#No lore no hints no clues saying you can even find this thing

[magichats]

completely unrelated thought

I really hope Deltarune gets an Ozma boss just because it'd be deeply funny for a game like Deltarune

[duskcowboy]

oh my- okay what is chapter 21 about. people are saying its the valkyries and others are saying its elain. WHATS HAPPENING???

Anon, buckle up, cause we’re going deep into the lore and I hope I can cover everything!

So, a bit of recent backstory, for the acotar 10 year anniversary, there have been giant displays of the first acotar book popping up at various bookstores. They are all bookmarked on Chapter 21, which is when Feyre and Rhys first met, so initially it was not very surprising.

Then, the buzz today is because someone posted a video showing that SJM signed one of the displays in Miami with a quote from Chapter 21 of acomaf. It’s also important to note many people close to SJM (I believe even her husband) liked the post and/or commented 👀👀 They even called it a “clue” and the caption on the post isn’t about the anniversary, but the next acotar book!

So lots of speculation.

When we noticed the repeat of 21, people went digging and turns out some elriels have been theorizing about the importance of Chapter 21/the number 21 for a while now. @blaircmorgan has a post regarding the importance of 21 in acotar. And here are a few other instances it came up:

Even in an interview, the narrator for the new audiobook recordings specifically mentions the pivotal scene with Elain in Chapter 21 of acosf.

The Valkyries come into play because Nesta opens to Chapter 21 in “their book”:

Nesta opened the brown paper and beheld a stack of pages filled with writing. At the top of the first page, it merely said, Chapter Twenty-One. She read the first few lines beneath it, then nearly dropped the pages. "This-this is about us."

This confirms how there may be specific meaning to Chapter 21s for SJM. A lot of emotional/impactful/transitional scenes happen in these chapters (sort of reminding me of how Taylor Swift has her most vulnerable songs as track 5s). And it’s highlighted and emphasized here in this line in acosf. And you know what’s in Chapter 21 of acosf itself?

“Find me when you wish to begin”

This scene has always stuck with me as the biggest foreshadowing of Elain’s journey to come. It hints at her powers, her potential, her determination to help, and “growing some claws”.

NOW,

Since it’s obvious 21 is being repeated, many are now convinced it’s a clue that the new book announcement is coming on May 21st. It’s a Wednesday (a common day for bb to announce/post things) and right before another one of their meetings, so it makes sense for an announcement.

If next week there is another display signed by SJM with a quote from acowar, it will solidify the pattern for me.

That would mean, the last quote would be from Chapter 21 of acosf on the 21st, and it could potentially be an Elain quote which would be perfect to announce her book 😩😩💗💗

I hope I covered it all, and people feel free to add anything I missed!

[minas-linkverse]

I'd love to see your though proseces for Finding the Founding! (I love that whole mini arc so much! Even if I feel really bad for wild...)

This is the earliest update anyone's asked about, so I'll be starting here. ALTHOUGH... I kind of dread to, because looking at old art is incredibly difficult. I'll do it-- I'll do it for you all and my love for yapping.

Director's commentary: Finding the Founding Full update <-

I was still far from good at comic making, but I was very ambitious, so although the visual story telling in this update isn't up to my standards now, there's some neat things past-Mina did.

The establishing shot is both telling and cryptic-- I'd say it leans too much towards the latter but she tried. The goal was to have enough hints to clue the viewer who knows skyward sword into the fact that this was the Goddess statue courtyard-- Which would ideally build tension. However past-Mina was too waaay too subtle. I took the liberty to edit how I'd do this panel today: having a part of the statue loom over the panel. This way even the viewers who don't remember the courtyard's birch trees can tell something big is waiting.

Altho I do like the detail that there's some wood planks in the background. Reminds the reader that this is post-game and they're doing building 💪

Groose :) The lore with the accessory that Link, Zelda and Groose wear is that he made them for the squad. The motive was actually polyamorous yearning but he's too insecure to admit it yet. You can see he wears his different and it has alternate feathers, it's like. A metaphor for self isolating or smth.👍I love Groozelink but they're not established in the time the comic takes place, so we get a longing flustered groose instead... Not that I've gotten to show that in the comic yet. Er.

At this point in the comic I hadn't settled on a consistant lineweight, and hadn't started using bold outer lines yet. So although the art isn't bad, it looks chaotic and unfinished. You can also see I was using WAY too thick of a brush for the panels and made the text too small. Gotta start somewhere, I guess!

