#[cough rune factory]

[peachjooce]

lineart may be tough but my love for rf4 is tougher

[runefactorynonsense]

Cozytober - Day 19 - Boots

You made them into BOOTS? [Small homage to the fact that, no matter what I do, the most notes I'll ever get will forever be that silly video I took of the dang Cheep Cheep Sandals-]

[my-current-obsession]

Most people's reactions to the new RF: Oh thank god all the likely love interests thus far actually look like adults!!!

Me: Please god let them be hyping up the "town building" addition more than necessary. I DO NOT want to actually make and shape the town. Please.

[bluefuecoco]

bachelors in story of seasons games are like

"The plucky upbeat guy! The quiet brooding guy! A child! A DILF (25 years old)! The one person of color with a backstory of being a mysterious figure in an ~exotic kingdom~! Some other guy!"

[delphiniumarchangelmoon]

Fun facts about my experience playing totk:

I have one talus left to defeat. I can’t find it. My life is in shambles.

I’m not going to even actually beat the game until I have: gotten all the boss medals, obtained and upgraded all the armor, completed every shrine, and done all the side quests. Is this because I’m scared to do the final fight? Yes. Absolutely. Might just throw in korok seeds and Addison signs to drag it out more.

There’s an entire species of fish I’ve never seen and the only reason I know it exists is because I need it for an armor upgrade and I’m so confused at how I’ve never found it when I literally electrocute every body of water I see to get fish out if it.

My preferred method of getting places is drugging link with speed potions because building vehicles is annoying

My left stick is a little uh… well my switch lite is WELL loved and if I don’t pay attention sometimes link starts walking to the right on his own and I’ve died due to walking off sky islands while I was looking something up on my phone

There’s a specific shrine I’ve never completed because I got so mad at it I’ve just been avoiding it. It’s the “the stakes guide you” one.

I basically only use short swords and bows I dislike two handed swords cause they’re slow and I usually get hit before I can land an attack, and I like spears in theory but I find them hard to win and the lock on just does not fucking work which is a shame cause in other games (cough cough rune factory cough) spears are my favorite weapons

I use fuse to essentially get extra weapon slots by attaching things I don’t have room for to random things I’m not using until I have space and go to Tarrey town and get them separated. This works great until I have no usable shields cause they’re all carrying my extra bows

I know the fancy weapons respawn where you found them. And I know you can get replacements for the custom made champion weapons. I know. I’m still never using any of them. They’re too precious to destroy for any reason. I don’t care how good they are or if they match an armor set. I’m not using any of the special weapons. My house is 80% display rooms.

My end goal is a full inventory of multishot Lynel bows and 900 bomb flowers. I’m going to carpet bomb ganondorf.

I call all the dragons “bestie”

I’m very upset that I can’t dye the royal guard uniform cause I’m fully convinced I could make it less ugly if it was a different color. I mean I can’t fix that abysmal hat but. I can try.

If armor points didn’t matter I’d always be walking I’m around in either the barbarian set or the charged set with a circlet instead of the headpiece.

[jake-marshall]

🌻 and 💥 for the fic writer asks!

Hey, Asha, thanks for the questions! 🌻what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going? Honestly there's not anything I can think of currently that would make me give up on writing. I mean, I definitely take breaks/hiatuses from certain fandoms sometimes depending on Certain Experiences, but that doesn't my impact my desire to write. A lot of my writing is self-motivated, even though I genuinely adore getting feedback/praise from my friends and from random stranger readers on the interwebs. I think a lot of my motivation also lays in that I want to read about my faves, and there's many of them (*cough* Egg *cough**cough*Landstrom *cough*) that either don't have much if any fannish content, or if there is, it's stuff I don't really jive with. So I want to see my interpretation come to life. So I write it. 💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it. Okay well I have two fics that have 4 kudos, my lowest amount. I'll pick "Alvarna Gone Wild" which is a piece I wrote for the Level Up! Rune Factory Zine (@/rfadventurezine if you want to check it out - its completely free to download!) Something wonderful? Well goddamn, I Think the whole thing is wonderful! I think it's well-written and humorous and that my love of the side characters that it's about (Natalie, Douglas, and especially Gordon, from Rune Factory 2) shines through. I had a lot of fun writing it and sharing my ideas for it with my fellow Rune Factory partner in crime, @/belleofhell. I know it's SUPER NICHE but that's kind of my M.O. anyway so whatever. xD Send me writing questions from this meme!

[kendricksilver]

Forte is a one-to-one cut out of your standard, perfect knight.

She’s fiercely loyal and would be willing to drop kick anyone at a moment’s notice dare they try and cross her or the people she cares for.

She loves her job. She revolves her life around it.

Sure, ever since Kiel moved out it’s been a bit quiet.

But she has always liked the quiet.

Quiet meant peaceful.

