u/KeepYourSilenceUp

Replaying all the souls games and while not literally speedrunning Sekiro I sure am blasting through it. This is I think my fourth playthrough. I remember posting here years ago to vent that Genichiro was driving me insane, and today I beat him on my first attempt after having gotten lost in the castle and finding the boss fight by accident during a run where I'd already spent one of my gourd seeds.

I am John Sekiro. No other game feels this good to master. God I love it so much.

To anyone playing for the first time and banging your head against the wall please hear me when I say that it is so god damn worth it.

Who is everyone else's favorite boss?

Lore-- campaign was set in a world where a ton of interplanar/wild magic stuff happened a decade ago. Magic users were now licensed on the authority of their region's lords, and people in general were very suspicious of certain kinds of magic.

\_\_\_\_

So we're late in the campaign and the realm is at war. We're sailing into enemy territory at night. Our boat is called "The Violet Boatregarde." Not important but gives you a sense of the kind of table it was.

Get stopped by a patrol. Waived down and boarded. State your business etc.

"Hello sirs we're envoys from \[lie\]. This here is Baron fake name and we're escorting him to \[city\] to deal with war things."

Soldiers are alright at first. "Ok if this guy is the baron what are the rest of your jobs."

Fighter: "I'm a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Bloodhunter: "I'm also a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Rogue: "I'm the captain, as you can see from how I'm captaining the boat."

Warlock: "..."

Soldiers: "hey you, what do you do here."

Warlock: "I'm just helping, don't even worry about it."

Soldiers: "k but what do you DO here?"

Warlock player: "I don't get it, why are they giving me a hard time."

DM (me): "they're trying to figure out if you have a character class/specialty, if you're a magic-ussr, or if you're a diplomatic person or whatever."

Warlock player: "well they didn't give the bloodhunter a hard time."

DM: "yeah but the bloodhunter is carrying a sword and looks like a fighter. And I rolled weak insight."

Warlock: "k guys don't worry about it I'm a fighter too."

Soldiers: "we don't believe you"

Warlock player: "what the hell, just because I'm a girl do they think I can't be a fighter?"

DM: "you don't LOOK like a fighter, you're not carrying any weapons or wearing armor. Do you want to roll deception?"

Warlock: rolls deception and fails

Soldiers: (suspicious) "are you a mage?"

Warlock: "k yeah you caught me I'm a mage. I'm just here to protect Baron fakename. No big deal."

Soldiers: "ok can we see your license?"

Warlock: (smug) "yes you sure can it's right here."

Soldiers: "your license says you're a subject of \[ally lord\] with whom we're at war, not of \[lie we told\]. You're under arrest."

Warlock: "oh fuck I um...cast flame strike on their boat"

...

DM: "k well their boat is gone but it's the middle of the night and you just lit the whole place up. So now this is gonna be a whole thing."

The Warlock is now my wife BTW. The story had gotten pretty complicated so there were plenty of moments where details slipped players' minds but this was the best one. Fuckin Violet Boatregarde

Lore-- campaign was set in a world where a ton of interplanar/wild magic stuff happened a decade ago. Magic users were now licensed on the authority of their region's lords, and people in general were very suspicious of certain kinds of magic.

____

So we're late in the campaign and the realm is at war. We're sailing into enemy territory at night. Our boat is called "The Violet Boatregarde." Not important but gives you a sense of the kind of table it was.

Get stopped by a patrol. Waived down and boarded. State your business etc.

"Hello sirs we're envoys from [lie]. This here is Baron fake name and we're escorting him to [city] to deal with war things."

Soldiers are alright at first. "Ok if this guy is the baron what are the rest of your jobs."

Fighter: "I'm a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Bloodhunter: "I'm also a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Rogue: "I'm the captain, as you can see from how I'm captaining the boat."

Warlock: "..."

Soldiers: "hey you, what do you do here."

