my ocs #all the quests are also fun tho cus its such a funny back and forth between an optimistic 'yeah sure lets take this job' #and 'ah shit of course this got way risky again'

[emblemxeno]

I think another reason why I'm of the opinion that 3H's writing falls flat due to superfluous exposition, is that... it actually does what I think is great gameplay-story integration.

And that's the character paralogues!

Every character has a paralogue which ties their personalities and backstories into that mission's plot, without exception. Certain gameplay elements are also introduced to suit why the characters are doing what they're doing in those missions.

They're not flawless of course (map reusal is a bitch), but they are nonetheless stellar ways to tie in the characters to their world.

So what's the issue? The problem then becomes, why the hell is there so much else then?

I'm not advocating for everything else to be cut or for character backstory/development centered supports to be shelved, of course. But when you have paralogues-missions that are very well crafted to engage the player in the game flow and the writing simultaneously-why do the characters reveal the same things and go through similar developments in other places, like supports, the monastery, sometimes even in story as well?

Because you can miss out on paralogues? Well this game makes it so you can skip the monastery, supports can get locked if you don't do them in time, and those sparse story moments don't exist if the side character dies. There's no functional reason why you need multiple avenues to dive into the same few character plotlines, especially when one method does it consistently better and more involved than the others.

And logically or writing wise, there's even less of a reason other than they really wanna make sure you know these characters really well. Which is in no way bad of course, it's great to make a cast that you're proud of and want people to fall in love with every aspect of each of them. But there's nudging your audience to a position, and then there's outright making the line between player control/influence/preference and authorial intent too blurry.

Inevitably yeah, people did love this cast. That's why 3H is so popular and why their characters rank so highly in polls. But I reiterate from previous posts: 3H doesn't do anything special that previous FE games didn't as well. The cast isn't particularly deeper than most FE casts on average, nor is its world/story writing any more impressive. There's just more of it being delivered and put in your face than normal. And because many finer details unique to 3H's plot construction end up irrelevant (or outright contradictory to the main plot when thought about for too long), most of what's pushed is the character writing and backstories and Fodlan's primary backdrop... over and over and over again.

To me, that becomes tedious and ironically makes me care less for the world as I find incessant need to reiterate major aspects of the story near verbatim to be artificial and suffocating. But I'm not most people, and I can't fault others for finding great joy in it. I just thoroughly hope that the gameplay-story interaction is taken as priority like it was with Engage for future FE games, because these are still video games at the end of the day. When your game is being talked/argued about more than it's actually being played (for reasons that don't specifically have to do with archaic design elements as a result of its age)... shouldn't that be seen as a bad sign in the eyes of a video game designer?

#fire emblem discourse #storytelling #3h hate #like the fact that 3H's near unanimously most panned aspect #is its replay value as a result of poor game design choices #should be seen as something not worth repeating ever #especially since I see people constantly talking about going back to replay Engage or Fates or even Radiant Dawn #games with stories that have noticeable issues but are still great GAMES that don't have to rely on massive amounts of text #to get people to want to play them again

[haunted-xander]

Thinking about the parallels between Riku losing himself to darkness because he (believed) his life-long friendship had been broken and replaced and Terra losing himself to darkness because he wanted to protect his friends/friendship more than anything else

#they were both driven by love and bonds but riku was driven by the hurt of it being broken #whereas terra was driven by the anger at his loved ones being threatened #love is healing but its also corrupting if its too strong/if its threatened...... #oh and they also both lost their bodies and hearts!! to the same guy even!!!!! #and they could only fully return to themselves once they had been safely reunited with their loved ones and their bond restored!!!!! #aqua was right when she said darkness was anger and hatred #but what then is anger and hatred but the pain of having loved? #of having something you cared about be broken and torn apart #darkness is obsession and hatred and anger but also love #because love feeds all of these things #anyway im getting carried away i could write an essay on the delicacies of emotions #as portrayed in a lot of medias tbh but especially kh #bc everything always is driven by emotions all the time!!!!!!!! #riku #terra #kingdom hearts #kh #xander rambles #i finished replaying terras route in bbs today btw.

[meowmeowmage]

// this is a stright up rant, not gonna bother wording it well

"Give Meredith and Orsino time to work out their differences..." man,, there's just so much to unpack here like

1. They're not a married couple to work out their differences ffs

2. "No good can come of showing favor to one side" bitch when one side is oppressors and the other is oppressed, not showing favor is siding with the oppressor. Simple as that. Especially when you're part of said oppressors

3. There's no working out differences when one wants to commit genocide and the other, shockingly /s, does not want that. What differences are there to possibly be fucking worked out??

4. You're supposed to keep Meredith in check, what the fuck are you even here for if you don't step in when there has been blatant disregard for Chantry law (nevermind that even if that's followed, it's still an oppressive system) for at least 7 fucking years??? Oh right, you're here to let Meredith (and the Chantry as a result) slowly take over Kirkwall, bc that's what it's all about apparently

Fuck this shit. I'm supposed to think that Anders finally blowing the lid off this dumpster fire of a city is the worst thing to happen? I don't. Things have been shit in the city and would've continued to get worse and worse and worse. Way more would've died if nothing was done and things still would've remained shit as an added bonus. At least after a revolt, there's a path to healing. Meredith would've annulled the Circle, then would've continued to lead a regime that got people killed for imaginary slights, and would've continued to raze through the city. A revolt was coming. Better sooner than later.

#rant #fuck the chantry #with a pineapple #making things shit not only for mages but for everyone as well #Kirkwall - from a Tevinter ruled shithole to a Chantry ruled shithole #that place can't get a break man #replaying the game and especially act 3 has filled me with rage all over again asfdgdh #anders was right

[lewishamiltonstuff]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, CONSIDER MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY ALTERED FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY 😭😭😭

#WHY BEN WHY. HE IS SO FUCKING SOFT. I REPLAYED THIS LIKE 20 TIMES BEFORE MOVING FORWARD #Also jessie and kit being absolute back benchers who are there just to create chaos #Kit going 'he has never given me a gift' made me lose my shit 😭😭😭😭😭😩😩😩 #ben barnes #amita suman #freddy carter #jessie mei li #kit young #shadow and bone #shadow and bone s2 #six of crows #This is my favorite group of people #Just bff vibes all around #serotonin boost #your honor i love them so much #Especially ben #protect him at all costs

[bowl-of-fruit-loops]

do you think corvo eats white rats in bites or does he slurp them down whole

#I’m doing my october replay of dishonored and the ‘eating the white rat to replenish mana’ bone charm is crazy #especially bc the rat has to still be alive #that has to be. unpleasant. #dishonored #corvo attano