#But the SECOND he starts interacting with major NPCs

[not-a-snowman]

I’m so ill about Order of the Stick right now. I saw some art of it on my dash a bit ago and what was an untouched-for-years obsession has crashed back into my brain with all the grace of a derailed train. A part of me is frustrated at myself for having ANOTHER niche interest which I cannot share with the average person without looking insane, but a larger part of me is thrilled to return to the series with a better understanding of storytelling so I can truly understand just how damn clever this series is. Like genuinely, this comic started in 2003 and feels more unique and funny in its parody than half the Dnd parody stuff I see today. I don’t even play 3.5 edition! It’s just that solid!!!

I want to write a more in depth analysis but I’m not full caught up yet and my brain is still recovering from remembering that Redcloak is a character who exists and I love him he’s such a good villain holy crap he sucks so bad but also I think he could use a win. Jury’s out on whether he deserves that win considering it’s probably bad for everyone else but also I hope he gets it.

I forget if his people lose control of the city later on but I kind of hope they don’t. Sorry Azure City characters I genuinely love you but also I think the goblins should keep their city and everyone else can just suck it actually

[softness-and-shattering]

Im not the first person to complain about fatphobia in baldurs gate 3. Its just a lot worse than not being able to make fat player characters, tav or durge. Its that there are almost no fat people at all in this whole world.

Ive played close to 300 hours, and I havent fully explored act 3. There's some characters who are quite large. Halsin is tall and broad but he has a trim six pack. So does Karlach, despite being buff she has quite a narrow waist. Weird to be a barbarian without serious core strength. Korilla and Hope are very curvy, but no belly.

I can only think of two actually fat characters are neither are great. One is Glut, the myconid sovereign who asks you to betray Spaw, when you have no other reason to dislike Spaw. Firstly, the name. Glut - Glutton - he's fat. You dont have to also name him fatso. He feel entitled to a colony of myconids and is happy to kill Spaw about it, its just an ownership rulership ambition there's no justice to it. And if you refuse you have to kill him. So firstly he's non-human, non-humanoid, the hobgoblin specifically states than myconids have way less going on mentally than the player character and its kind of unclear to me if they're a hivemind or not. In that fantasy grey area of if they're properly people rather than unusually conscious vegetables. And he's also basically an asshole.

The other fat character is Thisobald Thorm. To begin with he's undead, and the son of a major undead villain. Not a great start. Second, he has four legs. Yes there are lots of unusual human variations and I suppose a person could have four legs and that would be fine. But why make that Thisobalds 'quirk'. Its clearly that he's soooo fat that he cant possibly move around on two legs so lets give him another set and make him monstrous. He needs to move around because he can be a mini-boss battle and it would be soooo hard to animate two big legs, or even two comically small legs. Nah we gotta give him four, evoke monstrosity. And then, the ways that encounter can go, is you either totally ignore him, or you interact. If you interact, you have to kill him, and if you talk your way through it he literally explodes from being too fat. Theres lines about his stomach seems like its going to burst open from all its holding and then it does. And then theres no body left behind, just the pile of gore thats also left behind when you raise zombies. He cant even be a humanoid corpse, he explodes so violently from sheer fatness that nothing recognisable is left behind.

And yes I know the excuse is that hes drinking this super intense poison alcohol brew and thats what gets him. That doesnt make it better. I dont know of any toxic substance that makes a person explode. Its not otherwise explosive. That isnt a thing that happens. There's no point someone gets so fat and so full that they explode. Its a gross outcome for a character you're intended to be entirely disgusted by. (its also not any kind of representation for people who consume various uh tabboo substances but I cant really speak to that aspect).

Two fat people, neither entirely human or allowed to be a person, one an asshole and one with no good ending. Like. cmon. You figured out how to animate dragonborn faces, and tails, you can have people be fat. It isnt actually a monstrous trait its actually super normal, its weird and urealistic that everyone in all of Faerun is slim. That doesnt happen in real life. The gender/sex options, and the vitiligo, thats fantastic. Yes keep representing and letting us play as all kinds of different people. Add some body types that arent just tall short/slim muscular too! For the player and the NPC's.

[airshipvalentine]

I have seen you post about it forever and yet I still haven’t been able to parse what it is or what it’s about. What’s Fremont County?

HAHAHAHA i was wondering how long it would take for someone to ask this!!

fremont county monster hunters is a monster of the week rpg campaign i've been playing sporadically for the past 2.5 years. (and when i say sporadically i mean we've played 4 arcs in about 6 or 7 ~6 hour sessions over the past two and a half years). and because of how long we go without playing (and because we are moderately obsessive people), we get reeealll hiatus-brained in the interim. i am irrevocably obsessed with it.

the premise is that the party is a group of people who can see through the Glare (like the Mist from pjo), who all attend fremont county community college in *mumble mumble* pacific northwest america. i always imagine it as northern california but i honestly don't know if there's a more specific location?

there's a prophecy involving the world ending in fire, and the five people who are there for it. (presumably to stop it, but the prophecy is pretty vague and the only person who has access to it recently lost their clairvoyance) but before that happens, we fight vampires and stuff

that's the short version. i'm gonna talk more about it though bc i can talk about this campaign forever

i play shay song, photo/journalism major first, reluctant Chosen One second. he found a meteorite sword in the woods a few weeks after his dad died under mysterious circumstances, and he's been fighting monsters ever since! he's down to earth and moderately neurotic, and desperately wants to just be normal. (sucks for him though, because that is straight up not going to happen)

also in the party are:

shamsiel, the divine. she's a cherubim sent by The Bureaucracy, a consortium of angels that's essentially a corporate office. she's been tasked with protecting shay and ensuring the prophecy comes to pass. she's a fish out of water who doesn't exactly know how to interact with people, and she's devoted to her cause above all else. i talk about her and shay most on here bc her player is also on tumblr (hiiiii sofie)

levi, the monstrous. a obnoxious rich boy and literal demon. he's sent by his demonic father to do ?????? carry out his demonic bidding? it's unclear. he likes to hang around the party and make passive-aggressive comments and be helpful when it's convenient for him. he's also shay's roommate! they had a homoerotic streak going that was probably a thinly veiled excuse for my partner an i to flirt with each other in the most roundabout way possible before we started dating. he also kidnapped a beloved npc in the most recent session! we're gonna beat him up

anna baker, the spellslinger. absolute sweetheart and heart of the party. she started learning magic and took on a superhero moniker to fight monsters and crime! (<- this doesn't come up nearly as much as it should, btw. i want a tales of ba sing se episode about cold turkey asap) oh yeah, that moniker was "cold turkey". her catchphrase is "you're about to quit crime... Cold Turkey." she's the best.

claire fitz, the mundane. currently in the "denial" stage of realizing she's a lesbian. she's a culinary arts major who carries around a fireaxe. she's kind of weirded out that she's part of this prophecy, but she's very capable and helps about as best she can. she's also lying to all her high school friends! they all think she's going to yale right now! what's that about???

and mila, the seeker! former cheerleader, constant conspiracy theory enthusiast. she's 100% convinced that aliens are real and will do her best to make sure you believe too. psyched beyond belief that she was right and monsters are real. will hold your hands and say "i don't need you to believe. i just need you to trust me and open your mind to the possibilities." kind of miffed that she isn't part of the apocalyptic prophecy, but it's fine.

also, notable npcs!

don powers, shay's former soccer nemesis. business major. kind of a dick, but we're trying to reform him. buried the hatchet with shay recently due to, uh, a common enemy forming. canonically in love with alder as of arc 4.

alder caine, don's roommate. my favorite. got into some shady deals with demons, and now they're hunting her down! levi kidnapped her in the most recent session!

nin, former clairvoyant. elected to give up their powers recently, with aid from the bureaucracy. it was sus as fuck! also dating anna. they're cute

there have been four arcs so far

from rush till prom, the vampire frat arc

the vengeful spirit stick, the cheerleader ghost arc

the switching hour, the doppelganger bottle episode

the deck of many flings, the tarot/love spell episode

ok that's the broad overview. i could talk about this for hours but i will leave it at that :) there's an in-character twitter feed i made though

[wordslikesilver]

Okay I said I was gonna make an adventure quest lore post and I just gotta, so here we go. This is part of and spoils the events of the Burning Solstice Saga, primarily talking about the second last quest called The Question. Lemme give some primer though before I gush over it.

In Adventure Quest you are The Chosen One, you’re pretty much at the center of every major thing that happens in the story, even things that are seemingly happening congruently, don’t worry about it, just know you are The One, The Big Cheese, The Hero. There’s so many countless feats to your name by the time this quest takes place and you are acknowledged by and friends with pretty much every NPC in the story, it’s actually kinda nice being so properly recognized in an RPG instead of perpetually proving yourself to people over and over again. Anyhow, over the course of these wacky adventures, some of the biggest antagonists we interact with are 3 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, War, Pestilence and Famine. Death is pretty chill, he seemingly has some sort of arrangement with us to let us keep respawning forever as much as we need to no matter how much we die, not really explained why but don’t complain about it, also this will be important later.

Before the events of the Burning Solstice, War is well and truly fully defeated by us with the help of all our might and all our friends. He’s sorta the most recurring one by far and a constant pain to deal with. He’s got three minions, Carnage, Mayhem and Panic and those three usually possess a person to act as their vessel. Mayhem is super dead, don’t worry about him. Carnage has his own body and he’s this absolute lunatic freak meathead with a hammer who makes people go crazy and start fighting their allies while Panic possesses some poor idiot and has fear powers to drive people mad and wear away at their will to fight. The current Panic is actually a real tragic figure of a guy who just wanted to protect people and has been saddled with this darkness but after War’s defeat he managed to break free of his control and run away to figure himself out and no longer be threat to the world, very nice of him, very polite.

Leading up to the quest I’m gonna talk about, a guy named Zhilo has become delusional and started collecting War’s remnants of power, not knowing War was already dead and now thinking he’s gonna be the one to destroy War. Thing is, War is a title, not a person, and as he collects more and more of the remnants of this divine power, his Macbeth level paranoia is bringing him to do more and more stuff War would do. He thinks we’re all under War’s influence and won’t stop fighting us and spreading this madness plague wherever he goes. He imprisons Carnage and drains all the power he can from him, he’s hunting down Panic trying to find where the real War is hiding, trying to kill and drain the power from Panic and collect more pieces of the mantle of War.

At this point the following happens:

To say this final fight literally feels like it sucked the life out of me and felt like I was the idiot who just died fighting that thing is an understatement. It is EXHAUSTING and that’s the entire intention behind it, I swear it felt like it must’ve taken two fuckin hours getting through it. You’re fighting this like, Divine Abomination and the cave is collapsing around you, you desperately just need to buy some more time for everyone inside, just keep fighting. You’re taking constant damage and getting stat debuffs from the sheer exhaustion and god damn it it’s like you’re not even dealing damage at this point but you gotta keep going. You gotta protect those people. Look at this monster,

you can’t let them die to such a thing. It’s this warped and tormented and twisted dragon that’s been crafted into an engine of destruction and agony, my heart breaks for it knowing it had no choice to be turned into that, knowing it can’t stop itself.

And then you die. Rocks fall, your spirit is spent and scattered, you take the abomination with you. You did it. You saved everyone and then you died. But… this death is different than the rest. Thus, we at last reach the events of the quest I just gotta lose my shit over. The Question. Here’s the transcript:

You literally spent so much of your soul fighting that divine killing machine that the whole thing is scattered all across the robes of Death and you gotta piece yourself back together. But I gotta lose my mind over some pieces of dialogue here in particular:

“…Lords you are VAST.”

“As are you, but you are still too blind to see it and in consequence too blind to show it.”

The idea that without being able to acknowledge and know your true self, you will only take on a lesser shape of yourself? Literally slay me, fuck that’s SO GOOD. We are so vast of spirit, our soul and anima are so uncontainable that Death couldn’t hold us even if he wanted to. We literally just wouldn’t FIT. But still we don’t understand why, we don’t clue in to who we are no matter how many hints he gives or how much he explains. The mantle of War belongs to the strongest fighter in the realm the Lore. He calls Zhilo an imposter. We are The Chosen, over and over, again and again for task after task, Fate’s special lil princess, God’s favourite lil guy to pick on.

