#I can't wait for the people who skip dialogs

[another-goblin]

The tragedy of Dr. Ratio as a character is that all of his major appearances are very deceptive at first glance (allthough I suspect he actually prefers it this way).

On Herta station: Oh no, this rude asshole wasted valuable time interrogating poor TB who knows nothing instead of helping. Actually, he already saved everybody and tried to help TB realize what's going on so that they could defeat the culprit and take all the credit.

The Final Victor: Oh no, this murderous prick threatened Aventurine with a gun! Actually, he tried to wrestle the gun out of his hands to prevent him from shooting himself.

Penacony: Oh no, this jerk was so mean to poor Aventurine and then just betrayed him! Actually, they've been working together, and all of it was a part of their plan.

On the Radiant Feldspar: Why is he even there, just to whine about how he detests noisy gatherings? Actually, he's been helping Screwllum with Divergent Universe.

[zombeebunnie]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello and welcome new followers, it's been a while but I am here with another update! :]

Firstly, I just want to keep things transparent and catch people up to date for those that might not of seen my previous explanation for this delay and/or are new here.

I was very hesitant on making any new update posts because I wanted my original play tester who's been here since the beginning to look at everything first so I patiently waited. I didn't want to give out false expectations and add bunch of new content/concepts in update posts only to take it out or change it entirely if I couldn't make it work. In the end, my original play tester just couldn't make it so I recently asked someone else. Everything went really well, I had a lot of fun with how they played the game and they were very understanding. Their feedback really helped me when I needed it and I learned a lot from this experience, I am never waiting like that ever again. :]

Anywho, here's how things have been going as far as game development goes:

In my last update post, I was talking about a certain goal point I wanted to achieve and the game got a pretty big update!

I finished all of the morning settings/routes that now lead into day 4, this took a lot of writing and time. There is one specific route that I'm fixing because when my new play tester and I played it straightforward twice, it took a very long time to get through and we still weren't done before we took a break. :,]

There were two new paths that I also finished during all of this. For the first one, I decided to push it later into the game due to certain events happening too early and the second one is an ending which is slightly hidden somewhere. :]

All that'll be needed is minor adjusting, etc because the variables need to line up correctly since some routes can have different outcomes. I'm up for this challenge but it's going to take time to organize.

Here are some of things I fixed along the way:

Slight adjustment to an ending that required a certain trigger

Adjusted certain visual effects happening to early

Cleaned up various grammar mistakes

Fixed certain routes jumping into other routes

Minor fix to backgrounds appearing at the wrong time of day

Adjusted the volume of different background SFX's / Music

Here's one of several things you can eat in the game, can't survive on an empty stomach after all! :]

When it comes to CG's that involve food, my style approach will be a bit different. I was originally going to do realism but those take a very long time to do and after the first few, I got pretty burnt out from them.

Along with that, sometimes you might find things that will aid you along the way! This key is just an example, I don't want to show the other items just yet. :]

I'm also still testing this but I thought about adding a visual effect that appears on your screen when something is causing you to rapidly lose health(?) It's not in full effect right now, just brainstorming it.

Lastly, another thing that's kind of been on my mind once I looked through the routes again is how long they are, I'm not sure how people feel about long visual novels since I consider this one to be a slow burn game. I don't want you to feel as though you have to skip through a lot of the dialog unless you've already seen it, I want it to be fun and not feel like it's dragging on. I really would like to hear people's thoughts on this because I honestly don't know.

I think I reached the max I can type here so I'll post the rest in the following update post next week but overall,

Thank you guys for being patient and understanding. I wholeheartedly appreciate the support and encouragement! :]

[maguneedsalife]

T'zekhwalker - Final Zenos Fight

i spent so much time here it needed its own post. i'd be lying if i said this one scene wasn't a main reason i pushed t'zekh through the main story (the other was i wanted him to get to 90/get the rdm artifact gear so he could wear his canon glam but you know)

so, some background for folks who are new here: t'zekh was the main wol for stormblood. he was the one zenos became obsessed with, and he has spent most of endwalker trying to get zenos to leave him alone. he knows zenos desperately wants t'zekh to kill him--to come at him with fire and rage and bloodlust--but t'zekh refuses to kill anyone no matter how much they deserve it.

i had been waiting so long for t'zekh to be able to do this dialog choice and the answer i had envisioned for him actually changed from the time i did this with aoife. originally i'd thought he'd go with option 2, but by the time i got here, 3 was more his style.

which ended up being a good thing, because zenos's response to that answer was fucking perfect for t'zekh

small aside--it drove me bonkers back when spoiler embargo first lifted and ppl (mostly on twitter) were INSISTING that answer 1 was the only possible canon answer and if you picked any of the others you were clearly playing the game wrong. even despite yoshi p confirming that there was no "correct" answer and the team had tried to write it so that players could respond to zenos the way they felt best reflected their own character's experience. people were STILL out there like "sorry but if you didnt pick option 1 you're just wrong"

so to see the text validate my choice and my hcs so perfectly has me feeling vindicated in this chilis. it is okay for people to have a different experience of the game than you!!! (i'll get off my soapbox now)

option 3 was perfect for t'zekh because he is finally fed up enough with zenos that he's finally willing to cast aside his moral opposition to killing in order to make sure zenos can't hurt anyone else in his name.

