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dr-spectre · 1 month ago

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I heard about how in Bancala Walker there was a short story about Marina and Acht and their time in the domes. And I'm gonna be 100% honest with you. It kinda makes me mad, and it really highlights a massive problem with Splatoon as a whole, and that's how it treats its stories.

(Yep I'm rambling about Splatoon's storytelling for the 500th time, welcome to my blog.)

Since Splatoon 2, the series has had a weird relationship with its storytelling, the main stories of each campaign are very simplistic and are very video game like plots. "Go get the Great Zapfish back and save Captain Cuttlefish. Go get the Great Zapfish again and find Callie. Find the thangs and get out. GO GET THE ZAPFISH AGAIN AND SAVE CAPTAIN CUTTLEFISH AGAIN!!! Climb up the tower." Splatoon 1 got away with this because it's clearly the most "tutorial" mode out of any of the single player campaigns and it doesn't really try to say any deeper messages or express a character arc.

Now, obviously video game stories must have goals for the player to work towards, I'm not complaining about that, you gotta have that stuff in games to motivate the player, however, what really drives me up a wall is when they decide to add depth and interesting things relating to the characters and world, yet they intentionally throw away that same depth and chuck it to the side. Hell they sometimes retcon the optional hard to find lore or make it more confusing just because!! If you're gonna add depth and something else to these stories, you HAVE to actually explore it and expand upon it WITHIN THE STORY! You cannot add it as "extra lore" when it's stuff that should have been in the main storyline to begin with. It's like not adding seasoning to chicken and that you boiled the fucking chicken and wrapped it in lettuce and mayonnaise.

I could obviously talk about the elephant in the room... you know... this little goober right here. This freak.

And I'm going to.

From the concept art we were given, we know that Callie was originally gonna have more exploration into her troubling mental health issues as seen by her being in the shadows and being comforted by Octarians. It's a significantly different tone compared to the final product.

However in the final game, they tossed MOST of this shit away and say in the game as well as in official media, "naw she was kidnapped and brainwashed forcefully because she's a dumb clutz lmao." They tried to backtrack with an obscure relationship chart, the sunken scrolls and Squid Sisters web prequel series, but then they backtracked AGAIN with the Splatoon 3 artbook that states that she was "brainwashed." It's an incredibly simplified and frankly insulting version of events that are TECHNICALLY canon but Nintendo and others don't treat it as such and i don't know why. I dont know why they treat Callie like this. Is it because she's silly?

Wouldn't it be more interesting and more powerful as a story if they made Callie had more control and awareness of her actions? That she was truly acting upon her mental illness and isolation? Putting DJ Octavio, the fucking funny octopus guy on the same level as Talon from Overwatch and Hydra from Marvel, the literal nazis who damaged Bucky Barnes' brain and removed all of his memories, making him into the Winter Solider, is fucking psychotic and actually insane of Nintendo to do.

There is also Acht and how they were shown between Octo Expansion and Side Order.

Some of the most powerful stories in media have strong character arcs and characters overcoming their struggles and pain. It is inspirating and incredibly real to see a loved one reach out to a person that they care about who have lost their way, either from mental illness or drugs. Trying to bring them back and help them go through their pain together. When someone is under distress and mental health troubles, they can act like a completely different person and the fact that Nintendo half assed serious topics like this and made shit WAY WORSE boils my blood to no end.

In Octo Expansion, we were told that they went under Sanitization willingly in order to remove doubts in their mind and put their all into music. Now due to the unknowns of Sanitization at the time, this made for a really interesting character and brought up a lot of interesting questions as to why they would do this and who they are.

However, in Side Order when they explained Sanitization further and told us that Acht lost all of their free will and were FORCED to make music for Tartar, it kinda damaged their story a little bit. Like sure, Acht still probably wanted to go under Sanitization to clear their doubts and remove emotion, but the added information kinda goes against the interesting story they were trying to tell with Acht. Acht doesn't even mention why they went under Sanitization in Side Order and their reasoning is only found IN A SOCIAL MEDIA POST BACK IN 2018!!! THEY DON'T RESTATE IT AT ALL WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT TO DO SO! They kinda tell us via their letters, but guess when you get those, IN THE POST GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This leads me to another big talking point, most of the lore is hidden and hard to find. You have to go out of your way to find most of the shit Splatoon has to offer. Sunken Scrolls are hidden collectables and most people don't wanna go through the effort of finding them all in the stages, the chat logs in Octo Expansion are completely optional due to entries being tied to specific stations and you can choose to easily skip them, the dev diaries are locked behind lockers and some people may complete Side Order in a manner where they can get to the final boss and be done with the main campaign before seeing most of the entries. Now I'm not saying that there cannot be extra lore tidbits for players to find, hell no, i love extra stuff like that, i think Splatoon 1 and 3's hero modes did a really job of that. BUT WHEN YOU HIDE AWAY IMPORTANT DETAILS LIKE CALLIE'S MOTIVATION IN SPLATOON 2 AND MARINA'S AND PEARL'S BACKSTORIES!?!? YEAH I GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM RIGHT THERE!

In other games, these would be cutscenes or a bunch of mandatory dialogue, BUT NOPE! THEY ARE IN HARD TO FIND SPOTS!

Some of the other lore details are found on social media posts and some of them are YEARS old or on Splatoon's dead Tumblr account. Most people would rather go to Inkipedia and even they can sometimes make vital mistakes or have wording that gives people the wrong idea on what happened in particular events, which heavily impacts the community and discussion. When i talk about my perspective on what happened to Callie in Splatoon 2, I've seen people say to me "wait really? Huh?! I didn't know that." The amount of research you gotta do to go into these characters is an absolute nightmare, AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SPLATBANDS!!! Their lore is literally locked behind Japanese exclusive expensive artbooks!!! WHY?!?!

I really do wanna stress again, is it cool to get cool lore outside of the games and as collectables?! ABSOLUTELY! You know how awesome it was to read the Alterna logs for the first time? The smile on my face seeing Pearl and Marina back in the Final Fest in Side Order. But when the main stories suffer because of important information being tossed to the side and not applied to the main games... I dont know man, it just becomes incredibly frustrating to me personally. Especially with all the misconceptions and other things that occur within the community, the fandom has an information problem and honestly, it's Nintendo's fault. Imagine if Side Order had flashbacks to a younger Marina and Acht, it would have helped with the middle chunk of the story being so... nothing.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #side order #acht splatoon #dedf1sh #marina ida #marina splatoon #callie cuttlefish #callie splatoon #hypno callie #rambles #ramblings #storytelling #discussion #game discussion #long post #nintendo

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m1d-45 · 2 years ago

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my love, my god

summary: the ‘tomorrow’ you’ve been putting off finally comes, but not how you expect it to

word count: 2.6k

-> warnings: spoilers for baizhu lore/story quest, you have several nosebleeds

-> gn reader (you/yours) and aether as the traveller

taglist (+those that asked for a pt 2): @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @fleurdawn || @extremelytoastybread || @ambermondy || @loyal-to-dottore

<< first part || < masterlist >

living with aether was supposed to be easy.

you’d established a routine, your days simple. you spent your time in his library for plausible deniability, surprised at how expansive his library was. a lot of the books seemed like gifts, with little notes scrawled in the front covers. you honestly spent more of your time reading the notes than the book themselves, tracing over the handwriting.

barbara had given him a copy of a medical handbook, with notes in the margins from both of them for replacement herbs since the book was intended for use within mondstat. you didn’t try to memorize it, just skimming for a few details. some you knew, like wolfhooks or onikabuto helping to close wounds, but some was new. apparently, a diluted solution of cor lapis shavings in water could help heal broken bones, though it was noted that this shouldn’t be used in excess if the receiver didn’t have high enough elemental affinity.

a book of liyue’s local specialties, given from someone with exceptionally sloppy handwriting. there was a whole row dedicated solely to various recipe books, the one from liyue with a few extra pages tucked in.

aether liked to write in his books, you noticed, even the fiction ones. you had yet to encounter a single book that didn’t have at least one note in the margins, each in his sharp, quick writing.

‘cut lavender melon thinner than you think.’

‘who actually talks like this?’