Another ambitious panel, I was trying to have Groose's dialogue make it more poignant that the statue is BIG and STARING DOWN but the art REALLY didn't work with it. The statue looks tiiiny and besides the clouds curving into a halo it's all just a very boring image.

I super quickly threw a fish-eye-lense distortion on the panel to show something closer to what I'd wanted it to look, but didn't have the skills for at the time.

In the last segment of the update Wild has a panic attack type-o-deal which is again made less effective by the art, but past-Mina did try real hard and I respect that.

These two sets of panels were meant to be kind before-and-after transformations.

Wild going from seeing a family talk -> to the wall being torn and the tree destroyed with a guardian on the move. THEN Groose -> melting into a malice skeleton. I really don't think past me did a good job with that. I should've included more details that stayed between the two panels so they'd be more clearly connected. It's a cool idea tho, and in later updates I started to figure out how to execute cool ideas, so... Practise for the win.

Also nobody ever pointed it out at the time, but Wild's hair actually goes from the hairstyle he has in the comic to a hairstyle much closer to what he had back in the war. That and the colour fading from his eyes are deets I can still get behind whole-heartedly.

In the final page of the update there's a massive tonal shift where the art goes simple and the dialogue silly. It really depends on the tone you want for your comic, as this kind of a move can completely undo any tension you built, but in this case I think it's a very well done whiplash feel-good(ish) ending.

I think LV's updates started very amateurish, but I did seem to have a pretty good grasp on pacing and tone since the start. I'm very proud of that.

_

You can probably tell I don't much like this update anymore, haha. I appreciate what it meant for me back then and have nothing against people who still like it. To me its just a great example of all the things where I was falling flat when I first started.

Besides the panic attack wasn't an idea I even liked back then-- It felt like sudden unnecessary melodrama that could've easily been replaced with more nuanced emotions. However I'd seen people hype up all sorts of angsty art in the fandom at the time and felt like if I didn't put in something intense people wouldn't care about my comic. It's silly looking back-- You should be true to yourself when you make art, that way you'll like what you make and it doesn't age as poorly.

Never-the-less, the journey of making this webcomic so far has been really good for my comic skills and although I cringe at the past updates: they're still valuable stepping stones on that journey and I'm happy to look back and reflect! Thanks for requesting this update for analysis, and hope others can get something out of it too!

[ganondoodle]

I probably still wouldn’t have been a big fan of the game, but I don’t think I would have been NEARLY as upset about TotK if BotW didn’t seem like it was so obviously setting up plot points for a sequel. Like, you’re very clearly MEANT to wonder what malice is, and how Ganon became the Calamity instead of just the Demon King. Fi is awake again, where are they going either that? What’s the deal with the Triforce-shaped symbol on Zelda’s hand? There were a LOT of other things like that, and many of them had to do with overarching lore for the series.

I get it if they want to reboot the series, but “BotW 2” was the single worst game you could have done that with. It could have been an amazing conclusion to the original continuity.

EXACTLY, you, you get it

botw felt like the introduction to a vast world with secrets and hints to things that were planned to become a bigger thing- a big giant game as a big giant set up, and then ... like totk likes to do alot, it lacks a pay off, and that is something it even does within itself, cosntantly, set up and no pay off, or set up and the most boring and uninspired pay off you can really not even call that, from the bigger things like the whole dragon thing being hammered into your head as irreversible and then it IS reversible.. out of nowhere without you having to do fuck all, the whole thing with the ancient hero beign a big mystery with lots of interesting ideas attached and then its some weird ass dog creature that doesnt resemble any other race with, of course, sonau armor, bc there nothing that isnt sonau in that game, even finding the old treasure maps you can find that then lead to amiibo stuff from botw id call that

botw wasnt that great with rewards either but exploring the world and wondering about those, surely intentionally, placed mysterious and intriguing designs and places did alot for making it so interesting to think about, totk fumbles it all and even the new stuff doesnt even come close to that environmental storytelling botw was so great at, sonau ruins? ha they look entirely different than in botw actually, bc those were built by hylians you see, the actual sonau stuff is in prime condition considering the time thats passed and its all the same blank blocky blocks that serve no purpose but to be a place for you to find a thing or exchange some currency- the most you can think about it is ... that the sonau hollowed out the entire underground of hyrule, every inch of the map, ... which is WEIRD and doesnt exactly make them look that good but ... thats all there is

