#I like rambling about games at 4am

[wobinofylisse]

I've been thinking of getting last faith cause I love thw bloodborne vibes and I absolutely LOVE blasphemous 1 and 2 (god I hope we get DLC for 2 like we did 1).

Anyways what issues are you referring to so I'll know

So when you look at the game it's very important to note that it's essentially a castlevania game but with some souls stuff thrown in. Kinda in a way that it feels like it was added for marketing purposes.

I'll start with a subjective issue which is the music kinda sucks. It's sad piano music throughout almost the entire game and my brained tuned it out so much that sometimes I'd eventually notice that at some point the music had stopped in entirely in the area I entered.

That aside, the dark souls stuff holds the game back.

The game doesn't ever pause despite there not being any online and you can't even use items from your inventory and have to manually set things to your hot bar so it's not like you could gain an advantage through it.

You lose currency in death but there's no physical currency you can use and health items are a limited consumable. So every time you lose a fight and want to level a different weapon or just get more health items, you gotta grind for it.

Difficulty can be all over the place so it's very hard to tell if you shouldn't be somewhere or it's just a stupid difficulty spike.

While the ds leveling system is a cool addition to the castlevania style of game, pretty much all dex weapons have actually garbage damage output and guns are so bad that the instinct stat can just be ignored altogether unless you want to use the few spells that scale with it.

Status effects are so detrimental that especially early game, getting inflicted with a status is pretty much just a death sentence.

Moving on to the more actual gameplay design.

Movement is done in such a weird way where it feels kinda clunky and a lot of moves don't properly flow together as smooth as they should.

Double jump is like 60-70% into the game which wouldn't be an issue but almost all ledges are meant to be grabbed and your jump height will only take you to the ledge, so you're constantly watching the climbing animation everytime you make a jump. It's small but it's frustrating.

Early game gives you almost nothing to work with unless you go str, which if you do play it you should. Otherwise not only is the early game gonna be a lot harder but the late game is filled with enemies that deal frost damage which your frost res scales with strength making the late game that much worse.

Guns suck especially when compared to magic as an alternative for your off hand slot. Magic doesn't need to be upgraded like guns and will scale with mind well enough and occasionally instinct. Guns only scale with instinct and with the exception of one gun they all scale very poorly. Guns need to be upgraded the same as your primary weapon but upgrading weapons is very very expensive. Guns use a limited bullet resource that when depleted requires you to scavenge from enemies when depleted meaning that they're very inconsistent in terms of use unlike magic where you can use items to restore fp. Neither guns or magic can be used in the air but some magic has anti-air potential at least. Guns don't do enough damage to bypass any of its flaws and outside of a few niche situations, it's almost always better to just walk over and hit whatever you would shoot at.

Again with the guns and magic can't be used in the air. This means that anything flying requires you to poke it to death. Some of the endgame bosses only fly around. No this is not fun to deal with.

Lots and lots of projectile spam from enemies. Your roll only gives i-frames against projectiles but it neither tells you this nor is it consistent in what you can roll through.

The parry requires you to hold r1 and press y which for some people is a really big deal, I don't really see it as an issue tho. The issue with the parry tho is that it is extremely inconsistent and you can't tell what attacks you can actually parry.

While it is encouraged for you to use elemental buffs on your weapon, it's not very well communicated what will be effective against what and at some point I think bosses stop getting status effects all together.

Side quests seem very basic and are pretty much all just find the 1 thing that the character asked you for then you get no reward and they might just leave the game forever. There's a point of no return at the end of the game that you aren't told about and it makes it impossible to finish any side quests.

Story is kinda eh. Lot of it is characters vagueing about stuff or talking in jargon and I stopped feeling invested in the world building because it felt is need to watch some randos video essay just to understand anything. Especially with how little it explains towards the end.

I say all this and I still think it has the bones of a good game and with the proper work it could be made much better.

I'm hopeful.

[bananasfosterparent]

An anti-AA account posted a comment akin to "I'm tired of the fandom being taken over by sex pests who are obsessed with abusive relationships" in response to the AA kisses being optimized for evil route roleplayers. They were implying that we "bullied" Larian into "changing the narrative they created". (which is a whole other rant post on its own lol). And some others agreed.

Is... is this really how they see us? lmao

I am just baffled because so many loud Anti-AA people are:

constantly going on and on about how it's supposed to be an abusive relationship

constantly reminding AA fans of all the abuse AA supposedly does

writing fanfiction and drawing comics showcasing AA as an abusive partner to Tav/Durge

making absolute statements that AA is locked out of healing and only able to treat Tav abusively

making absolute statements that everything good AA says is narcissistic lovebombing and only everything bad he says (after Tav insults him) is to be taken as truth

only ascending him to get AA romance scene screenshots (with an "I hate AA but..." disclaimer usually attached).

thirsting after AA's romance scenes in general while condemning actually playing/enjoying the ending as a whole because... *drum roll* abuse.

brigading Larian on their Discord with messages to "protect their narrative" to drown out AA fans just asking for rp-friendly animations.

AND YET....AA fans--who actively avoid and reject the abuse narrative headcanon and enjoy AA as a whole and not just for the sexiness--are apparently the sex pests, obsessed with abusive relationships. Out of all the AA stories, comics, and things I've consumed from AA fans, none of it ever seems to include the abuse narrative or glorifing him solely for sexual reasons.

Huh...