‘when cooking for paimon, add slime concentrate to the broth.’

it was endearing. you saw so little of him in the game, most of the dialogue given by paimon. while you’d certainly gotten to know him in your time here… it was different, seeing his notes like this. it cemented the idea that you were really in your game, since what dream of yours would include the fact that ningguang had given him a journal of advice on how to deal with various poisons someone might try to use on him?

despite his expansive collection of books, he had very few historical records. the ones he did were well worn, filled with pages of notes as he tried to decipher the history of teyvat. it was sad to see, his writing becoming more desperate the further through the books you got.

‘ask zhongli for clarification.’

‘kokomi doesn’t recognize the name ‘istaroth.’ ask miko?’

‘dahri = khaenri’ah?’

‘ask zh ask dainslef. where would i even find him?’

‘even if i knew everything, would it make sense?‘

tears pricked at your eyes, and you closed the book in your hands before you smudged the writing. you wiped at your eyes, sniffling as you put it back on the shelf. it was hard not to feel bad, but even if you told him everything you knew about teyvat, would he believe you? would he still be as kind to you as he was? he was your one real anchor here, what with the world in chaos after you stopped playing… you couldn’t even point him in the right direction, since even that would raise suspicion.

maybe that was enough reading for today.

you wiped at your nose, walking for the exit to the library. when you reached for the handle, however, you spotted a smear of glittering blue across the side of your hand.

it took another drop of blood hitting the wooden floor before you realized what was happening, quickly plugging your nose and rushing to the bathroom. you took care to wipe up the drop that landed on the floor, both so it wouldn’t stain and so that nobody saw it.

you weren’t trying to die today. and even if, somehow, aether was fine with your constant lying to him, you didn’t want to ruin what you had.

not today, thank you.

despite it being where you’d first ‘landed,’ you had never been to mondstat. ever since your run in with zhongli, it was the nation you were avoiding going with him most, second only to maybe sumeru. venti, kaeya, and diluc, three of the most perceptive people in game, all in one place… it was a recipe for disaster.

unfortunately, aether was an excellent cook.

he’d decided to take his commissions from mondstat today, and only one required combat. plus, he wanted you to see the city.. and you couldn’t exactly say no to him without reason.

the first was helping wyatt find his key in dadaupa gorge. you’re not sure why he was drinking out there, but you’re not gonna ask too many questions. the gorge was beautiful in person, cranes nearly everywhere you turned… though that might just be because you were there. the wildlife had been getting more daring lately.

the second was delivering connor some mist flower corollas, carefully moved from aether’s inventory to a thick, special made bag. you got a strange look or two from the maids, but within a few minutes aether was teleporting you to the city, tunner‘s prescription in hand. mondstat was much more lively than in the game, though you supposed that was for convenience. having hundreds of npcs roaming the city, each holding their own conversations, would likely hit performance.

paimon told you all about the city, though all of it was things you already know. there’s the adventurer’s guild, there’s bennett—you both waved—and there’s ellin! that’s the statue of barbatos, boasting a height of…

paimon scratched at her head, looking up at the statue. “how tall is the statue?”

aether shrugged, holding one hand to block the sun as he tried to guess. “nobody ever said. do you think one of the sisters would know?”

“hm, paimon thinks our best bet is venti! he sits up there all the time, doesnt he?”

you looked over the statue, taking in all the details not present on it’s in-game model. even from ground level you swear you could see individual feathers carved into the rock. “you said he flies, right? i think we should ask the knights, they-” copper landed on your tongue, and you put a finger to your top lip. it came away blue.

shit.

you covered your nose quickly, the other two thankfully getting the message without you needing to talk. a napkin was pressed to your hand, and you were careful not to let any of the blue show as you switched your hand over it.

two nosebleeds with barely two weeks between them. were you sick? were the foreign bacteria finally showing face? you didn’t feel sick—if anything you’d been feeling much better physically, since coming to teyvat—but what if you were? what if it was some illness that only targeted outlanders- no, aether would have told you about that, he was too kind not to. but then why…?

you were sat in one of the pews of the cathedral, paimon sitting by your side. your eyes tracked aether to one of the nuns, but were quickly distracted by the beautiful stained glass set in the windows. shades of blue and green decorated the walls, coloring the inside of the cathedral. you couldn’t quite make out the scenes depicted, but it gave the room so much more *life* than its model. it was lived in, not just another location on a map.

“my my, traveller, you look different than i remember.”

you’re given little warning before kaeya speaks, his steps having not made a single sound. both you and paimon turned, her hands lifting in a wave while yours tightened around your stained napkins.

“hey kaeya! what are you doing at the cathedral? paimon doesn’t remember there being a service today…”

“just going for a walk.” his eyes shift to you, and you look away, in the direction aether left. the nun was back, but he was nowhere to be found. he wouldn’t leave to the winery already, would he? “who’s this?”

“a friend.”

a hand sets on your shoulder, and you jump. was it some unspoken rule not to let your steps be heard in a cathedral, or did it come with the territory?

aether passes you a small vial of a clear blue liquid, moving to stand between you and kaeya. “i talked to barbara about your nosebleed, this should stop it. a small sip will do.”

you don’t ask why he did that, instead just doing as he said. kaeya gave you an odd look but you were quick to follow paimon out of the cathedral, leaving them to it. soon enough aether joined you, and you all went back to the teapot for lunch.

it was a fluke. it had to be.

it wasn’t.

you were sitting at a table at wanmin, listening to xingqiu talk about his latest idea for a novel. paimon had helped you order, picking you out a minty drink that was as refreshing as it was delicious. you took a sip, sharing a look with aether over the rim right as a drop slid down your top lip. thankfully, the blue streak was explained by the tint of the drink, though chongyun did give you a few more odd glances than you preferred.

running into the arataki gang in inazuma city, itto excitedly showing you and aether the new beetles he found earlier. he stuck by your side, holding your hand in his as they switched to talking about tcg. they patted their pockets, searching for the cards they’d won today. a cough into your elbow was all it took for blue to mark the inside of your sleeve, and shinobu was quick to pass you a napkin coated with onikabuto dust. it felt funny against your fingers, but apparently the gang used them to patch wounds all the time when a friendly wrestle went too far.

the more people were around, the worse they were. your nose was near constantly itchy, like the world was channeling every irritant in a mile radius right into your face. any minor bump would cause at least a drop to spill down your lip, leaving you overcautious and aether forever worried. the bottle barbara gave you ran out quick, and though she ended up giving you the recipe, it was clear that something more serious was going on.

you laid on the couch, pinching a napkin around your nose while you waited for aether to finish your medicine. he’d gone outside to get the rest of the ingredients with paimon, leaving you to your thoughts.

you hated teyvat for doing this to you. you’d bet good mora that simply showing him the color of the stains on your napkins would solve whatever phantom illness ailed you, but you didn’t want to. you were happy with the life you had! you didn’t need a shining palace or the worship of the world, you just needed aether. him and paimon and your teapot, with the small herbs growing in the windowsill and crystalflies fluttering outside. why was the world so determined to get you to spill your secret? it wasn’t like he’d hate you for keeping it—at most he’d be surprised, or maybe even a bit apologetic himself.

it was stupid. shouldn’t you be the one to decide whether this was shared or not?

you sighed, the sound of the door pushing that train of thought aside. aether tapped your shoulder and you sat up, accepting the medicine thankfully.

“sorry about the delay, baizhu was dealing with another patient.”

“you went to the pharmacy?” you hand him back the bottle, looking away as you wipe off your nose.

“yep! when we got there he was mixing up a nasty smelling poultice for some other lady—paimon swears she can still smell it, even after all this time!”

“really?” you look up, satisfied you got it all off, but freeze. aether is standing beside you, and paimon’s sitting on the arm of the couch, but behind them is baizhu, changsheng loosely coiled around his shoulders.

oh no.

“one of the ingredients in barbara’s medicine is qingxin,” aether explains, “i only had so many, so i started buying them from the pharmacy. he got curious and asked about you… i hope you don’t mind?”

you barely hear him, focused on the lift of changsheng’s head as she whispers something into baizhu’s ear. he looks surprised, mostly, but also confused, and you know exactly why.

after all if he can sense god remains, he can surely sense the god.

