#I don't feel like restarting the game either at this point so I'm not playing anymore

[the-insanity-of-mojiru]

Happy Birthday Mattsun! I love his stupid rice loving fish monger face!

[maleyanderecafe]

Are you aware of male yandere who are older and if yes do you mind posting links to their Tumblrs?

Not sure what you mean? Do you mean just like older yanderes? Like Ocs? Or games? Or writing?

I have a list here for yanderes that are in their 20-30s or are a bit older. Let me think if I can find anymore. I do feel like older yanderes tend to end up being either side characters or villains though .

@yandereworlds I believe has some older looking yanderes. I don't remember the exact ages though.

Kimbark Street - believe has an older yandere, though it's a bit hard to tell because we're playing as him and he does live in an older time period.

Love Me Dearly - the main yandere in this one is quite old. This game is pretty good for what it is, devolving more into a mystery.

A Date with Denial/Be My Muse - does it count if the yandere is hundreds of years old? I mean that counts as older, right? Zecharias I believe has been around for a long time looking for his love.

Worthy Lover - does have one but he is a platonic yandere, if you believe that those exist. He is the dad of Ezra from the game Restart Heart.

I’ll Twist the Neck of a Sweet Dog - does have an older yandere, but he is a groomer, so he runs more like a villainous yandere if anything.

The Red Fox - The kind that is less like a human and more like a myth. He is a very good villain in the story and the entire thing feels like a tragedy more than anything.

Cursery: The Crooked Man and the Crooked Cat - sort of. The entire thing is more of a storybook type of yandere love, the type where the yandere is trying to bring back their love. It's a very fun point and click game though.

Yeah, I'm not sure if that's what you mean? But hopefully these are at least good examples. There aren't a lot of older/dilf style yanderes that I really know of, which means I hope somebody will be able to fit the niche one day. This list is a little shorter and more haphazardly slapped together at the moment, so I apologize for that.

[deiaiko]

#20.7 Reason

The day passed by slowly for Agni. Grace had left to show Bam around the ship, and Agni had already become bored after playing three rounds of a racing game with Gyetang. He excused to feed Velt and let her out of the lighthouse bowl, leaving Gyetang to play on his own. Then he went off to read.

Grace and Bam came back about an hour later, and they decided to make dessert together to pass the time. Agni couldn't help but watch them enjoy themselves; it was a nice view in contrast to what Agni had with his younger self. At least Grace was in a far better mood than he was an hour ago, so Agni was glad for him.

His thoughts stopped when Grace locked eyes with him. Grace smiled upon noticing his stare, which Agni returned after restarting his brain. A few moments later, Grace walked up to him, delivering a cup of chamomile tea and leaving a lingering touch on his shoulder before going back to the kitchen.

Agni took a sip to hide his blush. The sweet aroma and warmth soothed him, and the sweet taste with a hint of mint was pleasant on his mouth. After letting out some steam when playing games, relaxing when solving riddle books, and keeping his mind from wandering to unnecessary places, he realized that he was also feeling much better himself.

He stole glances now and then to the Grace brothers who were still in the kitchen across, now seemingly getting bothered by Velt. He felt a smile tugging on his lips from watching their antics. It was such an unusual yet nice view. To think of how much Grace had grown, to see the stark differences and the similarities with Bam, and to be the lucky person that Grace fell in love with… Agni quickly looked away when Grace met his eyes again, somehow feeling embarrassed at such a cheesy thought. He summoned his lighthouse and began working to keep his brain occupied.

Dan and Novick announced their return some time later, joining Grace and Bam in the kitchen to put groceries away. Agni focused his hearing to make out what they were saying.

"Hello! Are you Viole? Gyetang told us you're visiting." Dan extended his hand to Bam. "My name's Dan, and this is Novick. We've heard a thing or two about you."

Agni tuned out their conversation when the electric eels that Dan had brought along finally made themselves visible, hovering near Agni to demand attention and seek for food. So Agni got up and refilled their pellet bowl, then went to sit in the cafeteria to listen better to the conversation happening in the kitchen.

"So…other than Hyung and Mr. Agni, none of you are FUG?"

"Nope," Dan replied.

"And you're okay with it?"

'Living together with FUG members.' Agni supplied Bam's unspoken sentence in his mind.

"It was a shocking revelation when they told us," Novick commented. "Because Agni is clearly from the Khun family and Grace didn't seem like a guy who would join a criminal organization."

"Yes. Exactly." Dan emphasized the syllables to make his point. "Though they told us that they joined FUG so they could keep an eye on someone named Bam."

"Not 'keeping an eye', Dan. You make it sound like I'm keeping him on a leash." Grace immediately refuted. "I'm here to look out for him, to keep him company. And by the way, this is Bam."

"Huh." Agni imagined the gear on Dan's brain halted for a second before resuming. "Wait…so Viole and Bam are the same person?"

Right. Dan, Novick and Gyetang had heard the name Viole from Hwaryun or Jinsung when they came for a visit, and the team probably had known that Viole was FUG's newest slayer candidate. However, the name Bam was only used by him and Grace, and they never really talk much about him in public.

"Yes. Viole is the name that FUG gave him, while Bam is his name before that."

"Oh, then…should we…?"

"Viole is fine," Bam assured. "I don't mind either way."

It piqued Agni's interest, so he looked their way and saw Grace giving Bam a slightly surprised glance, but giving no further question.

Then they agreed to call him Viole, since they were already used to hearing that name.

"Wait!!" Dan flicked his fingers and pointed a finger gun to Grace, "It makes so much more sense now! So I assume Viole got kidnapped by FUG. If you can't get him out, then you're the one who went in, so that you can look out for your brother."

'They really do look like brothers now, don’t they?' Agni smiled at the thought. He wondered if Khun would one day consider him as one, too.

"Really, Hyung?" Bam gave Grace his puppy eyes.

"You didn't choose to be part of FUG. They gave you no choice." Grace patted Bam's back and squatted to check on the oven. "The least I can do is make it bearable."

Bam only stood there. "Why?" 

'Why are you doing this?' Was what Agni thought Bam wanted to ask.

"Why not?" Grace unlocked the oven and the delicious aroma of garlic bread filled the room. "I was you, once upon a time. You reminded me of myself, of the things that I've lost. All my regrets, it feels like I can fix them this time by helping you. So if you can live better than I have, it will make me feel more at ease."

Agni sipped his tea, finding the idea amusing. For him, he'd be more at ease knowing that their team had a better chance of survival, which also aligned with Grace's goal of keeping everyone alive. But in order to do that, they'd have to get through hellish training, and it had to be done if they wanted things to turn out differently. Which, in Agni's opinion, didn't count as living better. But Grace's definition of living better was different from his, knowing how much Grace treasured his friends. Working and training hard, coming back bruised black and blue and bloodied, sometimes close to passing out, was a small price to pay for him.

