was gonna wait til i finished act 2 before posting my nightsong thoughts but actually i want to get my first impressions out to see if they change but…currently i’m pretty disappointed by it because from an rp perspective i literally don’t see a single reason why the pc would let shadowheart kill the nightsong if they weren’t already allied with the absolute.

from a practical perspective your whole aim is to get rid of ketheric’s invulnerability - i guess killing the nightsong might achieve that purpose but to me at least the implication throughout the gauntlet is that if you kill the nightsong as part of the dark justiciar trial she doesn’t actually die. (never mind the fact that aylin seems far too important to both ketheric and shar for her to be sacrificed if an ordinary selûnite would do). obligatory disclaimer that i didn’t let shadowheart kill her so i don’t know what happens in that instance, but that doesn’t really matter in this case because i’m talking about how the choice is presented to you, and to me at least it did not seem like killing aylin would be in any way strategic.

in which case it’s not really a choice because a) practically you are strongly encouraged to let aylin go and b) morally your tav has to justify the murder of a defenceless woman for…what, shadowheart’s career goals? even if you’re romancing shadowheart (which i am) convincing her requires a straightforward persuasion check, the mechanics of which thus far have meant you convince her that your position is correct - there’s not much in the way of lasting relationship consequences in that she won’t get so mad at you she leaves the party because you’ve already convinced her you’re right.

all that is to say that i think this is reflective of bg3’s overall binary attitude towards its major choices - there’s a good route (save the grove, defend isobel, free aylin), and a bad route (destroy the grove, ally with marcus, kill aylin). a lot of those choices compound, as well - other people have talked from actual experience about how allying with minthara will lose you a huge amount of content and allies, thus railroading you into picking a side from both a narrative and gameplay perspective. you’ve a huge amount of freedom in how you go about achieving any of those things - stealth, persuasion, combat etc., but the objectives themselves are pretty static.

so when you then have a companion’s personal quest tied to intrinsically to the plot it negates a huge amount of player choice. thematically, the companion quests are binary because they can either break or perpetuate cycles of abuse - that’s an instance in which binary choices can be very compelling. but the thematic concerns of shadowheart’s very intricate and heartfelt personal quest are totally undercut by the necessities of a pretty straightforward choice. i can’t play a hands-off tav and let this be shadowheart’s decision without to all appearances letting ketheric win. this isn’t a truly grey choice like the decision to sacrifice isolde or go to the circle in dragon age origins. it feels like that’s what bg3 was trying to do here by combining shadowheart’s quest and the main narrative, but because that main narrative is actually relatively inflexible, it just means shadowheart’s quest suffers by comparison.

no it's fine this mind flayer is totally my friend and 100% honest with me all the time it's ok it likes me everything's so normal

The great general remained, and then saw a wonderful vision clearly shown him by the very God of the universe himself. In it he seemed to see the divine Meletius, chief of the church of the Antiochenes, investing him with an imperial robe, and covering his head with an imperial crown. The morning after the night in which he had seen the vision he told it to one of his intimate friends, who pointed out that the dream was plain and had nothing obscure or ambiguous about it.

Theodoret Ecclesiastical History 5.6

wahoo! Theodosius! so a repeating phrase in the gospel of Luke is 'do not be afraid,' but specifically: I'm most immediately referencing the annunciation of the shepherds (Luke 2:10) because I used this illustration for the last panel since it. sort of. connects to Valens, Theodosius' predecessor, who went from commoner to king at the will of his older brother. HOWEVER. because of that transformation. I cannot escape the 'do not be afraid' just a chapter before (Luke 1:30) that Gabriel gives to Mary because ascension to the imperial throne is an ugly, violent, and violating transformation. and. well.

Gabriel’s Entrance and Biblical Violence in Luke’s Annunciation Narrative, Michael Pope

also in general. prophetic dreams and visions. horrifying. it never goes well for anyone.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

Crack Theory #2

Now that the drama is out of the way, got another crack theory on how it went down in Emp's head over Dat Dumb Choice™.

I call this the 'sees no downside' strategy. The 'safe than sorry', 'didn't see that coming', 'agree to disagree', 'wishes Greygold the best but count me out', 'ain't about those odds' strategy.

If the worse case scenario did happen with Orpheus, or even if Orpheus solely targeted the Emperor, it's hard to think of a counter-measure to not only restrain an enthralled Emperor but a cranky Orpheus without the prince retaliating by releasing a hold on our mind-protection as well.....