[verraising]

did an hour of chaotic raid followed by like three hours of blind ex3 prog with friends today and BOY did we die a lot but also BOY was it fun!!! we got all the way to coronation before we started getting tired and loopy but we're planning on picking it up again sometime next week and i'm excited \o/ ���

[the-spoingus-show]

my current project: jump forever!

this is the first of those scheduled posts i mentioned earlier!!! i figured i would start by talking about my current project - that way i can start posting updates about it without confusing you, Michael. The next post is gonna be about the beginning of this whole Godot thing i've been on, and then i'm thinking about maybe doing a Before Godot post as a bonus once i've talked about all my godot stuff (i love saying this as if anybody cares (besides you, Michael)). setting all that aside, though: this one's gonna need some backstory, so you should buckle in.

around this time last year, me and my little cousin (he's still in high school, but we've always been pretty close) got really competitive about a little game called Jump Forever. it's a side minigame from WarioWare Mega Microgames (the GBA one) where you just jump over a little rope until you fuck up. it's really fucking fun as an addictive little mobile game, and with a quick lil emulator it was one. thus, the addiction began.

truth be told, the phase last year didn't even last that long, but i had a long bus ride a couple of weeks ago and found myself opening the GBA emulator on my phone to pass the time. that led to a little bit of playing at home, which led to beating my cousin's score, which led to getting even more into the game than i was before. as our scores get higher, we've turned to better controllers than a phone touch screen for serious record attempts - i use a ds lite i had lying around (that i reshelled! it was very fun) and he emulates on pc with a controller (i think). this got me thinking about a potential "definitive edition" of the game - probably still on mobile, but with controller support, better touch controls (the game only needs <-, ->, and A!), faster resets, selectable skins, and maybe even unlockable skins? of course, when i finished my work on fnaf (ooh foreshadowing), my sights were immediately set on a Jump Forever remake.

with all that said, welcome to the game as it currently stands! at the moment, i've got wario, the rope swingers, and the score all just about set up, with one exception; the characters have collision, the rope swings (at varying speeds, even!), and wario's speed and physics feel very accurate - but i'm still working on the ai (if you can call it that) of the rope guys as they walk back and forth. i want it to work exactly the same way as it does in the original but i always overthink random mechanics like this. hopefully the next update i give will be about how i cracked it! even if the implementation ends up jank, though, it wouldn't be the first: the rope guys check if wario is too close to them to make it over the rope with an Area2D that just checks for wario when the rope hits the ground. it works! i could just like check wario's position in the code (and it'd probably be way more efficient), but this way just... works.

i still have a buncha crap i still gotta implement before the game's even really playable - the walking ai, the title screen, the little "Ready?" animation, etc. - but that's only the beginning of my work. firstly, i'm probably gonna enlist chloe (oooh foreshadowing) to help me out by drawing some new assets (if she's free, it is finals season), and then changing the game's native resolution from 240x160 (the GBA screen) to something not fucking insane. i've got "reworking all the sprites into easy to read spritesheets" on my to-do list, and after that, making the new assets (and then maybe the skins?) will be as easy as drag & drop. once it's got the new assets and all the polish that needs to come with a shiny new resolution, i'm gonna transition into the next phase - researching how to release a game!!!

[hi, not to ruin my own amazing transition but: it's 5am and i'm running back to edit this because i completely forgot to mention that i have currently implemented a 2 frame input delay on all inputs, because that's how the emulator appears to behave when i go frame by frame. every single day i rethink this decision more and more. surely there's no way that's how it's supposed to be, right? but i feel so weird changing it now!!! i definitely fucking have to though. next time i work on it. ok anyways]

now. i've posted games to itch.io before. but even then, i kind of fucked it up (i could never get the resolution of my web games to work right???) - so it's no surprise i've always been completely daunted by the idea of "releasing a game". when you post it on real stores, that's when it becomes... real. i'm excited about the new challenges it'll pose, though! now, a mobile release means a couple of things - bite sized fun, simple progression, and fun customization. i've already got the first part nailed down, and i figured i could nail the other 2 at once with a currency system based on how many points you get (or maybe even an xp system? that goes up 1 for each jump? maybe even both???) and skins (purchasable with said currency) that let you customize the player, rope swingers, background, and maybe even the rope itself.

pictured above is my stupid ass skins mockup (i literally just made this). the rope is rainbow, the background has a snow effect and a bunch of snow on the trees/ground (isn't it great?), wario is a lil version of the rope guys, and the rope guys have santa hats. i'm not sure how many different ropes you could really make with how i'm planning the rope to move, so i'll probably end up prototyping the graphics with chloe to figure out how to lay out the sprite sheets, and if they should actually have a seperate hand-grabbing-the-rope sprite for skin purposes. it'll definitely make things really confusing, but if i go for a mobile release i don't want to run ads, and so a currency you can buy with real money (and maybe one or two goofy supporter skins that cost real money, like a solid gold guy or something, as a form of donation) is a good way to make a lil bit of money from people who like the game.

all of this is fun to think about, but it's important to remember that the next thing i have to do is that walking ai. i've gotta Make The Fucking Game before i can do all this crazy other bullshit. i'm sure the ui design for all this is gonna be soooo fun, but i need a game to attach it to first :p

this went on reeeally long but i figure if this is a dev diary or w/e it's gonna end up running long no matter what, and the more info, the more i have to look back on fondly and say "oh shit, i know exactly when this was!", which is kind of the end goal of the project. of course, these incredibly long posts about shit that only matters to me are also incredible content for you, Michael, so i'm sure you're just eating this shit up. enjoy, you weird little man.