“…Who am I?”

“Who do you think you are, War?”

Leaves me on the floor in fucking SHAMBLES okay, like I am literally in PIECES at the reveal, that line in red there changed my FUCKIN BRAIN CHEMISTRY. Why is ADVENTURE QUEST, a silly lil flash game from like 2002 or something dropping lines that go THAT HARD???

Following this quest, we rise as the new War and summon Carnage and Panic to help us depose the imposter. Carnage is sane and tells us he feels like he can think clearly for the first time in years and years. He’s changed by us forever and we actually get to learn he’s the father of the man who acts as the trainer for Fighters. Panic swears loyalty to us, knowing us, knowing there is honour walking this path at our side. He will help us save Lore from Zhilo. The quest is INCREDIBLE and at the conclusion we ask the gods if we can go back to who we were and because they owe us, they allow it, but the mantle shall be reserved for us and if we call upon it in full once again, that’s it, that’s who we are now. But that’s a whole other story to gush over and one that’s still in the process of being told. In other words, y’all should go check out what’s good on your old accounts, the game still gets updated WEEKLY and it’s really really good lol, the new writer is incredible and is a SUPER nice dude you can just chat up on their discord whenever you’re confused about plot events.

[eclipsecrowned]

For any of the deen dee ocs in any combination: // anonymous

due to the number of prompts (which i love, not going too bonkers but still giving e a wide array to work with) i'm putting the questions themselves under a cut and answering each with a muse chosen by a random generator. page stretcher under this readmore, consider checking it out on my blog.

What plot points would change due to the inclusion of your character in canon?

None, she's ostensibly a trophy in Orin's bedroom :)

Realistically, though? If there was another prisoner in the Goblin Camp, a beautiful and feral woman wrapped in several lengths of chain waiting to be uncovered by the party? I mean, you have a genuine Evil companion even in a Spare the Grove route, the Lady MacBeth and fierce angel of death in one at your Tav's ear. She unsettles. Other Companions probably aren't too fond of her. Maybe unimportant NPCs start dropping after long rests -- or maybe Miruna paces the camp at night, praying to deaf gods for the patience the player shows her. Perhaps a final battle plays out differently, with two Chosen against the player, vying together for dominance of the Brain, or perhaps she is only staring in shock at the body of a former beloved, then looking to the player wordlessly, begging with her eyes that they not leave her as this man did.

The player having the chance to mold Miruna. For acceptance or rejection of her to change the shape the narrative takes, especially into Act 3. The player has multiple ways to interact with her that will shape her ultimate fate, whether with disdain for her Urges, support for her redemption, or agreeing with her stance that 'I am not evil, but the demands made of me are.' Does the player believe in second chances, or is there a point their tolerance of her runs out -- after a particular scripted death, after the reveal of her history, in a Temple where she is killed to stifle her dark father's influence on the world, or in the end, where the player can no more ignore what she is or the damage her choices have wrought?

What changes do you think would be made between your muse as they exist in your head vs how they would be treated as part of canon?

I mean. Canon for 3 already soundly nuked my PC's narrative from orbit. His wife was ousted from the party and her character butchered in the aftermath, his post-game adventures were routed by the canon GW settling down in the Gate, Ismail just cannot catch a break. And to top it all off, the novels keep trying to make him some basic white boy named Adrian or something? Wild.

Jokes aside, if Ismail was treated as the canon GW/Bh**lspawn, I think canon would definitely whitewash him -- but not in the traditional sense. I think his being a True Neutral who only really makes a stand in the face of great evil (such as his father) and otherwise believes in balance would be a little too spicy for the era of game he existed in. He'd get a nice new paint job over his morality to be an In Name Only Neutral. He'd also likely get mischaracterized from the straight man of the party off of which his Companions can shine to a willing buffoon alongside his sequel besties Haer'Dalis and Jan.

Knowing Bioware in that era, he's a white guy, too.

God help me I fear what his romance with Vi would be made into. From a genuine respect and sympathy to 'I Can Fix Her' bait or a young guy who got caught in the talons of an sexy sexy but oh so evil seductress. Comments by returning companions in 3 that his son was the only good to come out of that union or something equally insulting to the Ismonia dynamic.

What would their haters dislike about your character? Is it a petty complaint? A mischaracterization of the character or their intentions? Are they just a woman in a largely male-centric series?

Gruff, not conventionally attractive, not romanceable by the majority of players' (cis dudes) Tavs... Aurelia'd get the Astarion treatment where people probably need to sit down with haters of a certain degree and go 'no put in words to me what about this character makes you uncomfortable, show me on the doll what aspects of her character are so viscerally repugnant to you.'

People could be petty, racist, misogynistic, and lesbophobic in a single swoop. Instead of someone with flat affect who is clearly teasing half the time, she'd be taken for a stone cold bitch who is needlessly cruel to companions. Everything she does is the worst. She's a cheap Lae clone. Her pragmatism is evil rather than practical. Her neutrality is evil, actually. Fandom has already proven that a canonical Druid talking about the element he works with is so annoying and cringe and they're aiming that at a white dude. Aurelia would get it worse for talking about nature. The thing she also protects as a Ranger. Her habit of slapping nicknames on her Companions? How disrespectful. Also her hitting on Lae'zel/Karlach/Shadowheart/the PC is clearly predatory and uncalled for. She's literally as bad as Cazador for being open about her attraction/appreciation for women. Also her being half-Gur is just crudely shoehorned in and for fake woke points.

She was also totally the last character developed and it shows in her writing. Clearly just there to meet a quota. She's just so annoying. Ignore that if she were canon she would definitely not be a last minute addition and have a clear arc/narrative to accomplish in addition to helping the PC beat a brain into submission.

What controversies/drama would your character incite in fandom?

I have briefly touched on this before, but unless someone was playing teen Tav or followed the HC that Lae'zel is also incredibly young, Sybelle is the youngest member of party at a stated 20. No problem, right? She's a professional in her field and by the standard of her society and race is a grown adult. Any greenness is actually the result of being a reclusive academic for her entire coming of age, not of any inborn immaturity/innocence/childishness related to her age, and damn sure not as a result of her autism.

Good luck convincing fandom of any of that, however.

She's 20. If you ship her with any character beyond Wyll (canonically ~24) or Lae'zel (fanon early twenties) then why do you support grooming/exploitation of children? Shipping her with Gale/Shadowheart/Karlach is right out unless you want the discourse of all discourse -- and forget about shipping her with Halsin, Astarion, the Emperor, or any character with an extended lifespan and centuries of life experience. And sure, people are allowed to be uncomfortable with age gaps, or to not want to see certain characters shipped for any reason. But there'd be a lot of unnecessary moralizing around someone, say, preferring to see Gale and Sybelle's dynamic as mentor/mentee or father figure/heartwarming orphan. It's not just that someone doesn't like the ship when romantic or is discomforted by a different read, it's that the ship is predatory and only backed by degenerates.

Also she's autistic, so she's so babygirl and a sweet bean and if you even think of 'sexualizing' her by acknowledging she is a grown adult who is capable of feeling sexual or romantic attraction, then you're some kind of pervert. I mean, she's never been out in the world before! What a wholesome innocent baby. Not a single sinful thought behind those big baby cow brown eyes. There's not a chance she's actually interested in living life rather than reading it and making a double entendre at the player about anatomical studies -- No, wait, go back, delete that footage, you can't sexualize an autistic child of 20, the devs are perverts too --

Also she's of Shou descent, so any attempt to depict her as an attractive young woman is fetishizing her. I'm too white to get into this except to say I have seen some friends on the dash grump about how my peers in fandom like to gatekeep how characters of color can be portrayed even by those of shared background. And I just know Sybelle is not getting out of that hellhole unscathed.

Are there ship wars? Are they a popular character to ship, or the kind of character that gets shuffled off and away from shipping for whatever reason?

I can see the many branching paths off of this. Roxelena is a big tiddied bard who is both poor little rich girl and desperately seeking purpose. She's so latchable for Power Fantasy Self-Insert types to push their fav they're projecting on towards -- imagine the edgiest straight guy trying to write fic where Lena is the standard hero reward to a wildly OOC Percy or Artemis type.

On the other hand, she's a big beautiful woman so she's automatically a fat slag to most. There's definitely a contingent of fandom who oh my god just didn't realize that they didn't write Lena into their shipfics, or into any fic at all! It's totally not fatphobia gaiz! She's just such a girlboss that doesn't need a disgusting man! Ignore the fact she's pretty open and available sexually and easily distracted by men's asses!

On my mutant third appendage, the back and forth about her sexuality. To wit, Lena is bi, and was initially designed as a ship oc for a genderfluid PC in a certain piece of media. But she attended an all-female bard college where she remains infamous for her... plucking techniques, shall we say. She's also not conventionally attractive, so she must be a lesbian. But wait, what about her being bi? Well, she's not actually attracted to women, because she flirts with a character who is masculine -- even if more in the way a peacock is masculine. She's straight. But what about her being bi? This point can no longer be heard over the screaming match between the other two.

In like actual real life Lena 'fandom' I think Pupper is aiming for her to be part of a Half-Orc/Tiefling sandwich, while I paid him actual legitimate money to draw the other party Tief touching her boobs. Vote now for Team Mollena or Team Fjorlester.

How does fandom characterize/mischaracterize your characters ship in fanworks?

So here's the thing. Unless the party -- be that in tabletop play, as a Companion in 3, or played in a podcast -- were to go to Evertide for some reason, Mystery's canonical partner will never be seen. She's not a ghost in the narrative, dialogue allows Myst to talk about her and their daughter and get a sense of her history with him, but she's never present in it, either.

Canon would likely state she's a human, she and Myst arrived as outsiders to the city around the same time, and he gave her a post at his shop to get her out of a life scrubbing chamberpots. They've been together for over a decade now and have a daughter to show for it. He's out in the world trying to find whoever tried to hurt her in an attempt to rob the shop several years ago. There's a bit of an age gap between them, but he'll note that their experiences measure up when tallied.

This would give fandom a lot of ground to play with or ruin. Is she a former Adventurer herself? A farm-girl come to the city to make her fortune? A traveler who fell on hard times? How does this reflect on her dynamic with the worldly and charismatic Myst? Is the age gap significant and shift the perspective of the ship as equal, no matter what Myst says, or is it negligible and Myst is only being self-conscious about his own mid-life crisis? Does the fact he was once her employer change the power dynamic inherent to their interactions, and does it become better or worse depending on where the age gap falls? Does his refusal to marry her or recognize her as anything beyond 'partner' denote a mutual doffing of convention, or hint at a deeper hesitance to commit or even a questioning of the relationship, and if so, is he the one resisting, or her?

The gamut runs from 'old married in every way but ceremony couple who tease/fuss but are clearly devoted to one another' to 'wife guy myst and his sweet younger housewifey' to 'myst is a bad bofriend actually and his partner is a victim of that power imbalance' to 'they're actually qpp life partners and just happen to share a kid.'

Be honest. What song is playing over an AMV/tiktok of scenes between your character and their love interest?

I spun three times and landed on Lena each time. God Himself is trying to get me to shame myself on a public platform. Fuck it. Mollena hours.

Angstier ones that acknowledge canon/his fate probably go feral for Francesca. The themes of loving despite the imminent heartbreak, the determination of love in every life, the attestation that love was worth any pain, it'd all play wonderfully over animatics or beautifully edited fanart compilations of Lena not just with Molly but his... Other halves, as it were.

Her being a bard, I can see bardcore covers being popular for both of them. I keep thinking specifically of that one cover of Willow. The idea he's this enigmatic force of nature that dragged her out of her sheltered existence and gave her a taste of chaos and adventure. I beg of thee please, take my hand, foil my plans, thou'rt my man...

[ladyofsnark]

So I got around to restarting Skyrim for the first time in a few years and I’ve finally nailed down what it is that bothers me about the narrative:

It’s too broad.