“is there a problem, doctor?” you ask, and wait until both aether and paimon turned to him to raise a finger to your lips.

keep quiet. don’t tell him. i don’t want to lose this yet.

he looks between you and aether, clearly conflicted.

please.

after a moment, he sighs, shaking his head as he adjusts his glasses. “nothing is wrong, my apologies. changsheng, if you will..”

he begins to search through his inventory while changsheng slithers past paimon, curling around your wrist. baizhu takes out a notepad, pulling over a chair.

“aether, you’ve been coming to the pharmacy for qingxin for a little over 3 months. is that a good estimate for the length of time this has occurred?”

he glanced at you, and you nodded.

that was a lie, technically.. but it was for the greater good. baizhu would mark you some anomaly, recommend you just keep taking barbara’s medicine, and everything would be okay. you’d be fine. no stresses of godhood, no giving up your peaceful life in the realm within, nothing.

changsheng uncoils from your hand, climbing onto aether’s shoulders to get to baizhu. he doesn’t so much as blink, letting her wind back into place. what did she go to you for, then? “do any other symptoms come with them, such as nausea or headaches?”

“no, not really.”

“have you noticed anything strange about the blood? clots, maybe, or discoloration?”

you meet his pointed look, ignoring how your heart picks up. call it selfishness. “nothing.”

baizhu sighs. “are you certain? if you want this to go away, you need to be honest.”

at least you were right on one front. to get back the life you had, you’d need to give it up. while you knew neither aether or paimon would resent you—they’d dealt with gods disguising themselves before, surely they couldn’t hate you—their attitude toward you would certainly change.

your silence is clearly worrying, and you shake your head before anybody asks questions. “i’m certain, there’s nothing.”

he again looks conflicted, and paimon looks between the two of you, frowning. “uh, is paimon missing something…?”

“i’m sorry,” baizhu says finally, “but it’s for your own health.”

before you can protest, he reaches up towards changsheng. she shifts, revealing the napkin you used earlier hidden between her body and his, clearly marked with blue.

when did she-?

baizhu flicks out the napkin and paimon gasps. “i can tell they’re getting worse, and while i understand it’s your choice, i value your life more.”

aether turns to you, and you can’t read the expression on his face. “is that really yours?”

“…yeah. i put it together that teyvat wants me to tell someone, but i didn’t want to lose what we had.”

he smiles, holding out his hand. when you took it, he pulled you up off the couch and into a hug.

“you’ll never lose me,” he promised, “not even if you’re a god. not even if you’re my god.”

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lulu2992 · 14 days ago

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This post is long overdue, but because I promised exactly seven years ago today that I would talk about this “later”, I want to finally do it!

So, prior to annoying everyone here about the Far Cry series, mostly Far Cry 5, and complaining about its nightmarishly-inconsistent lore, I used to annoy everyone with Final Fantasy XV and its... surprinsingly-not-that-inconsistent story. It’s not perfect, of course, and I’m sure many people could tell you more about it and its flaws better than I can, but considering it was told in the span of at least three years across four versions of the main game (which was updated several times to add more cutscenes and information), four DLC episodes, two films, two books, one animated series, one multiplayer expansion, as well as a few more spin-off games, demos, and trailers (not all of them canon), I still think it’s impressively coherent and that things could have been way worse.

Despite having never played this game myself (I don’t even know if I’ve ever said that), I fell in love with it, and more specifically with a character named Ardyn Izunia, a charismatic antagonist with a tragic past. Yes, I have a type.

Anyway, one thing I loved to complain about at the time was the English localization of the game. Although it’s far from being terrible, it slightly differs from the original Japanese version, and while some changes are appropriate and make sense (a localization isn’t meant to be a literal translation, after all), others are... questionable. The English version also had the luxury of having its own facial animations, which means the team didn’t even have to worry about being 100% faithful to the character’s original lip movements and emotions. And they weren’t.

Some of the choices that were made regarding Ardyn in particular are still upsetting to me. The way he talks about his name is unclear? People get confused. A sentence he finishes in Japanese gets interrupted in English for no apparent reason? That creates a non-existent mystery. A frown is turned upside-down? That erases a rare and therefore important angry reaction. He doesn’t chuckle at a key moment? That changes the tone of the scene and his feelings on the whole situation…

So, on March 19th, 2018, I said I wanted to talk about “when he sounds mocking and unimpressed instead of surprised and offended in the Pocket Edition”, so this is what I’m going to do, at long last. The mobile version of FFXV is interesting because it contains a few lines that were not in the original game and never included in the other editions (unless that’s changed; it’s been a while since I’ve studied this game). Those lines are exchanged between Noctis and Ardyn during their final battle.

From what I’ve seen and tried to translate thanks to online tools (I still don’t speak Japanese), the English conversation is nearly identical to the original Japanese version, but there’s one thing Ardyn says, and especially how he says it, that is very different to me.

When Noctis asserts he will save him from the darkness, in English, Ardyn replies, “Will you?” in a rather derisive and dismissive tone. In Japanese, though, he replies, “何?” (“What?”), and it seems Noctis’ words actually affect him. You can hear both versions below. Focus on Ardyn’s tone:

Original videos: English - Japanese

To me, the way he replies in English suggests he doesn’t take Noctis seriously at all. It’s like he’s saying, “Aw, that’s cute; as if you could do that”. In Japanese, however, I think he sounds shocked, like he can’t believe someone would genuinely want to help him despite everything he’s done and the monster he has become.

His reaction reminds me of the moment Lunafreya softly tells him he will eventually know peace… and he just slaps her. I could never decide exactly why he did it. I don’t know if it’s because he feels insulted and belittled by her words or if, on the contrary, he can’t stand the fact she’s showing compassion, not to mention right after he’s just mortally stabbed her. Does her kindness hurt him because he believes he doesn’t deserve it? Does she remind him of the man he used to be, the selfless, naive healer she somehow managed to still see, deep inside of him, despite the many layers of darkness he’s spent ages burying himself under?

In any case, it seems Ardyn is supposed to react strongly and be thrown off balance when someone believes he can and deserves to be saved, so what I wanted to say in 2018 is that I thought, and still think, that it’s a shame the English version of his line in the Pocket Edition doesn’t reflect that.

#I’m also biased about the ffxv lore because compared to fc5 it seems nearly flawless #that’s right ffxv people who don’t know fc5 reading this #we only had like 2 games 4 dlcs (only 1 supposed to actually matter) 3 books and 1 film and it’s already A COMPLETE MESS #we’re talking blatant contradictions and ooc moments #and don’t even get me started on the wiki not properly wikiing #ffxv #final fantasy xv #ffxv pocket edition #final fantasy xv pocket edition #pocket edition #ardyn #ardyn izunia #ardyn lucis caelum #noctis lucis caelum #lunafreya nox fleuret #revisiting my ardyn posts and realizing my theory about the name 'izunia' was wrong #ah. never mind.#I don’t know if they retconned that or if I was just wrong #it’s probably just the latter haha #I think the clues were misleading though #ffxv spoilers #my videos

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expanding-hyrule · 27 days ago

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Goddess of Secrecy by @amelias-calamity-quintet

Adventure Fantasy | General | AO3 & Wattpad | Complete*

Synopsis: Hyrule has only ever dreamt of an end to the resurrection of Demise. With the returning of an ancient power, that dream could finally be fulfilled. Can the Hero of the Fourth Goddess save Hyrule once and for all?