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[moonpaw]

Would you be willing to explain why you don't like insurgence and xenoberse? I also keep seeing them recommended, but I'm currently playing uranium.

insurgence seems to be an over the top edgy game that's just super not in my wheelhouse

xenoverse because i did play through that one and its just. so goddamn lackluster. the plot and gameplay was constantly pissing me off 😭 though i think my main issue was that i was pretty excited going into the game because i watched as several people overhyped it, calling the story fantastic and the best thing ever and then i played it and it was just... not.

it was ALRIGHT. i guess. but eurgh. my biggest issue is the other playable character (that you don't choose) only showing up like a handful of times (i think literally can be counted on one goddamn hand) and is heavily shoving a romance in your face from the moment you meet them. which whatever, ok, sure. except. if you choose to play as a girl, the boy option, LOOKS VERY MUCH LIKE YOUR DAD. and it just made the whole thing SUPER uncomfortable to me to the point i had to restart the whole game over to choose to be a boy instead because at least the girl doesn't look like either parent even though i still very much hated the whole forced romance crush thing. but hey. at least it didn't feel like i was being flirted on by a younger version of your dad 😭

also the gameplay itself was just. really felt like it was all glitter and hype and then felt like ass trying to actually play and make sense of from a plot perspective

and then my next gripe is your dad and this one is end of game spoiler territory

the game is focused on finding your dad who got kidnapped at the beginning of the game (10 years ago) except oops! nope! he's the leader of the villain gang! also he's SILVER FROM THE CANON SERIES (with your mom being leaf!)

and him being the leader of the big bads just. GOES AGAINST HIS WHOLE CHARACTER?? hello. hello. hello. i still had the whole elite 4 or whatever post game there was but finding out it was silver just. made me stop playing it pissed me off soooooo much

[exaltedfuzz]

HI I LOVEEEEE your Art I LOVEEEE your ema! I wanted to ask if you've played aa6 and your thoughts on aa6 ema! I really like that they brought her back and i really think they balanced her personality well by making her more upbeat because of her job, but shes not wholly optimistic either. I really like her relationship with prosecutor sadmadhi throughout the game too! I feel like there's a scale in emas mind from Most to least acceptable prosecutor men and on one end is Miles edgeworth, the other is Klavier gavin, and sadmadhi is in the middle. if that makes sense lol. I just think she talks like she doesn't like him, but she goes along with him way more than she would if Klavier ever asked her to do half the things he asks of her. Also I think it's really interesting that aa6 had ema and mayas first canon interaction! that was interesting to me because ema was sort of designed with Maya in mind and lana and mia obviously have some history, I think it was time for their sisters to meet too. sorry for the Long ask but I just treasure your interpretation of these characters so much!

Hi! I recognize your username from my notifs. Thanks for the support, and for your ask! 🫡 Glad you like the Emas!

I have mixed feelings on SoJ, but Ema is my favorite part of it. I like her a lot in it. She's still got a bit of the edge from AJ, which is nice to see. I like some of her new sprites too, like the swaying thinking one and the 🥺 one. Much prefer her munching sprite from AJ though. The shovelling snacks into her mouth is much more Ema. I also really don't like her official full body art for SoJ.

Unfortunately, Nahyuta doesn't really interest me... His design is too complex to do silly drawings of, for one. I feel like their dynamic was a little underdeveloped, a bit shoehorned in. It's a shame, because their backstories set up a possible dynamic that could be quite interesting, since Lana and Nahyuta kind of have the same motivations - writing team missed a trick. Also, I think Ema would have realistically been grumpier about having to fly halfway across the world every few days. It didn't reeeeaaally feel organic to me. But I do like the idea of their dynamic.

I like the way Maya and Ema interact, even if it's brief. Implies that they have met before, and they're friends, which is cute, though I wish it was a little more delved into. I feel like Maya's characterisation in SoJ is kind of boring. Not as bad as Pearl got it, but still nowhere near as good as she was in the trilogy. Honestly, the whole game falls flat for me when you compare it to the emotional weight the trilogy and AJ have. I really like some of the cases though. And Ema's mini games are great as always. Except the bit with the suitcase which lagged out my 3DS and made me restart it twice, haha. (Though, again! Her mini games were kind of better in the other games!!!)

So, to answer your question, I do like Ema in SoJ. And, despite my criticism, I do like SoJ! Just not as much as the other games in the series. When you play them all in a row, it feels kind of disappointing. I think it's because it's not on the intimate, domestic scale of the trilogy, which is where I think Ace Attorney really shines. (Case in point: Bridge to the Turnabout)

Super happy to see her in another game though, she's really fun, exactly what SoJ needed, and I'm really glad she was the detective they went for. Also, the outfit they put her in for the DLC cutscenes at the wedding is really really good. They were cooking with that one.

I'm really happy to hear you're interested in my interpretations, it means a lot. They're characters I've grown quite fond of.

This turned out quite long. Haha

Here's Ema and Nahyuta for you:

[troblsomtwins829]

More Pacific Drive Ramblings

This game has me by the neck. It's so intriguing in a way I don't often get to experience. I'm not a regular gamer, and it's really easy to put me off from a game if it's either too bright, too busy, or too hard/forgiving for my fumbling hands. I like games that give me a goal, but let me get there at my own pace using whatever path I find works for me. Games that have a life lived within them, have a history, have a past and a future. Games that just are and what that is to me is determined by what I find and how I find it. Where lore is found on the surface, and answers are found deep beneath the earth. I can find those answers if I want them, or I can just play the game and let it be. I can get from point A to B and be done with it.

But I'm already planning on playing more, playing it again. I've made an actual shopping list of the materials I'll need to create and all-electric vehicle. I've imagined myself actually traversing these hellscapes, navigating both on foot and behind the wheel, I've pondered a no-car run since my first minute of playtime, and now, as I'm trying and failing to focus on other tasks that I need to complete, all I can think of is playing again.

TOTK had me pretty bad, but only up until I finished the game, I've hardly touched it since. Stardew Valley has had so many restarts, I couldn't tell you what the original plan for my first farm was if I tried. Minecraft? Forget it. Skyrim? Can't be bothered. Party games? I'm an introvert, parties are a very rare thing.

Pacific Drive makes me want to get out and explore almost as much as it makes me want to run crying back to the relative safety of my vehicle. The environments are beautifully crafted maps of confusing anomalies and debris, chock full of this or that, and brimming with an ambience so unenviably ominous that I feel like I'm back in the woods and all by myself.

My only real, both human AND intelligent, companions are voices on a radio. Voices of people that may not even be real. Voices that could have been recorded a day, a week, ten years ago, or maybe even some unknown future date. Time is weird here. I could be completely alone for all I know.

Alone, defenseless, but nonetheless determined to survive.

[agnol117]

i haven't thought of myself as my deadname since i was fifteen.

this wasn't intentional, but i don't think it was unintentional, either. i'd adopted the name "Agnol" online by then, taking a word i'd learned in french and chopping off letters until i was left with a word that was just sounds, and wasn't necessarily masculine (it's worth noting that "Agnol" is also the name of a superboss in Pokémon Colosseum, and that may have inspired me, but i don't recall ever reaching that boss). this wasn't really for trans reasons, not at the time. if you'd asked fifteen year old me about it, i probably wouldn't have had anything positive to say about being trans, if I had anything to say at all. but even then, there was a sort of sense in my mind that "deadname" was my body, while "Agnol" was me, in a way that was separate from my body.

in addition to all of this, i'd been playing as the girl in any game that let me since Dragon Warrior III on the gameboy color. truthfully, this came in waves, especially in Pokémon games -- i'd make a girl character, get embarassed about it, restart as the boy, get frustrated that that didn't "feel" right, restart as a girl, and repeat the cycle. eventually i just took to getting both versions, one to play "publically" at school as the boy, one to play on my own as the girl. and while all this was going on, i played around with names. i won't go through them all, but suffice it to say that it took me a while to settle on "jill," a name that feels right in a way i'm not going to get into here, and by the time i did i was pretty willing to actually acknowledge that i was, in fact, trans. i was also, by this time, thirty-one. it had been a rough decade and a half, and even then, i'd spent quite a lot of that time actively avoiding thinking about gender stuff.

all of this now brings us to Earthbound. there's gonna be pretty heavy spoilers here, and while it is a thirty year old game and most of what I've got to say has been kinda brough into the pop culture knowledge of Earthbound, this is your chance to turn back.

i'd been using "jill" as my name for characters when i could for about a year and a half when i got to my first playthrough of Earthbound. i'm not out in real life, because for reasons involving my health and safety, i can't be. so i was jill in games, in the places i could be. but, well, as much as i wished it didn't, that always felt like a character i was playing. and really, that's to be expected. much as i might wish i was, i'm not a pokémon trainer. even things like OneShot, where you as player are ostensibly a character in the story, didn't really feel like i was really "there." it didn't really feel like me.