I’m not talking about how the Dragonborn basically becomes a living God who rules all of Skyrim, because that’s pretty par for the course in a Bethesda game.

I mean more in an interactive fiction, choose your own adventure way.

Skyrim’s pretty famous for being able to just do whatever, to the point that you can actually avoid the main plot entirely. If you skip the first couple quests in the main story arc, you don’t become the Dragonborn and you can play a “no dragon” play through where it’s just you fucking up Skyrim as a regular bitch.

And that’s fun. That’s great.

But since all of the NPCs have voiced lines, things have to be kept EXTREMELY generic. If you are playing a proper play through and you join any one of the guilds (or all of them if you want), they never recognize you as the Dragonborn. Even in the half-second you can tell someone from the Mage’s guild “I’m the Dragonborn” in a post-main quest play through, that’s it. That’s the extent of it. Even when you’d think that the mages would literally be the most eager to accept you and study what you can do. That’s the only acknowledgement.

The Companions treat you like a whipping boy (for all of five seconds until they decide you’re their new chieftain), Brynjolf just “has a feeling” you’re special, the Psyjics during the College’s story line don’t even say shit about it and they literally know the future. And it’s literally not like it’s a secret that you’re Dragonborn. Random NPCs comment on it, you can kill dragons right in the middle of major settlements and have twenty witnesses to you consuming its soul, leaving just a dried husk of bones in the middle of the main thoroughfare--

But none of the branching quests acknowledge this. You have to prove yourself to them, even though the rest of Skyrim is tripping over themselves about your very existence. This is especially wonky in quests for, say, the Thieves Guild. Where you being the Dragonborn would probably make you an immediate threat to Mercer Frey--or the Guild in general-- and they’d want to avoid you. Because while they don’t operate in secret, you’d think some level of anonymity would be welcomed and you become a household name in the first 5 seconds of the game.

And narratively that’s a MASSIVE disconnect all for the sake of “Choosing your own story”. It’s literally “freedom” at the cost of a cohesive narrative--the MAIN narrative no less.

Don’t get me started on the Stormcloaks. It’s outright stated that Tullius doesn’t believe in the Dragonborn, so his being blatantly unimpressed with you MAKES SENSE. Ulfric on the other hand is basically obsessed with being a “true Nord” and should logically be doing all he can to court your favor because YOU are literally a figure from Nord mythology come to life. That straight up doesn’t happen.

(Which is fine. If Ulfric respected me it might be just a tiny bit harder to enjoy eventually lopping his dumnb, racist, traitorous ass head off.)

[livefreeforfun]

Sonic Frontiers Review: Aptly Crossing a New Frontier.

Sonic Frontiers is the latest 3D platforming game to be released in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, following the releases of Sonic Forces, Sonic Colors Ultimate (SCU), and Sonic Origins, their previous three 3D platforming titles. Forces, SCU, and Origins’ releases were met with a lot of criticism due to not meeting the fanbase’s expectations for a variety of reasons, so in the days before Frontiers’ released, I was excited but chose to keep a healthy level of skepticism just in case the game wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Suffice to say, the hype for the game was extremely well earned, as I had an absolute blast playing through Frontiers. To help me get all my points across as to why I like this game so much, I’ll be dividing this review into two parts: the gameplay segment and the story segment. I’m doing this for two reasons: the first being that I believe both need to be talked about separately so I can really dive deep into what makes them so good, and the other is so that people who only want a gameplay review aren’t spoiled on some of the more major plot points of the game. With that being said, here are my thoughts on Sonic Frontiers!

Future Updates

As I was in the process of putting this review together, Sonic Team revealed that over the course of 2023, the game would be getting a series of 3 free updates, and the last of those updates would contain a story update involving more playable characters, showing pictures of Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Obviously, this is massive and very exciting, but since it’s not out I can’t exactly factor any of what’s coming in updates into this review. Hopefully if I have the time and remember to do so, I’ll make an addendum to this review or separate posts going over each update. Anyways, NOW this review can start!

Gameplay

Sonic Frontiers sets out to tackle a new style of gameplay it calls Open Zone gameplay. Sonic Frontiers takes place on a series of islands, with each island being an open zone. As soon as you unlock the island, you’re able to go anywhere on the island right from the start, defeating minibosses and collecting Memory Tokens wherever you please, but more on that in a moment. The zones are fairly big in size, giving you plenty to explore at Sonic’s mach speeds and never really feeling cramped.

While exploring the islands, Sonic will be able to find rails, springs, and other such platforming obstacles that you’d find in your typical Sonic level. These will lead Sonic into short platforming segments, and by completing them he can earn Memory Tokens, which are essential to completing the game. Think of them as bite-sized levels. They’re typically pretty fun, though some of them lock you into playing in 2D, which kind of defeats the point of an open zone, but outside of that I enjoy these small chunks of platforming.

Memory Tokens are used not only to progress the story, but also to have smaller, more bite-sized interactions with other characters. Engaging with characters doesn’t take away any Memory Tokens from you, so if you have enough to initiate a conversation, go have a chat with them! However, every island has a different type of Memory Token, meaning that tokens you collect on the first island won’t help your progress on the second. Sometimes collecting the tokens felt like a pain, but I enjoyed the experience of exploring the islands regardless.

Scattered around the island are various puzzles that, as a reward, give you seeds. These seeds can be taken to an NPC to increase your attack or defense, depending on the type of seed you have. While I’m sure it isn’t necessary to raise your stats, I’d highly recommend doing so, as some enemies towards the end of the game are quite difficult.

The Cyloop is Sonic’s main new ability in this game and it’s used for puzzle solving and combat. The Cyloop is essential to solving many puzzles in the game, and using it on enemies can put Sonic in an advantageous position during combat. Simply drawing a circle will give you rings and drawing an infinity symbol will give you infinite boost in the open zones!

Exploration in this game is a breath of fresh air for the franchise, helping to break up the monotony of just playing level after level after level. I keep finding myself thinking of how cool previous games in the franchise, namely Forces, could have been if they had tried a similar Open Zone system. I hope the development team behind future Sonic games try and implement Open Zone gameplay into their future games, as I had a blast with it in Frontiers.

There is one more ability that Sonic has to use to help him explore, and that’s the Dropdash. I think it’s really cool that it’s in this game, even though I don't think it contributes a ton as I rarely found myself using it. The one oddity about it though is how it handles speed: the Dropdash uses momentum similar to how the classic games do, as in when you go down a slope, you gain speed, and when you go up a slope, you lose speed. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint! It’s fun to roll down various hills to see how much speed can be built up. But if they’ve implemented that kind of design for the Dropdash, why can’t the whole game play this way? Why limit it to exclusively the Dropdash? I know that this is definitely more of a nitpick but as soon as I noticed it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Shifting focus more on combat now, inhabiting the islands are many strange looking robots for Sonic to take on with his myriad of new combat abilities, and by defeating them he can earn skill points to unlock more abilities. The only ability essential to beating the game is the Cyloop, but the others can help speed up combat in very flashy manners so long as you know how to combo them together properly.

The combos in this game are incredibly stylish and perfectly fitting of the blue blur, it’s always a blast to experiment with linking different skills together against different enemies. You can tell that the developers really put a lot of thought into making these skills and their effort certainly were not in vain.

One skill you don’t need any skill points to unlock is the ability to Parry. Parrying lets you deflect any enemies attack right back at them and counter with a flurry of your own. While having the ability is nice, it has a very noticeable flaw: you can hold your parry for as long as you want. In my opinion, this does ultimately take away from the combat as it means that as long as you hold your parry, you’re not in any real danger. Holding it in midair also causes Sonic to awkwardly float which, while funny, definitely looks just a little strange.

While exploring the islands you’ll encounter named opponents that serve as minibosses, one such example being found in the gif above, named Ninja. Being minibosses, they’re naturally tougher than the generic enemies Sonic will run across in the open zones, but defeating them is essential, as they drop Portal Gears. The bosses come in many different shapes and sizes and will attack Sonic in many different ways, so you should be ready for anything. These can range anywhere from incredibly fun to just a slog to fight (looking at you, Tank).

Overall, the combat in this game is incredibly flashy and fun, and I hope we see more combat like this in the future. There are a few key areas where it can be improved, such as the aforementioned issues with the parry and some of the less enjoyable minibosses, but ultimately it’s a very well done system that I hope makes a return in future games.

Oh yeah Big’s fishing is also fun and the theme that plays is an absolute vibe, easily the most important part of the game.

Story

Alright, story time. If you don’t want to get spoiled about the story, now’s the time to leave. The story of Sonic Frontiers is 100% best experienced blind and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. I’ll also be omitting gifs from this section as well.

So I’m just gonna pad this out a little bit in case someone scrolls a little too far on accident.

Ok, still here? Cool, I’ll just dive right in then.

The story of Sonic Frontiers is, without question, the best story we’ve gotten since SA2 or Unleashed. The characters are written absolutely incredibly in a setting filled with unique mystery that culminates into some of the biggest lore developments the series has ever gotten. I genuinely believe that this is the best that these characters have ever been depicted, and the addition of Sage to the cast of characters is one of the biggest Ws the franchise could have possibly gotten.

The dynamic between Sage and Eggman is one of the best parts of the story by far and it really spices up Eggman’s characters, something that he’s been needing for a long, long time. You can really feel the connection the two of them have together, from the way Eggman talks about her in his memos to his scenes at the end of the game. Watching Eggman look up at the falling stars, hoping to see his AI, his daughter, return to the planet and watching him realize that she’s not coming back almost made me  genuinely cry. Then watching him work to restore her in the final scene after the credits and seemingly succeeding was such a good moment for the doctor. I hope Sage comes back for future games, it’d be such a shame if she didn’t.

The Ancients not only being from space, but bringing the Chaos Emeralds with them from their homeworld and being the ancestors of Chaos is an interesting development to the lore, and I’m excited to see if they go anywhere else with it. The Ancients being related to Chaos was pretty obvious by just looking at their appearance, but them bringing the emeralds from outer space was a development I definitely was not expecting. They’re still a very mysterious civilization that we may never learn more about, but what we do know about them is absolutely fascinating. They did so well with integrating the Ancients into Sonic’s World.

Unfortunately, this is where the story admittedly falls apart a little bit. The End is interesting, to say the least. I don’t think it’s ever made clear whether it’s a god or a mortal, but what we do know is that it’s powerful enough to destroy the Ancients’ home. Then it follows them to Sonic’s World and forces them to trap it inside an entire digital dimension showing that despite how advanced their technology is, they couldn’t even kill it, which makes this thing feel menacing. So with the reveal of The End being the villain, I was really hoping that the boss battle would be the best we’ve ever gotten. It was… not that. The boss battle itself was unfortunately a let-down, which was a massive shame because Frontiers’ has absolutely incredible bosses at the end of each island. There’s a lot in game that points to The End being rushed, such as Sonic’s speech to the Ancients he gives just before the fight itself, and the instruction screen telling you to fight with the Titans, plural. It seems like they really wanted to do more with The End but for whatever reason couldn’t, which is a big shame. It’s definitely not enough to sour the whole story for me, just a bit of a let down.

Sonic Frontiers’ story heavily relies on the mystery of the Starfall Islands, and it uses said mysteries to craft an absolutely incredible story only held back by the gameplay of its final boss. This is the type of story I hope we get to see more of from Sonic games in the future.

Final Rating

If I had to rate the game on a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a very solid 7. The team behind the game’s development very clearly listened to what people wanted from the franchise and gave it to us, and while it’s not perfect by any means, it’s 100% a step in the right direction. If the development team behind Sonic Frontiers keeps giving us games of this quality, I'm sure that the future of the franchise is a very bright one.