*Imported to AO3 July '24-April 25

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For me, GoS is a classic Zelda fic with amazing storytelling that rivals the games. The worldbuilding stays faithful to the game series but also brings new life to it in fun and interesting ways. Every time Link visits a dungeon in this story, I can easily imagine exploring it in a game. This fic is full of enjoyable and lovable characters, from Link's expeditious guide to the many unique side characters that accompany Link on his journey to the temples. This fic is a must read for any Zelda fan interested in reading an original Zelda story. - doubtfulloser

Familiar and original characters collide in a Hyrule that is far-reaching. Extensive world building paints each region in bright technicolor. With the help of a mysterious guide, Link journeys to explore all four corners of Hyrule, conquering monsters, solving puzzles, cleansing dungeons of evil and unlocking his true potential as the Chosen Hero. Gripping storytelling and descriptive writing pulls the reader into the thick of things right alongside a Link who isn't afraid to speak the truth. Add a strong-willed and capable Zelda who takes an active role in the action makes this story a real treat to read. - Mistress Lritgar

Goddess of Secrecy was one of the first Zelda fics that I read that I actually enjoyed. It has all the workings of an original Zelda and then some. Massive world, lots of characters, so much lore [I love lore so much, and this one has no shortage of that]. Amelia herself is a wonderful author, truly bringing Hyrule to life through the eyes of Link, Zelda, and Endeavor. Goddess of Secrecy is a classic, action-packed, and absolutely amazing! - The Nameless

This is a very expansive fic, but I've really enjoyed what I've read of it so far! The writing just oozes charm, and even the characters I haven't known for long are bursting with personality. Despite taking heavy inspiration from Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and a few fantasy novels (I can smell the Ranger's Apprentice here) it stands apart enough to feel unique. It's super fun to imagine playing a game like this! - waterglider

A love letter to the LoZ franchise, GoS masterfully weaves its own unique tale while seamlessly incorporating and combining concepts and lore from the games that existed at its time of writing. It follows the classic game formula but still remains an entertaining read, with dungeons and items you could easily visualize working in an actual game! The characters, while many, are well-developed and I found myself quickly falling in love with them. This Link's journey is both classic and new; starting from nothing and ending a Hero - but in his own way and with all the struggles that come with it. This work has made me smile and laugh and cry - and I can't recommend it enough! - Anonymous

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You can find @amelias-hart at AO3, Bluesky, and Wattpad.

#original legends #loz: original legends #legend of zelda #zelda fandom #zelda fanfiction #zelda #loz #Goddess of Secrecy #goddessofsecrecy

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maverick-werewolf · 1 year ago

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Werewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video Games

The results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.

For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.

This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.

Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.

9. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Note: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen do

I'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.

Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.

Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.

As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.

The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.

So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.

8. Diablo II

I'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.

At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.

While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.

7. Baldur's Gate II

Let me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.

Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.

So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.

6. Altered Beast

What are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...

When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.

I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.

As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.

(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)

5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood

I'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.

It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.

4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.

In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.

3. The Sims 3

Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.

You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.

Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.

Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.

2. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

Bet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.

And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...

1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Bloodmoon

Alright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.

I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.

This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.

Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.

I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.

So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.

And now for things that didn't make the list...

10. Assorted Acknowledgements

This category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.

Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.

Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.

Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.

The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.

That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.

( Free Newsletter — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )

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subwaytostardew · 1 year ago

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youtube

▽ Subway to Stardew - Adoptable Joltik ⚡️

This would play after Emmet's 8 heart event and getting Joltik up to 8 hearts as well.

I released a separate mod specifically for adopting Joltik, so you only need to get them up to 8 hearts to adopt them! You can do it right now!

Adoptable Joltik Mod Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/21002

And of course... Commentary under the read-more.

Joltik's adoption event sat in the drafts for quite a while. It took me whole a day to implement and I didn't let myself sleep until I finished everything. (It's 1 PM now...)

The event ended up wildly different because of how extra custom pets are implemented. You would think that they would be added in the same way as you get your cat/dog that you select during character creation. No. You have to buy a license. Only Marnie is authorized to sell them.

Here's the original script for Joltik's adoption event:

[Joltik Adoption Event]

Emmet: @! Joltik likes you verrrrry much. They want to stay with you. I'm letting you adopt them. Yup. I filled out all the paperwork. The Joltiks are legally documented now.

I never gave ours a name... Galvantula wouldn't let me. She is verrrry picky about it. But that's okay. Joltik is yours. You should name them. She came along for approval. So. What name should I put on the adoption form?

[Name input box like Marnie's adoption thing...]

[Galvantula pauses for a moment to think and then offhandedly agrees.]

Emmet: Galvantula didn't shock me for that. That name is okay. Yup. I will file that with the Ferngill Republic. Don't worry about it. Make sure you take verrrry good care of our little Joltik!

[Joltik jumps and heart emotes]

◇──◆──◇──◆

The whole naming portion was a source of much more frustration than it should have been. In events, the name input box is brought up by the "catQuestion" command (which applies to dogs chosen at the start, too...

If you refuse, then Marnie also shows up no matter what you do. Farmhouse positions are also tricky and made even harder to find reference for after 1.6 added the farmhouse being moveable. Joltik kept spawning where Emmet was supposed to be so I had to use a move command just to get them to spawn one tile to the side. Galvantula was fine. I didn't get to updating her vanilla portraits yet so she's staying quiet.

The catQuestion command also only adds the pet you pick during character creation. There's no fields to target the usage. You have to buy a license. It's the only way to get another pet. I didn't want Joltik to replace a cat either since in-story you would have to earn the trust of both Emmet and Galvantula... There's no way you can do that by the first 25 days of spring. It's immersion breaking and you lose a cat.

I did find the license aspect funny though. It was oddly fitting for the mod's lore of Pokemon being pretty much banned from the region. Emmet is a threat to Stardew Valley's ecosystem. Not the best guy for the task of combating anti-Pokemon xenophobia.

Pet sizes are apparently hardcoded so I had to make a new spritesheet for Joltik as if they even need a 32 x 32 pixel area per frame. I did end up making new sprites for them while I was at it. I tried to base it off of the cat's behaviors so I have less animation fields to edit (I was tired). The cat loafs a lot. Trying to convey that in a tiny spider posed quite the challenge.

After everything was done, I figured that the whole adoption portion of the mod could easilly be taken apart to be its own mod as a demo of sorts for the expansion. So I went and made a content pack to post.

Bringing up your starter pet's friendship level takes quite some time, so it would be awkward if I let the event play with no preconditions. Because of that, I ended up including Joltik as an NPC and locking their adoption behind their heart level.

We actually only had two lines per day of the week (not including season) for daily dialogue. That shot up to six lines per day of the week for a full 0-2-4-6-8-10 in spring because I was determined to publish a mod. (I've been modding for nearly a year nonstop and I don't have anything playable... humiliating...)

Anyways! I hope you're all having fun with 1.6! It certainly brought new challenges and opportunities to the modding scene!

▷ Station Steward Thylak

#subway to stardew #submas #stardew valley #pokemon #joltik #sdv mods #subway to stardew terminal station

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norcumii · 2 months ago

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Some days, like today, I desperately miss playing Warcraft.

Not WoW-as-it-is, with the mutable UI and all sorts of dragon-riding nonsense I won’t pretend I understand from my occasional skims of Wowhead. Not WoW-Classic-as-it-is, which pretends to be just like the original experience (except when it isn’t). Not even WoW-as-it-was from Shadowlands, with the absurd daily laundry list of required quests and nonsense that wasn’t even really satisfying to achieve, let alone in terms of story (oh, Legion, it didn’t get better than that).

I desperately miss WoW-as-I-remember-playing it, which – let’s be honest – doesn’t even exist outside of my mind. I miss the emotional impact of those so-late-at-night-it’s-definitely-morning runs farming thorium in Un’Goro, chatting with the Ozzie and Kiwi contingent – that ache of human connection mixing with the gentle numbing of mindless, repetitive, productive nonsense. (Likely ADD whomst?)

I miss leveling yet another alt because my main needs more esoteric things, and my primary crafting alt couldn’t produce enough of rare mat of the week, so it was time to get an alchemist up to [Pick Expansion Here]. I miss the utter joy of fucking with new players, the people in chat who seem genuinely clueless and then thrilled to have a helping hand – and then giving them a little trade of items (all those huge bags my tailors could make!) and slipping in a hundred gold or so because they haven’t learned how to read the trade windows yet.

I desperately miss my character logging on to be welcomed by a gleeful “Madame Mel!!” from my guildmaster, genuinely one of the kindest, most patient human beings I have never met. I miss the idle tells of nonsense through the hours, the invitations to dungeons and eventually raids – that at first I turned down cold because the possibility of responsibility was terrifying. Then – because seriously, one of the kindest, most patient human beings EVER – cautious accepts into a quick dungeon where everyone was kind and seemed to think my semi-competent flailing and WHUT DO attitude was endearing because I could follow directions and hit the appropriate things.