[yujeong]

Tagged by @suzteel, thanks Suz!

Rules: Post your lockscreen/wallpaper, your last song and a photo of an animal/something cute.

Tagging @loveliesblood @wisteria-daydreamer @mightymightygnomepriest @xpi-x-elx and whoever else wants to play ❤️

[eldritch-elrics]

the thing about dark souls is. like. it's hard to articulate but man that game makes me feel like i'm discovering the joy of video games for the first time. i keep getting this feeling like "this game was made for me" and "this is what video games should be" - is that just because hollow knight was such a formative experience for me? or is dark souls really that good/unique? it's certainly rough around the edges: i've played many games i think are "better," but dark souls evokes the feeling of existing in a world in a certain way i don't think i've ever gotten from anything else.

i'm also coming at it from the really weird perspective of someone who could only play 2D games (and games without intensive graphics) for the longest time. so i've had this sort of backwards development where i started out playing exclusively indie games and now i'm discovering that actually, there's a lot of extremely good AAA stuff! it's really exciting to have this whole new world opened up. (though i hope it won't skew my expectations for indies too much lol.) and crazy too... 2 years ago i never would have thought i'd be capable of playing dark souls (because it's hard and i've not been a "gamer" for as long as my peers have, because simulation sickness made all 3D games hard for me for a while, because at times it has this weird dudebro culture around it) ! and yet!!! what the fuck!! screw gatekeeping; this game was made for me!

[leavesandbounds]

Y'all I'm so gone about the game I've been playing it's bad lmao

I was up until 5am last night rambling to my partner about it after playing most of the day (up until like 4am)

And I woke up after 5 hours of sleep and was literally unable to go back to sleep because I kept thinking about what I'm gonna do in my next run of the game

Having a hyperfixation this strong is

Intense

It's been a while

[simply-shifty]

Am scripting that all my favorite movies, tv shows, video games, books, songs, etc. get remastered with high end graphics or reprinted in my L&DS dr because i have a burning need to fall back down the ethel cain rabbit hole and to explain the lore to sylus and rafayel....sylus cards/texts/calls tell us that he love listening to the mc (me in this case obvi) when she talks about things and that....no matter if he knows what song she's listening to, he likes watching the emotion and joy that shows on her face 🥺

He also plays our favorite game to understand our interests...so playing a game series, not only remastered with stunning graphics and a full 6 games that i didn't get here bc they were cancelled, he would play it or at least read up on the lore or listen to me ramble about it. Little quirks i have here being the same there....sylus seeing me still awake at 4am and reciting the story narration in an opening cutscene and him wondering how many times i must have played/watched the cutscene for me to memorize it like that. The little things...it's the little things 🥺😭

Now i'm just thinking about how he'd look at me as i explain any of my trauma and how i relate to the story of the character. May script in my trauma from here just to get it out and still be loved anyway.

[scrambledlikeeggs]

A bat was in my room at 4am so on 4 hours of sleep I drew this because I just could not get these amazing prompts by @shepscapades out of my brain!

(character rambles below)

I feel like X would play the life series quite similar to third life Scott and try to get kitted out in the best gear possible, I definitely see him setting up lots of traps and trying to manipulate game mechanics (not sure about the success rate of those traps but its the effort that counts) but I also think he would die in the most underwhelming way possible or in some sort of epic final battle that no one would have expected.

This design is so different to my normal X one, it's just so feral also I have made it my personal goal to really put the 'void' in Xisumavoid, hence the void corruption.

[melancholy-marionette]

Hi! How are you today?

You've likely already been asked this, but what do you use to make visual novels? How did you learn to do it? All the ones you make are so cool!!! 💖

Heya! I would say 'tired' is probably the main way I feel today xD I’ve been staying up until 4am again recently and forcing myself up again at 8:30am trying to make up for lost time on the jam that I’m currently taking part in with Lazy Polar Bear x3 (otome/josei jam)

We even tried our best to plan some stuff in advance so that we could have a chilled-out jam for once, but the world had other plans it seems, haha. We've both been hit by a fair bit of bad luck, so I’m pushing myself in the hope we’ll still be able to release a demo in time for the end of the jam. Energy drinks are very much my friend atm x3

I’m so sorry it’s taken me forever to answer anyhow! I’m still majorly behind on pretty much everything >.< so most of my replies are at snail speed, haha. It doesn’t help that my PC died at the end of April, and trying to get a new one has been a nightmare :( 

I knew it was on its way out for a while, so I’d been saving up + making sure to regularly backup data (thankfully, I don’t think I lost too much!) Managed to scrape together enough to get a new one, but when it was delivered, something was wrong with it >.< The first time I powered it on, there was a super loud scraping sound from a fan or something, and it threw up some BIOS error stuff instead of booting Windows.

I contacted the company, and they arranged to collect it & rebuild it for me, which took a while to do. Just had the rebuilt one delivered this week, but there’s still something not quite right about it :( It takes over 1 minute to boot up from pressing to power on (for reference, my PC that died was over 10 years old and booted up in about 10 seconds!) The 4th time I powered the new one on, it lit up inside, but never displayed anything. I gave it 5 minutes, but still nothing, so had to hit the reset button on the case.