[tamarakkoarchive]

Shin Megami Tensei II livetweet thread (8/8)

the second aspect in smt2 that stands out: the crazy twist obviously

i still have mixed feelings over how weirdly written the law ending is but nevertheless the concept of an artificial messiah group was dope. they're pretty much what i'd like to see being explored in fanart the most

aleph felt linked to all these other lab creations and he must watch their fall caused by the fake roles assigned to them that in the end god would never truly approve of

i guess this must be why zayin got so convinced they should keep going even without yhvh

that being said, sadly aleph's connection to them is not really put as much weight as it could've been, he feels super detached because their interactions are very sparse, tbh i think it could've helped if all of them... were playable at some point like mt2 ryu or the smt1 friends. i was fine with the small amount of dialogue in mt2 and smt1 but smt2 is where i felt it ended up really diminishing the impact

i unironically ended up being more fond of the "what could've been" situation between aleph and our dead beth than hiroko lmao she has such an insane reveal behind her but the whole thing goes just "lol. crazy. anyway let's keep going"

~

izanami randomly appearing to comment "oh you two remind me of my marriage that is fucked up but for entirely different reasons"

oof how could i forget to show earlier

aside his sunglasses form zayin also turns into this cool shape with six boobs. iconic

the theme connection between smt2 and smt4a that i finally could confirm from that interview was that even back then they did think smt2 satan leaned towards neutral despite being from the law route, with killing yhvh and all. that's why they made him neutral in smt4a

~

and now for the third and last thing it's... finally the game where demon fusion gets fun but most importantly: where kaneko starts slaying HARD on demon designs. crazy amount of exclusive designs he was able to draw, a lot even beyond of what they could do relevantly with

alright let's go for the bad!

1. it's a replay nightmare. full of bugs. it somehow has a worse interface than smt1's. gotta mention AGAIN that you can't auto guns. by far the smt where you get lost the most and you gotta write down several passwords to enter locked doors

the dungeon design in smt1 wasn't super diverse either but smt2 it's just... excruciatingly boring. "shitload of doors with nothing" the game. you don't really have reason to fill the whole map because they don't put any reward whatsover be with items or npcs with information

2. THE SOUNDTRACK SUCKS period. it's the same composer from mt1-2 so my disappointment for how cheap the snes games sound in comparison is abysmal. they aren't improved much in the psx rearrangements either

instead of a final boss theme they use the same music from several major bosses (regardless of alignment) and it's just... this

compare it to the super special one from mt2

and now 3... this might surprise you guys since i just talked abt them being better at writing the law and chaos sides and to be fair this is on a subjective perspective but... i didn't like the alignment choices in this game

smt2 to me was essentially a game with dope worldbuilding and dope story concept all ready to be deliciously consumed on a plate but the execution ended up not feeling satisfying on the stomach

i think what made me like smt4&a way more than smt2 is that it showed more impact from the choices happening around the protagonist in a way that i could say "yeah this alignment makes sense for what he's feeling"

basically there's already very few relevant alignments choices and they went too far on making aleph an incognito for the player to insert their own thoughts into so the final result is that he ended up being awfully hard to read and sympathize with

guy is probably not even a year old, no hint of childhood, had fake memories but got them wiped (double brainwashing??) so he was literally a blank state with no humanity inserted into by the time he was found and taken by the gym uncle

he had no mercy in killing when he was a gladiator too so the likely options for aleph's personality is: 1. church tool (fake memories) 2. basically him copying the gym uncle and the normal citizens around him (after his memory got reset)

anyway i think you can guess where i'm going with this, a lot of the buildup to aleph has him either instinctly acting on the law side since it was what he was made for or he gradually replacing his default persona with feelings of compassion from living with normal people

the thiiiiing is, the biiiiiig problem i have with how the alignment system is written in some games that is ALSO a thing here is that when they want to make the player decide between law or chaos they don't discern between dark/light actions (aka being selfish or being selfless)

you'd think being a church tool would make aleph a cold-hearted guy. but no! remember the subplot with the workers in sweatshops? if you decide to release them from being incarcerated, it gives a LOT of points towards being law instead

the chaos side on the other hand wants to protect the underworld and the abyss residents from being exterminated but if you wanna join them you have to act like a selfish jackass in some instances like refusing to help hiroko, wanting to kill daleth or violently coercing demons

so tldr my frustration is that it was just really confusing why aleph would switch from law to other alignments. it got extra ?? with the whole "fake" yhvh and "true" yhvh thing. i don't think they even put down a proper explanation for why he'd prefer killing lucifer in neutral

like geez lucifer is so goddamn selfless in this era! he had his own agenda but prioritized giving help to the weak until the end instead of going on a rant of 'hurr the strongest wins'

man i can't stress enough that law was a big punch on the gut not only for zayin going 180º but also because the game gave you the impression you were gonna be "the kind law guy" and instead you got betrayed and forced to genocide the whole planet into oblivion

anyway that's what i fucking mean when i say aleph is hard to read 🙉 when aleph showed compassion to workers it was a buildup to abandon them in the limbo. when aleph was violent to mutants it was a buildup for him siding with them against the oppressors. like wtf

so yeah something something this game is biased towards being neutral since it was a sequel/alternate future to smt1 just like smt4a was to smt4. it's the best standpoint for how to make his actions make sense, whatever. aleph neutral hooray i guess

END

[willsnerdcorner]

So, I’ve been playing D&D since 2014ish(?), and as one could guess I have created a lot of characters since then. I also love getting art of them (something I didn’t start doing until 2018/2019) as well as notable NPCs and villains. So, I’m going to post the art and talk about the characters because why not? Let’s talk about my gunslinger Kate, not my favorite but still second as well as my longest running character (3.5-4 years I believe?).

Anyway, this lovely piece drawn by my friend Veronica (ArtStation in the link) is of my high elf gunslinger Kate. Quick description of the character since this is more of a discussion of the thought process of the character:

Katelyn Evelyn Sulyvahn Van Doren was born to the Van Dorens, a noble house run by a fair family and mostly beloved by their people. When she was 60, her family were overthrown by rebels and killed off mostly. The only survivors of this massacre were her, and unknown to Kate her older sister. The people who overthrew her family enacted an old punishment so cruel most people thought it was an urban myth (more to come on that since I want to make sure I TW that section). Eventually she was freed by a man named Oberon who took her under his wing as a bounty hunter as he showed her new weapons he had stolen/replicated, guns.

She suffered through intense PTSD and it was only through Oberon she was able to go from unfunctional to functioning somewhat. A ten year process that would have felt like a flash of time for someone who would be as long lived as Kate. She wanted to kill her tormentors, but not out of a sense of vengeance. She wanted to be able to sleep at night without worry they would bring her back to these people. Eventually, Kate would meet up with the party and travel with them after a scuffle landed Oberon in hot water so they had to travel separately. Thus began her adventure…

From this point onwards I will discuss the making of her character as well as potentially upsetting things. For those in need: trigger warnings of torture, body image issues, and mental illness. You have been warned.

When I designed Kate I knew that there would be some comparison to a much more famous gunslinger, Percy from Critical Role. I’d be lying if some of his story beats didn’t form the base of this character. It’s only natural, but the key was to have the same beats differently. Percy is a character driven by vengeance that threatens to consume him. Kate I wanted to make a character that needed to kill some of these people to be left alone. Kate never really wanted vengeance but these people who tormented her were extremely present and powerful in the setting. With the main one she interacted with being one of the major antagonists of the last arc. She could not just let them be, they would always come to find her unless she could prove that was a bad idea or just remove the ones who would hunt her most of all.

This is a character colored by her traumatic past, and while I did try to include things in that made her a character versus a pizza cutter (jury is out if I did that or not) it informed a lot of her attributes so that she was only her traumatic past. When creating this character, I included a lot of little details that tried to show a softer side to this character that might not be readily apparent. A love of oranges, a desire to still be able wear dresses, finding an owl familiar she named Jareth, and eventually taking up guitar. She couldn’t be all trauma or else that would just make for a poor character.

We do need to talk about the source of her trauma if we want to discuss the character overall. During the 30 years her captors kept her imprisoned they were merciless in how they tormented her. I do not want to go into details, since outside of the DM as well as one player, I didn’t not super disclose those details to the party since I didn’t think it was needed because it was always way scarier to have them guess and also I did not think she was a character who would want it brought up. All the party knew was she was covered from her neck down in scars and magical chain tattoos that no one until one Yuan-Ti shaman later could remove as well as she been tortured by these people. The chains were the most concerning and distressing to her as they were a constant reminder of the fact that she never would be truly free of them. In the same way, I often had her in pain for long treks or needing to lean on things to rest when she had to exert herself often. The weather playing havoc when the pressure dropped and her body was in constant pain as a result.

The body scarring and tattoos did come from a slightly personal place, body image. I have a lot of them, and this sort of informed the character. Both Kate and I wear a lot of clothes to hide our skin so people can’t see it. Albeit for different reasons (her’s are the result of intensive torment), a part of her journey was slowly becoming more at peace with what she was dealing with as she looked for a way to fix the damage done to her. To at least not be freaked out whenever her clothes ripped or anyone saw her old wounds. This played a part of a person who was sort of hampered by pain that eventually managed to overcome it by the end. Overall, how she handled it was inspired by how I have hidden my own insecurities. So I don’t want to say this is a great allegory for handling body image issues overall, but the how was at least personally inspired on what I’ve had go through my head.

Kate was also special since she was the first queer PC I had ever made. It took me a long time to accept my bisexuality, and I only came out to my family in the last year or so. So, I tested the waters by making my characters LGBTQ to sort of prepare for that. Kate is a lesbian, and her story ultimately ends with her raising her niece on a nice plot of land with Oberon, a gnome named Crawshack, and her girlfriend later wife Inari (who didn’t take Kate’s last name since they would have run out of room on the marriage certificate). She gets her happy ending, with a loving souse and a family on a farm somewhere where she can live undisturbed.

A lot of folks have also asked me why a gunslinger? I was playing a lot of Red Dead 2. That’s literally it. Some things don’t have a deep reason.

Probably should stop here, but if folks like this I might write up more of my characters later. Let me know!

[descentintosiblingcon]

Chapter 11: 4 Years Ago

Mireille sends an email thanking the others for hanging out with her yesterday.

At the City of Water, Mireille tries to go over the clues but Shugo keeps dozing off. Zafie kept him up all night beating him at the word game because, apparently, Shugo can't stand to lose at anything. Meanwhile, Zafie sees her reflection in the water and, thinking it's her mother, jumps in. Shugo rescues her and the group, upon learning about why she dived, is faintly amused by the intellectual shortcomings of this small child. Rena outright says that's it hard to tell if Zafie is smart or dumb. Mireille thinks it's an endearing quality and Shugo doesn't mind, just telling her not to do it again.

Back to Mireille. She found out that four years ago, six players fell unconscious while playing the World...

But back to Balmung suddenly! Balmung is summoned before his bitch-ass superiors for a hearing. Balmung believes it concerns Shugo and Zafie but the CC guys dismiss them as nothing more than a "child's summer vacation diary". No, he was supposed to be investigating Aura. Balmung calls them out for only caring about risks and the CC counters that no fucking duh that's all they care about. With the AIs getting all uppity and interacting with players, it could signal the second coming of the "Twilight" (Perhaps the event Mireille were talking about?). Balmung shouts they have no proof that the bracelet poses a threat to anything but the CC doesn't want to take any chances. Balmung then asks about Aura and the CC say that she's considered a threat to their interests. The whole shouting match confirms their one point that they are sick of Balmung's rebel ass and the conversation ends with him being demoted from administrator...

Finally back to Mireille. She is about to start on the Four Years thing. Most of the gang wasn't even into games back then. She recalls with Ouka the incident in Yokohama where major disasters occurred in Yokohama, knocking out the internet. This somehow caused multiple users of the World to fall unconscious and get hospitalized. Even Shugo is in complete "what the fuck..." mode because of the ridiculousness of the event. He tries to dismiss it as an urban legend but Mireille says there are too many coincidences for it to be a story (Invincible monsters, areas that can't be accessed by the gate...). Four years ago is also when the [.hackers] first appeared. It's also when the Zafie lookalike popped up. It's here where the group figures out that the true final mystery could in fact be about Zafie and the bracelet.

Zafie's about to jump overboard again...but it's a prank to get the girls wet and to get back at them for calling her dumb earlier. That'll show them for showing concern over her general welfare!