Sure, she misses the noise around the house that would indicate someone was around.

But that doesn’t mean anything.

Forte? Dragon Knight, protector of Selphia? Lonely?

Impossible.

~~~~~~~~~~

Leon thinks he has it made.

It’s a shift in what he once considered normal.

But that’s to be expected when tossed era to era like a child’s plaything, wasn’t it?

There’s that one loose end that’s always tugging at his mind.

Begging him to let it consume his waking thoughts.

What with how it still lingers around his brain in the early dawn and late dusk; perhaps it won’t be content with just his waking hours for much longer.

But that’s fine as well. He’s come to peace with it, he has, really. No need to get anyone worried.

He very clearly has it all under control by himself.

-------------

I felt like I should mention this here, now that I have a blog~

This is a passion project I made with the encouragement (*cough* a mildly threatening contract) of @nefarious-smartass (who also did the summary above) and decided to post. I'm not exactly sure if much of an audience exists for this, but here it is!

What went from a conversation about me reluctantly shipping Forte and Leon somehow turned into a retelling of Leon's marriage event but with a slow burn Forte x Leon twist (Also some side Frey x Kiel, because I love those two). It's a whole lot of Leon being smug and Forte wanting to stab him, all while Leon has a downward spiral. Forte also gets one of those "seriously, I fell in love with him of all people?" moments. So, if you're into that...

[darkacey]

Will you add more to the curse of the broken bottle story on AO3? It’s really good

Hello and thank you! It’s been a long time since I last revisited this story, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see that there’s still interest in it after all this time. (For my more recent followers who are unaware, The Curse of a Broken Bottle is one of my original explicit stories on AO3. Please mind the tags, as there are content warnings).

This Ask actually prompted me to dig through my desk for the old USBs that I originally wrote this story on, and in the process I didn’t find the one I was looking for, but I did end up finding a backup copy. It was fun rereading it, and I did find that I had an unfinished chapter, but I’m not sure if or how I can get to the end I envisioned for it. I am, however, still thinking about it.

As for all of my unfinished works on AO3, I wish I could promise that they will get the endings they deserve one day. Kind comments/Asks like this one are great because they do rekindle my motivation to revisit my old works, but unfortunately my schedule/brain isn’t always able to make the most of those boosts.

My best advice is to just subscribe to the work(s) you hope I’ll update someday and/or periodically poke me about it. I’m a very ‘out of sight, out of mind’ person, so unless something is my current hyperfixation (*cough*Rune Factory*cough*), it’ll take a while for me to swing back to old things, if I ever do.

[thatlittledandere]

At this point you can pretty safely assume that if I suddenly get into a piece of media that isn't like current or relevant to my prior interests it's because Yuri Lowenthal is in it. It's getting embarrassing

[teacupkai]

she’s daydreaming or she’s just bored and sleepy

[missmamibee]

ughgg I'm not allowed to leave my room now and I'm so bored

[randomstarmuffin]

Clorica and Xiao Pai in suits. Thank you, that is all.

[selphiahaven]

Ventuswill: H-hey Frey/Lest?

Ventuswill: Th-this is all hypothetical, but...

Ventuswill: ...if I were a human being...

Ventuswill: ...No, never mind. Forget I said anything.

Ventuswill: Just...forget it.

[tandemunicycle]

Farming Sims: an exercise in futility, and the one that got it right

tl/dr: The only good farming game is Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and I will die on this hill.

Before I begin I would just like to say; I have not done extensive research into the actual logistics of these games or the opinions of goals of their creators, this is based purely on my own experience and opinions.

So first off, some loose education for those who are not indoctrinated, a farming sim is short for a farming simulator, basically a game that, well, simulates farming. The levels of scrutiny in the simulation vary, with some having aspects of fantasy while others delving into the specifics of crop growth and animal management. In many of these farming sims, however, the farming itself is not so much the focus of the game as is the life of a farmer, especially one living in a small town. Growing relationships, fixing up the town, getting married, getting a better farm, all of these common gameplay features of popular farming games such as Stardew Valley and Rune Factory.

There comes a time, however, that many players of these kinds of games become quickly familiar with. It can come early, or later in gameplay as your farm and daily chores become more and more automated, and the daily habit of farm chores become chores to the player as well. I'll just refer to it as the slump, as I don’t know if other gamers actually have a phrase for this.

You see, in these types of games it's all about A. resource management and B. upgrades to living conditions. You chop lots of wood to get a bigger house so you can cook better food and better food lets you farm longer and better tools let you farm even longer than that. These are not inherently slump-inducing, but you soon come to realize as you progress that there is no end. No goal. Sure you may make your farm the biggest or the richest or improve your town to the max but… then what? The years go by and nothing changes. You do chores to what, get a better fishing rod? Romance all the people you can in town just to see what they say? You’re an immortal god in a sandbox full of turnips and although there is no end, most likely you’ll just start over again, because the game wasn’t about the town or the people or you, but about all the shit you could collect and do.