Aaaand, one of the hard drives scans show it’s temperature is 68 degrees while the PC is idle, which doesn’t seem good >.< Neither does how hot the processor and graphics cards are showing on temperature readings when idle. As far as I can tell though, all the fans are working fine! 

Still in contact with support trying to find out what is going on :( Which is not what I need while trying to work on a jam project, haha.

Anyways, I’m so sorry for the giant ramble there!! To actually answer your question x3 I don’t think I’ve been asked it that much actually! Maybe only like once or twice :3 The first couple of VNs I made were made with Tyranobuilder cos that was the first thing I came across that seemed easy to use, and it was :D I did try Ren’Py first, but after completing a few tutorials and making a demo project, I hated having to do code stuff so much that I knew it would make me not want to make a full game if that was how I had to do it >.<

I got Tyranobuilder in a Humble Bundle years ago, and it claimed you could make VNs from scratch without writing a single line of code because it used a drag & drop system, so I figured I’d give it a shot! It definitely did what it said on the tin :3 I made my first-ever game with it (Solipsism Reigns) + another one after that (Impostor) before switching to something else. (well, there was also the CiQ demo too, but that's irrelevant now that the game is being made in Nani!)

I think I read a couple of basic tutorials for Tyrano, but it was honestly all really easy to get going with by just poking around in there and seeing what did what, haha.

Besides those first couple of games, everything else I’ve made has been using Naninovel in Unity. I’d say Nani took longer to get started with, but the tutorials are vast and very detailed, so that was a big help. I also managed to get it while it was on sale, so that was a relief since it’s quite expensive full price.

I switched for a couple of reasons. One being that the drag & drop system in Tyrano was fantastic for a beginner like me, but also quite slow, so once I’d grown a bit more confident with how things worked, I figured something like Naninovel with an easy-to-understand scripting language would probably allow me to work faster!

The other big reason was because of how buggy Tyrano seemed to be >.< There were a lot of issues in it that didn’t seem to be having fixes worked on by the software devs at the time (I believe they have since updated it though!) And it was just frustrating to discover there was the odd bug in my game that I couldn’t fix because it was caused by something in the software itself that I hadn’t even touched.

I’ve stuck with Naninovel because it’s definitely easy to use, has a tonne of brilliant guides, and the support on Discord has always been exceptional whenever I’ve needed help on how to do something :3 There’s still a lot about it that I don’t know how to use or little gripes I have with it here and there, but overall, I do prefer it to Tyrano. Nothing is ever gonna be perfect.

It does make collaborating difficult sometimes though because Ren’Py is still the most commonly used tool for making VNs I guess. So if you want to work with people to do code and stuff, and 1 only has knowledge of Ren’Py while the other only has knowledge of Nani’s scripting language and what Nani can do, it’s like you’re speaking two completely different languages when it comes to trying to understand each other x3

If I didn’t have to write code, I would probably use Ren’Py xD It’s just, while I still dislike having to type thousands of lines of Naniscript, I find it at least manageable without getting the world’s biggest headache, haha.

I’m glad that you think the stuff I make turns out cool though! :3 That means a lot ^-^ I always kinda feel like an impostor when it comes to everything I do in game dev just cos I never had any proper training or education >.< I guess a lot of VN devs are probably self-taught though! It is fun to figure things out yourself by trial and error, but I’m sure I must be doing heaps of stuff wrong xD or at least in ways that aren’t exactly the most efficient x3 I muddle through though :D 

Hope you are well + that May is turning out to be a marvellous month for you! Or at the very least, that you have had better luck than me lately, haha.

[sytheofabloodmoon]

So more 4am rambling, or like 5am now as I start typing this. Less timeline rules rambling but still timeline related thoughts. Although we know for certain after S2, that Lu Guang's gone back in time to save Cheng Xiaoshi(seemingly more than once if the 'last chance' line is anything to go by), I have to wonder if Cheng Xiaoshi has done the same for Lu Guang, even if it was only once. We haven't seen it actually happen but we've seen Cheng Xiaoshi be inclined to save him, seeming to consider it when he thought Lu Guang was dead, almost doing it to stop Lu Guang from getting onto the boat (until he literally got in his own way, lol). It doesn't feel impossible or to me. But considering his sincerity and how he wears his heart on his sleeve, would he even be able to keep it a secret? Maybe with some struggle, maybe more easily than we think. Regardless I think he'd end up telling Lu Guang eventually in this case, whether it was because he was pushed to, due to guilt for keeping a secret, if he just couldn't keep it a secret, getting tangled in his own web of lies, just before death or something else entirely. But then why does it seem like Cheng Xiaoshi doesn't know as much about their powers as Lu Guang, why does it feel like he's more in the dark about things? Maybe because in whatever timeline we're currently in/seeing, he doesn't know and is in the dark.

Hear me out for a second. So the flashback of Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's first meeting on the basketball court when Cheng Xiaoshi mentions that the ball represents his trust in Lu Guang and how nice it is to have lifelong partners. It seems a little much to say to someone you just met, or even someone you knew in passing as a classmate because you happened to recognize them. It sounds like something you'd say to someone you've known a long time. What if in that moment it was Cheng Xiaoshi diving back in time and he couldn't help himself from saying something he'd perhaps wanted to last time but never did or never got the chance to? There's also the part of the flashback where Cheng Xiaoshi simply says something along the lines of 'Hey newcomer, come play with us!' And while they definitely could be part of the same flashback (i.e. before and after the game), what if they were two different flashbacks? The actual first meeting and the altered one. Even if they are both the same flashback, it could still be altered because again the lifelong partners mention feels too familiar for a first meeting. Even then, there's the question why go so far back?

