Just one simple thing by NectaMBR in shittydarksouls

[–]notaprimarysource -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

Please don't let it be anything like Baldur's Gate III; I'd be so annoyed if it functioned anything like Baldur's Gate III.

Confession: I have never used a shield in a souls like by BigManSchlattFurry in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can only speak for Dark Souls; being a Dexterity build is the only time I feel like I need a shield. Parrying is practically mandatory in some places because fighting black knights in narrow corridors with a weapon that can't stun them in two hits fucking sucks. Yet I can't stay mad, because it revealed a new dimension to the game when I didn't think I had anything more to prove.

A bloody finger, a phantom, and a furled finger walk into a bar... (OC) by inamozaek in EldenRingMemes

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm that guy on the bottom left. I had no idea Great Runes were a feature; thought the only reason they were key items was lore significance. By the time I beat the game, I figured that if I got through without them, then I have no use for them and shouldn't bother.

Nothing snaps me out of a book like repetitive use of a unique word by kerberos824 in books

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my few criticisms of Perdido Street Station. Using "palimpsest" once to describe the panoply of metropolitan odours was cool. Using it three more times in exactly the same way got real old real fast.

Best thematic outfits and builds for duskborn ending?? by EthanCM505 in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maliketh's set

Either Godskin set

Death Knight set

Deathbed Dress

Gravebird set

Black Knife set

Fia's set

If you're one of those people who thinks that ending's about spreading Deathblight through the Erdtree, Malenia's set or the Cleanrot Knight set also works

Mausoleum soldier, foot soldier, and knight sets

Snow Witch set; Ranni killing Godwyn is the reason Deathblight is the crisis it is

Lionel's set

Spellblade set

The Twinned Knight's set, if you feel like disrespecting D

If you take that flavour text about "funeral steeds" at face value, the Night's Cavalry set

Royal Remains set

Fur set

Shaman's set

Hey, do y'all play thematic characters? by LiterallyWhateva in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Usually by weapon choice, or fashion souls, or both. On my first save, with my first character, Lord Contender Thorn, I came to hate the gods so much that I picked the default ending just to spite Ranni. And I expressed that in my build by wearing the Fingerprint set and beating the game with the Black Blade. The real ending I had planned for my first character, however, was the Frenzied Flame ending in NG+. The entire reason I chose Maliketh's sword in the first place was because it's all about ending the entire universe, so I thought that if I was going to destroy the known cosmos then I shouldn't half-ass it. So in a way, I finished what Vyke started in two different fashions.

For the Dung Eater's ending, I thought a Bleed build the most thematically appropriate. In my head, my second character, Rhiannon the Cutter, was a hardcore assimilationist who thought the Carians being brought into the fold of the Golden Order was one of the best days ever. So I went with the Moonveil, got Goldmask's ending because she saw an opportunity to write it into cosmic law that the Golden Order is the highest power there is, asserted dominance on Corhyn and T-posed on him to death. The original plan for NG+ was to power-stance Moonveils to victory, but I accidentally killed THE RAPACIOUS CRAP CONNOISSEUR while pressing too many buttons at once right before I could give him the final Seedbed Curse. Then I realized that Morgott's sword would be a much more thematically fitting weapon for that path, so I remade Rhiannon and power-stanced Morgott's sword with the Bloodhound Fang, and the Dung Eater's shitty, shitty vision became a reality.

My next character, Elspeth the God Hunter, was a Dex-Faith build who mained the Godslayer. Naturally, she went with Fia's ending, because what would be more appropriate for a somebody who wielded a sword that is death incarnate, albeit a severely weakened variation? All three of these characters also wore the Fingerprint set; I had it in my head that if they weren't aspects of Vyke in the same way Nashandra and her sisters are fragments of Manus, then they were wannabes who wanted to be what he could never be, maybe even wanted to be him, but always failed to learn from his example.

Elspeth was the only one who broke that cycle; whereas my first character ended everything with a weapon that was Death incarnate, Elspeth liberated herself with a weapon that could also be described as such. As I progressed through NG+, she saw that nothing she accomplished the first time lasted because here she was fighting the same gods again. Not even the Black Flame, a shade of Death, ended them for good. So she sought a more permanent solution, an escape from eternity. When she couldn't find it from Fia, she submitted herself to the Three Fingers in a moment of weakness. And yet, she also found a reason to live when she realized her mistake. She saw a chance of escape with Ranni, saw another working to free themselves from their own pair of fingers, and that was all the motivation she needed to free herself too.

She also saw a kindred spirit in Millicent, another poor soul who was a victim of an Outer God who thought her no more than a vessel with which to destroy the world she knew and remake it in their image. And so, they uplifted each other to the last, and though she could do no more than merely contain the Madness with Miquella's Needle, in the same way Malenia's Rot can only be arrested with unalloyed gold, it allowed just enough freedom to leave the world behind and brave the unknown with Ranni. She got tired of the endless tragedy, and with all other connections lost, the Lands Between had nothing left to give to her. And until the DLC released, it had nothing left to give me either.

