rb and respond with your top unromanceable video game character/s that you think should have been romanceable

malady just makes me think of malady from divinity original sin 2 lol. badasa demon woman

Omg, I'm actually playing Dos2 now and I had no idea there was a character named Malady in that game when I was making him lol.

Considering Malady started out the awkward mashing of three BG3 characters together , Larien apparently has me by the balls.

do you have a personal “canon” ending for dos2? I know the main plot is. shaky lol but I want to know your thoughts if you have any

i like playing around with different endings when it comes to transformative content, but here are my personal favourites, in order of preference:

lohse as divine

i'm incredibly biased, granted, but i think that lohse and fane are really the only two characters who are genuinely compelling in the position of divinity — lohse and fane both share the idea that they're not necessarily suited to be in the seat of power, but eventually learning how to use it in order to better rivellon as a whole is nice to me. fane, i think, would need a fairly strong outside influence in order to encourage him to be an Actually Good Person (which is why i feel he is more compelling as a companion than as a protagonist) whereas lohse, despite a lot of her failings (mostly coming as a result of her abuse from adramahlihk) still cares for humanity on the whole

i prefer lohse as divine for bias reasons, but also because i think that malady would like to stick around her to be her 'advisor' of sorts, whereas with anyone else i feel like malady would only come around to pick up on the favour she's owed. malady is funny. i like anything that gives me an excuse to think about her — since clearly, my disdain for fallen heroes got it cancelled and so we will never get to see her again (heavy sarcasm)

everyone gives up their source

i think it is kind of dumb that malady gets to deus ex machina the entire party and retrieve their souls from the hall of echoes, but on the other hand, it lets me really facilitate my 'everyone becomes a wandering hero' hc. i like the idea of sebille and lohse sticking together and performing as a travelling pair of demon hunters/mercenaries (in the service of good, mostly) while lohse gets to do her performance shenanigans.

i think fane would try to learn all the human history he missed while in his crypt, ifan would attempt to help rebuild the elflands (while trying to deal with his own personal guilt wrt his complicitness in lucian's war crimes), beast would try to help justinia repair the dwarf kingdom but i kind of like the idea that he sucks as a politician so he just gets to be justinia's right hand instead and influence policy from there. red should get to be emperor of his own kingdom though. maybe sadha will humble him into being a better person but i doubt that. </3

that's...... kind of it actually i mean i'll think about other endings but they don't feel "canon" to me, yk ? travelling heroes is probably the easiest to write for.

you can read my (very old, not so great) divine lohse(bille) fic here though

I absolutely loved BG1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark and Neverwinter Nights 2 too are among my most favourite RPGs. But Larians writing, particularly in D:OS2 turned me off so much :( How different is BG3?

big wall of text under the cut and before anything else i want to say that criticizing a game does not equal not liking it

i thought a lot about my response to this ask, since i must admit i have never played bg&bg2 and jumped straight into the hype train of bg3. and i'm genuinely curious what exactly about dos2 turned you off that much. here's what i personally think:

i played d:os1 and d:os2 and while i'm a big fan of the latter… dos1 couldn't keep me entertained even when playing with a friend in coop, which shows just how exhaustively boring and unmemorable it was. i really love dos2 and despite what i will say next, nothing is gonna change my love for this game. but. imma be honest, it was 3 and a half characters that kept me playing. i love sebille and lohse, i love malady — the mystery around her has its own appeal, but it's still a huge miss not to expand on such intriguing character as herself. i slightly care about ifan and fane, i couldn't give a lesser fuck about beast, i fucking hate the red prince and his writing is one of most unlikable from any rpg game i ever played (i can elaborate. but that's a post for another time). in short: lack of memorable characters, and those who are there have to make up in quality rather than quantity.

and larian is still... larian. their ambition makes them bite more than they can chew, you don't need to be nitpicking on purpose to notice just now empty act 3 of d:os2 was compared to fort joy or driftwood. in similar-ish way act 3 of bg3 feels less polished in terms of performance and content. like they even had to add an alternative ending to karlach's quest only after the game's release lol. there are quite a lot of bugs and players who are doing an "evil" playthrough like me found themselves deprived of content — sometimes you're just locking yourself out of quests, encounters, characters entirely because of decisions you made, quite literally making the game harder for yourself.