Gods, I miss Wrath, and finding Arthas’ fingerprints everywhere you turned; the delight of someone who never played anything else Warcraft uncovering all the lore and history and messy, messy interpersonal nonsense. Legion’s intertwined plots between classes and the gorgeously themed halls that was enough to make it easy to swap from my beloved DK main to my new main a Demon Hunter tank (a tank!!!??!) that fit my playstyle perfectly and then to literally everything else, because I had to see ALL the storylines.

I miss emotions, moments, people.

I’m not playing at 4 am anymore, a metaphorical sloppy drunk deep in sleep dep. I’ve forgotten more lore than I thought I could learn, and I’ve developed nonsense head canons that I’m sure contradict actual modern content. Both I and most of the people I know have moved on to other things, other games, even other activities that don’t aggravate wrist flareups nearly as much.

But sometimes, I close my eyes, and once again I see a nelf in plate galumphing along on the fastest nightsaber I could eventually buy, and I feel so thoroughly homesick.

#world of warcraft #warcraft #some days the nostalgia bites so hard #but i don't like either the new ui nor the new quest system #and of course i don't think i could afford it nowadays #shadowlands felt...empty (emotionally)#i'm glad i stuck through WoD because Legion is still my utter favorite #(yes even over Lich King though it's close)

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soupct123 · 1 month ago

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I come before you, tired, angry, and slightly unhinged, to offer the Portal and Half-Life lesbian appreciators something:

GLaDOS x Colette Green

(Is the ship name GreenDOS?)

Thought process:

[Skippable if you know who Colette is. The end of this part will be marked with “end” in this font]

I was binging Richter Overtime videos one day and his short on Colette sorta stuck in my head. Colette is, as far as the Half Life lore goes, barely a character. Despite her actually having lines when you play as her, due to Half Life Decay being a co-op game that needed built-in player communication, we have so little canon information about her that the Richter video is only about 6 minutes long, 1 of which is devoted to the Vortigauts you get to play as when you beat the base game. From the little of her in the Half Life 1 instruction manual she is an electronics and robotics engineer, and in Decay she starts laughing dementedly when she starts attacking and finishes off enemies.

I was just “woag hot crazy low poly butch” and the information sat in my head for a while until the next time I thought about Chelldos and Chellyx stuff. The comedic potential of Chellyx with GLaDOS being jealous about it is one of the things I like most about it. Then I thought “it would be cool if GLaDOS could get a rebound too. Or maybe Chell gets to be single and jealous. I don’t think anyone would go for shit like MossDOS or genericrebelnpcDOS tho and I don’t do ocs.” Then Colette activated in my brain

With “roboticist” and “crazy” being the only things we have on her personality, I think they make a good base for having her be with GLaDOS. Colette being a robotics engineer gives her and GLaDOS potential for:

1: thematic depth

2: good banter

3: smut

If you play the games the way they’re “meant to be played,” Chell is quiet, unflinching, and just a little quirky with it, so I think someone who outwardly matches/exceeds GLaDOS’ freak would be funny to pair with her.

[End]

Since Colette has lots of room left on her slate, I will add a bit of headcanon to make things juicier:

Other than what I saw checking tags here, I don’t know how widespread the Gina Cross and Colette Green ship is, but I ship it. My take: They got romantically involved while working together at Black Mesa, and while they were very passionate when they were alone together, Gina preferred not to be very public with it. You can attribute it to Gina’s more proffessional personality if you want a slightly less heavy reason compared to the sadly more realistic one. This explains why the colorblind security guards try to flirt with both characters in Decay. Colette didn’t want to keep it secret, and it came out to a few scientists, who were all cool about it, but it caused strains whenever Gina was there to witness it and tried to divert the subject. With the events of Half Life 1 causing the events of Decay, the two were getting closer, until the game ends (I don’t really remember what their goal was but it was probably some weird shit that was added on to be important to what Gordon was doing in a convoluted way). I operate under the assumption that Colette survived, and remains in G-Man’s pocket dimension thing.

In Opposing Force, a corpse with Gina’s face model but a different colored HEV suit can be found in Xen; it is not explicitly stated in any games or official material to be Gina Cross herself. A writer years later claimed it was her on social media, but it’s subjective whether claims made that way should be taken as fact, and with everything in the gearbox expansions being in canon limbo anyway, most of what I’m discussing doesn’t really matter much if you’re “playing by the books.” Despite the discrepencies, I personally go with that being Gina Cross’s corpse, because one of the Half Life franchise’s biggest problems is that nobody dies and stays dead.

Whether Colette was aware of, or even personally witnessed Gina’s death is also unknown, so I guess whichever seems more appropriate for a given story will work.

Last headcanon: I’m not as dug-in to the Half Life side, but I saw someone else saying the automated female voice for all HEV suits was Gina Cross herself. The official voice actors are different, and they could’ve actually meant the training course in the tutorial, but I like the idea, and she is canonically the one who designed the HEV suit.

With all that said, here is the workings of a little concept that I had:

PORTAL: REBOUND

(There’s a version of this in my head that’s a full-ass AAA game, sorta like that cancelled ravenholm game with the opposing force guy, but with my motivation levels this thing will be lucky if it makes it to a single chapter of a fanfic.)

During an altercation involving the G-Man, some, or possibly all, of his assets have been randomly released from stasis. Colette Green is awakened by rain falling on her face, and finds herself on a cliffside dotted with the wreckage of a large facility. She has nothing to her name but her H.E.V. Suit, and after screaming into the air and punching several rocks, the suit’s automated voice tells her to seek medical attention. It’s Gina Cross’ voice, which just drives her crazier with grief. As she follows the only path there is, through overgrown parts of the facility, she is beset upon by Xen creatures, many being unfamiliar to her, and having cybernetic enhancements that seem almost parasitic*. She has to fistfight, evade, and use her environment to get past the critters, and once she finally moves into safer parts of the facility, she is barely standing. She begins scavenging for supplies, and discovers that this is Aperture Labs, a place she knew of only by reputation. With no HEV chargers and Aperture’s health and safety deficits, she is forced to modify her suit with whatever she can salvage. She notices that some of the security cameras still follow her, but after they don’t produce any meaningful reactions, she assumes they’re just tied to motion detectors. Her voice’s radio picks up garbled transmissions in certain areas, but none seem useful, even the clearly decipherable ones. At first she has to salvage supplies from office areas, storage areas, and loading bays, which offer some raw materials that she can patch herself up with and begin attempting to build a long-range communication device, and she finds a good melee weapon for use against the occasional small critter. After going through several papers, maps, and whatever computers still work, she chooses to head for a test track, and discovers a Portal gun. Of course she’s fascinated by the device, but her main objective isn’t to test, so she brute forces and walks right through some of the damaged tests, but finds herself getting into it when she needs to finish one to progress. Along the way, she meets the turrets, uses some broken ones to build her own “regular” gun, uses some to defend against the Xen creatures, and further modifies her HEV suit, now with long fall boot parts and other quality of life gadgets. Her loneliness is getting to her, and she starts hearing Gina’s voice in her head, so to distract herself she forcefully befriends a wounded turret, and carries them around on her back so they can shoot things for her.

Eventually, all of Colette’s physical needs are met, so now all that’s left to do is find out what happened while she was in stasis and find long-range communications. She begins snooping more actively, and as she pokes and prods deeper and deeper, she finds parts of the facility in pristeen condition, still operating cleanly, if seemingly a bit sluggish and directionless. To her frustration, there are no humans left, but as she gets closer and closer to the answers she seeks, she feels like she’s actually being watched now, and every room she enters seems to whir to life whenever she approaches. Still left with so many gaps in her knowledge, the rooms and walkways now begin to shift with a clear purpose and path, which she distrusts and avoids at first. The facility just tries harder and harder, and she begins lashing out at the paths, until she’s left with no options but to follow. The walkways lead her directly into some test chambers, which she is forced to solve. She’s great at it, even when the chambers begin to cheat. What’s strange is that with their increases in complexity, they contain less hazards than the earlier tests. The radio reciever in her suit starts to pick up sounds, fuzzy at first, but they become clearer as she progresses through each test. It’s a robotic female voice, that doesn’t seem to be speaking, just making very quiet “observation noises.” Humming, sighing, ohs and ahs, chuckling, and moans. Gilette finally calls the voice out by refusing to solve a test and shouting “Who the hell are you? I can hear your fucking moans!”