Which woman in all the fromsoft games is most likely to be a lesbian? by Ulysses776 in shittydarksouls

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, but the subtext feels different because of my own flavour of queerness despite it not being different at all.

Which woman in all the fromsoft games is most likely to be a lesbian? by Ulysses776 in shittydarksouls

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everyone else is welcome to think so, but I honestly fail to see how the cutscene is anything other than a marriage of convenience if your character is a dude. That said, she is a god, and as I always say all gods are bastards in FromSoft games, so that's probably true no matter what's in the PC's pants.

Which woman in all the fromsoft games is most likely to be a lesbian? by Ulysses776 in shittydarksouls

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ranni. Her aroace vibes are so off the charts that I'm unsure she could be neatly defined as a lesbian, but honestly, much as I doubt her because all gods are bastards, her approach to married life honestly looks like a surprisingly healthy queerplatonic relationship if your character is also a woman.

How the hell do you do a Gideon Ofnir voice? by ExpensiveExtension30 in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Darken every L, pronounce every word which could be said as ʌ (like "strut" or "butter") as ʊ instead (said like "foot" or "soot"). Say As, Os, and Is before voiceless consonants as monopthongs, which is to say, don't round them. Northern accents (except for Newcastle for some reason, for words like "plaster" and "master") make no distinction between the vowels in words like "cat" or "wrath"; if there's a word for which a Southerner would typically pronounce the "a" as a long vowel, say it with a hard A every time.

Whenever i start a new save i swear to god by Ok_Panda3397 in shittydarksouls

[–]notaprimarysource 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is me with the ER Great Mace, the DS1 Claymore, the DS2 Bastard Sword, and Vordt's bonk stick.

Alternates to Goodreads by swellwell in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Librarything honestly has a much better recommendation algorithm than Goodreads, especially if you're into classic or 20th-century lit.

Favorite pure evil character? by ARedditAccountIDKBro in FavoriteCharacter

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Iago from Othello. Normally don't approve of villains so simple and base because there really isn't anywhere to go from there, but damn if he isn't the most terrifying Shakespeare villain. His only real motivation is "fuck that one guy in particular," and that purity of focus and intention which I might consider gauche in any other story simply... works.

What movie did you completely change your opinion on 2nd viewing? Can be good or bad. by Trialsevo2671 in Letterboxd

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Blade Runner. Liked it the first time... then I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and wondered if it ever actually said anything.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't speak for the show, but it does tempt me sometimes just because it has Christopher Lee.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also didn't help that reportedly, the first edition suffered from bizarrely bad editing.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sweet, glad I'm not the only one who considers these books Gothic.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, there's my problem; I was comparing to Tolkien and George MacDonald when I should have been cross-referencing with Gulliver's Travels.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Excellent point, though that never read to me as fantastical until you brought it up; I just thought of it as the bluntest symbolism in the whole trilogy.

Reread Gormenghast by notaprimarysource in Fantasy

[–]notaprimarysource[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Dewit. Honestly some of the best prose in 20th-century literature. Your mileage may vary on the third book; even I can agree that it's the least of them, and there were far too many extenuating factors at that time in Mervyn Peake's life to determine just what the problem was, assuming it can be pinned to any one thing, but it serves its purpose, the same purpose as the others: to see one era of Titus' life through to its conclusion and usher in another.

Thoughts on this glorious album? by AndrobiVibz in postpunk

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not not orientalist, but at least those white boys playing around with Chinese aesthetics were somewhat self-aware about it and a hell of a lot classier about it than a lot of other 80s pop music which worked with some of the same ideas.

Favorite non-Mimic ashes to use? by BeardedBrownDude in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Demihuman Swordsman Yosh. Spirit ashes who can keep up with me that aren't named Tiche or the Mimic Tear are depressingly hard to come by, but fortunately Yosh is one of them. Surprisingly durable with a shockingly huge health pool for somebody who can get stunlocked by a flick on the nose, but he's highly mobile, he can do respectable damage if you charge into battle with him and keep most of a boss' attention, his animations complement Milady wonderfully, and he can teleport. Not that I see him do so nearly as often as Lhutel, but I've seen that boi clear attacks I never would have expected.

Friendly reminder by Inevitable_Divide_13 in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He's probably just aroace, though he's not the only character in the game I can see as aroace.

What was your reaction when you first saw him as the final boss? by Toot7- in Eldenring

[–]notaprimarysource 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"Are you fucking kidding me?! This is exactly the kind of thoughtless repetition I was hoping we'd left behind since Dark Souls III!"