Earthbound changed that.

at a certain point in Earthbound, you're prompted to enter your name. notably, the game specifies that it's asking for your name. you, the player. it verifies this later, but after that, you still have like four more dungeons to go through and a bunch of story shit happens and honestly i forgot it happened.

and then you get to Giygas.

i have a lot of feelings about this fight, but really, most of them aren't relevant here. the important part is how the fight ends. you reach a point where your characters cannot damage Giygas anymore. that's actually underselling it -- the fight reachs a point where you can't even understand what Giygas is doing to your characters anymore. it's become a meme at this point, but "You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas's attack!" is legitimately terrifying. you're not even fighting a clearly defined opponent anymore. you're fighting the background.

and Paula prays.

the game kind of obliquely hints at this, but having played Mother (which is, in retrospect, a truly tragic name for the series) previously and knowing that when you fought Giygas in that, you beat him by singing a lullaby at him until he has a mental breakdown and leaves (it's that kind of series), i kind of expected this. Paula prays, and as she does, various other characters in the game sense it, and they pray for you and add their strength to yours. and then, after praying a bunch of times and getting help from so many of your friends, your prayers stop working. Paula's call is absorbed by the darkness. but she tries one more time, and someone answers.

you.

the player.

the name you put in.

this was...moving. this touched me in a way that i struggle to find words for. i said in a previous post about this that after beating Earthbound, i had to go take a nap, and i wasn't kidding. it has been a week since i finished the game, and i'm still trying to process this. because they called out to me, and they did so using the name i've picked for myself. they needed me, and the me they needed is the me i've been trying to be for so long. for so long that when i first felt that longing, that feeling that i wasn't who everyone was telling me i was, i didn't have the words for it. i didn't know it was a thing i could feel. and Ness and his friends needed me. the person i want to be. the person i really am.

and my god, that just meant the world to me.

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

I've just finished chapter 9 of Open Heart Second Year and wanted to share my thoughts at the halfway point (ch 10-11 are another world entirely). It's a long post and probably repeats all the arguments that have been made since the original release...but I'm gonna post anyway.

When Second Year started, I couldn't decide which romance route to take. I genuinely restarted the first chapter several times, but EVENTUALLY I settled on Ethan. And...I got bored. He was there all the time and I just didn't feel anything like I did in book 1 (the opera scene had me in a chokehold for a while). Meanwhile, Raf had apparently broken up with MC and had a new partner which was leaving me intrigued on how it would go (sweet naivety before I saw the ch 10 draft). So during the first hiatus, between ch 8-9, I replayed the whole lot for Rafael.

The difference is stark. For two people who aren't allowed to be together, MC and Ethan sure ended up spending a lot of time alone together. They sure held hands a lot. MC sure had a lot of extra flirty dialogue. Yet Rafael appears briefly every couple of chapters to talk about how he would risk his life for another (I should have seen the signs sooner) then disappears back to his new partner that we still know nothing about. Most of the pining for Rafael was in my imagination and personal interpretation of the scenes.

Players were willing to justify this with 'Ethan is our boss' and 'we work on the same team so obviously they will spend time together'. Bryce and Jackie are our best friends or partners, Jackie is our freaking ROOMMATE and we don't see them at all?

Furthermore, we have two brand new characters in June and Baz and barely spent any time with them because Ethan had to be front and centre. I would have happily spent diamonds to get to know either of them one-on-one. But no...

An idea: instead of Ethan having a professional diamond scene every chapter (patient's house visit, visiting the art gallery, making a pictagram account), this is where June or Baz come in. Especially if Ethan also had a personal diamond scene in the chapter. Open Heart was popular because of its diverse cast after all (including Ethan, yes, but there was someone for everyone in book 1).

FURTHER furthermore, one of the 'plots' of this book was MC teaching their own intern, Esme Ortega. And we had a diamond scene to take her with us on Diagnostic work, a diamond scene to mentor her around six chapters later, and...a few quick scenes of MC giving her some work to do. That's it. Because even though being a mentor is part of MCs job, it's not nearly as important as Ethan's screen time.

I've played all four romance routes, and obviously Ethan's had the most content (his romance route v platonic route is night and day!!). Raf's route was completely empty to the point where it made sense to me that MC was in the hospital with Ethan all the time because they didn't want to spend their free time sitting at home nursing a broken heart. But Bryce and Jackie's routes had no reason for that. There's almost no reason to play the chapters without them and it's no surprise their fans started dropping away. All the signs pointed to one LI being killed off, but the other two didn't have anything to hope for either so why stick around?

Chapter 8 is the baseball game and we get to spend time with Bryce and Keiki, AND practice baseball with some friends. Probably the most friend group content we saw since the chapter 5 music festival. I enjoyed being rude to Landry (again, my MC is too stressed and upset at this point to spend energy being nice to him) but I didn't like how my response to him determined how the two sides interacted. Just because I'm rude to Landry doesn't mean I don't want to meet Sienna's med school friends at Kenmore. We then get to go back with Ethan for dinner or go home alone. I don't suppose it would have killed PB to put some kind of friend group scene in as an alternative? They did in book 1...

Chapter 9 is where the emotions really pick up as we have Kyra's cancer getting worse. Man, I love well-written angst. When MC is overwhelmed and has to calm down in a supply closet they are discovered by...June. Who at this point is becoming the villain (despite the fact this plot line would have only made sense if you were romancing 1/4 LIs).

Another idea: we get to choose which LI discovers us, just like in book 1! We could have a rare moment of softness with Jackie because it kills her that she can't help the situation. It could have been the catalyst for Bryce to look into radical gore-tex surgeries as a last resort. Or we could have had a painful heart-to-heart with Rafael, maybe MC being standoffish because he's their ex or open and desperately wishing Raf could comfort them as before. The possibilities are endless, but we can't waste time (or money) on those guys.

Speaking of Rafael, this is the infamous chapter ending:

Like a punch in the heart. But possibly what hurt more was the fact that chapter 10 opened with - of all things - a time jump to a few days later with the Senator coming to Edenbrook!! Because that's the Diagnostic team which is the only thing that matters! In fact, Rafael isn't mentioned until around two thirds of the way through when the narration - of all things - casually mentions that he is in fact moving to BRAZIL. More fool me, I thought he was just moving to another state, but no. Another freaking country. There is no way that would have been an easy conversation, especially on his romance route, but it's yet another conversation that happens OFF-SCREEN for the reader to be hastily informed later.

Book 2 began with a recap that omitted Rafael completely, despite the fact his superhero complex was going to be 'plot point' of book 2. Luckily he does appear in the next recap but this scene has been retconned with him saying 'I'm moving to Brazil' (if I remember to get a screenshot of that later, I'll post it).

PB tried to justify all this with 'Open Heart is a mature story...exploring themes of heartbreak and loss' (and some players will still believe that), but it never was. If it was, we would have seen the break-up between MC and Rafael, we would have been able to talk with Raf about his suspension in detail and how it was affecting him, and we would have SEEN THIS VERY CONVERSATION. But all the resources went into Ethan and his parents, Ethan and his morals, Ethan cooking a chicken.

I get it, he was a big moneymaker. I myself contributed once upon a time. But that doesn't justify throwing out the rest of your characters. (My school sold out my year group to get some money, and in doing so lost all credibility with a generation of girls). Like I said before, Open Heart was good because of ALL it's characters that we had grown to love and PB now wanted to chuck those out. Unless a LI had absolutely 0% interest, you write for them or you don't put them in the story (and we all know where that leads us: single LI books). Why alienate Bryce, Raf and Jackie romancers when, for all you know, they might be Sam Dalton's biggest fans? (The biggest book I can think of that was releasing at the same time as Open Heart). This whole thing was a stupid, stupid decision by PB and it has nothing to do with Rafael.

I hope there were people on the OH team who knew this was a bad idea from the start. I hope the higher-ups started sweating at the reactions to Sora and the ending to chapter 9, and I hope the smart ones on the team felt unbelievably smug about being right.