The voice is taken off guard, and sounds really embarrassed, then figures out that she hears her because of the HEV suit. Colette had learned the hard way that the emancipation grills fried Aperture tech that went through them, unless covered by another material that wasn’t listed for destruction in the grill’s system, so she had been avoiding them, breaking them down, and wrapping her valuables in abandoned jumpsuits. The test door opens, but Colette can see the grid flicker off and on again for a moment, suspecting it had been updated, and shoots through the glass of an observation window. She makes one halfhearted attempt to get completely off the path, but lets her rage set in and brute forces through several more chambers that are mostly just traps to get her through an emancipation grill, until she’s led into a fool-proof one with no way out but through it. She pieces together that her ability to test is what’s important to the voice, and begins bargaining.

“I know you can hear me. I know that you don’t want to kill me, because you would’ve done so already. I know you want me to keep doing these tests. Either come to me or let me come to you.”

No response.

“I kinda like doing these tests. I can tell you like watching me do them. We can work something out.”

Nothing.

“Alright then. I guess you don’t care about these tests.”

Colette puts her gun to her own head.

“I’ll just kill myself then. It’s easier, and I don’t exactly have much to live for. It’s been fun, lady.”

Colette squeezes the trigger

The voice frantically begs her not to

The emancipation grill turns off, and the next chamber has a portal emitter open for her to finally meet GLaDOS

Multiple Choice Question:

Grades and answer sheet will be posted next week. This question will be on the test.

From there the toxic yuri builds up as these two awesome unstable freaks bring out the best worst most fun parts of each other. Two smart bitches telling each other exaaaaactly.

The things Colette will do to GLaDOS, with her masters in robotics and PhD in mechanical engineering, is beyond anything Chell could ever fathom. Gina Cross’ spirit is weeping. Colette basically buys Atlas and P-Body’s love with upgrades and cool stuff she scavenged, like a [gender neutral term for aunt/uncle] buying their [gender neutral term for niece/nephew] an xbox for christmas. GLaDOS feels deeply ashamed that she’s been getting it on with a Black Mesa employee but she likes everything else about Colette so far and eventually it turns into a kinky roleplay thing. When G-Man is done with half life 5’s plot or whatever he goes through the list trying to recapture all his missing assets, and when he sees a nude Colette clinging to Glados’ underside and pulling her wires with her teeth he figures it’s not worth trying to get her back. I can clearly see either of them holding a cigarette in bed after their first time and thinking “god I needed that”

Is my vison too niche or completely stupid? Idgaf it’s funny

*for the Portal: Rebound lore, the parasitic cybernetic enhancements on the Xen creatures are basically what regular aperture tech does when it’s left unchecked and evolves, like that movie Screamers 2. They evolved like earth animals do and gain basic instincts to first simply survive, then propogate, and eventually some parasites become sentient. Some parasites simply run off of their hosts’ energy, others begin altering and taking over their minds. Things get bad when leftover combine-altered creatures like gunships and striders get infected with parasites that lead to larger leaps in Aperture parasite evolution, and maybe even alerting the Combine themselves to Aperture tech. This is a half-baked concept because I just wanted to give Colette some new cool things to fight but once the lesbian shit starts it doesn’t matter to me

#portal 2 #portal game #glados #chelldos #half life #hl2 #colette green #gina cross #half life decay #half life 2 #chell #greendos #yeah im going with that #or uh #do you like pina colados?

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midnightkolrath · 1 year ago

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Quick thought ideas on a DMC2 remake potential

Thinking about DMC2 recently and how a remake could benefit into making the story MUCH better than how it unfortunately ended up (due to the messy development of the game but alas). These are just things I've thought about off the top of my head on how they could easily benefit from remaking 2 and putting in much needed reworks and additions because man this game has potential still if redone right. I threw these on Twitter recently, but I'm giving abit more expansion here. I'm sure there's more ideas, but this is all I've gone to throw on the floor for right now.

Give Argosax an actual personality that matches their description of being a demon lord and rival to Mundus in territory terf war. They also have a cult like Mundus, as DMC2 has highlighted, so...surely they need to be represented better as a threat, yeah?

Make Arius much more of a threat. He’s a sorcerer, so have him FLEX that alot more. He made Lucia and the secretaries, who're artificial demons, and he ends up taking in Argosax's power...so like...keep him abit hammy if you want but make him the SCARY kind of hammy.

Potentially have Dante and Lucia’s campaigns be steamlined into one consecutive storyline. Alternate as the story goes on like in DMC5. I feel like since the two campaigns were mostly, iirc, copy paste parallels...they could just have the two stories basically run side by side. Give Lucia's side more room to be more unique.

Have more lore for the Protectors (The group Matier and Lucia belong to). They fought Argosax and worked together with Sparda, so like…an added crumb of flashback or so wouldn’t hurt imo. I'm not asking for like a whole big thing on it, just... [pinches fingers together] abit more.

Have Dante and Lucia interact abit more. Lucia being outted as an artificial demon is something I feel can have more connection there. A ‘Devils Never Cry’ moment, if you will. As cheesy as it can be seen nowadays, the series IS named after it. Well....moreso the fact that any demon encountering Dante 'may cry', but you get what I mean. Plus, its stated Lucia has a crush on Dante....so like...give that more to lean on? I'm not saying they have to build to anything actually happening, as we know how Dante is, but juuust enough, you know?

Have Dante’s brooding be more akin to, say, how the first DMC anime handled it. I feel like he was a good balance of ‘Man I’ve been through shit’ tiredness but still ‘I got some snarky humor and understanding towards others’.

The obvious rebalancing of weapons so it isn’t just GUN 24/7, but they can be cheeky and add an achievement referencing that, sure why not.

Maaaaybe add styles. Though acrobatic Dante with the movement he can do in this game, while silly, is still kinda fun. Trickster DOES have its roots from this game, as an inspiration.

Give the bosses in this game personality, please I am begging. They’re barely, if at all, memorable because they’re plain as hell. Remake them, replace, idc, I just want that boss banter.

Speaking of, make the Argosax fight less a pain and maybe better utilize that fact that it reuses the DMC1 bosses. I feel like we can go more body horror on it, esp if Argosax gets more a personality. Like…Argosax’s title is literally Argosax the Chaos, go crazy on that.

Speaking of Argosax having potential...did you recall that they casually flip genders in the second form they turn into? To me, you can make that unsettling in the sense that you can make Argosax sound more unsettling. Like the idea brewing in my head is to make it sound like more than one person speaking at once...like a legion. Or akin to how the true final boss for Sonic Frontiers was handled voice wise. Like I said, you can REALLY potentially run more with the fact that Argosax has 'Chaos' in the title.

#devil may cry #dmc #DMC1 needs its remake first but #I can't stop thinking about the potential of remaking 2 #like I can see crumbs of gold in that poor mess #I REALLY hope it gets another chance

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spearxwind · 1 year ago

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Hi hello I wanna talk a bit about CD currently but Im not sure if its gonna be too long/negative so I'm gonna put my thoughts under a lid <3

So like. To start off it's really not a secret that I have a lot of trouble when it comes to crafting stories. This has been the case for many years, and will continue to be the case probably forever.

Challenger Deep felt like an exception to this at first, but since starting development on it my life took some turns that made it clear that CD suffers from the same and from different problems

To start with... I started using it as a vehicle for my grief at the start. Talas (especially) and Graves were both used as vehicles for my grief while I was going through stuff the past couple of years, and that inevitably bled through into The Everything.

It's not a bad thing to do this at all mind you (It helped me immensely) but it gave CD a strange foundation for me to build on that now I feel like I am at a major disconnect with, so I would like to build some more foundation around it, so to speak.

