#“we don't talk about that one installment” <- immediately caves and talks about everything

[civilight-eterna]

the song? legendary. still a vocaloid classic to this day. spawned all things good because the three and a half minutes that was the song was such a fucking banger.

the OVA? baby's first yuri. a classic that didn't try to be anything other than pretty girls and cool fight scenes.

the 2011 game? some of the most interesting fight mechanics i've ever seen to date and some of the most interesting subversions of expectations in a story. the coolest motorcycle sequences imaginable. enemies and bosses that use aposematism to denote their presence as a threat with the exception being the final boss, whose color is white. and just. the most striking artistic visual identity and a slick ost to boot. the trailer fucked so hard.

the 2012 manga? probably got me started on my love of sentient weapons but aside from that, a really solid, almost kino's journey-esque travel through different places as BRS (goes by "Rock" in the manga) and slowly uncovers her own emotions and becomes more expressive along the way. Dead Master (just "Dead" in this iteration) is here too and she's got the biggest, funnest, flirtiest lesbian energy. these pages have zero heterosexual explanation. rock gets taken in by dead and wakes up beside her eating her teddy bear in her sleep and swallowing it whole and then she starts on rock's hair and rock's usual stoic countenance is totally shattered.

the 2012 anime? crammed as much as possible into 8 episodes and even with the loose threads here and there and slightly obtuse pacing it was the absolute best shit! it dared to ask the question of 'what if you girls had a really, really hot version of yourself inside of you fighting your emotional battles physically with big big weapons and they did it because they capital L, Love you because you are their reason to be? and what if one of those girls was so extra determined to save you that she generates another, insane version of herself as a splinter because you're bearing too much pain for even your inner hot girl to bear and that girl is now ready to beat the shit out of everything?' this was hugely formative for my selfcest-loving ass.

the 2022 anime. aside from the plot being unfollowable and the animation having none of the weight that the previous series have (brs lifts her gun with a noodle arm like it's a plastic toy and fires without recoil)-takes this series with such an incredibly sapphic ethos and identity and the first glimpse you see of the villain is that it's some god complex sex doll looking man raping a teenage girl to death. even the women around Empress (BRS's moniker for this series) are reductive: there's a side character woman that almost immediately propositions her for sex, and even Dead Master is the equivalent of a png being shrunken and then stretched to an extreme in terms of personality, talking openly about how much she wants to kill Empress and rape her corpse. only on disney plus.

black rock shooter is so cool. except for that one installment.

[theworldvsyoshiko]

Alright, current state of the colony, because children keep piling in and I haven't talked much about some of 'em.

Yoshiko "Happy" Russell: Needs no introduction. She's 22 now, which is fitting because she's currently living roughly the life of a grad student: she wakes up every day, has a beer or two with breakfast, and then spends the next sixteen hours in a cave doing research on important topics like 'how do we more efficiently generate power' and 'how do I mass produce space cocaine?'

Her mech army's grown a bit, but this is the point of the game where having a few mid-tier mechs is less 'game-breaking' and more 'allowing me to keep up with the difficulty curve despite having a mostly-pubescent population.'

Mami "Poopy" Tanner: Now 18 years old. After getting her leg ripped off by a bear, she went to jail, found Cyber-Jesus, and converted to the Creticonian Creed. She's persuasive as hell, so she's now the preacher counterpart to Yoshiko's leadership role in the ideoligion. A mech raid smashed down the wall to her prison cell and shot off her peg leg, so Hairy made her a new bionic leg. ... I mean, they could've just put another chunk of wood on there, but it seemed like the appropriate welcome to transhumanism.

Tied with Yoshiko for the title of best marksman, the best Social person by a wide margin, and a pretty damn good doctor, botanist, and cook. 'Who installed her bionic leg if she's the doctor?' you might ask? The answer is simple: Yoshiko installed it, immediately after drinking a beer, with a skill level of 'significant familiarity' in medicine. (One step below 'capable amateur,' for the record.)

Marta "Hairy" Bryant: Now 19 years old. She's the crafting specialist, which means that she's responsible for about 80% of the colony's income, and also the backup researcher. And a backup mechanitor, for that matter. She's like a mirror of Yoshiko, if Yoshiko had learned how to do anything useful before the age of about 15. She had a prosthetic arm when she arrived, so now she's got a bionic arm, because having a better-than-nothing kinda replacement arm on your main crafter sucks.

She also has the Coward trait, so I don't know why I gave her a shotgun, because she runs away screaming when enemies get into shotgun range. Thanks to being the backup mechanitor, she's the caravaneer, since she can use a herd of non-vital mechs to haul everything.

Anyuan Ji (no nickname): He's 15 now. You can tell that he's fifteen because even though he's not really a combatant, he's decided to walk around shirtless wearing nothing but a bandolier. He's still bad at everything... except Construction, where he's a capable amateur. So he spends all day making spike traps and doing unskilled labor like making bricks and processing fuel. This has turned out to be pretty useful, because literally everybody else's time is worth too much to spend much of it on things like that.

At least he's converted to the Creticonian Creed, so now he's only constantly seething about Yoshiko's cool bedroom.

Alyona Pruitt (no nickname): Also 15 now and, fucking thankfully, no longer a member of that fascist pig religion. Unfortunately, she basically went around calling everybody else racial slurs back when she still followed it. (Again: she is also a member of the race she considered inferior.) Everyone's list of relationship modifiers with her includes things like 'Insulted x4.' So most of the colony isn't very fond of her. It's a... work in progress. Look, this is what happens when you adopt feral teenagers.

