karaddin

"I'm afraid they're waiting for you sir. I told them I'd bring you down." and then two stormtroopers outside, pretty sure he was heading down to the dungeon.

Given the Stormtroopers waiting outside to take him into custody I assumed he was heading to the same cell as Dedra. His suicide was in the vein of seppuku atoning for his failure. So reflecting on it I don't think I could say which season was better for me, they were both fantastic. Top episode probably goes to season 2 for "Who are you?", but 2nd and 3rd go to season 1 for "One way out" and "Rix Road". Phenomenal tension building in those 3 and the series as a whole for a main character we knew was ultimately a dead man walking.

Pretty impressive acceleration from Ayuso in the saddle. I was shocked I couldn't see Roglic trying to close it down from the live angle, but the overhead camera replay made it clear he was just out of sight and maybe caught a little out of position and he did mostly close it down. No reason to be overly concerned from his perspective, there only being one more summit finish is bizarre though.

They're absolutely absurd, some of the toughest people on the planet

I left this for the last week to binge through it and it was great. I think my favourite moment from the whole thing was Cassian being looked after by the guy in the hotel not because of a careful spy network but because he'd taken the moment to forge a genuine human connection with him the year before. Obviously this rests on not interpreting him as a Luthen agent but I think it's the stronger interpretation and works really well with the themes and tying back in to Nemik's manifesto and human nature. Cassian wasn't being calculating in that first interaction when he stopped the bellhop as he was leaving and genuinely thanked him for sharing, and the actor sold the shit out of that sincerity shaking him. It was beautiful.

I've let it sit for a couple of days now after doing the ending and Deeply emotional game that's definitely up there for GOTY for me and probably slots into my top 5 games on the "made me feel intensely" scale.

That might be my call to get over to Perth lol. Jay Vine also out now. He was looking so good and has absolutely no luck. I'm worried about Hindley, assuming he was the first to go down it looked like he just collapsed or the bike bucked out from under him. Concerned it was a medical episode causing the crash. Scratch the Jay Vine withdrawal, apparently the graphic got that wrong - probably confused him with Jai lol. Roglic has dodged all the crashes so far, like he's used voodoo magic to transfer his bad luck to Hindley, maybe he'll be in trouble now.

Hard to be railing against the sentence when it's what her parents wanted and they're prioritising the kids. From what I've read it's pretty clear he didn't intend to kill her, just a shitty accident stemming from what sounds like an unhealthy relationship.

Actual leadership

Did the patch drop in the last 12 hours? Mine was ok last night but I only just woke up. Then I've probably made the same mistake lol, I finished the tower I mentioned in my last post which has me close to 90 now along with at least one really strong picto and suspect I'm way stronger than I need to be for the remaining story fights. I'll go do that when I'm next on rather than waiting to finish the optional content.

It's the same as the conversation around Biden needing to drop out - the stakes are so high you need to run whoever has the best chance of winning, but it wasn't Biden anymore and I don't think it's Newsom either. I'd still hold my nose and vote for him but there would be a lot who won't.

You're right that you're near the end of Act2. I haven't done any grinding still and I'm up to 80 now, part of the optional content is essentially a boss rush tower and it gives a ton of xp, some of the "dangerous" zones did as well, so I don't think proper grinding is ever needed.

Yeah I'm into it now as well and there's a lot, first few things I tried convinced me I needed to find other things first to power up lol.

And the cease fire is broken already hopefully they'll get shit back under control and it will be attempted again

I didn't realise Tarling was Welsh until I heard him talking in the interview, can feel much better about him winning races outside of the Olympics now :p

Plapp looked really shaken by that crash, the one in Paris last year must be weighing on him.

Yeah I'll be shocked if the next election doesn't see the greens pick up at least one more seat again, and more teals - probably starting to make inroads on some Labor seats on top of the coalition ones. Albo just isn't governing bravely enough to pay off this huge victory and it's going to have consequences down the line.

I did feel significantly worse at dodge/parry timing in my one session using mouse and kb, guess that's a sign to stick with the deck as controller like I have been. I'm still a fair bit ahead of you, I did back track at one point to get a weapon I missed and I still need to go back and get another one when I think I can actually win the fight to get it.

Ah the margin is out to over 600 now, nice. Was at 50 last time I looked

Damn TH11 vertebra fracture for Landa, I was hoping the immobilisation stretcher was just precautionary but he didn't look good. I can't imagine how crushing it would be to spend months training for something only to crash on the 1st day and get an injury that is, at best, season ending.

Certainly looks like the Lee Pace dynasty has declined from its prosperity by the point of this season.

I was half spoiled, in that I started to read something and realized it was a spoiler and my mind danced away from reading it but too late not to have an expectation something like that was going to happen. On the second part, it seems like there are some broken builds that really trivialize a lot of the fights although part of them is being nerfed today. One of the other big ones is very easy if you used Maelle for the arena fights, but much harder to get if you did not (I did not). Without using those broken builds some of the fights definitely seem like they can be tough. I fought a bouncing stone on an island with masks a couple of nights ago and had to learn to parry it because it just attacks again and again until you stun it via parries. I didn't love it but I did get the timing down after a while. I wish you could restart fights like you can in Metaphor Refantazio.

I thought this was a pretty good and measured take on expectations regarding the new Pope. Unfortunately it requires sign in to Bluesky so of no use to those that don't have one https://bsky.app/profile/clairewillett.bsky.social/post/3lop24hsktk24 But from near the end I think this is a pretty wise take on expectations for Popely attitude towards gay people and trans people and that for this scenario at least one doesn't predict the other:

The only 2 options that are both worse performers than Dutton haha

Lol I'm excited. I agree the route is somewhat lacking, particularly in truly high altitude climbs - I think there's only a single summit over 2000m? But I still looked at quite a few of the stages and think there's plenty of potential there, especially since no Pogi or Jonas. I've seen Ayuso being talked up as almost equal favourite to Rogla and I'm not sure I buy it. I didn't watch him at the Vuelta in 22 or 23, but he didn't sell me on him being quite at that level for GT riding in the tour last year. UAE have a strong as hell team though which certainly doesn't hurt his chances. Redbull Bora also have a strong team though, with a former Giro winner in Hindley riding to support Roglic and plenty of other support. Wout was talking down his chances as apparently he's been sick but I'm hoping to see him start to find some of the form he was showing in the Vuelta last year before the crash and he looked incredible, and one thing I can't fault from his classics campaign is that he had the stamina - looked like he was struggling most of several races only to look one of the strongest at the end. Storer is (or at least was) 4th on the betting odds for GC, I know he just had a good performance in the Tour of the Alps but that still seems a little optimistic, I'll hope to be pleasantly surprised though haha. Looking forward to seeing Tudor at the tour as well for Alaphilippe to do some crazy attacks and sucker Pogi into following him.