[aquilamage]

Rain world is really good but the difficulty is defo one of my biggest gripes. Like, it sets out to be a hard game, and it is, but there are straight up some areas you may fall into that are so hard to get out of people suggest just restarting! Which feels weird and bad, to me at least. The wall jumping also drives me crazy, I feel like I can only sometimes get the rhythm right for it. I’ve found tho that if possible, putting a stick in the wall as a kind of ‘check point’ helps (you may already be doing that tho haha)

I am all for a game being designed to challenge the player in whatever ways because you can genuinely get some cool things out of it, and it's fine if that's considered the 'default' mode. But there's two caveats to that.

There's a difference between well-balanced and reasonable difficult and stuff that's hard either just for its own sake without thinking about whether it's enjoyable to play/overcome or hard because it's not designed as well as it could be. I'm by no means an expert on game design but having parts of the game where the common advice is just "yeah if you end up here just restart the game" that's not like. a glitch. Doesn't seem the greatest to me.

People have said this way more eloquently than me but even if the intended experience is for the game to be difficult, even extremely so, putting in features you can select that make the game literally as easy as possible should just be the default because that just means there are now more people who can or will play the game and it doesn't actually take anything away from people who want to play it with the highest difficulty.

Literally I think my game experience would be so much improved if there was just an option for more forgiving wall-jumps or even just a plain wall-climbing option. (I don't have that much platformer game experience overall but like. I've done all of Hollow Knight's platforming challenges except the White Palace and I'm almost done with chapter 7 of Celeste and iirc those are at least considered somewhat challenging as platformers. So I think I'm allowed a little bit of saying this is related to how this game's mechanic works). And if there were other options to make things easier I might take those too and that's fine! Because otherwise you have me sitting here contemplating whether I can keep playing a game I genuinely like because of it just being too much stress on me to be healthy probably! And y'know, maybe not fun enough to be worth it, I don't know yet.

It's like how about halfway through playing Subnautica I got too frustrated with being attacked and just put in the cheat code that let me not be attacked by the monsters. Even turned off oxygen a couple times when watching that made me too claustrophobic and it was great because then I just got to concentrate on playing the game and enjoying it; and it didn't feel like a lesser experience.

And yeah depending on how popular the game is overall and how many people might feel the same there may be a mod for this kind of stuff out there. But! As I said I have the switch version and I shouldn't have to buy the game again and play on a platform that doesn't work as well for me (or at all depending on how much it demands of a computer) just to get a version that's more accessible!

All that aside I do still think it's a neat game with some great design aspects to its gameplay. Wouldn't be talking about this so much if not or contemplating other options to experience it; I would've probably just dropped it.

(Oh yeah I definitely have been doing the spears-in-the-wall to facilitate climbing. All the time, including some spots where I made a ladder of several because searching for more spears was easier than doing the climbing. Super appreciate the tip though because if I hadn't that would've been SO useful to know)

[wandringaesthetic]

Thoughts on FFXVI so far (Jill is awake and she and Clive are on the way to Rosaria) (spoilers to that point)

The game is beautiful. I've been taking a lot of screenshots like "man this pretty"/"man this almost looks real." I saw a few "this looks like a PS3 game" comments from earlier demo/gameplay footage, and I think I understand that, because the zones from the demo (the barren mountains where Titan and Shiva fight and the blighted village) are somewhat empty and have fewer/more muted colors. The story takes place in a dying world, and has the look and lighting of somewhere far north. You can quibble with the aesthetics if you like but not the graphics.

The thing that impresses me most in this generation in graphics is lighting, so. I keep being like "woa" and taking screenshots of water.

There is no minimap, and in "dungeon" zones, no map at all. I like this a lot, because I feel like I stare at the map if it's there instead of the very beautiful pictures in front of me, and I think it's appropriate to feel a little lost and disoriented and nervous about it in, say, the enemy castle you are infiltrating. But I imagine some people will not like this. Areas so far have been fairly linear, though I did get a little turned around in the first forest area (the greatwood?)

Bosses and midbosses are fun and very beautifully animated. Average field enemies feel like a bit of a waste of time and should either be a little easier or a lot tougher. I feel like, with skill, one could absolutely blaze through boss fights, and with either more caution or less skill they're a bit of a slow grinding down. Feel like I'm generally falling somewhere in between on these.

I'm playing on "action" mode and am not using any of the "timely" accessories. I have played some action-y games but am by no means a real pro gamer. I've had to retry some boss fights (when you do this, the game lets you restart the fight with a full inventory of potions (4 potions and 3 hi potions)) but I haven't felt like I've been "stuck" on anything yet. I feel like the "reward" of increasing your skill isn't necessarily just getting through the game (which you can probably do regardless of skill if you just grind at it) but feeling like a bamf as you do.

(there is a kinship with FFVIII in this regard)

I've done....4? Sidequests so far. They are very reminiscent of FFXIV sidequests. Go rescue this girl and grab the supplies she was supposed to gather. Be Valisthea's surliest waiter. Not too exciting but they fulfill what I think is their primary function of fleshing out the world building.

The intuition I had regarding the "bearer" tattoos from the trailers and the demo was that they were magical and either sedated or memory wiped the bearer or somehow made it impossible to escape (need to the spell renewed so often or they kill you or something like that). And it turns out, no, the system of slavery is so ingrained and the odds of being cast out and then hunted down are so high that they don't need to be magical. The mark is enough.

I ALSO thought the bearers were generally POW slaves acquired through conquest and weren't necessarily people who can use magic. THEN I thought they were ALL people who could use magic, but no and no. They are ALL people who can use magic WITHOUT a crystal (excepting dominants, which are special) and Clive was actually a weird cultural exception as the first shield of Rosaria BEFORE he was branded and then fell into the general norm after. Which makes a terrible sense! We do not like what we can't control! Also makes Annabella's weird disgust towards him make more sense!

I think probably part of the reasoning behind that awkward Yoshi-P statement saying "everyone in this game is white because we didn't want it to be about race" is probably BECAUSE slavery is a major plot and world-building thing in a system that in some ways mimics but mostly doesn't real world chattel slavery. Whether making it all be white on white crime is effective or worth it is something I'm going to reserve judgement on for now.

Oh Cid. Cid. What are you doing, Cid? I didn't understand what he wanted at all at first, and now I get the idea that he is good intentioned but has no coherent plan. Free as many bearers as possible and then eventually we'll have a revolution? But you don't want to say that because you're already pretty sure you'll fail. a lot of the people you're freeing are old or infirm you're not exactly forming an army. This is only working because the powers that be are too busy fighting each other to notice you. What are you going to do when they do, Cid? I'm going to do what I think is right until they come kill me and then God can judge me??

I enjoy Cid. He is just some guy who is trying and not at all an inspirational figure.

This game is pretty brutal, huh? I keep thinking about the guy who ended up as a blood spatter under a rock in the first few minutes of the game and the blood pooling under some of Shiva's ice later.

(the ice and the rocks creaking and the subtle controller vibration as you walk through the aftermath of Shiva and Titan's fight really sold the scale and also that this is all about to come crashing down)

I feel it's more tasteful, if you're going to do violence, to have semi-realistic violence rather than bloodless violence. Also I just personally like it. I like bones crunching. I like the post battle blood on your heroes clothes and armor. Enough to be slightly gross but not Dragon Age style ridiculously drenched in blood. Just right.

There are a weird number of surprise lethal axe throws though.

Alas, Benedikta. We hardly knew you. She has a kinship to Yotsuya. I actually wonder if there is a Japanese trope both of them fall under with the long pipe.

None of the soldiers in this game seem to be women. The only women we see fight are Jill and Benedikta, who are both dominants and therefore exceptional. Which... I will reserve judgement on whether that adequately makes sense later. Valisthea is in other ways not a nice place.