at least with the shiekah it made somewaht more sense and it felt much less .. invasive? and you didnt have anyone from that time to talk to, other than dead monks whos only purpose is to give you their last piece of their own spirit, but in totk ... raurus ghost and mineru too are both just there to talk to but DONT tell you shit but vague hints that were already clear, the sky islands used to be on the ground? oh you dont say, you see them there in the stupid memories! and dont get to know how they got up there and theres nothing that can clue you in to that, its just sonau magic yet again i guess

dont even get me started on the whole malice/miasma thing, it made so much SENSE that there was a source of it, someone that has keep kept in a horrible place just between life and death for thousands of years trying to break free by their hate and anger manifesting to such a degree its literally spilling out and building creppy eyeballs, mouths and ribcage like structures like they are trying to rebuild themsleves outside of their awful prison no one knows about is so damn compelling, but no, actually, the guy trapped there was the msot evilest evar, was sealed bc him evil and no other motive, and the previously mentioned stuff is pretty much utterly unceonnected, and his magic beign miasma with red instead of pink and no creepy body parts was the true version of it, that pink one was its own thing heehooo SHUT UP argh

it doesnt help that really, i dont feel like the sonau were set up either, they were a tiny part in botw, really only serving to make the world seem more ancient and more full of history, having ruins from a past civilization there you know nothing about and cant find out more is so good, its compelling and sad and makes the world feel more real, just shoving them into everything, being the center of attention all of thes udden and not even the architecure fitting feels so ... forced, i really truly believe the og sonau werent meant to be more than that, but in their fear of the game being too similarly looking like botw they took the sonau to replace the shiekah with them- imo the shiekah were the ones set up to be deeper explored in botw, with their whole misstreatment by the royal family in the past, monk miz kyoshia reacting the same way a yiga commander would was deliberate and brings up even more interesting ideas, the comments about where the mysterious energy the ancient shiekah used to power everything being concentrated in certain regions?? thats a big ass set up, the fact that the center of what is signaling everything to reactivate being below hyrule castle? the fact the whole arena thing was BUILT INTO THE CASTLE or it on top of it is so??? cool??? and sso damn intriguing, we are scratching the surface of their history- but then no, actually, the sonau are the cool new shit those other ones just uh ... disappear, also the sonau did everythign the shiekah did but even better wayy before them haha

its like they didnt want to tackle the more complicated stuff with the shiekah, their relationship to the royal family and how the yiga ... have a point and a good reason- so they replaced them with entirely new purely goodest good guys that did the same stuff before them with none of the history attached :))

this is why im so insistent on it not really being a sequel, thers no follow up on anything that was set up, NOTHING, and no, a couple having a kid now or whatever isnt a follow up on an interesting set up, how hard is it to understand that-

.... listen to me rambling, you probably know all that already nhjdfkbnkd

(i know i always bring up the shiekah but ... they were so central in botw, while also not taking up every single corner- unlike some other ones >_____>, with so much interesting stuff to connect and think about, i cared about them so much i felt kicked down the stairs by their treatment in totk)

[dumbf1nded]

OC Revamp: Sgt Mallory + Lore drop

"BREAKTHRU"

Sergeant Mallory is... a sargeant. He worked for his nation with pride and loyalty against another, but because of one fatal mistake that lost Mallory's nation a battle, Mallory was imprisoned and sentenced to death for failure to succeed. This was unfair in Sgt Mallory's eyes, so when it was time for his execution, he broke out and stole himself some good equipment, and is basically destroying as much of the nation's military from the inside out, but he has a specific vendetta against one person, and that is none other than the leader of the nation. The one that sentenced him to death.

While he's shredding his nation to bits and pieces, he comes across numerous clues that hint to what his nation has been doing to their civilians behind the scenes. The citizens of his nation are surveilled beyond belief, with cameras in every home and microphones around every corner. Speech is limited, as saying the wrong phrases may get you arrested and reeducated, or even worse, killed. Food is scarse and bitter, disease is rampant, and the government gives no flying f*cks about it. You know, generic dystopian society and whatnot.