I would like to recraft the story (not rewrite it entirely because theres things i rly love, but theres others that I'd like to improve), and a lot of the lore (I feel like I closed my options a bit too much with some of it so I want to make it more expansive too. Part of why I wrote it the way it was was so I could invite friends to make stuff for CD but that did not go over well at all so I think I am going to not do that again). I just havent had the time to work on it properly, and since it's in this state where I feel like I need to "fix" it, I don't feel as passionate about it as last year so at the moment I'm letting it ride and waiting for when I'm excited to work on it again

I would like to add more characters as well and actually do justice writing-wise to the characters that are already in there too.

Also I won't lie, a big part of my investment in CD until recently was my oc ship, with Talas and Hades, and ever since I got into my current relationship I just havent thought much about them at all because I started pretty much actually living all of the shitposts and tropes I'd written and it started making me feel a bit strange to write/draw about that, so I need to fix that as well. See why I feel weird about it and what I can do to stop it and get back to those two

Additionally I've had a redesign of talas and hades' markings in my WIPs for months now. Hades is done, but on Talas' side Im not sure how to add in his bioluminescence pattern because something isnt working for me. I wanted him to be more visibly purble though with said markings. Everything else I really like, its just the glowy pattern (though watch me change the markings anyways bc im an indecesive beast)

Here's a snippet of them:

I wanted them both to have more natural fishy looking markings pretty much

So yeah, that's currently the state of things. I miss it a lot and i rly wanna work on it again proper, maybe now that I've acknowlegded it and made a post about it I will get a second wind like I've gotten before after getting The Gunk out of my chest.

If you read all that thank you I hope you have a swag day <3

#thunderclap #challenger deep #putting this in the tag in the meantime for anyone who might be curious as to why i havent really spoken about it #windyart

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azems-familiar · 8 months ago

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Omg this isn't even related to the ask game but the ask you just answered 😭 sorry bout that, I suddenly thought of more questions now.

Also THANK YOU SO MUCH to you and Davi for churning out so many writings these past few weeks holy crap, I've loved reading every one of them. Yall are spoiling us /pos

Okie question time: surviving Ancients building a New Amaurot?? Yes pls??? But also how do they survive???? I'm so glad Hyth and Elidibus are there though, they're unabashedly my favourites aside from G'raha and Emet Selch. I was also wondering if you guys have any plans on writing smth about how, after the Final Days, Emet, G'raha and Corrain (and maybe Lelesu) work to find some way to return to the first? This curiosity probably stemmed from you guys giving Lyna interactions with Uncle Emet, I could not stop smiling at those.

Thanks so much again!! Keep up the great work XD

okay SO. as to how each of the ancients survives is different; Hyth is the easiest, because in canon on Ultima Thule he and Emet choose to leave instead of using Hydaelyn's magicks to become corporeal again. so he just chooses to stay instead. Elidibus we're saving in the last tier of pandaemonium; between the last lingering fragments of Hydaelyn's gift and Emet's own magic. it will still take him a long time to recover and piece himself back together, but he will. Lahabrea is harder, but we've decided to go with a fan theory that his soul is stuck in Estinien's lance alongside Nidhogg, so once Hyth (who has the best soulsight) gets a look at it they're going to borrow the lance and just yoink him free. his multiple years stuck in a spear alongside an extremely angry dragon watching All That go down have chilled him out and forced him to think on his actions some, though that doesn't mean it'll be smooth sailing all the way through once he's freed.

as for returning to the First, right now we have this on our outline:

i'm headcanoning that the Ascians are capable of traversing the rift physically (even if that's not necessarily quite lore accurate, it's a little bit wibbly) and so Emet is able to take G'raha with him. the others will have to wait until Y'shtola finds a way across on her own, but i expect Elidibus will be willing to help her with that... we will see.

there are several plot points that since it's obviously setting up for future expansions and things, we're kind of waiting to see what the game does with them (like some of the stuff dawntrail introduced). of course we'll probably invent our own stuff eventually if we get to that point in writing and the game still hasn't given us any answers, but since this particular verse is sort of our "canon" we are trying to keep it as game-adjacent as possible so that we don't have to. do tons of wild work for it and it ends up not being related to the current stories being told at all.

i'll tag @sunderedazem in case there's anything he wants to add here, but thank you!! really glad to hear how much you're enjoying things. and the Emet and Lyna interactions are something we both super enjoy too - i actually have a half-done promptfic sitting around that's more of it, i just have to settle down and work on it. though unless something really changes the next thing to be posted will probably be the next bit of Ascian Azem :)

#asked and answered #and don't worry about it not being related to the ask game! that's totally fine XD

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evilpenguinrika · 1 year ago

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The brain bees are making me think about my hosie/final fantasy 14 AU and will not leave me (literally started writing this post at 4am but stopped because it was almost 5am but now I've come to finish this post at an appropriate time in the late afternoon)

Youre free to check out what kind of weird niche AU I've created by going through my "hosie ffxiv au" tag on my blog!

Okay. So I've had a lot to think about in terms of what Jobs Hope, Josie, and their kids would have and despite my very first post saying otherwise, I've come to a new conclusion:

Hope Mikaelson, our favourite Tribrid, would have these Jobs in this exact order:

Dragoon (no Tribrid reasoning tbh. Dragoons are just fucking hot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although one could argue it would fit her werewolf side)

Red Mage (there IS a Tribrid reasoning for this. Red Mages use magic, so that's a no brainer for Hope's witch side. But apart from magic casting, they also fight with rapiers, and I thought that was a cool little touch. Plus, it reminds me a lot of the blood sword we saw Hope use in the show. Not to mention Red Mage--like Dragoons--have some very fanciful moves that made me think of Hope as well. Very fitting.)

Dark Knight (another with Tribrid reasoning. I haven't actually gotten to Heaven's Ward expansion pack to unlock this Job or its Job Quest so all the information of Dark Knight are from videos I've seen. But the Job is perfect for Hope's vampires side as Dark Knight has this blood guage or something which was so fitting. And the lore behind this Job apparently goes super fucking hard lol. And edgy and broody, which is even more perfect for our resident Tribrid!)

For our lovely and favourite brunette siphoner, Josie Saltzman, here are the Jobs she would have in this order:

Black Mage (this felt like a no-brainer Job for her to have. Especially because this class focuses a lot with switching between your Blizzard spells and Fire spells. And we all know Josie is secretly a pyromaniac (lol I jest). So for her, Black Mage is perfect)

Blue Mage (this is another no-brainer and fits in theme with her Siphoner witch abilities. Blue Mages are able to copy the moves they've seen from their enemies, now sure this may not seem very Siphoner themed, but I assure you, it's sort of parallel to it. Siphoners are able to use magic if they siphon/take magic from someone or something magical right? Blue Mage is sort of like that in which they acquire spells of enemy moves to add to their arsenal of magic. So it makes sense in my book)

Honourable mention for Josie before I move on is the Bard Job. I felt like this Job would suit Josie nice because Bards have music stuff and I thought that fit. Though I don't quite remember if Josie being into or dabbling in music was canon or a fan fanon thing. Now, with the next Expansion Dawntrail coming out summer, I have been made aware that there are a few other Jobs that will be included in the pack--new jobs too (Viper being one of them but I'll get to that Job later). So it's possible that I will update this list for Josie once more when we get news of the rest of the new Jobs.

Moving onto my very precious Hosie Fankids!

Lana Mikaelson, she, like her mom Hope, is a Tribrid as well! So this will be pretty much the same except for one additional Job:

Dragoon (same reasoning as Hope)

Red Mage (originally I didn't think of Lana taking Red Mage, but when I realized Stormblood Expansion pack is now included in standard edition and free trial permanently, I had to try out Red Mage. And then I realized Red Mage is a perfect fit for Lana for the same reasons I gave in Hope's section)

Dark Knight (same reasoning as Hope)

Viper (this is one of the new Jobs that will be included in Dawntrail expansion and I am so excited. What information we have are from things that had been showcased already, with gameplay footage you could find on YouTube. But I chose this Job for Lana is because I'm a simple pal and loved the aesthetic. But also because YOU FIGHT WITH DUOBLADES THAT CAN THEN BE CONNECTED INTO ONE DOUBLE SIDED BLADE HOW COOL IS THAT PLUS it also fits well with a certain event and scene that I have plans for when it's time to write about Lana's adventures in my future kid fic series So I Swear That I'll Protect It. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up)

Hayley Mikaelson. The werewolf of the kids and one of Hosie's twins! I love Hayley she's the best:

Monk (felt this Job was fitting for her werewolf side. She's a heavy hitter, packs a mean punch, and werewolves sorta rely on that, most of the time I'm assuming. Sorry it's been a while since I've watched the series haha. But for Hayley, despite her werewolf side, I felt like Monk was the perfect fit!)