Also a particular line of Vortex I've seen mentioned in other theories 'Am I destined to fall? Like you once did for me?' I do think of this as Lu Guang's POV. The thing is I've seen people suggest it refers to when Lu Guang got stabbed by a possessed Qiao Ling and that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi was the one who got stabbed initially. Maybe it does refer to that or maybe it's only part of it and it also refers to falling through time, through near endless dives in an attempt to save the other. Until the only photo left, the 'last chance' was to go back to the beginning. Of course there's the white hair theory which probably plays apart in making it seem like Lu Guang's gone back in time many many times, but since diving into the photos is Cheng Xiaoshi's own power, his hair would stay the same colour. He's not using anyone else's power.

I've also seen people mention that the girls who started the noodle shop together (I rewatched this episode recently and still can't remember their names for the life of me), how their relationship seems to mirror Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's in some ways. The dynamic mainly, I think. But during my rewatch I noticed after the fight when the client asks her friend after the fight 'where are you going?' Her response is 'Back to the beginning. I'll reset.' And that was very interesting to me, considering season 2's last episode, the 'last chance' with Lu Guang going 'back to the beginning', essentially pressing the reset button. I don't know if anyone else noticed that, but I haven't seen it mentioned. And while it could be a reference to Lu Guang, it could also reference Cheng Xiaoshi if he's gone back in time to save Lu Guang before. He did after all, posses both of the women, the one who changed and the one who didn't. If their relationships do intentionally mirror each other, I think it's interesting what that might mean for the boys. Cheng Xiaoshi is both the same and different, possibly due to all the messing around with the timelines. Also considering the argument between the two, it could reference and argument about changing the timelines, changing death nodes, the first time when Lu Guang found out about Cheng Xiaoshi going back in time to save him (supposing it wasn't shortly before Cheng Xiaoshi died), and potentially a future argument when Cheng Xiaoshi finds out about Lu Guang changing the timelines and breaking his own rules to save him (and I do think he'll find out about it). Speaking of Lu Guang's rules, why is he so adamant about Cheng Xiaoshi not changing the past? To protect him, protect their present together, some sense of responsibility, because he knows Cheng Xiaoshi can be reckless? Probably at least a few of the above if not all. And maybe some reasons I missed. But also think about if Cheng Xiaoshi had gone back before, who knows how many times, to save Lu Guang, succeeded ultimately but then ended up dying, potentially in the act of saving Lu Guang depending on what the cause of death was (that's not an answer I have thought of for this theory rambling). Obviously Lu Guang wouldn't want him to be reckless and change things again, especially if he holds the memories of that happening. Cheng Xiaoshi at one point may have made his own death node by changing things to save someone so important to him.

Back to the point of why in the timeline we're seeing, Cheng Xiaoshi seems more clueless about their powers. I'm thinking what if whatever may have changed in this timeline, lead to whatever may have happened in the hypothetical timeline I purposed not happening, either the avoided whatever event would've caused Lu Guang's death and Cheng Xiaoshi diving back or somehow Lu Guang managed to live through it. So as of this timeline, Cheng Xiaoshi never dived back to save Lu Guang, he hasn't done all those dives and doesn't have all that experience. But Lu Guang does, he has dived back, he's manged to avoid Cheng Xiaoshi having to, maybe in part to his rules, maybe something else. But Lu Guang still has all those memories of timeline after timeline, has used those powers himself now, so this time Cheng Xiaoshi is really in the dark. Maybe it's not just Cheng Xiaoshi's optimism that contributes to Lu Guang choosing to dive back to save Cheng Xiaoshi himself, even though they supposedly can't change the path and death is an unchangeable node but the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi has done the same for Lu Guang and succeeded. Perhaps he somehow even replaced Lu Guang's death node with his own, even if he no longer knows that he did that.

I really want a happy ending to the series with our main trio all happy and alive and together, but I also don't think we'll get one. Whether my rambling theory thing is in any part true or not, I feel like the series will probably end with either one or both of the boys dying. I will cry if that happens though, that is a threat and a promise, lol.

Anyways if you're still reading thanks for putting up with the long post. Also I have no idea if this even makes any sense or not or if I can really even call this string of thoughts a proper theory. But it's food for thought and I wanted to get these thoughts down and semi-organized, so here we are

[57sfinest]

Are there any particular scenes in the game that REALLY stick out to you that aren't talked about much online?

i feel like all the big scenes are talked about enough but like... maybe the payphone with dora? just something about it hurts me

the fact that dora picked up and stayed on as long as she did. harry had her *mirova* number so deeply ingrained into his muscle memory he could do it with his eyes closed after getting his brain wiped. how did he even get that? did she let him have it? was there a telephone book? did he have to do some borderline-stalking to get ahold of it?

the fact that no matter what you say to her initially, as she wakes up her response just amounts to "oh... not this again." again. how many times have they done this? how many times has harry, unknowingly or uncaringly, gotten drunk or high or both and called dora in the middle of the night (in her time) to hear her voice, and what has he said? does he beg her to come back or get angry?

idk there's just so much resignation and patience on dora's end, or at least that how it feels to me. she's isolas away- she can afford to be patient now. this clearly isn't something she wants to be doing, but she doesn't hang up on him, just lets him talk until the payphone runs out of money or he hangs up on his own. he broke her heart and made it all about himself but here she is, sitting on the phone at 4am when she's got work in 2 hours, listening to him ramble on about god-knows-what. and she's got to be worried. every time he hangs up she wonders if it will be the last time, and if so, why will it be the last time? will it be because he grew up and got over it, or because he finally killed himself? it's not her responsibility to worry or care anymore, but things are never that simple. of course some part of her will always be a little bit concerned (or at least morbidly curious) about how he's doing. as awful as these calls are, they must reassure her a tiny bit.