Although there is something worse and truly awful about something Mallory finds. He finds blueprints on a type of new robot in the works. The catch is, there is little to no electricity inside of it.

ahaaah if ur interested then click the thing baby girl ⬇️😘

Descriptive Gore warning! No images just text that might describe flesh and stuff.

thank you so much darling. *ahem* anyways

Gorrorbots. That's what they're called. Millions of people are ground into sludge every month and poured into an empty metallic shell, and are "resurrected" by a special serum that allows the organs to function even if they are in a million pieces and not even in the right place. Brain and nerves are still in the masses, so the sludge is always conscious and in agony for as long as it's alive. In many, many cases, there's even masses of several people mixed together, in which case the whole glob shares memories and is painfully confused and angry at everything, and that's why they're made in the first place.

Gorrorbots are violent, incredibly hostile, and utterly ruthless. They will help in the government's goal to win the war between themselves and the only remaining nation besides their own. They can't die without escaping their metallic shells, so they will ruthlessly maul anyone it finds until they are truly finished off. But when Mallory starts to do some troublesome things for the dystopia, the Gorrorbots are sent towards HIM rather than the opponents.

So, alongside having to fight his own ex-colleagues to get the revenge he so desires, he now has to maneuver through practically indestructible robots to do so. It's so much easier said than done. He can trust no one but himself, and his job is barely 15% finished when he has a kill count of 800 colleagues.

...yeah, this was supposed to be an incredibly ambitious idea i had for a game. if you want to hear some more specific game ideas i had for this story, feel free to ask...

THANKS FOR READING IF YOU DID I LOVE YOU SO MUCH NOW BYEEEE 💓💗💗💖💗💗💗💗💗💗

[yukidragon]

hi im super new to swwsdj and its lore and i gotta ask, how exactly did jack die? was he murdered was it an onset accident and if so how did that accident go? if we dont truly know then whats ur hc for what happened to him? u seem to be the leading authority on the game since anytime i google it, ur blog shows up pretty prominently.

Wait, me, a leading authority of the game? Prominently featured in google searches? WHAT?

Pardon me, I was just a little overwhelmed for a second there. I'm flattered and flustered all at once. I'm just a silly fan who likes to ramble all the thoughts I have for this lovely game. I had no idea that I rambled enough to be a prominent search result on google. Wow.

The real authority of the game are the kind folks over at SnaccPop Studios. You can check them out over at their patreon, twitter, and tumblr. Also, there's an official tumblr and twitter for Sunny Day Jack that you might consider checking out.

While I'm getting disclaimers out of the way, I also want to make sure to credit them and the awesome Sauce for their lovely art and for being cool with me putting their art in posts like these to help discuss their fabulous game. It really helps illustrate what I'm talking about when I can show the actual illustrations.

Also, remember not to share anything privately posted on the patreon!

Anyway... back to the topic. While we can't say with complete certainty what happened to Jack in 1984 on the day he died, since the game's story is still in development, evidence strongly hints that he was murdered. I theorized in the past that he was shot due to some teaser art and some sprites Sauce was kind enough to share that show him with what look suspiciously like gunshot wounds.

How the incident went down exactly is unknown, but this teaser certainly shows the brutal aftermath. Not to mention the demo shows us hints in the form of childish doodles before the start of the game. It seems there were children in the audience who witnessed the final moments of Sunny Day Jack...

This bit of lost media from Sauce's old twitter is still so chilling to think about. Any development art can't be technically counted as canon if it's not on any official SDJ page, but this heavily suggests how the incident went down.

As for my headcanons about what happened... They've developed somewhat over time, as you can see in a few of my previous posts here, here, and here. I also touched on it in a potential storyline idea for my fanfic, Sunshine in Hell, with my version of his sunshine, Alice, being the reincarnation of someone who unfortunately witnessed the incident. I also played with an AU idea where MC/Alice time travels back to 1984 to stop the murder from happening.

While we do have hints that Jack was the victim of murder, and even what might have been the cause of death, we don't have any clues as to why it happened. We also don't know why his soul was trapped in the tape and turned him into the ghost(?) we know and love. We have a lot of speculation, from his past as Joseph Cullman catching up to him in a violent way, a jealous co-star wanting to take him out, or even a conspiracy set up by LambsWork Productions itself. It could go in any direction at this point.

Sorry I can't offer a definitive answer as to how Jack died or why, but I hope this at least gives you a few things to think about. I'm definitely looking forward to finding out the answers when the full game is released.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur

[kaija-rayne-author]

Ugh I can’t not theorize. I’ve been at it non stop. Once a story catches my interest my brain just going into hyper speed trying to figure out how the writers (if they do a good job) will bring all of their themes, hints, etc to fruition. All I’m missing is a cork board, pins, and miles of red string.