I get the idea that the eikons/dominants aren't always passed down via blood. It seems maybe each eikon has its own rules? I wonder if they always have a gender preference for their host.

I like the little overlay arrows showing where you can climb up or under something. It feels like that breaks immersion less so than all Horizon Forbidden West's foot and handholds being yellow, for example. Or all the walls you can run on having a certain texture, or w/e.

The music is good, ofc. Maybe my new favorite main character theme? I have to meditate on it.

Oh, the one huge awkward guy is named Goetz, which is speculated to be what Guts Berserk's name is "supposed" to be. Or Gotz, some Germanic shortening of Gottfried or similar via translation party shenanigans. I don't think this has any significance but it might be a nod. (Which make me wonder whether FFV's Bartz/Butz was supposed to be something like that now. Hmm.) Also I lay like 50% odds he's going to end up as Titan's dominant by the end of the game.

I am also on High Berserk Fan Alert due to the eclipse in the one live action trailer/advertisement.

I have NO IDEA what we're heading for here in terms of overarching plot or what the final showdown is going to be, and since I don't have enough freedom to just dick around in the game I'm getting a little antsy about that. And where's that second time skip gonna land?

(oh man I just happened to encounter the shortened version of that commercial in the wild in the break room on tv FATE WILL FALL that music aaaaaa)

There's a shot in the very beginning of the game that's a Gandalf versus Balrog visual reference and Clive opens double doors by dramatically throwing his arms wide. There are a lot of small details that feel a near copy to Game of Thrones. Clive grows up in the castle with his father's ward who is like a sibling to him. He's second fiddle to his brother. His mother figure hates his face. He has a loyal doggo. He's Aragorn. He's Jon Snow.

I've often thought that the storytelling of FFXIV feels more like doorstopper fantasy novel storytelling than video game storytelling (or movie or tv show storytelling for that matter). FFXVI seems to be continuing that. Opening up the active time lore menu (I love this feature, BTW?) feels like flipping to the glossary.

Alexander O. Smith cites A Song of Ice and Fire as inspiration for the style of Vagrant Story and FFXII. And I'm glad he did, because when I played those games in a world pre Game of Thrones television show, I was like "is anybody else seeing this???" It turns out the Venn diagram overlap of "people who play epic fantasy video games" and "people who read epic fantasy novels" is SURPRISINGLY SMALL. Smith overdoes it but just occasionally, imo. By which I mean, if you use the phrase "mummer's farce" there had best be some fucking mummers in your story. It took a long time for anyone to hit approximately this correct tone in video games again but.

I'm digressing.

ANYWAY. I THINK IT'S INTERESTING THAT WE INITIALLY ADDED THIS FLAVOR IN EX POST FACTO IN THE LOCALIZATION AND NOW WE'RE GOING FOR IT INTENTIONALLY THE WHOLE TIME. Because this was written simultaneously in English and Japanese. I find it interesting that we started by being inspired by the tabletop gaming heirs of fantasy literature and now we're taking after fantasy literature itself.

We're also seeming to go for the Game of Thrones thematic thing where the nobles are squabbling amongst each other when everyone ought to be banding together against the oncoming climate apocalypse.

But we will (most likely. Hopefully.) Be reaching a conclusion in 40-80 hours of action RPG instead of leaving me hanging for the rest of my natural life. And I would be shocked if we have some sort of red wedding situation in the works.

I'm having a good time, overall. Hesitant to quantify how much of a good time at this juncture.

Sometimes I feel like we need to put the F-word privileges back on the shelf for a minute, but mostly the swears are effective.

Oh gosh, I glanced upon this subject in tags, but I do love Clive's post accepting he killed Joshua freakout. And how Cid's all "well, why don't you just track this guy down anyway, and if he wasn't involved THEN you can kill yourself ;D" because it comes right after a moment Clive was standing on a bridge, and there's not any attention drawn to it but you KNOW he's thinking about jumping. And then Torgal bounds up to him and the moment passes.

And Cid's "welp, you're alive so you may as well make yourself useful" attitude is not the BEST but it's also not the WORST, you know?

Anyway, like I said, having a good time. Having a good time having a bad time.

[cametek]

My personal opinion on Pokemon Scarlet Violet

While I'm trying my best to avoid spoilers, it might contain some info that you might not know yet - please be sure

Visual : Definitely unpolished and unoptimized. The game runs at 3FPS the whole time, sometimes the camera behaves weird, and some objects have kinda glitchy motion that are absolutely visible even from far.

Gameplay : Despite the visual issues - it's insanely fun. Though sometimes we can find glitches or minor issues, fortunately they are all not fatal or major problems to progress the story (as I understand the glitch hunting scene correctly). There are a lot of things you can do, exploration, taking a detour, or just catching Pokemon, all of them are wild. Usually I stop playing after beating the champion, but it's not the case for SV somehow. Though it would be super awesome if the game runs at least stable 30 FPS constantly though. Also Terastal gives it a lot more depth to the battle and the raid mechanics. It's a very simple but crazy idea without exaggerating. Unfortunately we still feel the Terastal raid battle is also not polished while we definitely enjoy the raid with friends or with random people, I just believe they will improve it more in future.

UI / Mechanic : Okay - Meh. Some are cool - like scrolling text is much faster compared to the old titles, it even allows us to completely skip some dialogues that we often read frequently - but some are definitely with space to improve, like the map or the bag. I believe there is nothing really game-breaking, that's at least good and probably they paid the effort to patch out.

Characters : Absolutely wild. Since this is just a personal note, I'm sure I'm just saying my personal favorite - they are all super unique and vivid. I can talk forever about them. Ortega, Grusha, Rika - who hates Rika, Iono - yeah I know some people hate her, I don't actively like her either but we definitely feel like she's a new breeze to the world of Pokemon so yeah I take it - actually all the team star leaders and gym leaders are super cool, I need to appreciate all the designers working on creating them. I really really wish we could meet all of them after beating them since they were toooooo adorable to just fight and bye. Especially the elite four - once you beat the elite four, you can't re-match them for good. Yeah... Rika...

New Pokemon : like how could they think it was a good idea to add just flamingos???? I mean it's funny so I love it though. You might feel some Pokemon are disappointing, like Dudunsparce, or Flamigo, I have no argument with that. But otherwise I feel they are crazy and broken in a good way, like we got chilli pepper, twin-headed chilli pepper, bread-puppy, earthworm, just a rock salt - I couldn't stop making the pog face after finding that tiny mushroom-ish pokemon that I ran into was just a tiny rock salt crystal - tumbleweed, a chibi megaman, two megamans that have flame and sword respectively, and a flamingo. How?? Let me repeat it - I absolutely love these crazy new Pokemon ideas, they make the adventure much more fun to try to find and catch a new one.

Music : Fantastic. I definitely want to point out the elite four music issue - the background music for the elite four battles can be stuck at the intro loop forever and it doesn't progress the music somehow, unless you restart the game. That's... probably one the worst audio glitches, feeling as a composer. Since it is one of the climaxes of the game... Let's forget the bug since I remembered to restart my console before meeting Rika. They are absolutely fantastic. Some tracks even seamlessly continue between the exploration and the battle phase, it makes me - wow. Plus Toby Fox made a lot of more bangers, it would be a spoiler so I don't wanna talk in depth here though - they make me absolutely hype. I'm sure for music - it's easier to understand it by listening, not talking, so yeah I recommend you to check some tracks from it. Oh please be careful the Ed Sheeran jumpscare (I love the song tho).

Story : Holy Dudunsparce. Not gonna lie, this is the first time that one of the main series of Pokemon titles made me cry through the story. Even twice! They really tried and it worked. I mean I know it's kinda cheap, straightforward and very simple because it's Pokemon which has the largest diversity of players, some are not familiar with playing games, or some are literally children, like 6 yo (right?). But dang that was something.