Ha, I just realized you can't even eat the dude's brains thereafter with Emps busy being enthralled too. What a worst-case disaster.

“Just what is it that runs in your veins, Jedao?”

“You’re welcome to cut me open to find out. Knife’s on my left hip if you forgot yours.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

spent most of my Sunday on @figuwhump day 12, which dovetailed really nicely with a couple of MoE thumbnails I was saving. ‘this looks like consensual kink, is this actually whump,’ you might be asking, and to that i say, with Kujen & Jedao it can be both

Intelligence (History): *A memory stirs - diagrams in a book you read long ago - a mind flayer's mouth is underneath the tentacles.*

1. Kiss the tentacle and hope that it's an erogenous appendage

okay what the fuck paramount plus? not only is there still not a mention or statement about prodigy season 2, their star trek day celebration that was supposed to heavily focus on animation did not even mention prodigy, and they list all of the treks at the end... but not prodigy. Basically trying to erase it from existence?

they gave up on it after one season, did it just fail that badly? they didn't even give it time to find it's audience... so disappointing

felix being referred to more or less exclusively as "your soldier" in-game speaks to how little the writers put into his character beyond his noggin full of sith secrets & his relationship with the consular; still, i do find it kind of sweet and funny, in a way. he's not a republic soldier, not even your personal bodyguard; he's your soldier. the consular is a small nation-state in and of herself

FLORENCE AND ANYA AT THE LONDON PREMIERE!! IT’S GIVING ALIA AND IRULAN <33 THE CONTRASTING BLACK AND WHITE HOODS!! THE JOINT SLAY. we won so bad

irulalia real confirmed. to me. here is how they can win messiah and liberate us from that fucking duncan idaho ghola thru lesbian love and their maximised joint slay

in high school I had an ap lit teacher tell us that 'we all manipulate people to one extend or another, when you write an essay you are using rhetoric to manipulate me into believing in your arguments’ n thats why idgaf about the Emperor manipulating us

I think modern au Zhu SHOULD be the lesbian best friend trope to Ouyang except that its because this man is her pet project and gODDDAMIT she's gonna FIX him she's gonna MAKE him be BETTER she's going to SOLVE EVERYTHING and he will RESPECT HER (she is actively making him worse). She has a whole complex about it and everything. She has based a part of her identity on dragging this man up from his toxic funk and is fully convinced that if she tries hard enough he will eventually come to his senses and be an equal participant in this relationship. They have a terrible wonderful toxic loving codependent relationship that's neither a romance nor a friendship nor a rivalry but a secret fourth thing.

Predictably, this does not go well. The character arcs would be Zhu learning she can't fix a sinking ship and letting Ouyang fail by himself, and Ouyang learning to not be a shit person, actually, and coming out of his bubble of self-centeredness and working on himself instead of unloading his emotional labor onto the people around him. And they should both get to develop a healthier relationship with each other than what they had in canon bc queer solidarity is great and its even better when it's in the shape of some weird bullshit some gay people built out of the corpse parts of heteronormative romance (affectionate and completely unironic)

Literally almost cried watching Astarion break the cycle of abuse and be free

what if I kill myself

I am chomping at the bit to find out more about Emperor John. Of all the mysteries still in play, he's the one I'm most invested in. What the fuck is up with him.

Did he really set off the bombs/kill the planet/whatever the fuck happened? If not, then who did? If yes, then why? What is he after? What invasion force is he gathering, where does he intend to take it? Is he just blowing steam about the idea of a second Resurrection, or is that actually one of his goals? What was the first Resurrection? An attempt to save planet Earth, and the human species?

How has he changed in the last ten thousand years? What does that do to a person? Is he capable of forming new attachments? Does he care that he has a kid? Does he care about Harrow when she's not directly in front of him? Did he intentionally engineer imperfect lyctorhood, or did his besties just do that and he decided to roll with it? If he goes into the River or dies does it really put out the sun? If not, is he intentionally lying about that or will he be just as surprised as anyone else? It's not like he would have been able to test it.

Why is he afraid of Alecto? Is he afraid she might hurt him, or is he afraid of what she'll think of him?

i teared up watching kate middleton's video statement ngl. it's obvious she's scared and still processing the whole thing but is forced to make a statement because of the insane conspiracy theories

do you even like the owl house. puritans aside

(I do like it puritans aside but definitely not as much. It was "puritan-free" for season one and I wasn't all that interested - aside from the clawthorne sisters plot)