What’s super exciting this time is I’m actually dealing with a property where the writers are….good? I’m so used to being disappointed when fan theories (often my own) turn out to be much better than the canon, but I don’t see that happening here. Weekes is clearly a masterful writer and knows how to build up to a satisfying twist.

Because you just know another twist is coming. Solas, despite everything, is just too soft hearted to make a convincing final boss. It couldn’t be more obvious that being The Dreadwolf and putting aside his own conscience takes every ounce of energy he has. Eventually he’ll have his breaking point and that’s when we’ll find out who our true villain is.

It’s Mythal. I’ll eat my damn hat if it isn’t. She’s either not the person Solas remembers, or maybe she never was. In either case, there’s been plenty of clues both in DAI and in subsequent materials (specifically Tevinter Knights) to imply that there’s something else going on here.

We keep seeing imagery of the Dreadwolf as a mutant abomination that is part wolf and part dragon. It’s easy to point to the end credit scene of DAI and say “well yeah he fused with Mythal who is a dragon” and sure it looked that way…but is that actually what happened?

We saw Flemeth part with some form of magical energy before Solas arrived. We also know that she’d taken the soul of Uthemiel from Kieran. Uthemiel happens to be a dragon, or was until he was tainted and became an Archdemon.

Archdemons can control Darkspawn. And taking a Darkspawn army past the Veil to enact vengeance upon the Evanuris sees like something Flemeth would do. But that doesn’t seem like something Solas would want. His agenda has always been to fix his past mistakes and tear down the Veil for the greater good. He doesn’t seem that fond of Darkspawn, in fact he was pretty pissed at the Wardens for screwing around with them.

Where I’m going with this, is I think it’s entirely possible Solas is being used. He may have unwittingly fused himself with an Archdemon, assuming it was the essence of Mythal. The real plan, now that plan A failed, might be turning him into an Archdemon so Flemeth/Mythal can use him to start another blight and wield the darkspawn. Corypheus managed to mind control an Archdemon, so clearly it can be done.

And if that’s the case, then ooooooh boy.

Poor Solas.

OMG. I missed this one and I'm so glad I finally found it!

What a fascinating idea. Holy shitballs.

Okay, so I just restarted DAO, I'll be on the lookout through these playthroughs (I'm doing DA2 next, then probably DAI again, because I'm an utter sucker for lore) for hints about all that!

I thought the whole point of the dark ritual w/Morrigan was to purify Urthemiel's 'soul' through being born as an innocent child. But what if that didn't work?

But then, wouldn't Kieran have shown signs of taint? Hmmm. Maybe not, given it's just the soul?

I'm still not convinced that Flemythal parted with any kind of energy in that scene. BUT if she did... well, she's pulled the whole 'soul piece recovery schtick' before. So if it was energy or a soul, it could've been hers. Leaving just Urthemiel. Which would very possibly warp Solas into a dragon/wolf thing. And Mythal is very used to Solas going along with what she wants. So it feels like something she wouldn't think twice about. She uses Morrigan too, and Kieran, so it’s definitely something she's used to doing.

I have a strong feeling Solas is indeed being used. And has been since he was 'born' from the fade. There's a lot of hints to his resignation, nay, even belief that it's right that Mythal used him. (This is... common, in abuse survivors, FWIW.)

But I believe it's canon that his forehead scar came from when he burnt off Mythal's Vallaslin? I have to see if I can find that again. I can't remember where I read it.

I think Mythal will be rather unpleasantly surprised in the spine Solas has developed since her 'murder'. He doesn't seem at all likely to me to be all 'hey! My enslaver is back! Let me just get my slave brands again'. Now, if he were still truly alone, he might just cave into it because man, does Solas have some pretty massive Mythal issues. Not sure if he regards her as his mom or something else or a mix of things, urk.

BUT he's not actually truly alone anymore is he? No matter how hard he tries to be. A Romanced Lavellan can tell him "Var lath vir suledin" which translates sorta, into "Our - love - way/path - endure/strength to withstand loss."

So he knows he's not alone. That inky will absolutely go to the mat for him. He has actual friends, too. He said Bull has him, if you don't betray Bull w/the Chargers. Solas doesn't strike me as someone to say that lightly.

So, he also knows he has friends, too.