Anyway, Reki is spying on them but he's non-physically ambushed by Magi who tells him to hand over all the data records he's holding. Reki flips but Magi calmly explains the Shugo case has been handed over to Kamui in the wake of Balmung's demotion. Reki is pissed but Magi points it out it's out of her hands: it's company's orders. Snatching the data records, she leaves Reki with advice: if you can't control your data, delete it. It doesn't matter if it's a user, an NPC, or a system administrator...

Magi leaves and Reki, though noting how much he rightfully thought of Balmung as a jackass, points out Balmung always put the players first. He's not gonna sit back and let things end like this...

Back at the City of Water, Shugo is all ready to go on an adventure now that they got all the information they need. The girls...are still wet and discouraged. Shugo's a bit thrown by the dismotivation but the situation gets significantly more awkward when Rena comes out and asks Shugo if he cares more about Zafie or her. Rena complains that Zafie's all he talks about recently and Shugo snaps back that she is a teenage girl getting jealous over an AI. Rena screams she is not and Shugo hollers she is too (the group is pathetically silently on his side.).

Before shit gets too dramatic, Kamiya shows up to bitch Shugo out for making Rena cry. After a particularly insulting introduction (Kamiya The Turd is a depth even I wouldn't stoop to), Mireille demands to know how he even got in without a member address. Turns out Kamui opened the door for him with her knights. It's a raid! Ouka gets bodied and Kamui points out, due to Kamiya's report, they're all under arrest. The chapter ends with Shugo's character model being seized for suspicious of malicious cheating.

THOUGHTS

Drama! Suspense! A legitimate sibling conflict without creepy overtones! Things just keep getting better in the siscon manga...wow, that's a sentence I did not expect to or want to write.

[mothocean]

ANSWER REVEAL (includes spoilers for the end of the main game and many of the seasons):

1- the little prince is in fact there! During July-September of 2021 there was a collab season (basically an event with a storyline and quests that runs for several months) between sky and The Little Prince, in which the player could experience the story of the book (slightly adjusted to fit sky's enviornment/themes) as a stand-in for the pliot and companion to the little prince. You can still play the season's questline and spirit cutscenes, though due to copyright reasons the little prince appears in all of them as a spirit (whereas during the season he was 'alive' like the player characters).

2 - all the humanoid npcs in the game are spirits/ghosts of the previous residents of the sky kingdom, which was destroyed in a war/some kind of disaster that left all of its residents dead. The skykids aka the players are pretty much the only living people around right now, as they are the new residents of the kingdom and are tasked with carrying on the memories of the ancestor spirits. The skykids can't effectively die (and you'll see me refer to 'killing' with quotations bc you don't really die from those encounters) aside from in one specific point in the game, after which they get basically reincarnated (as cycles of death and rebirth are a major part of the game's themes).

3 - the floating diamond npc is the season guide for Season of Shattering, which ran from July-September 2022. It was an experimental season that didn't really have a questline or spirits and instead centered around the newly introduced shard events. As such, instead of a regular seasonal guide there was a floating red diamond titled 'the void of shattering'. It certainly was a Season.

4 - Season of Rememberance, which ran from January-April 2023, centered around a group of spirits living in an underground shelter in the vault of knowledge. All the spirits lost a loved one to the war and are seeking refuge in the shelter, and the player helps them by renovating the shelter to include things that'd bring them comfort. It's definitely one of the darker seasons concept-wise but the actual questline mostly centers around improving the shelter so it's not as dark as it sounds.

5 - here i was referring to the Trial of Fire, the last trial in the cave of prophecies. In it there's giant worm-like creatures that can steal your entire light, effectively 'killing' you and forcing you to retreat to the last checkpoint you lit up. The place with giant murder shrimp is Golden Wasteland, which has the dark dargons/krills which can also steal your light (tho not quite 'kill' you).

6 - the singer AURORA is, also, in fact there. Season of AURORA was a collab season between sky and the singer which ran from October 2022-January 2023. The quests in the season told the spirits' backstories and were all based on different aurora songs, with the final quest being a full on interactive concert within the game (which you can watch a playthrough of on TGC's youtube channel here:)

7 - that was the lie one! Though there are similar-looking areas in the game, such as the bird's nest area in Daylight Prairie, the Sanctuary Islands and the Wind Paths which all include floating islands, and Golden Wasteland and second-to-last level in Vault of Knowledge which include giant whale/manta skeletons. Looking back I probably should've picked something a bit less similar to preexisting areas because I saw some ppl confuse this one for one of the areas mentioned above.

8 - that is the plotline for the last quest for Season of Abyss, which ran during January-March 2022 and centered around a group of pirate spirits looking for treasure in the depths of the sea. Throughout the previous quests, one of the spirits grows jealous of the player because they always managed to find a lot of treasure for the crew, and so on the last quest said spirit searches for treasure in an incredibly deep area. When the crew starts worrying about them and sends the player to look for them, the player finds their passed out-body and then they both get swallowed by a terrifying many-eyed sea monster. Eventually the player manages to get the sea monster to open its mouth and release them both (as well as many other creatures it had swallowed over time).

9 - this is an easter egg/secret feature so if you haven't done it yet, i'd suggest you do so! (And stop reading here if you don't want any more spoilers regarding it). The specific grave through which you can summon the dog can be found in the area that you reach after doing the eight players puzzle in the villages area of Daylight Prairie. The dog itself is based on the game creator's dog, Oreo!

Sky fans please don't spoil the right answer in the tags

[nikos-oneshots]

maybe a hero and reader? where reader really likes drawing and often draws hero without him knowing, either showing him the drawings it he finds them? thank you if you do! <3

-☘ anon

Hero with a Crush / Partner who Loves to Draw.

|| Request Information ||

Warnings: None!

Word Count: 775

Pronouns: Unmentioned / Second Person

Notes: Welcome to the blog ☘ Anon! Glad to have you here!

You were always quiet, not shy, but quiet. You never really talked to anybody unless they were to talk to you first and because of that, nobody really spoke to you

A few people caught your eye that you might want to interact with, but you never managed to talk to them. Major NPC energy.

Your favourite place to sketch was the park, it would get you out of the house and give you many ideas on what to draw. You just preferred to sit in a nice place and sketch whatever came to mind.

One day you would be drawing all the pets you had seen, next would be mythical creatures along with infrastructure design and the next would be the people you have seen around Faraway.

You had a couple pages in your sketchbook dedicated to the people you would draw. You liked how unique everybody's appearance was so it was your favourite thing to draw.

You wouldn't actually tell the people you were sketching that you were sketching them. They usually wouldn't notice so you had an easy time with your work. You don't think many of them knew you existed.

One beautiful, summer day was spent by you at the park, as usual. You had been sketching some flowers that were growing by the tetherball court since nobody had been around that day.

You began to hear a group of people walk by near the entrance of the park. You look up and saw a group of 6 walk over by the basketball court. You had seen them around before but had never interacted with them.

One of the guys in the group caught your eye, he was tall and had neatly-styled brown hair. He appeared around your age. You had only remembered seeing him maybe once?

You instantly started sketching him as he sat against the tree right beside it, giving you the perfect opportunity to sketch him properly.

After a bit, you noticed he managed to catch on that you were sketching him, but he didn't say anything right away. You felt embarrassed that somebody noticed you when you were so used to feeling like they never did.

You were so close to done with the sketch, but you honestly wanted to leave and never see that guy again. You decided that if he didn't walk up and talk to you, it's okay if you stayed to finish it, so that's what you did.

After a bit, you finished your sketch of him, you started to get up to quickly make your exit but as you were about to leave, someone stopped you. It was him.

"Hey! Sorry if this sounds a little self-centered, but I couldn't help but notice that when you were sketching, you were looking right at me. Where you sketching me?"

He was met with a lot of stuttering and muttering from you. He didn't seem weirded out by your nervousness, he actually kind of seemed understanding in a weird way?

You eventually told him that yes, you had decided to sketch him. He was immediately curious and asked to see the drawing. Since you thought it would be weird to say no, you let him see it. You didn't want him to feel like you were hiding something.

He was amazed at your skills. "It looks so accurate! You must have an eye for detail!".

You liked that you were getting praised for your work, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to stay and finish it after all.

As you began to relax around him, he invited you to come to meet the other people he was with. You met his brother Kel and his friends, Aubrey and Sunny. You could tell Kel liked you right from the start, Sunny and Aubrey might need some time to get to know you.

Sunny and Hero were just visiting which made you sad, but on the bright side, Hero went to college in the same town that Sunny lives in, so you could keep in touch with both of them easily.

Now because of that interaction, because you decided to draw the pretty boy you saw in the park, you had an amazing group of friends! You began to hang out with them often and soon, Sunny and Aubrey began to warm up to you as well as you met one of their friends, Basil!

Your favourite thing to draw went from the faces of people around Faraway town, to one specific person in under a week, that person being Hero. You managed to memorize how his face looked, even without seeing it in person.

Sorry for the short post, I'm planning on doing a part 2 to this! I have more to say about Hero and his Artist S/O so look out for that! Also sorry if I have seemed dead for like a week. Last week was really busy for me, I had a huge exam for English which I'm pretty sure I passed and last night I just saw the Cavetown Concert in Toronto! It was so much fun for my first concert and I even got the tour shirt! Anyways, I'm sure to get requests done, I'm excited to write for them!

Lots Of Love

-Niko🥞

[stupendousgardenunknown]

Pairing: Shinsou Hitoshi x f!reader

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: cheating, extramarital affair, mentions of drug use

Notes: All characters are aged up. Silicon Valley!AU

Chapter 9: Not That Simple

Four Years Ago

Denki Kaminari was always the life of the party. That was the case in college, and it’s still the case now. They were celebrating another major contract for Brainianics, a video game company that wanted to utilize their AI algorithm to make the NPC’s more believable and interactive. And they were willing to pay a lot of money for it. It was certainly cause for celebration. They rented out a couple of floors on a well-known sky rise building and everyone who was anyone was here tonight.

“Shinsou!” Denki said, arms spread as he walked towards the purple haired man.

“Hey man,” Shinsou said, setting his drink down to give the blond a hug. Kyoka laughed, mainly to be polite.

“We fucking did it, bro!” Shinsou laughed at the blonde’s words as he patted the other man’s back, and to be honest- he couldn’t believe it either. Denki pulled back, squeezing Shinsou’s shoulders tightly as his teeth were gritted in excitement. A little too excited. Shinsou looked over to Kyoka- who seemed preoccupied with something on her phone.

“Hey- I’ll be back but enjoy yourself. We’re celebrating!” Shinsou said and Denki nodded, throwing a suggestive look over to his girlfriend.

“Oh- we will.” And Shinsou couldn’t help but to laugh again. Denki and Kyoka had this whole “will they, won’t they?” thing going throughout high school, allegedly (according to Ochako), culminating at the end of their freshman year in college. If you ask Kyoka she would say that Denki admitted to his feelings first. If you ask Denki, he would say that Kyoka admitted first and that they slept together that night.

Moving to the next room, Shinsou could still hear Denki shouting “shots!” as he made small talk and patted the backs of his fellow executives for Brainianics. The party went long, and he saw Denki and Kyoka making out on the couch as it drew towards its’ end. His mind hazy, he suspects the weed he partook in was laced with something that he wasn’t familiar with. Denki must have noticed the way Shinsou stumbled towards him, because he shot up with a wide grin. Kyoka giggled and didn’t move from her spot.

“Need a ride?” Denki’s eyes were bloodshot, Shinsou noticed. The blonde took a swig from a drink where the ice had melted, and looked over at the brunette to his side.

“Baby, we should prolly get goin’ too.” Kyoka was in a fit of giggles, and Shinsou’s legs went out beneath him. He fell to the floor, hand catching himself and Denki broke out in laughter.

“Party foul!!” He shouted, and walked over to help Shinsou up. What the fuck was in that weed?

“Hey,” The purple haired man would feel Denki’s hot breathe on his cheek, as the blonde helped him up to at least a sitting position before phishing out a small baggie from the inside of his jacket. “Want a bump? Might help focus you a little.” Shinsou nodded, the room starting to spin slightly.