Farming sims induce a strange sort of depression in me. A monotonous day to day that only changes on the surface. Kind of dramatic, but I think it’s true.

Now let me tell you about Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life.

This game is not beautiful. It’s 2003 GameCube graphics with low polygons, the music is often repetitive and lulling, the writing and translations are choppy at best and confusing at worst, some aspects of the game like any farming sim are painfully repetitive and slow, and I think to have fun sometimes you need to plug in a podcast and play mindlessly. But this game does something no other game of its breed had the bravery to do. And it starts quick.

After the first year you have to marry one of the Bachelorettes (or bachelors if you’re playing the Another Wonderful Life version, which I may mention some details from, but generally follows the same formula), and the next chapter (Chapters start with being a year long, then time between them increases, except in Another Wonderful Life where they remain one year long. It is implied that several years had passed in between chapters) you live in a larger home with your wife and toddler son. What has changed other than the size of your home and family? Well, Nina, a kindly old woman who lived with her husband Galan, has died. Galan, now sullen and nearly speechless, has moved to the hill where Nina's grave is, while a new family has moved into the home they once had together.

This immediately breaks the standard set by its predecessors and its successors. Change in farming sims usually only happens when the player initiates it, acting as a sandbox for farming and ranching and dating random hicks, but as you play Harvest Moon you start to realize this isn’t just a farming sim, this is a life sim.

The changes with time don’t stop there. As the years go by the player character and all of the people around them grow and change. Galan after a while (and helped if the player befriends him and keeps him company) comes back out of his shell as a friendly townsfolk again, only to die a chapter later. The player character, as well as other adult characters around you, slowly grow grey hairs and wrinkles. Some faster than others. Your son grows up, and in what I think is a stroke of video game genius, your son's future career path is affected not only by you and what toys you give him, but by who you befriend, what you do, and how you run your farm.

And in the final chapter, chapter 6, when you are old and grey and your son a surly teenager and all the people around you different, some new, some there since the beginning. How does this final chapter end?

You die. And that's the end.

This is the genius of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. Change doesn’t just happen because of you, it happens to you. People grow old and die and move away and move in and change and stay the same and when you’re old, you know what? You die too. That is so beautiful. Sure the writing can be flat and sure the characters aren’t as deep as some games, but it also has that unique feel that you can only have in Japanese games that everything going on isn’t said. Some things are just left for you to feel.

For a long time I didn’t understand why other farming games just felt off. Bland and flat and soulless, and I realized after thinking about Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, that games before and after it had a completely different philosophy to them. They were collector and builder games, about getting the best farm and chopping wood and completing the town museum and fishing all the fish and making the town and land cute and cool and efficient. Those kinds of things aren't bad, but I felt so incomplete with them. They felt hollow.

So I kept looking, for a long time, for something that could compare. Stardew Valley is a great game, but I came into the realization that I would just be doing this, forever with the same people no matter if I played for 3 in game years or a hundred. Other Harvest Moon games, or Story of Seasons games as they’re called in the future, are just painful to play. I got the most recent to come out, Pioneers of Olive Town, and it nearly made me cry in frustration at the pretty graphics and freedom of customization at the sacrifice of everything that gives a game soul. 

Repetitive chores and boring characters are kind of a given for the farming sim genre, but I don’t think any other game of its breed will ever live up to Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life until the people who make these games are brave enough to give the story a satisfying conclusion and make them more than just sandboxes to play in.

So, if you have some time, and some patience, and want to try something a little different, get *COUGH*emulate*COUGH**COUGH* Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (or the special edition version since it shortens the chapter time because DEAR GOD THOSE GET LONG AND DULL), and tell me what you think, because while I talked about some of the gameplay aspects, I have not even mentioned the half of it and its characters.

[xpao-bearx]

Hey hey I hope this the right person but I was wondering if you had continued or planned to conintued the Rune Factory story on AO3? I just found it tryjng to find some good fanfiction on Rune Factory.

I hope you do because I am so down for the polyamory angle.

Have a good day and thank you for your time.😁

Hey-hooo~!! Yes, you got the right person xD

I'm super happy that you enjoyed The Princess' Harem! 😄 I DO plan on continuing it (*cough* hopefully *cough*), however I am just such a shitty updater and have literally no idea when I can get off mah lazy ass to write the next chapter ;-;

But thank you sooo much for the support!! ❤ And I'm glad you like the poly angle cuz I absolutely L O V E reverse harems and I personally don't think that Frey has to choose, she can just live her best life and choose ALL the hot boys~~~ 😍😍😍

Thanks again, you seriously made my day and you also have a wonderful day! 🥰

[cerealmonster15]

me doing anything for the next several weeks: i wish i was playing rf4 right now :c