and zenos caught on to that and responded in kind.

anyway then i took a fucktillion pictures in the instance (most of which i'll put on my wol blog)

it was so hard to get them in the same frame lmao

and then i did the solo fight! not too bad on red mage, surprisingly enough - was very thankful to have vercure though lmao

this punch is still just as satisfying the second time

On my way to the last credits sequence i learned that you will actually fuck up the music timing if you skip or speed up the credits. it was playing revenge twofold when it was supposed to be playing flow together. that was very jarring. i don't know why they haven't set it to just start playing flow together for that sequence. dont skip the credits folks

and that's a wrap! i uhhh might have abandoned him before finishing out the quest so i could go farm memoria misera with aoife but im very happy to have (technically) beaten Endwalker with him before the year ended, which was one of my goals.

I think I started main story with him in January, so it's taken me about a year to get through... mostly what set me back was i had to make time/build emotional strength to make progress through parts I knew would be difficult emotionally. But I committed to not to skipping any cutscenes and just pressing on through a second read, and I'm glad to have embarked on this journey.

as soon as i finished endwalker the first time i knew it was going to be equally aoife and t'zekh's story. they both ended up having stakes in the plot in different ways, and getting to play through and see things from t'zekh's perspective was so much fun.

i still keep thinking abt the version of the ending in my head, wherein t'zekh is lying at the edge of the universe and all he can think is "i want to live, dammit!!"

and he hears a voice calling out to him.

"there you are!" aoife shouts, "I was looking all over for you!"

T'zekh has spent so much of the story kind of in aoife's shadow, grappling with what it means to be a "hero" in his own way. he spent a lot of stormblood resenting her absence.

but by the end of endwalker… i think they end up really close friends

---

Next, it'll be Banri's turn.... skipping as many cutscenes as possible so i can get him through before Dawntrail!

[eclipses-of-the-heart]

A bad night turns into a bad morning turns into a bad day, luckily you have someone to help.

Eclipse centric with sprinkles of sun and moon.

Tags: minimal dialog / non sexual intimacy (they give you a shower and help you get dressed) / romantic connotations / no use of y/n / reader dissociates a little / hurt comfort

It starts with a night of tossing and turning. With too much going on in your head for you to be able to find a comfortable position and shut out the thoughts. When you do finally manage to drift into sleep it transfers to a new mistake. 

Turning your alarm off in your sleep.

You oversleep nearly an hour before a hand, warm and gentle as ever, rouses you with more worry than you can bear. 

You try your hardest not to be cross with him as you scramble out of bed. It's not his fault, never his fault. 

But you can't help the anger that wells up at yourself for being so careless, so stupid. 

You rush through a shower, deny your suns offer of a quick breakfast and brush out the door hoping you haven't been fired. 

Luckily your manager buys your pitiful made up excuse about traffic being terrible and you live to see another day in retail. 

Of course this only makes your day worse. You spend too many hours being overworked and underpaid. Too many hours taking more abuse for people who didn't understand how to treat minimum wage employees. 

You spend your time thinking about how everyone should mandatorily work retail. 

You try not to think about the disappointment on his face when you skipped his breakfast. 

You try not to think about the fact that it had already probably been ready for you and was now rotting cold in the fridge. Or worse, tossed out. 

Your day passes slowly and uneventfully. The yelling and griping from members of the public has long since been droned to background noise in your day. It drags at you sure, but it is typical. 

You're used to it. 

You're used to a lot of things these days. 

You clock out more tired and sore than you were this morning. It's nothing new, but it weighs heavier on you than it used to. 

Everything did these days. 

You stop on your way home to pick up a treat. Some ice cream and a pack of stickers, hoping it would make up for your terrible blunder this morning. 

He won't blame you. 

He never does and something about that hurts you more than if he would be cross with you. 

You pull into your driveway only fifteen minutes past your usual arrival time. You pretend not to notice your blinds shift as he peeks through the curtains to see if you were heading inside already or not. 

You don't. 

You sit for a few minutes slumped forward with your head pressed against your steering wheel, waiting for this wave of guilty nausea to pass so you didn't have to look him in the eyes while it was still fresh. 

It's only the fear of your ice cream melting that finally pushes you from your car into the cold of the evening. 

You hurry through to the warmth inside your house. The lights are still on, a good sign. 

"Sun, I'm home." 

You try so, so hard to keep the exhaustion from your tone. 

He does not reply back, but a noise shifts ahead of you. 

You are not greeted by him. 

You are greeted by them.

Eclipse towers over you on a normal day, but with your slumped posture almost seems that he is touching your ceiling. 