I think, if Mythal actually is the big bad (kinda hoping for this tbh) she's gonna have a rather rude awakening when it comes to Solas. Who, from all I can tell, has always willingly served her whims. Because she was 'the best of them' doesn't mean she was actually good.

I talked about how he's heavily neurodivergent coded before, and we're generally loyal to a fault, which Solas very much shows.

But we do also often, eventually, reach a 'no more' point. After which, we'll absolutely close all those doors we'd previously left open.

If Solas acts the way I suspect he might, he'd then use everything he knows about Mythal and the Evanuris to help the game protag (I still wish I could just carry my inky over) defeat the buggers.

But what would it take for him to finally reach that point with Mythal? Mommy issues are soooo hard to deal with in therapy because it's so damned easy to backslide.

Hurting Inky? Doing something that will destroy the fade (like marching a darkspawn army into it)? Making him betray all of his followers who truly believe in him and his goals of freeing enslaved elves?

Solas deeply believes that slavery is wrong. In a way that makes me think he was actually enslaved at one point. Obviously to Mythal.

Oh, fuck me. What an amazing story they could tell about the whole 'but there were good slave owners' bullshit nonsense some people like to spout.

Of course, I still really wish Bioware would tell a story with a disabled protag. Which the end of Inquisition really would set up nicely. But given their shit disability rep, I know not to hold my breath over that.

[kadextra]

Alright let’s talk about q!Fit lore, long post

Recap: He remembers his life before the island unlike the others- being in the warzone and the reason he accepted the train invitation to Quesadilla Island. q!Fit’s mysterious employer had sent him to the island to obtain/retrieve an unknown “something” there. However, they had no clue that the island was already occupied by The Federation. q!Fit has been stuck here the past 76 days, but has overall enjoyed this time and the happiness, love and peace his egg child Ramon gives him. But now that so long has passed he’s feeling pressured to return back to his mission. q!Fit knows the island is dangerous with the Federation, the Codes, and is scared for his son. He is also worried for his new friends who are suffering, but whatever this “something” he needs to retrieve is, it grows in value proportional to suffering. He bypassed the Federation’s firewall to send a message to his employer about what he’s learned, saying “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” But the message failed to connect…

Yeah there’s another organization out there. They want something from the island, but apparently had no idea the Federation has taken it over. This kinda proves that the Federation has not always been on the island, they occupied it at some point. Perhaps 20 years ago…?

Anyways there’s at least 4 organizations we know of at play

The Federation - keep residents happy, prevent them from leaving the island

The Codes - make residents want to leave the island

Masked person’s - ???? unknown, gave Sofia to Max

Fit’s - obtain something on the island

oh q!Fit, the character you are. imagine living in a war torn place for years, a mercenary for hire, being given a mission like usual. When you go to that place you instead find true joy for like the first time in your life. But your obligations are pulling you back, and what you’re doing could endanger your newfound friends and son which is the LAST thing you want to happen, because you’ve learned to open your heart and love so much. gah. ow.

I’ll speculate a bit on what Fit needs to obtain on the island now. All we have to go off is this vague hint: what could grow in value if there is suffering/conflict?

Data. maybe like personal information collection of things from the players like human emotions, or the island

Resilient people. those who can grow through suffering, handle tough situations, potential warrior material

The island itself. there might be something here that is geographically important, and as more people settle it will be uncovered

The dragon mother, if she’s even real. idk maybe an angry dragon would be helpful to them?

Something else supernatural/scifi. remember, the island is canonically located in the middle of point nemo- the most inaccessible location on earth. no life grows there. it’s used for crashing space vessels. theorized to be the home of Cthulhu in mythos. why send someone to this weird place?

That’s all I got rn, can’t wait to find out more

[correctproseka]

no clue whats happening on the jp server (im out of the loop on purpose)

but i was looking at the event list because i wanted to see if we were actually starting mizuki's arc like we all assumed with bake no hana/ominous tolling of the bells

and not only do the two most recent niigo events seem focused on mafuyu again but the one that they started today seems focused on a bigger part of mafuyus story

and i have mixed feelings about it

n25 has so many deep/complex stories and struggles that i personally feel we're not taking enough time to explore, i was really excited for mizukis arc beside, her being my oshi aside, i was excited to finally see a different characters perspective and struggles and a deeper look into their story so we can start to see the other girls start healing too