“Hey- gimme some too!” Kyoka suddenly; becoming deadly serious and Denki turned slightly and patted invisible air as if to say “relax, you’ll get yours too.” Denki cleared off the table, pouring some of the coke onto it and quickly creating two neat, tight lines with a business card. Shinsou twisted himself, crawling and closing a nostril as he inhaled; swallowing and sniffing. He didn’t even see Kyoka move, but when Shinsou blinked the other line was gone, and he almost worried that he did two lines without even remembering the second. But the way Kyoka was rubbing her nose she just must have done it fairly quickly.

There were still people around, the music loud and blaring, but it was nearing six in the morning and Shinsou knew better than to try and stay out all night. Denki helped him to his feet and they all made their way downstairs to the car. Shinsou’s arm draped around Denki, and he knew he made the right choice to trust the blonde. Denki would take care of him.

Kyoka brought the blonde’s car key out from his tiny purse and the yellow Corvette blazed to life, its headlights nearly blinding the trio.

“Jesus, your car is tacky.” Shinsou muttered and Denki barked with laughter.

When Shinsou was first brought into the group, his only friend- only real friend was Izuku. But then the blonde kept asking him questions about himself, seeming genuinely interested and Shinsou couldn’t help but to marvel at how honest Denki was. There wasn’t a manipulative bone in the man’s body. Hell- the first person Shinsou even did coke with was with him. Whereas Shouto and Tenya came from old money, Denki came from new. His own mother was the head of an auditing firm that had sold when Denki was born and she made a living jetting across the world telling other up-and-coming consulting what they needed to do to be successful as well as telling investing firms what startups had potential.

“I think I need another bump.” Shinsou said as he slumped into the passenger seat. Denki tossed him the baggie as they clothed the doors and started to make their way to Shinsou’s place. They were about halfway when their bodies seized and their hearts stopped as red and blue lights started to spiral in the rearview mirror like a fucked up kaleidoscope and the eerie ‘wheep-po-wheep’ squeal of a warning siren.

“Denki.” Kyoka’s voice sounded like a strained whisper. Her music career was really taking off, this could be detrimental for his career. As for Shinsou, well, what would his Dad’s think? Denki pulled over quickly, face becoming pale as the blood drained.

“Shin.” Denki said with quiet determination. Shinsou was sure his heart had stopped, his muscles refusing to move an inch. They could all hear the door open and close of the police car as if it was happening inside the car. They had seconds, and Denki needed to make it count.

“Yeah?” Shinsou squeaked out, eyes not moving from the dancing lights in the rear view mirror. He could see it now. Everything that he worked so hard for- crumbling to the ground. Denki wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Give me the coke.”

Present Day

Kyoka was tapping away at her phone, and Shinsou was starting to get impatient.

“Jirou.” He said, and the brunette looked up, half annoyed.

“Shin.” She echoed back in the same tone. Shinsou raised his brows before leaning back. If she was going to be on her phone the entire time then why was he here? A flash from the corner of his eye reminded him. Oh that's right, because Kyoka needed some juicy press before her next album release and he needed the paparazzi to only see you as a friend. So a fake PR relationship between him and Kyoka was born. He wonders if you and him will ever have kids, and if so, will they ever see the articles between him and Kyoka and think he was a scumbag for ever dating anyone besides you?

“You should probably try to look interested… or that you’re having a fun time.” She sighs and puts away her phone. There were only a couple of paparazzi present. Jirou wanted a couple more to show up, to snag a few more photos to create this timeline on their relationship. To make it more real. The brunette leaned in and set her chin upon both fists as she gave a much-too-loud laugh. The cameras ate it up. The headlines wrote themselves. “Kyoka Jirou and Shinsou Hitoshi- the next Elon & Grimes?” Gag.

“Was that fun enough?” She grumbled, digging into her purse and dragging out a cigarette, quickly attempting to light it. Shinsou made a face.

“I thought you quit.” He said, trying hard to not look over at the cameras and make it obvious that he knows that they’re there. He heard somewhere that reality TV stars at first struggle with looking at the camera, almost like a deer in headlights. You just can’t help but to freeze under the gaze. Eventually you learn to pretend like it’s not there- background noise. Although he’s not sure if he could ever get used to the cameras. He didn’t like it when he was dating Kari and he didn’t like it now. He’d much rather be holed up in some random hotel overlooking an ocean, with you in his bed.

“I did,” Kyoka responds, mumbling with the cigarette in her mouth and struggling to light the damn thing. Shinsou clicks his tongue and hands her one of his lighters. She accepts the small thing, and finally the end springs to life. Kyoka takes a long drag and eyes Shinsou carefully.

“What’s up with you?” She asks, her bobbed hair dancing slightly and she actually looks amused. Is it that obvious? That he’s in love? A smile spreads across his face.

“Nothing.” He says.

“Oh come on- we’re friends, aren’t we?” More than that- we’re accomplices to the arrest of dear old Denki Kaminari.

“You’re right.” Shinsou says, folding his own arms behind his head. Jirou giggles.

“Sooo?” She sings and stirs her coffee, as if they’re gearing up for their game of “who likes who” at a slumber party. Shinsou used to see it whenever his younger sister had all of her little friends over for sleepovers. It was a whole event, and a couple of times he would hear his own name among the mix. He wouldn’t see those girls again once it happened- but that was another story.

“Okay, okay,” He started, and Kyoka could see how his eyes came to life.

“There is…. A woman…” He admits and the brunette is visibly shocked. Shinsou’s cheeks are brushed with red. Blushing! At his old age?

“Oooh!” She gasps, she doesn’t even recall Shinsou getting this flustered talking about Kari.

“It’s…” Cheating. An affair. “Sort of on the down low right now.” His gaze is diverted to his own cup of coffee, unwilling to see what kind of face Jirou is making right now.

“Why on the down low?” She questions.

“It’s… complicated.” Because she’s married. In a legally binding contract with another man.

“Oh, I see.” She says and Shinsou is half worried she knows exactly who he’s talking about. But the rational part of him knows that there is no way. Unless Izuku and Tenya gossip. But they’re not the type.

“She has a crazy ex, huh?” Her eyes look a little bored again, like she’s heard this story a million times. Shinsou wishes he could tell the truth- really. But he didn’t need or want the extra judgment right now after Izuku.

“Yeah.” He decided to run with the white lie for now. What harm can it do? Besides, it’s just Kyoka Jirou. She sips on her coffee between drags and Shinsou feels like he needs to address the elephant in the cafe patio that seems to always suck the air out of the room wherever they are.

“Have you visited-” Kyoka seems to be one step ahead of him and knows exactly where this is going.

“No.” Her face gets grave, and her tone is absolute. Shinsou’s lips automatically shut tight, and he tries to give her an apologetic look, but the way her leg starts to bounce nervously he thinks that he's already said too much.

“I think we can go. I think they got the shot.” Kyoka says, and before Shinsou could even say anything additional, she’s gotten up, gives him a peck on the lips and turns to return to her car.

…

You’re picking out an outfit for the day when you receive Shinsou’s text.

Shinsou: Sorry, doll- can’t do lunch today. PR stuff.

You know what that means. “PR Stuff” has become code for “need to be seen with Kyoka Jirou”. It’s for your protection, but it doesn’t stop the sinking feeling in your gut and the way your lungs deflate in your chest like a plant that’s just died. You sit on the chaise at the end of the king size bed you share with your husband, head slowly turning to gaze out the window- flooding your room with warm light.

You needed to get out of here.

You: No worries! 🤗

With a huff- you text something else before Shinsou starts to think you’re actually upset.

You: I’ve been wanting to see the gardens. If you want to join? After work?

As soon as you send the message the ellipses from Shinsou’s side pop up and bubble, stopping, before popping up again.

Shinsou: I’d love to. 😉

It brings a smile to your face, but it’s short lived as you hear the front door open and close. A quick glance to the time at the corner of your phone marks that it’s a little after noon, much too early for it to be your husband? Panic fills your veins as you stand. A robber? In the middle of the day?

Your husband always told you to remember to lock the front door- but you lived in a gated community with plenty of other bored housewives for god sake- a dog didn’t even take a shit on someone’s yard without at least five other people posting about it on the neighborhood facebook page. Let alone someone suspicious walking around and being able to just walk in.

“Sweetie?” A voice called- and your brow quirks. Funny- this robber sounded just like your husband. You find your way to the railing and you can see the burly man taking off his suit jacket and plop onto the couch. Strange. He looked just like your husband too.

“What are you doing up there?” He asks and you tilt your head. All signs point to- your husband.

“Albert?” You ask and he’s not even looking at you. Instead he hums lightly, trying to figure out the remote and getting a little impatient with it.

“Why are you home early?” You question, a little louder this time as you make your way down the stairs and into the living area. The older man shifts and finally settles once the TV is on, you don’t even have to look to know that it’s the golding channel. Out of all the things you pretended to like- you would have to say golf was the most boring. All the chilly mornings you wasted at the country club watching older men ogle the bar cart girls when you could have been at home.

“I wanted to take the day off.” He says. Shit.

“Oh?” Is all you can muster out, walking a little closer to join him.

“Yeah-” He finally looks over and gives you a warm smile.

“I wanted to spend some time with my lovely wife.” Shit, shit, shit- He turns and his eyes seem to pierce you.

“Is there something wrong with that?” It’s almost as if he could see the panic in your eyes, but the corners of his crinkle and he laughs.

“But if you have plans that’s okay.” A wave of concern washes over you. You may be in love with another man but that didn’t mean you were heartless.

“Is everything okay with work?” You ask and you lean closer to him on the couch. He waves you off, eyes refocusing on some rookie trying to get the ball into the hole in complete silence- even the announcer is whispering like he was physically there and if he spoke too loud- the golfer would miss his mark. You feel the same- if you bothered Albert too much, his focus would be thrown off. You bite your lip, unsure if you should proceed to ask him about his day, you know- like a wife would. But you’ve already crossed the threshold into cheating territory. Did that mean you weren’t allowed to care when your husband unexpectedly comes home early when the last time he did that was maybe 7 years ago after he lost a major case?

Instead, you get up from the couch with a sigh and head over to your in-home bar and prepare a small glass of scotch and bring it to him. He accepts it, fingers not even touching yours as he takes the glass and keeps his focus squarely onto the television. Whatever guilt you had- was gone now as you stared at the man you swore to always love. Was this what all neglected, scorned wives thought before they killed their husbands? What happened between us? You can’t help but to think of Nick Dunn’s dialogue as you stare down at the balding head of your husband. “What have we done to each other?” How lovely the top of his head is, how much lovelier would it look if it was smashed in?

After he successfully sucked all the best years of you while keeping you properly satiated with trips and expensive gifts. Maybe you should have looked more deeply into the fact that his marriage to you was actually his first. There were a lot of things that escaped your young eyes.

Ignoring your temporary homicidal impulse, you suck in a breath and turn to head back upstairs.

“I actually did have plans- with Ana.” It’s a test.

“Ana?” Yup, you were right. He has no idea who your friends are, no matter how many times you tell him in detail who these people were- people that you spent so much time with.

“Yes, Ana.” You shout from the room, and you’re not lying. You have a couple hours to kill before the work day is done, and you shoot a text to the reliable as ever Ana if she would like to grab an early dinner. She responds happily, apparently she has some hot gossip for you which- who were you to turn down? Ana has one of those faces that encourages people to spill their guts- you never did that, but others did, which forever makes Ana uncomfortable but gives you two things to talk about.

When you step down, and in a lightly colored skirt and turtleneck combo, Albert gives you a one over.