another important thing that i'd point out that dos2 felt kinda lacking in terms of the character creation because ocs always felt less immersive and shallow compared to the playable origins (i had the time of my life playing as lohse, tho). i know people who managed to have fun filling the blank spaces with their imagination, but i'm not one of those people, unfortunately. when i tried creating a drow character in bg3, however, every third npcs made sure to glare at me distrustfully and be fantasy racist towards the drow. like really? thanks for noticing! this might sound weird, but i liked that. it enhanced my feeling of immersion thus making it more satisfying to play. like yeees... yes... i indeed am a drow!

i'd rather stop focusing on its shortcomings because it feels unfair to larian when they are listening to the playerbase and trying their best to deliver patches as quick as possible. after all, what makes a good dnd adventure for me is always the story and characters — banal it may be, as long as it is fun, it is a good dnd game. and bg3 is very fun and addictive. there's this unique feeling when you're planning your next playthrough and considering what you would've done differently when still doing your first. i like it more compared to dos2, because... i'm not sure why myself? interpersonal interactions just feel a bit deeper, and i actually care about almost every companion, even the ones i did not expect to care about (like gale, astarion, shadowheart). and variety of the character creation, of course. and i can bet on bg3 being next the goty haha

to sum this all up:

if you like dos:2, you will like this game

if you like dnd e5, you will also like this game

if you like bg1 and bg2 then i genuinely don't know i'm sorry

FINALLY BEAT DOS2 and if i'm being totally honest, i'm rather disappointed with how it ended. spoilers for the endings & final battle under the cut!

the final battle sucked so FUCKING MUCH. the only reason i was able to beat it was because of some divine intervention i swear. like it was looking grim, folks. everyone died except for ifan, who was at like. 30 hp. and braccus rex was about to kill him when he suddenly died?? i'm assuming it's because of his vulnerability to fire damage, and if you've played dos2 you know that most fights end in fire or necrofire, so that's what got him. i'm just glad he kicked the bucket (AGAIN. HE EXPLODED INTO DUST IN THE FIRST DOS HOW IS HE ALIVE) but i wish there was the option to kill lucian as well. like, he sucks! he absolutely sucks! why does he get to live??

anyway. you get to choose to claim divinity or not, and you're given three choices: to return source to the people (like ifan spoke about previously), to become the new divine, or purge the world of its source to close the void.

you pick whichever one. if source returns to the people, windego pretty much curses your name for letting her stay shackled to the god king. if you become the new divine, she eagerly awaits a different godwoken just for the chance to get set free (unlikely, but one can hope, i suppose). if you purged the world of its source, you've freed windego from the clutches of the god king, and this one is seemingly the best ending because rivellon flourishes. i have mixed feelings on this one.

fade to black, you are on the lady vengeance that is somehow whole again because malady is ridiculously powerful and also suspiciously nice to you if you're the new divine. with the other options, she kind of just views you as an investment that didn't pay off. which like. rude, but fair

i somehow managed to foster romances with sebille and ifan simultaneously (didn't get there with lohse because i only added her to my party on the first leg of the journey to driftwood). sebille basically doesn't really care all that much about your choice, preoccupied by her fate as a scion. lohse also doesn't care. she just wants to get back to barding. they're both pretty neutral about it.

ifan isn't. ifan has exactly zero chill and will either give his approval (sharing source across rivellon; romantic ending, best reaction because that's what he wanted), acknowledge you as the new divine (vaguely romantic ending—he ditches you to help regrow the elven forest), or angrily call you a betrayer (purging the world of source entirely, worst ifan ending because you let lucian stay divine and alive so he wants you dead).

personally i feel like we should have gotten an ending where like. we purge rivellon of its source, kill lucian, and all seemingly goes well. but this is not an option, even though you should've killed lucian in the battle beforehand. that way, ifan won't treat you with contempt or malice, because he disapproves of choices lucian made as divine and not as much about purging source. we could truly have had it all.