Overall : I think other people already said it, but - it's the most broken pokemon but so far the most fun pokemon at the same time. That's crazy.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Okay, I finished The Final Horizon. Spoilers following.

Thoughts specific to the stuff I didn't mention yesterday are that the final tower climb was a lil bit easier than I expected given how much time I spent on one of the ones before it, but still good stuff. The final trial is very mediocre. I think a boss rush kinda just feels shitty to have in the main game knowing that like 2 updates ago we already added a boss rush mode to begin with. The extra stipulations to make it more challenging are certainly something - you have a fully level 1 Sonic who can't get rings back and whose ring count carries over between fights, so you're on a timer for all 400 of those rings to do three titans in a row, even cylooping doesn't give you more. That part's neat, adds a lot of tension and asks that you're able to take these bosses out efficiently. The shit part is that they changed how the parry worked to give Sonic the "perfect parry", which is a linear downgrade from the normal parry lmao. Way it works is it's the parry but you need to time it. On paper a good thing! In the first place the parry window being uhhhhhh infinite was criticised quite a bit at release, and they've found a roundabout way to address it in this update. But that brings the obvious problem of now you've got to time a parry that you have never practiced with, and your training room are boss fights with a lengthy restart period if you fail, and that's coupled with the fact that the boss hitboxes really don't match their animations well at all. So the perfect parry - instead of bandaging the parry problems - just rubs salt in the wound instead. Ouch.

Once you've done that tower climb and trial, you get to go for the final boss - a fight against regular Supreme from the regular vanilla game. Very much of two minds about this because of how The Final Horizon's content is implemented into the game to begin with. Since it's just a portal on Ouranos that takes you to Ouranos but we're doing this story instead on an optional save file and stuff, it makes sense to have the exact same Supreme fight since like holistically if someone is playing the complete version of the game for their first time then hey they should see this fight, right? But on the other hand what this means is if you either beat the game before this update, or if you're playing it for the first time now and decide to go for I suppose both endings, you will at two different points in the story have to do the same Supreme fight. Feels bizarre. Also strange thing but base The End, if you fail you just start at the start of that fight, but in The Final Horizon if you fail that new version of The End you gotta refight Supreme. That's tedious and inconsistent, not really a fan.

As for the new fight against The End, it's another thing I'm of two minds about, although I'm leaning more positive probably. The goods are the setpiece elements of this - cool as absolute fuck and I guess Cyber Super Sonic or whatever it officially ends up being called? Shit's fucking awesome, plays mostly the same but dude his attack animations are so over the top shounen badass and he does awesome poses and like shot of the back while one eye looks down at the camera, I felt like I was watching Nazo Unleashed for the first time again. Moreover the nature of this take on the story is such that every other character is significantly involved and gets to do a lot more, even if they are still ultimately spectators but like hey they're more there than they were before. Also just as a game design thing, hey it's another Super Sonic fight. Awesome. This is a long established formula within the game by now and it's far more logical to end the game on than a schmup out of largely nowhere. Good improvement. The bad though is kinda twofold. For one we're doubling down on perfect parry, which like hey technically they've introduced it to us by now so it's less of a jumpscare, buuut it's still shitty and the animations don't feel like they match up and it's just a bizarre difficulty spike in control that would really need a ground-up different approach to really fix. The other thing is I think this fight has like, pretty bad conveyance, I guess? You're told quite directly that "attacking The End head-on won't work, find something else to do", but that feels like a bizarre thing to ask of the player when they're by now already conditioned towards "super sonic = press attack buttons". Moreover the cyloop just never seems to really accomplish anything either. See what you actually need to do is attack higher up on Supreme End's body and then do specifically a quick cyloop - at which point you can deal damage. From here you do uhhhh, I don't really know? I kinda just did stuff until it was over and wasn't really confident until I hit a quicktime event. Was that fade to black a quick time event animation? Did I die? Is the fight about to be over? I never really felt like I knew. I think the fight is a cooler setpiece than vanilla The End and certainly the game "earns it more" but it seems like regardless of which one you do, the final boss of Sonic Frontiers is just kinda shitty lol.

Was a bit disappointed to see that on completing the file, you don't get to take the new playable characters back to old islands or use them in Cyberspace. Would just be a really fun and rewarding thing is all. As it stands you can use them in the same Ouranos island you can already use them in by going to a character swapper that's pretty far away from lots of stuff on the map. One of those things where I suppose implementing them into the rest of the game is a tall order, but it is a bit sad is all. Unless this is some reward for finishing all the new cyberspace levels which uhhhh I still haven't done lol. They're fuckin hard okay!!!

Overall though, I think Final Horizon is interesting - largely good (last post goes into more of the detail surrounding that), but it will change the overall conversation surrounding Frontiers quite a bit. I think updates 1 and 2 did great legwork to making Frontiers feel a lot more "complete" as a game, whereas Final Horizon kinda feels like a more standalone expansion that's perhaps so standalone that suddenly the game feels actually less complete. Like by itself this needs more updates to fit in with the rest of the game better, or something. Put another way, updates 1 and 2 are linear upgrades to base Frontiers, while Final Horizon is a good-to-mixed addition to a game that hey, tbf, was already good-to-mixed anyway, right? Hope that makes sense lol.

But I think more than anything else though I can't help but respect the hell out of this update existing. Kishimoto and the team actually taking feedback, addressing complaints, and adding new stuff to the game for fucking free is insane in this day and age, even comparing it to other Sonic titles like Origins Plus or Superstars with digital deluxe and preorder and retailer exclusive downloads and shit. The precedent that these updates set for future Sonic titles as well is also insanely exciting - lots of Frontiers' problems were addressed across the updates anyway, with some of the core fundamental parts already in the game being left as is by necessity (I'm talking like lots of the puzzle design and stuff). I think if Frontiers is to be seen as a stepping stone towards something greater then these updates really will help along that journey. And it downright goes without saying, but holy shit I'm so glad to see solo sonica die. Tails and Knuckles are back, and even Amy is on the core team. I don't strictly think every game going forward needs these exact playable characters in this exact playstyle but the general idea of how they play and how they feel compared to Sonic is perfect - that's what I want more of going forward. Perhaps in the long term this'll make Frontiers somewhat eclipsed by its successors - a game that's spoken about for what future titles did based off of it, rather than getting to fully stand on its own years down the line. There's an insanely complicated conversation to be had about that subject, and about making games for that purpose, but for a series like Sonic I think that's a worthwhile thing to aim to be and if the experiment pays off then hey, shit's all the greater.

For now though, I need to work on those cyberspace stages lmao.

[yuriko-mukami]

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Weird Questions for Writers 

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

(( Answered here.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Yuriko's Story: Maniac

(( Well, as you probably know it is DL lore combined with my own version of kitsune lore. I restarted the whole route three times. At first, it was Shuuriko story with a very different storyline because the dynamics of Shuu and Yuriko are also very different than Rukiko's. After a while, the story with Shuu didn't feel right and I wanted to change Ruki as Yuriko's canon love interest. So, I was back on the planning phase. The story turned out really different, but something remained and, in both versions, Laito has a tiny role as antagonist. xD

I started to write Ruki version of the story but that didn't work out either. The ship felt right but I wanted to make major changes to the plot. So, I took what was working and moved other parts out, rewriting everything. Maybe some sentences remained but I typed many parts again.

Of course, all that happened while writing Dark. Now I've finally established how I want to write this story and Maniac will probably be smoother to finish.

At the moment, I can't quite say what things won't make it in the text. I have included some RP scenarios, mostly with Elizabeth Virnien and Tsukinami Shin, but many of them will be left out because all the stories just don't go together. Eli and Shin are Yuriko's canon along with Ruki, so they are going to be in the story. And maybe someone else if they are willing. If not, I might make some tiny changes.

I'm currently getting help from

Eli's Admin

@ask-ruki-mukami's Admin and

@the-founders-domain's Admin

and I'm very grateful for that. I wouldn't be able to write Yuriko's story like this without them.