“I might be out late, I’ll text you when I’m on my way home.” You can’t see the way that Albert’s brows lift in acknowledgement, but you’re sure that he does. As you collect your essentials and stuff them into your tiny designer purse- an anniversary gift from Albert you flash him a smile before you head out the door. No, “I love you”s, no “Drive Safe”, just an expression and knowing that you’ll come back. You can’t quite decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

…

Your hands are gripping the steering wheel as you face the traffic, honking when a car in front of you cuts you up and it’s when you’re sitting at a stoplight you spot a sign, billboard, really of a simple design of a video game character, stopped at a crossroads. There’s letters above it, simply stating, “Make your NPC’s smarter. Brainianics.” You let out a huff of a laugh, glancing to make sure the light didn’t change while you weren’t looking. It’s strange, you had never seen a sign about Brainianics until now. You remember hearing something a while ago, something about simply not being aware of something, and once you are, you seemingly can’t escape it.

Shinsou has seemingly infected your life. Now that you have been exposed to him, you can’t escape him. Was it always supposed to be this way? Or was this the major derailment?

The light changes without you noticing, and you’re startled when the car behind you honks.

“Relax.” You mutter as you move your foot from the brake to the gas and move forward, turning when you need to and pulling into valet parking for the restaurant Ana chose. She brightens when she sees you, grinning and waving to the seat across from her. The restaurant is bistro style, and the chairs looked like they were either too heavy to comfortably move without breaking a sweat, or the type where a light wind takes them out and never seems to be balanced. Upon reaching the chair and being met with resistance, the metal legs screeching against the floor, you realized it was the latter.

“Oh, my god, you’ll never believe what I have to tell you.” Ana starts and you give her a strained smile as you settle into your seat. She’s wearing a soft blue chiffon button down. It’s tied up just above her white jeans and her hair done up in a little chignon bun. If her features were just slightly different she would make for a great Princess Diana look-alike.

“What happened?” You lean in and she finishes a sip of her water. You’re actually invested, she’s practically shaking. Like she’s been really dying to tell someone.

“Okay!” She sets her water down.

“Remember, Cheyenne?” Barely, you think. She was a board member of another non-profit focused on veteran housing and job acquisition. She was okay, not very memorable. Always kept to herself. You think the only interesting bit about her was that she was married to a hot shot startup CEO.

“Yeah?” You question, opening the menu. Did they have anything other than salads and crepes? Your face crinkles at the option of a “sausage crepe”. Ana whines, hands stretched and flapping.

“She’s getting a divorce!” You stare at her. Her eyes are wide and lips are pinched together. Divorced? For a moment, you understand. It happens all the time here. The first wives are always replaced almost as soon if not shortly after a startup gets successful. The fact that yours has lasted nearly ten years is a novelty. Especially when your first wife is as quiet and forgettable as Cheyenne. That still must suck, though.

“Wow, her husband already got a new girlfriend?” You say with a face, and flag down a waiter.

“No-” Ana interjects, her voice still sounds shocked like she’s hearing this for the first time as well.

“She cheated on him!” For some reason, your heart is seizing in your chest, and you're convinced you need a defibrillator for a second to get your heart back into motion. But the way you suck in a breath through your nostrils and your head twitches to look at her.

“Huh?” Mousy little Cheyenne? Ana grin is ear to ear.

“Yes!” She all but shouts. She reaches to grab an individual leaf from her salad and munches down on it. You reach up to rub your neck, focusing on a little spot and scratch nervously. You’re wondering how she even knows this.

“What happened?” You question, trying to not imagine that this is how people would talk about you if you were to be caught with Shinsou. The blonde’s eyes wander across the table as she smiles slyly.

“You remember Rob Jenk?” She questions, and you search your mind. There was only so much room in your brain for people you saw maybe once a year. Your mouth opens and then clicks shut, head shaking slightly.

“He’s heavily involved with the VA, super muscular guy? Buzz cut?” Didn’t that describe every guy involved with the VA? Although it makes sense, Cheyenne’s working long hours with the VA…. sort of like working with Shinsou for long hours on “events”... You swallow, eyes meeting Ana’s. Lips pursed, you suck in some hair telling her ‘I still have no idea what you’re talking about’. She huffs, frustrated that the impact of this knowledge is lost on you.

“Well, anyway,” She moved along, pausing when you gave your order of some fruity crepe option to the waiter. “I guess they were sleeping together for a couple months before she came clean to her husband.” Why was she telling you this? You think back to what she said the night of that fundraiser, where Shinsou thanked you on stage for inspiring him. The strange sympathetic look she gave. You scratch harder.

“So she admitted everything?” You ask and Ana nods furiously, some stray blonde locks falling into her face.

“Yes!” She exclaims, you lean back to allow the waiter to set the small plate of fruit and crepe onto the table. She doesn’t continue until the waiter leaves.

“Apparently she fell in love with the guy, and now she’s getting divorced.” She shrugs, and you bite into your crepe. How should you even react to this? Happy for Cheyenne? No- wouldn’t that be you stamping your approval on cheating? But love is love right? And you can’t help who you fall in love with. You certainly couldn’t help your attraction to Shinsou. With the way his eyes always seemed to be trained on you, and how he couldn’t even stand to be physically separated from you for long.

“Isn’t that crazy?” Ana asks, looking at you expectedly. You swallow again, hearing your phone ding and not missing a beat you pick it up.

Shinsou: I’m ready whenever you are, doll 😘

“Yeah,” You mumble as you open your phone.

“Crazy.”

…

The trees are filled with fairy lights and your sandals are clicking against the cobblestone. Shinsou right next to you, too far yet if he was closer people might think you’re a couple.

“You look gorgeous, by the way,” He leans down, hands behind his back. He reeks of weed, and you’re guessing it was a stressful day for him. You stare up at him, he’s smiling, like there’s not a concern in the world. You don’t say anything back, instead brushing a stray lock of hair behind your ears, trying to not smile too hard at his compliment.

“Was it a hard day?” You ask, he whistles in response.

“When is it not?” He brings his hands in front of his and clenches his hands together, stretching. You guess he was a gangly kid. He’s not super broad, at least not as broad as Tenya. But he almost never seems to know what to do with his legs or arms.

“Penny for your thoughts?” You nudge him slightly and you can see his cheeks burn in a slight shade of pink as he looks down at you. His breathe hitches, and he stops, eyes searching for something.

“Uh,” He mutters and points at a bench surrounded by tropical plants near an artificial waterfall. It’s somewhat secluded, only illuminated by the soft twinkle lights.

“Let’s go sit.” You nod and follow him, he sits first and sets his hands on his knees.

“So, you know how Jirou and I are friends?” He says, and you nod again, not quite sure where this was going. Was there something else you didn’t know about? A history between them?

“Nothing ever happened between us,” He assures you, seemingly reading your mind.

“But, she did date Denki.” The name is familiar, from the first article you read that came out when they were first spotted together.

“Right…” Shinsou hesitates again, eyes searching for anyone around before taking your hand into his. He lets out a quiet sigh. He knows he needs to tell you.

He tells you about the night- even the parts where he doesn’t look like a good guy. How Denki was arrested. How he and Jirou got off scott-free. How the firm distanced themselves from him. But he also mentions how well Denki is doing. Denki has been clean since being arrested. How even his parents are proud of his sobriety. You’re nodding along, taking it in. You’re not sure why Shinsou took so long to tell you this. When the purple haired man finishes, he’s staring at you. Nervous. Then you realize he’s expecting you to say something.

“Shinsou,” You say, and you don’t miss the way Shinsou has stopped breathing. “It sounds like you’re a good friend.” You squeeze his hand back, and he releases a sigh, relieved.

“I-” He starts again, squeezing your hand back and giving a cautionary glance to make sure nobody was walking nearby. “I just wanted you to know.” He remembers this conversation with Kari as well, how well she seemingly took it. Until she didn’t. Until she realized that Denki being sober meant that he needed actual support. So whenever Denki craved some coke, he would call up Shinsou, to have someone to talk to, to lean on.

“I understand.” You say, more than Shinsou could know. Growing up as the emotional punching bag and crutch, as taught you a thing or two about the complexities of relationships with vulnerable people. And it sounded like Denki was a vulnerable person. Your tongue swipes over your lips and you reach into your purse to grab some chapstick. You meet Shinsou’s eyes again.

“My baggage is that I’m married, your baggage is that you’re a good friend.” You smile weakly, a shitty attempt at a joke but it seems to break the ice a little. Shinsou breathes but it sounds like a weak laugh.

“But it’s baggage, all the same.” He says.

[garrothromeave]

let’s talk about minecraft diaries rebirth.

and why it’s literally amazing. (warning: this will contain spoilers. lots of them. also, long post ahead.)

i think a lot of people hate mcdr because they were expecting a remake; but the point of rebirth is for jess to rewrite it. it wasn't supposed to be exactly the same.

honestly i went into mcdr with a closed mind. as an og mcd fan, i thought that this was going to suck ass and that i'd rant about how bad it was to my friends later. but actually watching it, i just... couldn't help but immediately fall in love with it.

ik im probably the only motherfucker that likes mcdr, but honestly how could i not? for one, garroth and zenix actually have personalities at the beginning. AND; the villagers? actually amazing. donna made me smile, visher made me laugh and cry, brendan was just bein as good as ever. like... i even didn't despise emmalyn with every ounce of my soul like i usually do?? the characterizations of them were GOOD, man.

and honestly, aphmau like--the way she spoke, her whole thing. it was reallyyy well done in my opinion. she was oblivious to things, but it wasn't overdone and wasn't done in a way to make her annoying. she's a very appealing character in mcdr, a main protagonist i do not mind following along with. her dynamics to the characters are really cool and all very unique.  gonna cut it here so i don’t clog y’all’s feed cuz i got a lot to say :)

the early use of aphmau’s powers was actually pretty cool as well, it also really showed how clueless aphmau really was to everything going on around her. AND UH, THE FACT THAT SHE THOUGHT THAT GARROTH FELT FAMILIAR? GOLDEN. absolutely golden.

AND GENE OH BOY, the early introduction of gene? ik a lot of people are upset about it, but god DAMN i love it so much. his role in the story is very important in original, and i cannot express how much joy this brought me learning that he was actually getting the proper attention for it. and the fact that gene and aphmau were working together?? i mean ik gene was just trying to use her to get back to the "shadow abyss" (pretty pog replacement for the nether, gg) but god DAMN i loved every moment of it. i found their dynamic to be pretty fuckin funny to be honest, would absolutely love to see more of it.

i might be biased considering gene is one of my absolute favorite characters, but i honestly think that introducing gene this early on in the story was a good move. again, he's literally the right-hand man to the shadow lord. it makes you really wonder why he didn't have as much of an important role in season 1 or even 2 of the original mcd plotline. also, we get some of that good-ol-fashioned exposition with seeing early on how vylad and gene interact. vylad’s at a very strange point in the story right now; his motives are unclear, even to the side he’s ‘supposed’ to be taking (aka, a shadow knight.)  another early introduction to a character is zane! this, my friends, is good. really good. i’d say that zane is the main antagonist of season 1 in the original series--and he wasn’t even introduced until like, episode 50. it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but him being introduced this early on really gives the audience a better understanding of what threats are out there and what our protagonist will have to encounter in the future. in the original series, there’s not much explanation as to why lords are disappearing/dying left and right--and while yes, that was supposed to be the mystery of it, having some of that early information is a better move in terms of writing. 