Just learned the voice actress for Melinoe is Korean and the one for Hecate is the narrator in Baldur’s Gate 3 as well as Malady from DoS2 so yes thank you Supergiant once again for great casting T____T

Oh Captain, My Captain!

Video game asks: 4, 15, and 28!

4: Worst game you’ve ever played?

If something is really terrible, I usually do the same I do with bad books: drop it quickly and never think of it again. But hmmm... The first Divinity: Original Sin really did not deserve the praise it got. It was silly in exactly the wrong way, there was weird casual sexism everywhere, many of the truly innovative technical aspects Larian has since polished in DoS2 and BG3 were still kind of clumsy, the music was atrocious etc. The Enhanced Edition was marginally better since it clearly also suffered from the common malady of being released too early, but still not worth it IMO.

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

Hmmm... In the sense of 'characters hanging out' etc. Dragon Age: Inquisition + Baldur's Gate 3 would be fun, especially since the entire DA franchise was pretty much born from the ruins of the cancelled original BG3. Thedas and the Realms are very different worlds, though, so the culture shock aspect would be especially interesting. Imagine Dorian and Gale geeking out together! Similarly, Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age would make a really fun crossover. Oh, and The Witcher! Because that actually could be canonically crossed over with another setting due to the whole Conjunction of the Spheres thing. I mean, the Forgotten Realms setting kinda allows that too, interplanar travel and parallel universes are very much, if not an everyday fact, canon -- I even seem to recall some visitors from the Dragonlance setting in BG2.

28: Which character’s clothes do you wish you owned the most

Hah. Commander Shepard's. Which, you know, is not that impossible outside of the armor. I wouldn't look nearly as good in them, though.

Made fanart of Malady 💕 from DOS2

bg3′s narration is superb cos it’s malady from dos2 crooning huskily into your ear

Thoughts on Malady from dos2? I just met her and I'm already in love

Thoughts, you say…

Thoughts

on

my

girlfriend

Malady?

are you SURE YOU WANT TO KNOW?

Do you have any thoughts what lohse and sebille would do after the events of dos2? I've thought about it before and I just wonder what your thoughts are given that lohse clearly wants to do something about the demons across rivellon after her quest and sebille--depsite it being recorded that she became a folk hero of some renown-- she's made it clear that she plans to stick w/ you (in this context lohse of course) for the rest of her life. In my mind this assumes neither of them became divine bc the question is based on that lovely piece of art lou drew on Twitter

while lohse has a desire to do some good ole-fashioned exorcisms, it's not necessarily as though she's trained for it. i think she would probably still be in close rapport with jahan and malady, maaaayybe tarquin if tarquin had the time for her (which he does not, he's too busy making vague baldur's gate 3 references!)

anyways sebille wants to experience life to the fullest, and i think that lohse would also probably be interested in tracking down her old troupe and papa joris especially :-) maybe introduce sebille to the family and everyone would make really embarrassing comments about how good they look for each other and lohse would die internally because YOU GUYS THATS SO EMBARRASSING STOP IT!!!!!! T_T

side thought: lohse still gets possessed by spirits (functionally different from demons in terms of malevolence i think) post-canon given the hints in the epilogue so i think that would be fun conflict later down the line. teehee lol.

A Long, Long Afterlife (1/?)

Ifanmance, post-ending, so DOS2 ending spoilers, be warned!

Update: Part 2 is now up here!

"How could you? I trusted you!" Ifan's voice cracked as he spoke, betraying the tears that only glimmered in his eyes. Adelliah was silent, no expression readable in the bone of her face, try as he might to discern one, regret or smugness, or... anything. He had always thought he could see her emotions plainly, despite her lack of eyes or flesh for the usual signs. But now there was nothing. "Were you planning this all along? Am I just born to play the fool to people with power? We talked about this! You said we were going to end divinity, together!"

"We did end it, Ifan." Adelliah's voice was small. She was tired, and sad, and she cursed every second that Malady had brought her back. Ifan, Sebille, Fane... They deserved to come back. Deserved to be restored to who they were before her decision. They had put their trust in her, and she had ripped away their very essence, sealing the voidwoken - and Fane's people - back behind the veil, at the expense of their very existence. Nothing but four more silent monks. Shambling corpses with no wills of their. An ironic thought, for her, at least.