[human-souls-buy-dopamine]

CRAWLS OUT HERE.

the pinned post. post pinned. whatever. it's HERE woooooooo!! *ahem*

Hi! You can call us Theo or Atrix. We use it/thon pronouns, and are a system!

We like to make things. Loooots of things. Currently, we have quite a few wips going. Our fandoms/interests at the moment are:

- Get a Snack at 4am: Snackcore

- our OCs & friends OCs

- CCCC & general Chonny Jash stuff

- Dreamswap/Fatal Flaws

- FNaF (games & movie)

- DSaF

- (kindof) ULTRAKILL

- Vocaloid

- Minecraft (we are trying to get into SMPs that don't have a ton of lore to catch up on atm, so if anyone has suggestions, hit us up !!)

- Yansim, to an extent (NO we do nOT support Yandev that's fuckin gross, we just like the concept okay..)

- BlockTales (to an extent; haven't finished yet!!)

- Regretevator

We run 4 sideblogs right now: @human-souls-reblog-dopamine , @thissys-editz, @supernovae-never-burn-alone, and @divided-they-were-created ! The last two are OC blogs, the first is our reblog sideblog.

Previously an unused cover channel, we've converted our YouTube Channel to be for OC content. Nothing much yet, buuut...

Tags beneath the cut.

1. For generally talking, announcements, etc

2. Things we're passionate about, essays/rants/rambles, etc

3. Self-explanatory.

4. Like 2, but not really coherent. Lots of typos, vague/nonsensical, etcetera

5. When we get asks, regardless of if they're actual questions or not.

6. Reblog tag. Most used tag on this blog.. (edit: we now have a sideblog FOR reblogs!!)

7. Our art.

8. Our writing.

9. Our memes.

Tags that have since been added:

#theatrical freaks: on stage — for music from our music channel or that will go to that channel.

#theatrical freaks--opening night — for posts about songs/covers on our album Opening Night.

#playing tag on stage! — for tag games

Also, the format "the voice of [name]" is used in tags to show who posted/wrote the post. This one will be tagged 'the voice of eiren' because I, Eiren, wrote it!

Further edit: another tag format is "[name] fren". These are tags for friends/mutuals we interact with. For example, Xero is 'xero fren', Fen is 'fen fren', etc etc..

[apollowhoo]

こんにちは！元気ですか？⬇️

i saw you accept matchups and I wanted to send one in :D so may I request a Platonic Matchup for Danganronpa, Hazbin Hotel, Alice In Borderland and TBHK (if your fine doing four— If not you can get rid of TBHK) 어쨌든, 시작하자!

my name is joey, im 4teen, i have autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, OCD & BPD, im transgender (ftm), aromatic bisexual and unlabeled

appearance wise, im pretty midsize, im 5’6, white skinned, i have dyed black boy hair with bangs, hazel eyes, dark eyebags, piercings, i wear a lot of different styles like goth (trad goth, romantic goth, mall goth, cyber goth and victorian goth), gyaru (hime gal, himekaji, agejo, rokku, manba, banba, kogal, tsuyome and kigurimin) scenemo/emo, & vkei ouji and lolita, when I’m at home/work/school I wear Streetwear clothes such as baggy stuff and I also wear a lot of Y2K stuff too

I’m a Aquarius, an ENTP/INFP, 4w3 and Extroverted

My top interest is anime/manga, my other main interests are gaming, anthropology, pathology, zoology, fashion, music (including Vocal Synths! I’m a vocaloid producer and a regular one too), filmmaking, art(drawing, painting, pottery, digital art, etc), learning instruments, learning languages, tabletop RPGs, rhythm games, cosplaying, watching documentaries, going on walks, taking pictures of things that I think are pretty, collecting figurines/stuffed animals and puppetry, dancing, science/history, and cooking, art is definitely my top main hobby rn, im dedicating a lot of time to it

Im usually awkward at first when I meet someone new, unless if I feel really comfortable or if I’m in a safe situation, when I’m comfortable with a person you CANNOT shut me up, I’ll be rambling about my interests and shit, i have a hard time communicating and understanding social cues due to my autism, my emotions come off as sarcastic or silly, im someone very entertaining and calming to be around with, i have a hard time taking everything seriously, and I find humor in pretty much, i also feel the urge to correct any faulty information, i also talk very differently with my words since some people say I use “BIG” words, for the most part I’m pretty chill— but what some would consider “repressed anger issues” and I can be verbally aggressive when prevoked.