AND IVAN?? BEING A PART OF THE JURY OF NINE?? I COULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR ANYTHING MORE LIKE GOD DAMN that was a very pleasant surprise i'll just say that, thank you jess :)

and no i did not loop the 4 minutes of screentime laurance got in that one episode haha who would do that i would never do that anyways

SPEAKING of laurance, im so glad jess actually wrote him in this early :) she totally could have just waited for the first time aphmau visits meteli and meets him there, but no! she put him in an early episode. i dont even care if she did it just to shut up the fans about laurance but man that made me so happy seeing him, even if it was only for a bit.

okay i kinda wanna go over the guards real fast firstly; garroth. ignoring how weird the helmet showing emotions is, i really like how garroth is portrayed. he's under a lot of pressure because the village is putting a lot of the blame on him for malik's death, and he's trying his hardest to keep things running. the fact that garroth utterly refused the to take up the position of lord and even got a little snappy about it was actually really cool to see as well. and while he doesn’t have that same “reserved, quiet, observant” feel as the original mcd version of him had, this version of garroth is absolutely awesome. he’s more direct and blunt, is significantly more sarcastic, and isn’t as stiff or as much as a pushover as he is in the original. he even has a sense of humour. also, no homo, but he’s kinda adorable.  plus, the desperation that he goes through during the whole thing is just--it’s really cool to see how hard he’s trying to prove himself and help the village. my rating for mcdr garroth? 9/10. the helmet... the helmet is the main thing throwin me off, i can’t lie. next, zenix. oh BOY do i have a lot to say about this man. first of all, his and garroth’s dynamic is incredible. when i saw how the interacted with each other, my first thought was: father and son. zenix has this immaturity to him that is so fucking fun and interesting to watch, and seeing how garroth scolds him is so fuckin good man. and! seeing how he interacts with the rest of the village... honestly, if jess ever picks this story up again, i would probably cry when zenix (literally) backstabs garroth. HELL, i hope that’s something that still happens, it’d be heartbreaking to witness this character that we’ve come to love hurting his mentor, the man who took him in. he’s just a really good character all in all, and much more appealing than the original mcd zenix. ...except season 3 zenix. no zenix can be better than that one.  either way, zenix is amazing written to be the comic relief and he’s just an all-out lovable character in this series.  finally, dale and brian. yes i’m going to group them up because there’s not much to say regarding them, but i do want to address them. for starters, we have brian; who’s already 16 when the story starts. good on jess for doing that, because in the original aphmau watched brian be born and age INCREDIBLY quick, haha. THOUGH i do feel like there’s a slight connection lost there--one of the hardest things about brian’s betrayal in the original series in the fact that we watched him grow up in phoenix drop. we were there from the moment he was born, to the second he betrayed phoenix drop. BUT OF COURSE, this version is a lot more realistic, so it’s understandable. i just think that if it’s brian who’ll be betraying phoenix drop again (if it even goes down that same route), it won’t hit as hard unless jess really takes the time to grow the connection between brian and aphmau.  as for dale; gotta admit, love it. and like, i think one of the main things about how good of a call it was to make him a drunkard from the beginning is considering how much the village is struggling. the fact that the second-in-command is literally drunk all of the time really conveys the message of, “yeah. this village needs help.” plus, he’s another good comic relief character. i loved seeing molly and dale’s relationship too, it was very funny.  PLUS. we were blessed with a well scene, in which aphmau had to help villagers out of the well. i don’t know about you guys, but that was one of my favorite nods to the original series. i cannot thank jess enough for that, there was a smile on my face the entire time. another amazing thing--visher’s character. instead of just being introduced to this quirky lil merchant who only had one or two interactions with aphmau like in the first one, we got to sit there and really get a feel for someone worth remembering and worth mourning over. we had a reason to be sad over his death, it wasn’t just some npc getting blown up suddenly. this was different, and this hurt.  one of the major things that i hope is to come out of this is for jess to fix the major mistakes she had when writing the first series. she’d expressed how unhappy she was with some of the decisions she made, and i’m glad that she’s getting that second chance to undo the things she didn’t like. this series also gives her a second chance to really, really dig into characters and their motives. like, gimme laurance backstory in better detail. or like, garroth and zane’s relationship from back when they were kids? or how vylad died and who killed him? etc etc. she’s already done an excellent job so far, and i can’t wait to see where this goes. that is, if she ever continues it. god, i wish there were more episodes so that i could seriously let you guys know how beautiful of a series this is. there’s so much i want to say about rebirth, but i think i’ll stop here. i might say some more shit about it later, but if there’s anything i’d want you to take away from this, it’s: give minecraft diaries rebirth a chance. there’s a lot of potential, and this is a chance for jess to really change things for the better! ... but again, that is if this ever is continued. 

[glowing-gravity]

hey, I've played all the Persona games, I can weigh in!

first up- there's no need to play the games numbered games in order, though you probably would want to play persona 1 before persona 2 because some characters return in minor roles, and play persona 2: innocent sin before persona 2: eternal punishment because that one's a literal sequel. persona 3, 4, and 5 have some very minor references to previous games, but it's nothing major at all, so you don't really miss anything if you don't recognize the references!

a lot of people start with persona 5 because it's the most recent! like previous said, though, if you start with persona 5 and then want to go back and play the others, you'll have to adjust to having fewer and fewer of the quality of life features, haha, so keep that in mind.

onto the specifics per game, which might answer your question a little more thoroughly:

persona 1's PSP port is good! you just don't want to play the original ps1 release of it (aka Revelations Persona) because they REALLY "localized" it with weird errors, edited all the characters' sprites to make them white (except one teammate they made black), and cut the entire second storyline out. persona 1 also doesn't have really any dating to speak of- I think there's maybe once where the protagonist gets asked which female teammate he's interested in? it's very much a dungeon crawling jrpg, that basically goes from dungeon to cutscene to dungeon with little in the way of "breaks" in between, and most character interaction takes place during cutscenes or areas where you can briefly talk to your teammates

persona 2: innocent sin also got a PSP port at the same time! this one's also the best way to play it, and it's honestly even smoother than p1's port imo. persona 2's sequel, eternal punishment, doesn't have an official english release of its own PSP port, unfortunately, but there's a fan group that translated the game if you don't want to play the somewhat-janky original ps1 release! persona 2 is currently the most outright lgbt-friendly persona game, as the protagonist in innocent sin is canonically bisexual, and can pick a male teammate as well when asked who he's interested in, and one of the male teammates is interested in him as well. there's two wlw npcs, and some nameless trans npcs around the city that can be encountered. keep in mind, however, that innocent sin's PSP port came out in 2011, so there may still be some things about the portrayal that feel a little dated. also, persona 2 is still very much dungeon crawling with cutscenes, though there's a bit more freedom to it and what you can do with your time

persona 3 is best played on its PSP port as well (persona 3 portable), with the most quality of life features and a female protagonist option, though only the ps2 rerelease (persona 3 fes) has the epilogue of the game. it does have a remake coming out in early 2024 as well, which should have quality of life improvements on par with persona 5, but lacks the female protagonist option and epilogue, so it's still not perfect. also, please be aware its theme is "death", and it features suicidal imagery (most prominently in that teammates need to shoot themselves with a fake gun to summon their personas), so it may not be for everyone! it's probably the heaviest persona game, and while very emotionally impactful, it's worth knowing what you're getting into. persona 3 is the first one to feature the Social Links prev mentioned, which means you balance an everyday life and friends with the dungeon crawling and story aspects, and can also more properly hang out with and date characters. there aren't any male characters that the male protagonist can date via social link, but there are two female characters that fall in love with the protagonist regardless of the gender you pick, and one male character that states he'd feel the same about the protagonist regardless of gender.

persona 4 is best played in its rerelease form (persona 4 golden), either as its original ps vita release, or its steam/switch port. persona 4's theme is truth, which involves a lot of characters confronting things about themselves they were denying, with a clear LGBT theme. however, it has a reputation as the "gay and homophobic" persona game for a reason- while there's one character who's heavily implied to be gay, and another heavily implied to be trans, the game walks back on these at the last second, and there's a lot of homophobic comments from some characters. it's very blatantly a product of the time it was made, which makes it feel authentic in its presentation of what the characters grapple with to some players, and uncomfortable to others (and sometimes even both at once). the protagonist can't date any male characters, however there is scrapped content where he was originally going to be able to date one. with the steam port, people have made mods restoring this link (along with a mod to stop the game misgendering the trans character), so that sort of thing may be of interest to you if you'd like to try persona 4!

persona 5 is best played in its rerelease form (persona 5 royal) as well! it originally came out on ps4, and was since ported to steam and switch. persona 5's theme is rebellion (against society, primarily), and the playable characters act as phantom thieves who change the hearts of really terrible people in an attempt to reform society. as the most recent numbered release in the series, it has by far the most quality of life improvements, and the best graphics by a distinct margin. there's a ton of stuff to do in this game besides the dungeons, and even besides the social links really. you still cannot date any male characters in it, though. there is a drag queen who runs a bar you can visit (she's great!), but there are also two cutscenes with very stereotypical gay men, where the joke is that they're pushy gay guys (which was at least improved from the original persona 5 game, where they were predatory gay guys).

as for the best place to start, that really depends on you! p1 is perfectly fine if you like to start things from the beginning (or if you otherwise plan to play every persona game, and don't want to feel like you're "losing" features if you go backwards), p2 is what I'd recommend if you're most invested in having LGBT characters present, p3 is a really good place to start if you want to begin with a more "modern" persona game (ie, that has the social link system and isn't almost entirely dungeon crawling), p4 is what really started putting the persona series on the map and probably the goofiest tone persona game overall (despite some of its obvious flaws), and p5 is the most recent one that a lot of people start with simply because it's newest and showcases everything the series has to offer!

sorry, that was a lot of info! I wanted to try to answer the question as thoroughly as I could, both for the anon and anyone else who might be interested, hah! feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to elaborate on anything; I tried to keep this as spoiler-free as possible while still getting the info in there that felt most important!

Hope this is okay but I'm curious about the Persona games because of this bracket tournament and I'm hoping someone can recommend where to start? Do you need to play all of the games in order? Which game has objectively the best dating options? Which if any games are the most LGBT+ friendly?

I've never played a persona game before but feel free to infodump in here people!

[we-are-ringmaster]

4 and 7 for the ask meme (and sorry for the delay!) -Sorcerer

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you’ve played? (NPCs count for DMs)

Each one of my PCs hold a special place in my heart. However, I think there is a special something about your first character. Mine was a college of lore bard named Anika. 

She went to college to be a bard, specifically at the Winter University. Upon graduation she had a lot of student load debt, having borrowed from people that there would be high stakes if there was no repayment. Anika got a job on a trade ship that was attacked by pirates. in exchange for her life, she played a song that impressed the captain so much she offered Anika a spot on her crew. Over the next 10 years she hopped from ship to ship, crew to crew, adventuring across the seas, paying off her debts. 

For a period she was with the crew of Captain Firebeard, a particularly ruthless pirate. He demanded a “mandatory gift” from the governor of a small island who refused to back down. Anika warned the governor of Firebeard’s plans to attack, giving him time to prepare a response. While the governor and his spouse passed in the attack, they were able to get their children to safety and Firebeard’s forces took heavy casualties. 

Firebeard figured out Anika’s betrayal and left her on an abandoned island. Eventually she was picked up by a ship belonging to the Winter University and held prisoner as a pirate criminal.

“Wait, aren’t you one of our alumni?”

Anika went on trial** for a variety of her many legitimate offenses. These included the murder of the governor and his spouse, charges that were later dropped for lack of evidence, removing her from harsher punishments. Instead she was sentenced to be among the first in a criminal rehabilitation program being developed by students at the Winter University.

It was through this that Dean Ellion became aware of her and arranged for her to be a criminal guide for a group he was sending to find a stolen artifact on a pirate kingdom island. Thus began the Winter Guard’s first campaign arc together.

(** It’s /my/ criminal justice system, I can make it better than it is here)

7. How do you go about making a character or NPC?

When I make a character I usual start with an aesthetic of some sort. I love making playlists for my characters and have made major character decisions based off songs that just sorta Fit Their Vibe (specifically Honey Whisky by Nothing but Thieves). 

Specific examples include a pretty picture of a beta fish, an offhand suggestion from @amstelhavian-nights , and a name taken verbatim off a gravestone in a little, middle-of-nowhere, country cemetery. Poppy, the muse of this blog, was inspired during the first 45 seconds of The Greatest Showman (2017). 

When I make an NPC I first consider what role the character needs to fill. First, who are they and what do they do in the world? Who would reside in the location the players are in? Secondly, what necessary interactions would they provide to the players? Make those NPCs the most narratively accessable but keep all the characters present in some way. It can be tempting to make a character based around whatever the PCs are doing. However, a character who only *maybe* happens to cross paths with the PCs, someone with their own goals, is far more compelling.

*✧･ﾟ:* Thanks feyariel/Sorcerer! *✧･ﾟ:*