Diablo Dibble-DabblingSoooo... Instead of watching the 358/2 Days cutscene movie like a good little kifujin, I've been playing the hell* out of Diablo IV. I played III for a bit when it was new, but I didn't get too many hours in before I went back to playing Valve games 25 hours a day instead. I do remember the demon hunter class being my favorite to play as, but I didn't ever have the chance to play multiplayer. I started out IV by playing co-op with a friend, and our characters instantly became new OCs. Their character is a Sorcerer adapted from a SVSSS OC, so he's meant to be a cultivator peak-lord. His name's Chang Qingfei and he has questionable morals, pink earrings, and a very pull-able ponytail. I used to love his penchant for wearing silly hats, but now he usually wears a veil. Oh, and he got his nipple pierced recently thanks to a new armor transmog. My character is an inhumanly pale Necromancer with green streaks in her undercut that is actually accumulated moss from never washing it. Her name is Callampa (Mushroom in Spanish dialects of Argentina/Chile/Peru--- I'm nothing if not predictable) but Chang Qingfei probably didn't find that out for a while considering the slurred hissing noises that she usually makes in place of speech.
She also tends to give her skeletons the ability to speak for her, because shockingly, a lot of people seem to respond better to full sentences from a skeleton than the grunting commands she'd be giving otherwise. Or at least, that's my explanation for why my in-game character speaks in proper fantasy-British English when I know in my heart of hearts she wouldn't give enough of a fuck about communicating with other people to speak common tongue that well.
CQF is pretty much done with my character's shit at all times, but he still keeps her around as a convenient evil attack lesbian guard dog since they're now pair-bonded by this point. I'd imagine it's also out of a sense of duty and personal pride/ego, especially since they've known each other for so long. He can't just turn her loose now, he made a commitment! And who the hell else would either of them travel with if not for each other? The funniest thing has been that the game's main plot was definitely primarily designed for single player, so in co-op, only one player can activate and subsequently appear in cutscenes. This led to a great character moment early on--- In the very first tutorial area of the game, you help out some people in a tiny village, and then they celebrate by getting you drunk. ...Except they're actually drugging you so they can do nefarious plot related shit to your body. My friend activated the cutscene, though, so my character wasn't even at the celebration. CQF was just drinking by himself, and was the one to be drugged and taken away. This prompted the two of us to start laughing over how that would work in the "lore" of our co-op playthrough and why my character wasn't there: CQF: And where were you when they drugged me and carted off my body?
So basically Chang Qingfei has become the main character/protag by force, and Callampa is just tagging along for the ride and the chance to kill stuff with her buddy who also likes killing stuff. After all, two people killing stuff means there's more potential corpses than one person killing stuff, and more corpses means more fun! We've been working on the game's main plotline, but we're only on Act II since we keep getting distracted by sidequests. We've actually had to leave dungeons a few times just to go turn up the difficulty as high as possible so we don't get bored doing the main quest, although The Butcher still has us running away in terror and screaming. Me and the same friend also have a second pair of characters we've been playing with one of our other mutual friends. Our mutual friend made a very serious Spiritborn roleplaying character, only for the two of us to roll up with Stong the Necromancer and Smaat the Barbarian. We only played a couple hours on those characters, but Stong* is a fantasy barista with a Californian vocal-fry and Smaat is basically his tactician who sees his value in the world despite how dumb he is. Smaat is my character, obviously, since I never turn down the chance to play a hulking muscled woman with a deep voice. I chose a buzzcut with the black/red hair color, so it sort of looks like her hair is constantly just a little bit bloody. (Hot.) I really gotta say, though, the female barbarian voicelines are all way too fucking hot! Oh, and I also made myself a single player character: Imarriana the Druid. My idea for her character is more inspired by the ocean, sort of a "where water meets land" concept, hence her name--- loosely inspired by the Mariana Trench. I think the lightning and storm skills lend a lot to the angle of a stormy sea ravaging the land on the coast. I also gave her the hair that has amulets/coins tied into it, and made it blue for a washed ashore mermaid vibe, like she's been thrown out of the sea, far from home in an unfamiliar land. Gameplay-wise, it's really fun to just smash things up as the werebear. I chose lightning as a long range attack since it brings to mind storms at sea, so I've been picking a lot of storm skills as well. Plus I'm currently using the creeper vines since it also adds to the sea/wetlands vibe. I'm running her on normal difficulty so I don't have to worry too hard about optimizing my skilltree and can just have fun with it. Plus, I'm only about level 30, so nothing is very hard yet anyway. I've only died once, but it was to a trap puzzle I didn't understand the mechanics of... I'd also like to make a seasonal character once the new one starts. I'm thinking a Sorcerer, since I really want to use some of the prettier hairstyles that didn't fit my other characters' personalities. But, yeah! Diablo IV has been extremely fun so far. I recommend it if you like games that make you feel powerful or like running around killing full screens of enemies, or blood and guts dark-fantasy worlds. Almost no one gets a happy ending, so it feels more realistic that you're not playing as a goody-goody good guy while the ludonarrative dissonance kicks in from going out of your way to slaughter everyone you see, like in a lot of other fantasy games. There's definitely more shades of gray.
Next time I'll probably be posting about Kingdom Hearts: bunchadays, but I also have a longer ramble about New Who and Torchwood in the works.
See you then!
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Chipper
The voice actor's deep, serious tone is extremely, extremely attractive. Right up my alley for sure. Every time my character says literally anything I turn into a flighty dame and start getting a case of the vapors. Especially when she admonishes me for trying to use a skill before the cooldown ends or use any attacks while in a town... Fanning myself as I type this. 