Rogue (now, I've already written up an in depth reasoning for picking this starting class here. But I'll paraphrase here anyways. I thought it might also be jnteresting to have Hayley, not only be a charge in type of girl, but also someone who knew how to be sneaky and use her cunning. She would have been taught to try out different battle tactics so she wouldn't just rely on her base instincts. The reason this is a starting class is because the next 'evolution' I guess is the Ninja Job, which I'm not sure if I want her to take. It's also very jarring to have a pirate-esque western-y feel and then evolve to something very Japanese-theme, but that's just me. Plus Jay is the anime weeb in the family lol

So literally after writing this post the other day I logged in to play as Hayley and ended up having her pick up the Marauder class so she can actually become Warrior haha

Warrior (like I've mentioned before, Hayley's fighting style is very rush in guns-a-blazing. She will do whatever it takes to have the focus on her so her friends or siblings/family can get the jump on the enemies without fear of getting targetted themselves. Which is absolutely fitting as a Tank role because Tanks pull mobs and enemies, they make sure all mobs and enemies are focusing on THEM while the rest of the party does their job without fear of being targetted. And I specifically chose Warrior as the Job for Hayley is because out of the four Tank Jobs: Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbraker, I felt like Warrior fit better for Hayley in terms of her role and personality)

Reaper (I was writing this post about how to incorporate Hayley and Leo's TVDU backstory abilities into FFXIV AU and now I can't unsee Reaper being an excellent fit for Hayley because my hc is that Hayley is a werewolf yes, but she also has vampire blood running in her--courtesy of her Tribrid Mom) [RPR Job point added Feb 1, 2024]

Honourable mentions for other Jobs Hayley might take up. I have been humouring the idea of her taking on one of the four Tank Jobs (Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker), but I truly am unsure which of the Tank Jobs would be best suited for her. I mentioned previously that she's quite a "charge in head first" type, and that's usually what the Tank Jobs do where they pull enemies away from the party members so the party can do their thing. And I think Hayley is very much like that. Maybe Paladin or Warrior would be the two I could see for Hayley because iirc, in one of the intermission chapters for my very first Hosie fic Sad Bedroom Eyes, she was playing D&D and had chosen--nope never mind I just checked I had her pick the Monk class. Welp, that doesn't help me lol. I'll think more on this and then decide. Either that or wait to see what the new Jobs are for Dawntrail (I mean I guess Viper could also fit. And it would be nicely aligned with Rogue. We'll see though).

Also with her picking up a Tank job, I think Hosie would have very different outlooks and opinions on it. Hope--since Dark Knight is also a Tank--would be proud of Hayley and would probably help her fit into her role as a Tank until her daughter feels more confident and comfortable. As opposed to Josie who would be fretting about Hayley having to be the one to pull enemies and have all the attacks be aimed at her. I also think if the entire family goes do dungeons, Hope and Hayley would both be Tanks, Hope being main Tank and Hayley being off Tank at first--but I think they'll switch roles so that Hayley will get a chance to be main Tank. I think that would be really fun and really sweet bonding moment for the Hosie family.

Jay Mikaelson, the loveable goofball, twin to Hayley, big time anime weeb, and Siphoner. He will also have similar Jobs like his momma Josie, all except one additional Job:

Black Mage (same reasoning as Josie)

Blue Mage (same reasoning as Josie)

Dancer (in my fic So I Swear That I'll Protect It, Jay has taken dance classes and gymnastics and uses those moves to incorporate into his fighting in addition to his magic. It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember this information and only popped up when I was writing chapter 15 of We're Reckless And In Danger--second installment in SISTIPI series--so I quickly added this Job to Jay's list! And it's just so perfect for him)

Leo Mikaelson, the adopted son, youngest Mikaelson kid, and the ONLY HUMAN in a family of supernaturals. The kid's got his work cut out for him:

Scholar (I felt like this class was fitting for Leo since he wishes to learn all that he can about magic in order to relate more to his three older siblings. Of course Hayley is just a werewolf and does not have magic, but the sentiment is still there. And Scholars have a faerie that pretty much helps with buffs and heals and I think that's also nice for Leo. I see him as someone who's very friendly towards lots of creatures. And since Scholar is a Healing Job, I think it also works even more with Leo's need to want to support his siblings/family and help them out when he can.)

Bard (so I also wrote an in-depth reasoning for Leo taking up this class as well here, but I'll paraphrase. Asides from learning potions that do not require actual magic abilities, I think he'd also want to learn how to help protect his family and contribute a bit more. So he'd go to grandpa Alaric and ask for him to teach him how to fight with weapons. Obviously Hope and Josie were against that because Leo's too young to fight with weapons, but Alaric just teaches him archery--which works because Bards uses bows as their weapon. Another reason why I chose Bard is because in my first Hosie fic Sad Bedroom Eyes, I think I had Leo be really into theatre and performing arts, and Bards traditionally are performers, and in the game, they can play music. So that's why Bard is perfect for Leo!)

Summoner (in the game, Scholar and Summoners are Jobs that branched out of the Arcanist class. Summoners basically summon little versions of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan to help fight them along with the Carbuncle. Oh, the Carbuncle is like a cute little fox creature anyways the Carbuncle turns into either Ifrit, Garuda, or Titan depending on the button you press anyways--like I said in Scholar, Leo would be out there befriending all the creatures like a tiny Snow White or Cinderella)

Astrologian (I mentioned how this is a great Job for Leo but never elaborated so now's my chance haha. Astrologian is also a Healing Job but they use tarot cards--which I thought would be excellent for Leo because it just connects back to Leo's wish to learn all that he can about magic. I'd like to think Freya teaches Leo how to read tarot and he's become very good at it)

Machinist (I think Machinist would be nice for Leo as well. The way I headcanon it, Leo would make potions and would somehow incorporate those into his fighting style. He'd probably tinker with things and build some sort of contraption or whatever. And Machinist are kind of like that--I mean they use guns in the game and I don't think Leo would actually use guns, but again, the sentiment is still there. The lore for this Job is that Machinist sort of follow the footsteps of Cid Garlond, a man who's great with utilizing magitek. So Machinist uses the knowledge that they know and turns it into something they can use in battle. And I think Leo would definitely--again--be creating trinkets of sorts to help his siblings/family that also incorporate the magic element)

White Mage (listen. Leo is a precious sunshine boi with a big imagination. Also White Mage are pure healers so that fits right up Leo's whole "i want to protect my family and make sure they're safe" and the fact that he is, in fact, the only damn healer in the goddamn family lmao. ALSO YOU GET A UNICORN WHEN YOU PLAY THIS JOB. OBVIOUSLY I'M GOING TO HAVE LEO PICK THIS JOB UP ARE YOU KIDDINGGGGG) [WHM Job point added Feb 14, 2024]

Wow I think that's about it for what Jobs Hosie and my Hosie Fankids would take up. Leo's ended up getting a lot more Jobs compared to the others, but I think it also makes sense considering how Leo is so eager to keep up pace with his supernatural family since he's the only human/non-supernatural.

Of course, maybe this list will get updated once the rest of the new Jobs for the Dawntrail expansion pack gets revealed, but until that happens...

If you've actually made it to the very end of this post, I am so sorry lol. But also thank you for reading through this very niche Hosie AU that was born out of my love for the ship and my love for the Critically Acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion and award-winning Stormblood expansion up to level 70 for free with no playtime restriction <3

#hosie #hosie ffxiv au #hosie fankids #this is such a long post oh my gosh i'm so sorry #but also #have u heard of the critically acclaimed mmorpg final fantasy xiv with expanded free trial 👀#eprika rambles #edit: i updated hayley's section and leo's pictures #2nd edit: i added another Job for Leo

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