I actually don't know what else to say but you can always ask more if you are curious of some detail~

My WIP Novel

(( This is an otome game inspired interactive novel with several storylines and endings. There will be a true conclusion to the story too and you need to read through all the different storylines to get the full picture of the situation.

The lore...? Hmm... Four of the main characters are subraces of a certain fantasy race, living mostly in the northern parts of world. One of the main characters is another kind of supernatural being but she doesn't know it. She ends up working for the others and... since it's an otome game like experience she will be shipped with all of them depending on the reader's choices. There will be a story-related reason for this but because it's the whole point of the story I'm not going to tell you what it is.

Again, I really can't say which parts will be in the text and which not. That is to know when I start the editing process.

The history of the story is mostly that the MC lived rent-free in my head for a long time. She had some story parts existing, but details were missing. Playing otome games helped me to find a solution on how to put everything together and mix two of my favorite type of supernatural beings together in the same story.

Sorry for the vague answer but I don't want to reveal too many details about the story at the moment.

[refriedrambles]

Alrighty right, so gotta bit sick getting back on track

Rise isn't what I was expecting so far, but I think I like it better the way it is

It's goofy, like genuinely goofy and you can tell a lotta love was put into making it

It makes me cringe but like again that's more of a medium thing with me. I hard cringe at most shows I watch. Definitely a me problem. But I think I figured out how to deal with that and get through shows for the most part

Absolutely love it. Amazing show! Donnie is definitely my favorite so far

Just talking about plans and other stuff I've been enjoying past this point

I found a little music/audio software to fuck around in which seems like a good way to get into that

Been really enjoying Pirate Software's vods

Have been crushed by the fact that like nothing is free with ads on Crunchyroll anymore. Looked at like fifty shows, found all of one that was free past ep three. Sucks. My disappointment is immeasurable. Still gonna watch that one anime and then probably uninstall

What I'm doing with Being Fired and some recurring manhwa tropes inspired me to tear all my nonfanfic ideas apart and try to make something new with them which has been fun so far but has made me realize I know like nothing about geography and would very much like to learn. So two new things to do

Anyway I think Being Fired has scope creep cause I'm probably being too serious with it and it's about characters that are only lightly touched on in IZ. I intend to keep working on it until I have it finished, but may try to get the Dib fic done first. Or Epic Space Battle. Either one they're both supposed to be goofy little oneshots mainly following well established characters

When I say Being Fired has scope creep I mean I have given up on it in its current form am dumping all the Irken fics ideas I have (which is more then I'd like) into it and am trying to develop characters and plots from there. Like I have a lotta ideas that just don't work in the frame work I have for what I want and I know I can do better. I'm not really deleting anything this time around cause I did have amazing ideas, but these ideas might either end up being oneshot fics off on their own or they might get to stay in the main folds. I've yet to decide

Might mess around with that visual novel game engine too seems like a lotta fun. Don't remember the name but I got it bookmarked. This and the music thing are just dick around and try to do fun shit things. I don't want them to have the pressure I've got with art or writing

I want to get through my art courses too so I'm gonna need to set some time aside for that

Fire Emblem is trying to suck me back in

I mean I feel this strong strong urge to find my 3ds and try a new run of Awakening, Fates, and Shadows of Valentia and restart my run of Genealogy of the Holy War and like get my hands on more titles. I shouldn't have installed Heroes. I will resist the urge!

I also really wanna play Cult of the Lamp but I wanna finish at least one of the games I have before I get a new one

I am so bad at finishing games

And shows

[enhypia]

JY ; almost lovers

almost lovers answers questions with the choice of drinking instead of answering

pairings: sim jaeyun x gn!reader

genre: fluff, angst if you squint

words: roughly 1.4k

masterlist ⸺ series masterlist

~guides and warnings~

italics - reader speaking

bold - jake speaking

[enclosed] - interviewer speaking

italicized bold - both reader and jake speaking

[enclosed bold or italics] - question (depends on who's speaking)

heavily inspired by: rec.create lie detector games, cut truth or drink

warning: contains and mentions of !!! drinking and swearing

i don't promote underage drinking, save your livers

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

hello~ my name is jake!

and i'm (y/n)

and we're almost lovers

[you guys were invited here today as almost lovers for a fun little drinking game, you guys aware of that right?]

yes we were

[okay, for this game, questions will be asked and if you refuse to answer, you drink, it's that simple. should we start?]

yup!

i'll be drinking regardless if i answer or not btw

why?

it's free alcohol

[how long have you guys known each other?]

since middle school ??

yup, so like 6 or 7 years ?

[wouldn't you be childhood friends then?]

oh no, jake and i weren't friends

*jake laughs and (y/n) grins

we really weren't, we were just somehow always put in the same classes

classmates, that's literally just what we were

ah i got it, we just knew of each other's existence

yup that

*both laugh

[how did you guys became almost lovers then?]

oh it's the classic project partners thing

we became seatmates, and like for that whole school year almost every teacher assigned seatmates as partners

it's like they all collectively agreed to it

yeah so we just eventually got close and ,,,

chaos ?

chaos.

*both giggle because jake's giggle is contagious

[why didn't you guys get together?]

we were both cowards and dumb with feelings

and jake had to move back to australia

and i had to move back to australia

[so if jake didn't move, you guys could've been together?]

,,,, i honestly do not know

yeah same

jake was the popular dream guy, i wasn't even dating him back then but so many rumors spread

i'm sorry about that really

don't worry, it wasn't your fault

*you pat him on the head making him smile widely

[how about we start the q&a between you guys?]

yeah, let's go~

*both nod and played rock paper and scissors to determine who gets to ask first, jake wins

okay! first question

*jake picks up a card and laughs in disbelief

why?

[do you still find me attractive?]

*(y/n) bursts out laughing

i don't know if i should be offended that you're laughing or what

no, because it's ridiculous!

whY?

jake i literally compliment and hype you up whenever we meet

*jake blushes

so yes i still do find you attractive because you ARE attractive.

*(y/n) smiles teasingly

*jake rolls his eyes

*(y/n) picks up a card

oh wow

[did you see ever yourself loving me?]

*jake takes a shot

you know that just makes you sus

it's not like you don't know the answer?!!

that's the point! i do know so you could've just answered instead of drinking

shut up *jake grumbles

*you take a shot to make him feel better

the answer is yes btw, i did see myself loving them

*(y/n) almost chokes

*jake laughs

it's different hearing it out loud

*jake g i g g l e s

just read the next question

[do you think it's my fault that we didn't become a couple?]

pffft-

i mean

yeah yeah, but for me i'm blaming australia

sure buddy.

*jake :O

but no i don't think it was your fault, like we said a while ago, even if you didn't move, we were still dumb with feelings and we probably would've prioritized our future than a relationship. it wasn't the right time i guess??

*jake nods in agreement

[sorry, was it ever clarified between you guys that you had feelings for each other?]

oh yeah! we knew about it

yeah bUT AFTER I CAME BACK FROM AUSTRALIA ???

*(y/n) laughs

we met up when he came back and i just went "oh did you know i liked you back then?" and then jake just -

*(y/n) can't finish the sentence because (y/n) remembers the scene perfectly and is laughing hard

*jake groans

thAT! he groaned like that and basically slammed his head on the table.

yeah and you gaped like a fish after i told you i liked you back then too!

*jake :P

*(y/n) :O

i did not

yes you did! you went *jake imitates a gaping fish

yah! *(y/n) hits jake's arm lightly

*both laugh

*(y/n) reads the card and takes a shot after

why are you drinking? i'm the one answering

i know, i just needed that shot to prepare myself

[do you still have feelings for me?]

*jake turns red and reaches for a shot

moving on-

i'm answering

*(y/n) error404 please restart

*both cannot look each other in the eye

i don't know honestly? i still am kind of dumb with feelings but the reason why i say i don't know is because i'm trying to make sure that what i'm feeling for (y/n) is real?? like i actually do like them and not with the feeling ??