i assumed like everyone else that mafuyu would step out of the spotlight to let mizuki have a few months of focus where everyones focus events just tie into mizuki because thats what we've been doing with mafuyu for the better portion of this games airing

but with the most 2 recent events being focused on deep mafuyu lore, again, (and i only have the brief summary on the wiki, so i could be wrong) i dont know if theyre going back to focusing on fuyu or if they couldnt find a way to make a mafuyu story that did fit into mizukis story (you know, the way that I nandesu and kitty both are ena or mizuki comms/focus events but the story still revolves around mafuyu, same with samsa) which if true is another issue on its own

but mainly idk i feel we've spent enough time on mafuyu for now and maybe this is a short overlap to tie up loose ends in his story or maybe its to show that more than one group mate can struggle at a time but colopale doesnt have a good track record and i dont trust it

this is in no way hate for mafuyu hes one of my faves too it just doesnt feel fair, enas art struggles get handled so passively but i know theres more to her and idk i am the rain made me feel we were just gonna prematurely wrap that up and kanade hasnt dealt with her deeper issues at all yet and almost 4 or 5 years into the game i wanna see more. so much gets hinted at and then completely ignored and i just want everyones story to feel complete and everyones problems/trauma to be not only heard of or hinted at but actually properly explored and resolved and its not fair that (again, to me, with limited knowledge) mafuyu is the only one to have that so far

we dont know how long we'll have this game after all

-rambler anon

Ok, not to say i disagree rn, just to explain a little thing

Mizuki's arc didnt start in Mizu5. It ended in Ena5. It started all the way back with Id Smile, it was a Mizuena focused arc as much as Ena's arc is usually within herself.

Meanwhile, it needs the entirety of niigo to "save" Mafuyu, Kanade can't do it alone (girly can't even save herself, differently from Ena).

What i thought they would do since Mafuyu run away is, for the second half of the game, to focus on Kanade, because her issues are quite literally killing her. But not much has happened yet. I figured they needed to almost finish Mafuyu's story up before.

That being said, i got the summary of this event by now, and I can't say im mad towards the direction its going. There was NOT a true forgiveness and trust, just a "we could try", which did not work because both mafumom and mafuyu need help, Mafumom to understand what she is doing and Mafuyu to understand that it is not her fault. As i assumed before the event, mafumom would fuck up again, its a habit, and those are hard to break.

I just wish they focus on Kanade more soon.

Also, one thing i wish they focused more before finishing Mizuki's arc: the reason why niigo is so focused on helping Mafuyu. There is no niigo without all of them, niigo would break without Mafuyu, but it would also break without Mizuki, so id love to have had an event showcasing that when Mizuki disappeared.

That being said, it is progressing on a satisfying way if you end up reading the stories, its just. Very slow. Not the worst writing in the game but they could try doing it a little better, yeah, such as, how you said: make kanamafu actually aware of mizuenas issues. Those two have the emotional intelligence of a wall I swear.

And we're about in the middle of the game, but as all units i see (but vbs, what is vbs doing) are starting to slow down their progression (example, leoni with Saki starting to hint she doesn't want to go pro) ((note: i am not aware of what wxs is doing bc they're my least favorite unit, so i could be wrong)) i think itll take a bit over 4 more years to finish.

[ocgram-central]

sorry if this question isn't answerable but im having a really hard time writing timeline conversations and just have no clue what I should even have the characters be doing and talking about and when I do it doesn't really actually add anything (if that makes sense) im wondering if there were any tips you or other people had?

Ocgram creators feel free to add your tips. I made an essay again sorr I talk a lot

I remembered I made an advice on TL convos before but I couldn't find it and was like did it happen in another timeline then it turns out I just gave it a wrong tag. Anyway here but I will elaborate on it. I will write about what comes to my mind generally and what I've been using to write timelines in my ocgram, it's the way I personally do things but I hope it can be a help.

If you feel lost in anything at all I recommend referencing the original project, so this is what I'll do. Generally speaking, I think in the original project, timeline conversations cover mostly three things: worldbuilding, characters' hobbies and habits, and characters' relationships.