Warlock: "I'm just helping, don't even worry about it."

Soldiers: "k but what do you DO here?"

Warlock player: "I don't get it, why are they giving me a hard time."

DM (me): "they're trying to figure out if you have a character class/specialty, if you're a magic-user, or if you're a diplomatic person or whatever."

Warlock player: "well they didn't give the bloodhunter a hard time."

DM: "yeah but the bloodhunter is carrying a sword and looks like a fighter. And I rolled weak insight."

Warlock: "k guys don't worry about it I'm a fighter too."

Soldiers: "we don't believe you"

Warlock player: "what the hell, just because I'm a girl do they think I can't be a fighter?"

DM: "you don't LOOK like a fighter, you're not carrying any weapons or wearing armor. Do you want to roll deception?"

Warlock: rolls deception and fails

Soldiers: (suspicious) "are you a mage?"

Warlock: "k yeah you caught me I'm a mage. I'm just here to protect Baron fakename. No big deal."

Soldiers: "ok can we see your license?"

Warlock: (smug) "yes you sure can it's right here."

Soldiers: "your license says you're a subject of [ally lord] with whom we're at war, not of [lie we told]. You're under arrest."

Warlock: "oh fuck I um...cast flame strike on their boat"

...

DM: "k well their boat is gone but it's the middle of the night and you just lit the whole place up. So now this is gonna be a whole thing."

The Warlock is now my wife BTW. The story had gotten pretty complicated so there were plenty of moments where details slipped players' minds but this was the best one. Fuckin Violet Boatregarde

Would love anyone's advice, insight, or experiences.

I work from home quite a bit. For this reason, I have always been the dog dad to my husky (8 years old now). Recently, it seems like she's avoiding me when it's just the two of us home together. Today I spent the first chunk of the day working upstairs and she sat in the basement (which she has been doing a bit more recently because it's cooler down there). Then I was downstairs for a couple hours, walked on the treadmill, gamed, answered emails, and she was upstairs the whole time. Just came back up to get some more work done and she stayed for pats for a couple minutes and then as soon as I stopped she immediately went back downstairs. Maybe she's protesting.

But like seriously wtf. And it seems like this has been a pattern recently.

She gets two walks a day and her bowl is always full (she eats when she feels like it and doesn't always go through two cups). Checkup at the vet last week and she's allegedly aging very well. She's always been pretty low-energy so while I know she would be excited to go for a walk right now if I asked her, she's also not bouncing off the walls and has always been perfectly content to just lie around. This new routine is also a bit weird because up until recently she would usually stick to the same room as me; if I'm walking on the treadmill she'll nap on the couch until I'm done, etc. When my wife and I are both home she'll generally also be in the same room as at least one of us, though now I'm trying to figure out if she's been keeping to herself more often in general.

Ideas? Is this just a product of her getting older, somehow? Maybe her energy levels are just going down in general and as a result she prefers being alone for longer stretches of the day? I don't think she's unwell and I know huskies can be sassy so I'm sincerely trying to figure out if she's mad at me about something lol.

Got my DC box yesterday. Mechanics aside, just for vibes and given that the games are all compatible, what setup would you run first if you were combining cards from DC and Marvel? Joker trying to assemble the Infinity Gauntlet? Secret Wars with Masterminds from both IPs? Give me some ideas.

I've been a fan of Ulf since the beginning, not necessarily because he's likeable but because he's complicated. I like that the reveal of his betrayal raised a lot of questions about whether Rhaenyra had fucked up in the way she had handled him, how strategic Ormund is, whether Ulf is a good or bad guy, etc.

But even more than that, I LOVE that the finale showed straight up that Ulf is just a useless and unreliable piece of shit. Like even when he's been offered everything he wants, he's just an egotistical self-centered alcoholic. Sure the end of the battle would likely have been different if Daemon or Ormund had treated him better, but he was obviously never going to be an effective part of any strategy.