I’m like the dad friend and I have a bad habit of being a therapist for my friends, i like to keep stuff with me when I go out like chapstick and some water bottles for my friends and me as well, i really like to make things for people I’m close with and that includes drawing stuff for them as well, i have a realllllyyy overactive brain. i tend to get really deep and philosophical when I’m left on my own to long, so I try to keep myself and mind occupied with stuff to distract me, i dream to become a lead singer for a vkei band, also I know 6 languages which are Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Polish and French

likes: vocaloid/utau, hajime hinata (danganronpa), a silent voice, albedo (genshin impact), felix kranken (twf), bread, sharks, christmas music/christmas in general, scp 3008 (roblox game), get a snack at 4am (roblox game), musicals, hotels, my friends, enstars (switchP + more), rhythm games, doukyuusei, mystic messenger, twf, genshin, lemon demon/neil cicierega in general, breaking bad, eddsworld, homestuck, horimiya, hxh, the great gatsby, saiki k, hamilton (sadly, im sorry.)

dislikes: negitive mentions of my voice, comparing me to people/saying stuff like "you remind me of ____", and spiders (not Angel Dust, i love him sm)

also these are some of my top kins!!:  hiyori tomoe (enstars), yoosung kim (mystic messenger), jumin han (mystic messenger), hanako (tbhk), felix kranken (twf), albedo (genshin impact), shoya ishida (a silent voice), tom (eddsworld), eridan (homestuck), karkat (homestuck), miyamura izumi (horimiya), natsume sakasaki (enstars), sora harukawa (enstars), V (mystic messenger), hagumi kitazawa (bandori), matsubara kanon (bandori), shinji ikari (neon genesis evangelion), lain iwakura (serial experiments lain), hajime hinata (danganronpa) yuno gasai (future diary), gojo satoru (jujutsu kaisen), kangel (needy streamer overdose), ame-chan (needy streamer overdose) urumi akamaki (alice in borderland) and more....!

merci beaucoup! أتمنى لك يومًا رائعًا!

(This is my first match up, i hope i did it right😭)

DANGANRONPA:

You would get along well with Hajime Hinata!

With your shared interests in manga, rhythm games and Vocaloid; you two could have never lasting conversations about your interests. Hajime’s reserved self and your initial awkwardness would quickly lead to a healthy friendship.

HAZBIN HOTEL:

You would be great with Alastor!

Your interest in anthropology, puppets and music would definitely intrigue him! He could find your chaotic humor amusing and both of you could bond over your artistic interests.

ALICE IN BORDERLAND:

In this chaotic world, I’d match you with Urumi Akmaki!

Your interests in anthropology and games would get her attention. Despite her mysterious and off nature, you being the dad and the therapist for your friends could force her to open up and share her feelings with you.

TBHK:

I’ll match you with no one other than Hanako!

Hanako’s mischievous and playful self could match with your humor and your love for making others smile! Your interest in supernatural could lead to entertaining conversations about spirits. He would also ask you to draw him. For sure.

[astrum99]

@patronsaintofdemons from original post

*runs at u* *snatches u by the arm* *shaking u shaking u* I GOT U. YOU RE NOW A VICTIM OF MY THOGHTS . DO NOT RESIST. 

No joke I woke up yesterday morning at 4am, saw ur tags, and couldn’t get back so sleep for a whole hr bc I got so excited to talk abt whatever funky waves my brain is generating ( I am at peak obsession right now, I am generating enough energy to power a small city))

Sorry if I’m being awfully deranged. I'm not used to being Comprehended and Perceived as an existing entity. Please excuse the part of me that is vibrating so hard I am about to emit light beams from my eyes like some sort of cartoon character. Anyways.

Ultrakill, so far, doesn’t actually have a super complex lore. The story is succinctly simple and tragic. The characters as well. I won't focus on that because my obsession lies in Gabriel. From your tags, it looks like you haven’t gotten deep into the game (yet), so I don’t want to spoil the fun if you ever decide to watch a playthrough of the game, or play the game yourself.

And I can avoid spoilers because, for this post, what I latched onto is not his character arc, but his inherent setting of “an angel”.

“Why are you thinking of an angel”

Well. For starters. I wasn’t thinking about angels at first. I was thinking about his thighs and what he got down there. 

Stay with me. The horniness is fading. The poetry is starting. (shaking you)

Click see below.

No? As if you had a choice.

Jokes on you, I lied. This is less of a poetry and way more of an incomprehensible ramble on why Gabriel is irresistible to me. I hope you enjoy it anyway. <3

Humans are largely made of storytelling and wonder. A desire to strip back layers and layers until a deep, concise answer is found. Then we move on. The study of magic: biochemistry, aerodynamics, fusion physics. We boil the universe down to the barest essentials, then examine some more. We looked inside ourselves: blood, plasma, enzymes. Until we reach the concept of consciousness and suddenly, we are incapable of going further. Attention turned to the sky: planes and rockets; astronomy and “what happened before the Big Bang?” in a child's voice. And we saw that the stars were moving further away from us, faster too, and we thought "we'd have to keep going."

It is at these ends that things become interesting. Never-ending debates of questions that will never be solved because of our inability to go beyond the limits. Reaching the skybox of the universe and unable to do anything more than to speculate what lies further still.

It is no wonder that the thought of an angel captivates man. If it exists, then its nature of being far outside of our observational capability becomes the ultimate lure for artists and scientists alike.

For example, what form would it take? A question of pure speculation, no different than a child's image of aliens. Brainstorming shapes and curvatures and weight in the three-dimensional space, fruitless and fantastical.