*(y/n) nods understanding what he meant

because wouldn't that be unfair to (y/n) ? saying you have feelings for them when you aren't really sure? i don't want that, i don't want to hurt (y/n) in any way or form

*(y/n) downs a shot and covers their face in embarrassment

why~ ?

*(y/n) narrows their eyes at jake and just hands him the card to read

*jake laughs

okay let's go,

[do you still think about what could've been?]

goddammit

*(y/n) takes a shot

*jake is basically just laughing at everything at this point, but that's okay he's cute when he laughs

yes, i do. i think what plagued me the most were 'what if?' questions. when i see my friends getting into relationships or hearing them talk about someone they've been seeing. i would often ask like "what if we just had confessed earlier?" "what if you never moved?" "what if we actually got together?" things like that

but i think my hardest 'what if' was "what if we just tried?"

*please put jake in rice he is not working

*he raises his glass to do a cheers

here's to painful confusion !

and dumb feelings~

*both take a shot

[question for both: do you regret that you guys didn't get together?]

honestly, no? i feel like if we did, we would be two completely different people right now?

yeah, i like who i am and who you are right now, so i don't think i regret it either.

and we were shit at romantic feelings

we aren't kidding, we really were

i feel bad for everyone who had to witness that phase in our lives

rip

*both laugh

[freestyle! ask any question you want]

hmm,,

don't think too much

no <3

*(y/n) rolls their eyes

okay, okay, i have one

this better be good sim.

[you said a while ago that it wasn't the right time for us before. how about now? do you think we're finally at the right time?]

.........

*(y/n) is speechless

*(y/n) downs a shot

jake don't ask me out on television

*jake bursts out laughing

i don't know jake, you tell me, you're the one confused with feelings.

... .. ... .

*(y/n) realizes what they said

*jake literally 👁👄👁

,,,, what?

*(y/n) clears their throat

huh?

nu uh, what did you just say ??

i haven't said anything yet?? are you okay?

*(y/n) looks at the crew around them that were covering their mouths preventing laughs and squeals

you definitely said something that meant you have feelings for me!

i did not! you need to get your ears checked

*(y/n) is blushing and is avoiding jake's intense look

[that's one way to end, huh?]

oh yay! we're done, good job everybody!

*(y/n) is hurrying to escape like a pokemon

*jake is still dumbfounded, poor guy

[is he okay?]

don't worry about him, he's rebooting

*jake glares adorably at (y/n)

we are talking after this

sorry i have plans, i need to water my dog

*(y/n) teases jake making him facepalm

[i think i smell another feature, but maybe as couples next time?]

*both blushes at the statement

that's all up to jake, director :D

*jake :O

honey, close your mouth, you'll catch flies

*jake wakes up at the term of endearment and his blush deepens

yah~ !

*(y/n) grins widely and waves to the camera

bye~

»————-　♡　————-«

bonus: youtube comments (peep last one)

masterlist ⸺ series masterlist

a/n: AAAA ENHA CB !! the enhypen dimension opens owo <3 anyways, i made jake's lighter since i couldn't make it angsty, he's too precious, i must protect him. also, my jake timestamp (oh worm?) received a lot of love, thank you !!! i hope you like this one as well~ sunoo's will be uploaded next !! please look forward to it <33

[a-snow-decahedron]

13?

I'm assuming this is for the rant. According to the list, 13 would be Sans.

Oh man. I'm excited about this.

Context (link to the original post): I feel like ranting about characters or things I like. No structure, no specific topic, just to share thoughts i have at the moment.

This one is freaking long and i'm not sorry. Uhm, warnings for some broken English I guess. Second language, bluh bluh bluh, you know the drill.

Oh and some talks about depression and neutral endings lol.

Where do I start... welp. It's gotta be somewhere.

Something interesting about Sans is that most interactions with him are entirely optional. Besides the first encounter, a few interactions with Papyrus, and the Last Corridor, Sans stays passive. But he's a good character, and most people, if not everyone, choose to talk to him anyways. You don't need to befriend him to free the Underground, you don't need to get along with him, you don't need to be polite to him either. But funnily enough, you still want to do it. Sans is easy to like, or at least, to want to get to know better. I think that talks about good writing, because it means you care about the story and its characters to want to take the chances to learn things, even if you don't have to, and in fact, they make for pretty memorable moments. So, my first point is that... he's enjoyable that he doesn't have to force himself into the narrative to be appealing.

However, he still plays a pretty interesting role, especially considering the nature of Undertale as a video game rather than a linear story, because he lives his world like a linear story. Sans doesn't have special advantages or status, at least not on the surface. However, he's got something: being observant. He's made his research. From what little we know, he is aware of reports showing an anomaly in time, something that makes timelines jump and restart. And this information is troubling to him. It isn't as simple as someone manually moving through time. It is something moving all of the world. But it is unknown: he doesn't know who controls it and there is no way to tell if time has been altered (I stand by canon with the fact he does NOT remember resets btw). Realizing you are fundamentally not in control of your actions, can induce quite the existential crisis.

Now, the cool part is that this is a very... particular scenario. It can be interpreted as a nod to videogames, or as an hypothetic but unrealistic situation.... and it still resonates with people. Feeling such hopelessness and lack of control over what happens in the world is a feeling many are familiar with. Nothing feels certain, nothing feels like it matters. Nothing you do feels like your own success. And you can go down a hole of negative thoughts from there.

And in the game, Sans is the representation of what an NPC feels in a video game, after being aware that they're just chess pieces to someone else, and Undertale makes you care about these "pieces" like what is happening to them is reality. Not only that, but you can change it at will. All the game is about consequences, but Sans is the guy that becomes aware by the end of it that the anomaly is someone who has the fate of the world in the palm of their hand, and therefore can always choose. It's not just "You killed every monster that faced you" it's "You chose to kill instead of finding a better way and cared for people around you" Sometimes... the player chooses to be responsible, sometimes they do not. Point is, this guy only has these reports, a critical mind and good observation and therefore shows awareness of his situation but he doesn't have influence at all. Not even if he tried, because there is at least a chance you'll find the way to get what you want anyways.

But still, even with this knowledge... Sans surprisingly moves on. I don't think people appreciate the end phonecalls enough. Somehow, in almost every scenario, he survives and calls you after some time. The motivations behind that action intrigue me, and I reaally wanna explore that in depth, maybe through fic, maybe not. To be honest, you have a lot of potential to explore. The hints are right there. But to the point, he moves on. In some endings he's definitely not in a good place, but despite everything there is a sense that there is more to come, and he's going to see it.

This bit is a bit more personal in my opinion so feel free to skip. It's more of a personal reflection than something related to like, the topic at hand. Anyways... Do you know how to cope with the weigh of the future? Well... a suggestion is to enjoy every day. To get the most out of it. You don't need to stress too much working unless you really want to, you don't need to have the most friends, or the best job... because you can find joy in the simple things. Sure, feeling content with the bare minimum is probably not the best course of action and I don't advice it as your only goal... but it is a good place to start. Sans kinda pushes for that and I personally am all for it. It teaches you to appreciate what life gives you, and every step and little achievement you have. There's a saying I know that roughly translates to "Nobody can take away from you what you've eaten and danced"). In other words, have fun, even if it's silly or seems meaningless. Nobody can take away that moment of joy. Make the most of it.

Alright, end of the more personal bit lol.

I think in short, Sans's role in Undertale is really cool and has a lot of room to explore, and I love how his passive attitude represents what being a character in a video game feels like, when faced with the player in control. I also just find a lot of him a bit relatable, and with a LOT of intriguing things, where one can project too if they wish. I kinda relate to his older brother "vibes" too lol.

Do I have more to say? Likely lasdjskj but it's late here and I think this text is long enough for now.

Oooof, I hope you enjoyed.