In most cases every story things get better with character depth. But it's fun when things get better because the characters become more straightforward.

Currently replaying all the Soulsborne games and went for a straight strength build with Vordt's hammer on this run of DC3. And short of a couple tricky sections I gotta say I've seen the light. Bonk is so fun. I just dogwalked the Nameless King.

If anyone is on the fence about how to do their next playthrough, you have an endorsement for this one, from me a random guy on the internet.

What are your favorite builds?

Sorry if these exact ideas have already been articulated in a way that has blown up and people are sick of. I just saw the movie last night and excited to hear everyone's thoughts.

So by the end we learn that the movie is about the collapse of civilization as a sort-of-direct result of the ways that Guest Right was irrevocably damaged during the sacking of Troy. And I've mapped each stop on the journey home to a step along the descent from civilization into darkness.

Troy-- The social contract breaks

The first stop-- The world has become fearful and distrustful. Ordinary people will flee from you because they cannot distinguish between you and those who would harm them

The Cyclops-- the social contract is now is too easily disrespected. "Oh it's fine if we eat this food because Guest Right is a thing, so the owner will be cool about it when they get back." And because of this arrogance you continue to offend the very nature of the world.

The Laestrygonians-- you see how the world sees you; as unstoppable monsters of superior military strength, who kills indiscriminately.

Circe and the Pigs-- because the social contract is broken, no guest is safe. Circe is so afraid of being harmed that she is willing to mutilate her guests even when they are doing their best to appear safe and honorable.

Hades, and the Sirens-- you realize what you have lost and mourn for the world you can no longer go back to.

The Whirlpool and the Hydra-- there is no safe path forward; the best you can do is mitigate your losses in the new world.

The Isle of Apollo-- Fallen truly into desperation, you no longer care about maintaining the social contract. You will only continue to spiral downwards.

Calypso and the Lotus Flowers-- the new world is so bleak that you flee and try to forget it.

The Return Home--in your absence this darkness has spread. People cynically abuse the social contract to leverage power over others. You are the thing people fear. And while you may not be able to fix what has happened it is still your responsibility to salvage what you can.

Any other reads? Anything I'm missing or misunderstanding?

Late to the party. I thought the acting, directing, and editing were peak, damn.

For me the darkest moment was the sex scene. At this point Bear has acknowkedged that Nikki is obviously not well, and she has legitimately terrified him by acting like a possessed person. The fact that he's still having sex with her at all makes him the obvious bad guy in my view. Like at that point, even while keeping in mind that no rational person would think the wish had worked, I can't even wrap my head around the number of flags he's ignoring just to get his nut off. And I get that this is true to life for the kinds of crazy that some men will tolerate but damn that scene just looks like rape no matter which way you slice it.

The fact that Nikki wasn't even on top communicates so much. I appreciate that the director took the route NOT to overly sexualize Nikki throughout the movie and this staging was probably also the most conducive to that goal, (and obviously there's nothing wrong with missionary irl) but the fact that there's no indication that she initiated it, and that Bear is just pinning her there, says a lot. I can't remember if he was saying anything during the scene but Nikki's performance was so obviously hollow that it's obvious the moment is entirely about his pleasure. Like it's so passionless. The fact that we can see Nikki's face but Bear can't, maybe allows us to see how she's dissassociating in a way he doesn't understand, but also he's CHOOSING not to see her face in this moment so it's also clear that he doesn't care.

tl;dr the directing and context of the sex scene alone makes it unambiguous in my mind that Bear is the villain. Give everyone an Oscar.

After last week's episode I made a post in which I was very salty about how Ormund was being written as an unambiguous asshole and how it seemed like Rhaenyra was being further set up to receive blameless blowback from the gold cloaks' brutality.