You try to keep yourself from immediately assuming that their combination has happened because you upset your Sun this morning. 

It doesn't work. 

You feel yourself crack just a little more around the edges as the wave of guilt you so successfully shoved down returns on a new tide. 

"I brought ice cream." 

It's all you can muster as you look up at them, lifting the bag in your hands and desperately trying not to let the cracks show through in your voice. 

Too many hands come towards you. 

One snags the bag from your hand, another snakes over your head to close the door and bar the cold back to where it belongs. Two more scoop you from your spot by the door, cradling you in a way that makes you crack in another way. Two more find your coat, peeling it away and letting the warm air of the house hit your goosebumps. 

Six today, you note idley.

One, now free of its duty with the door brushes through your hair, another plucks the bagy of stickers from the grocery bag. 

You barely register the excited exclaim that your sun makes through their voicebox. 

You don't notice the rumble of your moon shushing him. 

You simply float as Eclipse moves you from one room to another. 

The ice cream is carefully shut into the freezer for later. A plate is collected from the kitchen table and then you are moving rooms again. 

The living room blurs around you, try as you might nothing comes into focus except the pinpricks of contact that Eclipse makes with your skin. 

The tv flickering on only adds static to the fog you feel yourself drift to and fro in. 

The scratch of metal against porcelain startles you, brings you back to the present enough to see a fork hovering just in front of your face, a bite of rice balanced carefully on the prongs. 

You do not fight this either. Letting each bite of food and gentle push and pull of warm, warm hands settle you back into yourself. 

By the time the plate is scraped clean your head feels clear once more. You are sore, tired yes, but no longer feel as though you are swimming through television static. 

The hands don't stop. Even after you have relaxed against Eclipse's form they pet at you, drawing gentle touches down your sides, over your arms and through your hair. 

They whisk you away to help you do all the things that feel out of reach. The plate is deposited in the sink while you stay tucked close to them. You rest your chin over their shoulder as they drift to another room. 

The shower is turned on, water adjusted to temperature. There is no asking before they carefully help you shed your clothes. 

The warm water mingles with the warmth of their body as they hold you under the spray. Your eyes drift close as large hands drag through your hair and smooth a rag over your body, soothing away the aches and grime of the day with the scent of fresh linens and sunflowers. Lavender rains down your shoulders as fingers scrub away the itches in your scalp. 

Just as quickly as everything else this evening the warmth of the water cuts and you are whisked from the shower. Never sat down, many hands simply shift your body, drying you and wrapping you in the softest towel you own. 

Extra hands make drying two bodies easy, though silicon does not hold water as tight as skin. Once they are sure their deeds will not be left behind in the hallway, even steps carry you away once again. 

The bedroom it seems has already been prepared. 

Fairy lights keep the room lit but not too bright. The soft hum of a heater buzzes, warming the room comfortably while you stay in nothing but your towel. 

Finally you are set free from their hands. Perched on the edge of the bed where you are left to wait while they move to the dresser, pulling open several drawers at once to retrieve the items they wanted. 

"Hands up~!" 

Their disjointed speech no longer bothers you. In fact it is almost easy for you to tell now which one of them had more control over the words they spoke, or when they connected true and well. 

Your sun spoke to you now, but Eclipses gentle face still smiled back at you. 

You raised your arms for them.

You are dressed with gentle efficiency, hands lingering perhaps a bit more than they needed to as they smoothed your shirt into place and held underwear still for you to push your legs into, but you didn't mind. 

You never minded anymore. 

"Stay," your moons voice grumbles from their shared voice box once you are sufficiently dressed. 

They were gone for only a moment, returning with the carton of ice cream you had purchased and a pair of spoons. You didn't question it. It seemed like a good night forgo bowls to you too. 

The bed creaks in protest at the weight of them settling into the mattress behind you. You had long since forgotten your bed frame. It had snapped in two the first night they had crawled into bed with you, a night much like this, but they had been the ones frightened and seeking comfort. 

They didn't have dreams of the fire much anymore. 

A mattress and box spring on the floor was perfectly fine with you anyways you preferred the closeness to the ground. 

You settled back against them when they were fully situated in bed with a leg tucked around either side of you. 

Hands gently bundled you into the blankets of your bed, tucking you expertly to lock in as much of their warmth as possible. 

Another fished your phone from the bedside table, and a third handed you your spoon. 

The container of ice cream was cracked open as you focused into your phone for a moment, idly pulling up a streaming site and selecting a movie you didn't care too much about. 

You absently noticed Eclipse take a spoonful of ice cream themselves. Listened to the creek of their mouth sliding open and the faint hiss of their internal combustion system destroying their first bite. 

You wondered if ice cream was sugary enough that they wouldn't need to charge tonight. 

You don't ask. 

Instead you took a spoonful of ice cream yourself, and let yourself get lost in their warmth, and the quiet mumble of the movie on your phone. 

Tomorrow was a new day and they would help you weather it, no matter what may come, but for now. This was all you needed.