"Not like this, Adelliah. Godwoken." Vitriol replaced what had once been respect as Ifan spat the word out, turning away from her. At that, Adelliah reached out to him desperately, only to recoil back as he snapped, "Don't touch me!"

"Please, Ifan, if you would listen...! I know the decision I made was the same one Lucian had come to but-" Adelliah stopped talking as Ifan rounded back on her, looming over her with fire in his eyes. In another situation... In what felt like another life, in what was another life, Adelliah would have wanted nothing more. But this was not that life, and this was not the fire of passion in his eyes.

"No. I'm done with trying to find excuses for the people who have betrayed me. Your decision wasn't just agreeing with Lucian - you handed him his power back on a silver platter! Source or no source, he is still Divine. And now I must right your wrong, as well as his." His words game out in a low rumble, and she knew that if source still infused him, his soul wolf would be growling at her too. Now clearly done with the conversation, he stalked off to another part of the ship. She knew as soon as they touched land, he would be gone, and her chest ached, empty though it was. As empty as the ship would be to her without Ifan.

Lucian being divine had not been part of her plan. In fact, she had done her utmost to make sure Lucian would be dead before and after making her decision - set his body on fire, leave her incarnate behind, she would have put traps down too if she could have... Then again, when did plans ever work out? She also hadn't planned on having to deal with the aftermath of her decision. Save the world by betraying her friends was about as far as her plan went, seeing as how she expected to be basically dead afterward. Finally.

Well, no rest for the wicked, and she certainly felt wicked. Now Adelliah had an unasked for debt to Malady to repay, a betrayed lover to make amends to, and a Divine to depose. It was going to be a long, long afterlife...

Cosplay pondering

Come to find out, there’s a little local con that wants to be a serious con and they have a cosplay contest.  So I’m considering making something for myself ... but there’s so many good options!  And so many bad options.  Wall of text below.

My criteria: I need to like the character and the outfit.  I need to have liked the game (but not necessarily have beat it).  There can’t be any skin showing on the torso or upper thigh (shoulders are ok) or boobplate.  A lack of stripper shoes would be a bonus, though I can always just mod something I can actually walk in.

My main games atm are Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Heroes of the Storm

Divinity has the problem all “customize the pc” games with lots and lots of armor have of being hard to find an iconic look for the main character on top of the standard problems involved in me being really picky.  Malady might be an option (I’ve wanted her cloak forever) but the boobplate upsets me and I’m just generally not fond of the build of DOS2 elves.  My Godwoken might be an option, though an un-identifiable one.  Ifan is a cool character, but I don’t know if I’d want to be him.  At least he has a set look.

Heroes of the Storm characters mostly fall into one of two options: way more makeup and prosthetic than I’m comfortable tackling as a first build or way more skin than I’m comfortable wearing in public.  Greymane might be an option though.  Leoric and Yrel would be cool, but both have technical issues I’m not sure how I would tackle (Leoric’s ... spine ... and Yrel’s horns).  Xul is one I might nerve myself up to try someday, if I get the hang of silicon prosthetic creation on something simpler first.  (And yes, I know Xul’s torso is pretty bare, but I’d make an exception for him.)  I’d love to do Dehaka or Zagar, but they’re all above the skill I have atm. 

As to games I’ve played previously, I always love Dragon Age, but my options there are ... the Venatori Spellweaver from DAI and ... maybe Duncan from DAO?  I have half a WoT Zevran outfit, but I don’t know how I feel about drawing from such an obscure source.  I’ve wanted a Hunter outfit since I saw the first Bloodborne teaser.  Assassin’s Creed has had some wonderful outfits through the years.  (I am particularly fond of Ezio’s blouse.)  I could always do the pc from Sid Meier’s Pirates (the 2000 version) but I don’t exactly feel that would be challenging. 

I don’t consume a lot of non-video game media.  There aren’t any comic books I’d want to draw from, and the only movie I’d consider would be the animated Last Unicorn which doesn’t really give me a ton of options.  King Haggard maybe, but the makeup would be tough.