And while the Ormund thing is something I still don't like, I DO like how Rhaenyra was written this episode. When she pulled the "I didn't ask the gold cloaks to be so rough" card as I anticipated, I love that Daemon immediately called her out. "You could have just left it alone like a strong ruler would have done." Yes, thank you. It seems like they really are going to lean into her unraveling and becoming paranoid, and I'm glad that the show isn't just being sympathetic to her. Like you made a bad decision and now we're suffering the consequences.

Very happy I was wrong and I hope they keep it up. Rhaenyra's character will be so much more interesting if she goes through an arc where she actually gets to just fuck everything up.

Each game in the franchise falls along a spectrum: in PM64, the fact that everything is made of paper is basically a non-factor outside of a few specific animations, and in Origami King Mario is literally doing battle with office supplies.

I've always personally felt like TTYD is in the sweet spot. The paper mechanics add to the puzzles and feel tongue-in-cheek funny in a fourth-wall breaking kind of way, but none of the characters act or treat each other as though they're made of paper. The game is able to have fun with the concept but the story still just works on a completely sincere level. (I feel like Super Paper Mario did a pretty solid job with this too). Once the story revolves around Mario having to survive a fight with a roll of tape, it completely loses me.

Really interested to know everyone's thoughts, since this is a discussion my buddy and I have quite often. What's your preference for the level of meta paper mechanics? What balance would you want to see from a future game?

In general I don't take satisfaction in movies being bad. If there is ever a movie you're looking forward to, I hope it's good. Everyone deserves to enjoy the media they consume, whether it's something with mass appeal or not.

But I am so happy that Disney's live-action remake machine is finally showing some cracks in the armor, with the flops of Moana 2026 and Snow White 2025. I am so sick of the biggest studios in Hollywood producing cynical slop, and even more sick of audiences helping to turn these movies billion-dollar successes. I guess it doesn't affect me one way or the other, but I really really hope that Disney can learn their lesson and change course to making stuff that actually requires risk and vision.

I'm not even opposed to the idea of remakes. But plenty of old movies were imperfect and could BENEFIT from a re-envisioning. I would not be the first person to suggest that a modern retelling of Treasure Planet could be incredible. Remake The Black Cauldron. Remake Atlantis. Do ANIMATED remakes of older live-action movies-- animation is more expressive and dynamic and diverse in its visuals and is a much more suitable medium for re-imagination. An animated Mary Poppins would do gangbusters.

Whatever. I know the issue is more complex than audiences just rejecting these two movies specifically, and the movie industry has historically never learned the right lesson from anything, ever. But one can hope.

EDIT: I don't understand why people are pointing to the successes of other live-action remakes as though this has any bearing on what I've said. Yes we all know that the Lion King and Aladdin remakes made a billion dollars. We know that Lilo and Stitch did well. Disney has enjoyed and continues to enjoy success from these products; that's why there are so many of them. My point is that we've also seen a couple big flops recently and I hope this is causing them to start rethinking their strategy. Live-action remakes were guaranteed hits for a long time, and now they're not. And that's a good thing. To anyone asking why I care, I think I explained that pretty clearly. I want studios putting their money and talent towards movies that are good and different. Disney could have made something new and interesting and unique but instead they remade Moana-- and that is a loss for the media landscape.

Started writing this as a comment on another person's post but figured it might warrant its own thing.

As someone who used to go to the movies all the time, I think it's pretty obvious that the industry as a whole needs to find a way to go back to making it an experience that people want to participate in. And for me personally, the biggest drawback is how obnoxious audience members can completely ruin a movie.

At my local theater, every single pre-show contains at LEAST two snippets that are like TURN OFF YOUR PHONE AND DON'T TALK DURING THE MOVIE. And yet without fail, every single time there will be someone on their god damn phone or running their fucking mouth IMMEDIATELY when the movie starts. Like I can actually count the rare experiences in recent years where the audience in my theater has had no problem members. And in every case I've been the only person there with the balls to tell them to shut the fuck up or to put their phone away. And they always do, because these people are exclusively spineless pathetic pieces of shit, but it's still an extra burden and anxiety that I as the paying customer should not be having to deal with.