No fixed role, but she's a good all-rounder. Like, really, she's at least decent at everything but art, medicine, plants, animals, and melee, and most of those are categories I really don't need help in anyway. Her traits are Misandrist and Slob, and you'd think this would cause more problems than it has so far.

Siennah "Renze" Sia: I haven't talked much about Renze yet, which is a shame, because she's kinda been the star of the show since she arrived. Here's what you need to know about Renze: She is a Hussar, essentially a genetically engineered supersoldier. In exchange for being really aggressive (this will be a problem sooner or later), perpetually addicted to combat meth from the age of 13, and bad at lots of things, she's naturally really durable and good at fighting,

Except Renze is 11 now and she spends 90% of her time cooking and making clothes. She loves them. She would happily cook all day every day if she could. She adores Poopy, which makes sense, since Poopy was also weirdo gun gremlin as a child. Her genes make her the third-best marksman in the colony already, so she's got a sniper rifle to keep her at a safe distance. She's getting her genes catalogued, and hopefully some day we'll be able to re-engineer her without the aggression and meth addiction. Until then: the drug lab is spinning up production.

Joseph "Jam" Zarkos: I still don't know what this kid was running from, and considering that the last time a child showed up chased by mystery danger it turned into a siege that made me consider evacuating the colony, I am concerned.

He's 11. He's naturally incredibly passionate about plants and animals, except he has the trait Animal Hater and he in fact follows an ideoligion that teaches that humans are so superior to animals that being nice to an animal is an act of self-debasement.

[margridarnauds]

So, my Honour Mode Anathematisma Run, aka "How Many Ways Can I Fuck Up This Run Without Dying"

So, I got the Friends cantrip, which I've never really used before on this difficulty level. This is important for down the line.

Ana is RIDICULOUSLY powerful because I installed a cambion mod because it's what Hell's Little Princess deserves.

We easily demolish most of the early Act 1 things that can end an Honour Mode run easily, even getting the Everburn blade.

Then...we get to the Grove. I'm not able to prevent Zevlor from being punched by Aradin, but it's *fine*. Kagha's there, wants to speak with us, etc.

Ana goes to talk with her with her bardy powers

Because this is Honour Mode and redos are MUCH more expensive (and I don't want Arabella to die), I use. The Friends cantrip.

It succeeds, Arabella runs free.

Then...it runs out. Kagha and co. turn hostile immediately.

Worse, when I try to run out as a way of getting RID of the temporarily hostile buff, the druids decide that's the time to start the tiefling genocide party. I'm able to take down Kagha and the remaining druids, but then I have to take down the rest outside.

It's...not pretty.

I'm able to put them down, but there are a lot of casualties. Including Wyll and Dammon. Wyll...who is Ana's canonical love interest.

Okay, fine, this would make me reload another game, but we can move ON from this. It'll be *fine*. Especially once I resurrect Wyll. We're back on track.

I still have to give Rath money in order to make him like me again even though he turned on Kagha.

...I go to recruit Karlach. She shames me for killing everyone in the Grove. Calls Wyll a rat.

...well, she's not joining our side AND was rude, so she's gotta die.

Okay, so a lot of people are dead AND Karlach's dead, but we can move on from this.

I go to the Owlbear cave after convincing the expendable Absolutists to avenge their brother. The owlbear cub stays hostile after I kill both of the older owlbears. I have to knock it out. (I'd been hoping to trigger Wyll Approval Points by sparing it in the cutscene)

I go to the Zhentarim locked in the cave. Unfortunately, even though I succeed in convincing Flind to kill all her pack mates, I'm not able to get her to eat herself. So she's gotta go.

I'm not able to win this fight because my team's exhausted after everything else, so I'm able to book a retreat with Astarion.

I get everyone resurrected, do a long rest, go back, kill Flind. Rugan and his buddy are dead, but they're Banites (albeit hot Banites), so I don't care about them.

Go to Waukeen's Rest, save everyone there, go to the Zhentarim hideout, hand over the chest. I go to negotiate for the painter's release. And I use. Friends.

I have to fight the Zhentarim.

At least I got a Titanstring bow out of it.

Astarion is lagging behind in approval, so I decide to go to the swamp. He kills Gandrel instantly because he hasn't revealed he's a vampire.

I go back to the Goblin Camp, prepared to kill the leaders + make it to the Underdark (it's...going to be fun giving Halsin the news). I go to Priestess Gut, especially since she's USUALLY the easiest to kill.

...some combination of my dialogue means she isn't willing to even talk to me and tells me to go away. So I have to initiate combat. I cast Silence so she won't call for help, but she runs outside of it and does it anyway.

She then DRAGS Roah Moonglow, aka One of the OTHER Best Merchants In Act One, into the battle. I have to put MORE Zhentarim down as well as deal with Priestess Gut.

Eventually, I kill all of them.

So, at the moment, Ana has a relatively poor relationship with Astarion (even though she allows him to munch on her), not NEARLY as good a relationship as she could have with Wyll (even though she's making him worse now that Karlach's gone), Gale has been asking for magical artifacts freakishly fast, we've lost a total of four merchants, the druids are dead, and Karlach is McFucking Dead. And I honestly have no idea whether the Owlbear Cub will spawn, especially since Korra is too focused on me poisoning her friends to want to play Chicken Chase.

And we still haven't had the chance for the Family Reunion with Raphael.

At least Ana's new design is hot?