An abstract form, perhaps. So abstract that it becomes a type of cosmic horror or a Lovecraftian horror. The burning of eyes, the melting of mind. To lay eyes on it is to condemn yourself to death. Radioactive elephant's foot. We'd try to see it regardless.

A holy being, perhaps. Formed like a man but spills pure light when cut. Would it even cut? What does it mean if the imperfect blade made from the hands of a lowly man had sliced through its skin? Skin? Does it have skin? Like a salamander? Like a leopard? Can a creature’s skin contain the light of god? …Would it leak like a broken puppet? Does it sometimes hate itself like how some of us hate the silhouette of our shadows?

A man, perhaps. Uncertain if it became an angel because the mold of humankind was filled to the brim with divinity, or if it is divine because the pile of carbon assumed the role of an angel. Does it know? Does it wonder? Does it see man in itself, and itself in man? Does it feel lonely to be separated from its lightless siblings that wander the earth freely and sinfully?

And if it is man, as physical as it can be, how close am I to it? …What makes you sacred? Can I see? Can I touch? Can I study your form as millions of humans studied every inch of their world, concrete and abstract? Do you see me as ants? Or family? Would you grieve for me as I have for the songbird?

If I cut you open, will you hold yourself down for me?

Will you forgive me for desecrating you like so?

I think I would be ok with dying by your hand if it is you: let me trade my sight to see you, let me trade my life to touch you. To know you is to cross the limits of the beasts. Sacrilegious.

… And I don’t think you’d allow me to. It’s not in your character. Another angel perhaps, from another story. But I’m thinking of you. And so I can only think, like ancestors before me, and descendants after me. Of the study of magic, of self, of sky.

Of angels.

Truthfully, I’m not a believer in a higher being, never have been, probably never will; but standing on the boundary between life and death and yearning to know the feeling of an angel’s skin under my fingertips are the closest thing to a prayer I have ever experienced. Passion burns; I tend to the fire.

And it’s so regretful that I will never know (because you are an angel) and I will never know (because you are born of fiction) and I am never supposed to know (because to completely understand something or someone is to remove the wonder and hope and passion - like how life without death is timeless and still).

So, this is a love letter of sorts. Because I can’t be the only one craving to know every crease and crevice of this holy being made wearing the same shell as a creature who roams the earth blindly, bumbling, and mad.

------

By the way, please excuse grammar issues. Both my writing in the original post and this one are messy and not thoroughly edited. I just type my brain words out in one setting (partially because uni is in full swing). Sorry if this is on the too-long side of things. I was 700 words into my take on human storytelling before I went: “wait, I’m going way off topic” haha Hope this version is more palatable!

Also just wanna let you know: I just started posting my writing, so your tags were one of the first few that came in and got me really excited! I’m always so happy to read the tags of people who enjoyed my stuff. Thank you!

[fruitsgoblin]

*kicks in the door* I heard you like Sigma and I need your thoughts on him (I have recently discovered him and I feel like I’ve slept on this)

YES... he is the current little meow meow of my heart... tragic enthusiastic astrophysicist with a good heart and a great voice my beloved

im gonna ramble now so---

you can see his origin story video on youtube and currently from what I'm getting there hasn't really been much lore for him since he released like... 3.. years ago? BUT there are little crumbs of information you can get and/or interpret from the voice lines he has and his interactions with the characters in game, some of my faves in particular being:

all the sombra lines with him where it feels like she genuinely cares and worries for him, she looks out for him as Moira and the others perform... definitely """non-intrusive""" experiments on him as he says (I am new to the OW world proper but I can't help but wonder if Talon's experimenting on him is part of why his mental state isn't improving as much as it should (his mind tends to wander).. it's already known that they just want him to be their living weapon and not actually support his research... I hope we get to see him changing over to overwatch's side and get life quality improvements with Winston's help)

the kill lines when you take down moira and doomfist, which are apparently dutch proverbs -- I wonder what his true thoughts are on his "co-workers" and if he truly doesn't realize he's being used

all the voice lines with him asking silly things which convinces me he would 1000% be the one roommate to wake you up at 4am to say things like "if two astronauts were on the moon and one threw a rock at the other one would that be messed up or what"

and... more, honestly, he's a HUGE DORK and while you can feel he's a sweet person trough a lot of the lines theres ones where hes absolutely savage ("death traveled lightyears to take you" when killing someone by throwing a huge rock at them via his gravity powers -- or, my absolute fave that made me cackle maniacally out loud, when interrupting Genji's ability "oh! sorry did I interrupt your swordplay?" LIKE... SIR.)

also bc I just realized I completely forgot to mention the main things about him:

called "sigma", his real name is siebren de kuiper and he's a 62 yr old dutch astrophysicist, focus on black holes, got his gravity powers from said black holes (experiment gone wrong), got emprisoned by the government and boy I can only imagine the trauma this blorbo has (was he receiving proper care??? therapy???? man is literally out here losing himself) and then got rescued by The Baddies TM (Talon) to be turned into a living weapon on the pretense of wanting to help him with his research

(clutches my little gay heart) I have so much love for this senior citizen I will cherish him and kiss he. which is really super funny because I started out playing him because it was funny to inflict ToesMan on my friends but then I heard him and more about him and turns out. I was the one being inflicted with ToesMan all along (we lovingly call him toesman because in most of his skins the only skin showing are his head and his feet)