Every movie theater should have bouncers whose job is to remove you if they catch you being a nuisance. I swear that would make the experience relaxing and enjoyable enough that way more people would go. I would pay premium prices to go sit in a comfy chair and watch something cool and eat my popcorn, if I knew that I wasn't going to have to risk getting in a fight.

Is this a problem everywhere or am I living in crazy world.

I've defended season 3 pretty consistently so far. I think a lot of the nitpicking is overblown and I can forgive a lot of creative liberties. But wow I do not like how this episode handled Ormund. We see him order the rapist to be gelded and it's like wow ok maybe he's a slightly normal ok guy. But then nope he's a zealot what a twist. And just to be extra sure that no one in the audience thinks "hmm well maybe there's a complicated discussion to be had about whether the world would be better without dragons" we also get to see him traumatize Daeron and order the execution of an innocent man. Ffs.

The writers haven't cared for complexity in the Black vs Green fight for a long time. But it somehow feels worse that they so briefly dangled in front of us the possibility that the new antagonist might be anything other than an obviously evil piece of shit.

GoT thrived on its complicated characters and I can't understand why this show is so determined not to learn from that lesson. Please for the love of god I just want one conflict where Rhaenyra has to do something a little teeny tiny bit morally complicated. The refusal to let her be bad is undercutting the strong female character archetype so much jfc.

(Also I'm just realizing now that they completely neutered Rhaenyra by having her technically not ask the Gold Cloaks to be so mean about rounding up the dissenters among the commonfolk. Like next episode she's obviously going to be all sad going wahh I didn't want anyone to get hurt. God damn it. Let her have agency in her own story you friggin sexists).

Getting to the end of a big campaign and the final boss is going to be an enemy that can control time. Basically a lesser god. (The players are level 14). I have a couple ideas so far:

1. A narrative component where the enemy banishes them to different times and they have to find their way back, in order to set up the actual fight. This will probably be an entire session.

2. I'm definitely going to have a few moments where we do a round of combat, let them get some hits in, and then reset to the start and do everything over but the villain's AC is higher. Probably not too many of these because I don't want players to feel like I'm wasting their time.

3. The villain will pull in enemies from throughout time to support/distract in the fight, good excuse for some "greatest hits."

Any other ideas? And, more importantly: how do the players kill an enemy like this? I feel like the fight should have a puzzle component in which they have to figure out how to use the time-resetting to their advantage or do something else to figure out how to break the loop.

I think a big hurdle the show is facing is that Rhaenyra has been circling the same "what am I supposed to do about this, I just want what's best for everyone" soft-girl mentality for more than a full season. The writers want her to be sympathetic so they're portraying her as kind-hearted and aspiring for diplomacy. But the story doesn't work if she's not driven by anger.

Rhaenyra had an easy out right after Aegon was crowned. Otto literally showed up on her doorstep and was like hey you can be the Lady of Dragonstone and your kids will be recognized as legitimate heirs to your position and to Driftmark and will be given places at court, and we can just not have a war about it. To date, I don't think we've seen a single compelling reason for her to have turned this offer down. Her entire family would have been fine, and it's not like Aegon was such a bad king that he needed to be deposed for the good of the realm. Refusing this offer based solely on the principle that "daddy said I could be queen so fuck everyone else" could be a strong characterization but is a seflish perspective and requires Rhaenyra to be at least sort of a bad person.

In season 1 Rhaenys said something like "they would rather see the world burn than see a woman on the iron throne," and I think a totally solid follow-up would be if Rhaenyra had at some point just gone "I would rather burn the world than let some mediocre man have what's mine." Like they want her to be a girlboss feminist but they refuse to let her be an ANGRY feminist because oh no strong women can't be angry that would piss off the internet I guess. And if she's not angry enough to be selfish, then what's this all for?

Everyone in the world has pointed out that the writers want this to be a show about two childhood friends who get caught up in the bullshit of the patriarchy. And I'm down for that framing, in theory. But this is ALSO, TEXTUALLY a story about a woman who starts a war that basically>!ends a dynasty!<. If they want it be about a woman being shit on by the patriarchy, then they need to let her shit back. The story DOES NOT WORK if she doesn't own it. Your options are for her to either be an idiot who causes the death of thousands by accident or an anti-hero/villain who does it on purpose. And it's really sad that it seems like they chose to go with the former.

I'm really hopeful that they are able to deliver something resembling a character arc for Rhaenyra. I'm enjoying season 3 in general. But I really worry that by making her so NICE in season 2 the writers have just made a blunder that they can't recover from.

I'm replaying Bloodborne after a couple years. Great stuff. Ludwig took me a long time again but I ALMOST HAD Maria on my first attempt. Like within 2 hits. Fml. Was this close to feeling like I had finally become John Soulsborne.

Which bosses do you find hardest/easiest on subsequent playthroughs?

Since we're waiting for movies based on both Elden Ring and Bloodborne, and since the trailer for Robert Eggers' Werwulf just dropped, I'm gonna throw it out there that they should really give that man a Dark Souls movie. I don't know if he would even be interested. But it would be fucking wild.

What's your pick for the creative team behind a prospective DS adaptation?

This is not specific to the presentation this week, just something that has been bugging me for a long time. I am legitimately so sick of the narrator(s) that explain the games while we're watching them be revealed.

"Welcome to a new game. Where you can Jump! And also, open doors. Oh what's this over here? It's your new friend the flerbidyglerbin. He'll come with you on your adventure! Where you will discover new creatures, and cook meals together!"

Like holy fucking shit just shut up. It kills my interest in whatever game they're showing off every single time. Videogame reveals should be vibes and gameplay, there is literally no need to explain to your audience what they're watching. Literally, show don't tell. If you want to have a section AFTER a trailer or announcement where you provide more information, great. But this is not the way to do it. And I understand that the company is trying to be family-friendly but for the life of me I cannot understand why this requires them to talk to their audience as if it's comprised entirely of five-year-olds.

Thankfully they tend to know when to shut up when it comes to the really big reveals. But there are a ton of games where I think my interest has been set by default to zero because the announcer manages to make it seem less interesting.

I'm open to people discussing whether the Direct as a whole was good. I'm not a diehard fan of a lot of specific Nintendo stuff so the presentation didn't do a ton for me, but I know that I'm also a bad judge so whatever.

I thought the Ocarina of Time teaser was great. While I would have been very happy to see more, I feel like the teaser did exactly what it should have done, and then more by confirming the level of graphical re-imagining and the addition of new dialogue/shots. The Persona 6 teaser for comparison was just vibes and a title card, and people seem pumped.

The entire point of a teaser is to get people talking. And in this instance, I think a lot of the community is just disappointed because we've already BEEN talking about this for a long time, so the tease doesn't feel like it changes or adds very much. It didn't answer a lot of questions that the fans were already asking. But like...that's not Nintendo's fault. They presumably didn't leak the news on purpose. And I don't really think it's reasonable for any fan to take the perspective that Nintendo should give us more than they were planning to just because a leaker got hold of information ahead of time.

If you didn't know that this game was coming, I think the teaser would have blown you away. It would have left you wanting more, and with lots of questions, but that's what teasers are for. I very sincerely think that the news itself, paired with the few visuals we got, would have broken this corner of the internet. And if people are disappointed (beyond the broader context of the Direct, which is subjective) I think that just goes to show that we should not be paying attention to leaks. If the surprise gets spoiled ahead of time and then the actual announcement gets rolled out slower than you want, I think your disappointment is to blame on the person who spoiled it, not on the person giving you the thing.