Most of the timeline conversations in the very beginning, when they were yet published every day, served as an introduction to the worldbuilding (the prison rules, system, etc) and an introduction to the characters through their reactions to the prison. For example, we got to know that prisoners can request items, that they can smoke, that they get meals, that the writings in the prison are in an unknown language and the prison is located in an unknown place, etc. The characters also discussed what they think of the concept of the "mental images", interrogations with Es, written interrogations, and this whole situation with suddenly ending up in a prison, such as Mikoto saying he thinks it's a reality show. So, I think that for starters timeline conversations are a good way to introduce your audience to your ocgram's prison through the eyes of the characters. You can repeat it with future trials if any rules change with the trials or more lore is revealed.

We also get to know a lot about what characters naturally do when they have nothing to do basically. It can include hobbies, habits, coping mechanisms, etc. They naturally fall into what they've been doing every day before prison. Shidou and Kazui immediately smoke, Amane immediately searches for ways to continue studying, Kotoko requests protein to keep building her body and observes other prisoners to punish them later bc she needs to continue her "duty", Mahiru immediately starts conversations on traditionally girly topics and tries to befriend everyone, checking who is the most compatible with her/the most to her taste, etc., Fuuta is annoyed that he can't keep scrolling through the Internet/watching TV/playing games and that no one in the prison shares these hobbies. It's also revealed in Minigrams that Yuno/Mikoto/Mahiru often start group games to break the ice and pass the time. So it's also a good way to reveal what is the day-to-day behavior of your prisoners, and since this is a stressful environment what do they do to cope with stress.

As for the characters' relationships, generally I think that the written interrogation is for more personal, not crime-related information on the character, and the timeline conversations are for personal relationships between the characters. It's a way to reveal who is becoming closer to each other (for example we know that something is going on with Amane and Fuuta but we never have them looking directly into the camera and saying it), or just a way to hint at the parallels between the characters and elaborate on them both through it (for example the conversation where Yuno says that Mikoto is always pretending to smile). Among the forms of content that exist in the original project there are no other ways to reveal the relationships forming between the characters to the audience, everything else is either only about the particular character or only about their crime, so you could primarily use TL convos for establishing characters' relationships.

Mikoto kinda has a point with the reality show comment because really you can imagine a reality show where a bunch of strangers are forced to live together and are not allowed access to the outside world. How would they cope with the situation, pass the time, would they want to immediately find friends or isolate themselves until all of this ends, what conversation topics would they be interested in?

If you think that your TL convos "don't add anything" then I think focusing on these aspects (worldbuilding, hobbies and habits, relationships) could help you. Anything that seems like it lacks information can actually elaborate on your story. For example this conversation (source). Nothing really happens here but we get to know that Haruka is terribly scared of Kotoko, that Kotoko doesn't really get it (which is further supported by her interactions with Muu where she doesn't get it again), and that Es was calling Kotoko for something.

Also in the post I mentioned at the beginning, I said that Chekhov's guns are helpful in writing TL convos so I want to elaborate on it. Basically you can utilize foreshadowing a lot. Something I enjoy a lot about timeline conversations is that they look taken out of context. We don't know everything that is happening behind the scenes. So, any detail can be a foreshadowing, whether your audience notices it or not. Besides when I don't have more ideas for TL convos, or when I feel like they're too inconsistent/scattered, I look through the already written ones and pick up on what could be an idea for foreshadowing or an unfinished narrative, and make new TL convos to continue it. I put more emphasis on the TLs than the original project I think, but in my ocgram there are several batches of TLs that are connected by plot, like side-stories of sorts. I think it can also help you with the feeling that your TL convos aren't really informative. I'd say what matters most is whether there's a meaning for you as an author.

Also this is a way more general and vague advice but if you find writing timeline conversations genuinely too hard or boring then you can experiment with the forms of art that would be easier to you. It's hard to enjoy creation when you're struggling with it. I put a lot of emphasis on TL convos because I like writing dialogues/I find it easier to write and understand my characters through dialogues, but there are people who don't find it easy. If you prefer writing descriptions for example, or you want to write something more straightforward than out-of-context bits, the first idea that comes to my mind is making characters' have personal diaries and posting their diary entries where they tell us about the worldbuilding, their daily life in the prison, and their relationships with others the same it happens in TL convos. I hope that my advice can help you write your TL convos but most of all I hope you find a way to write your story the way it's enjoyable to you.

[inposterumcumgaudio]

Maybe you could talk about the department of achieves?

Oooh! Certainly!

The Department of Archives, Printing, and Recycling serves a lot of functions in the game. Because it exists in place of what would be a tutorial level in any other game, I'm going to talk about it in the way that one typically would a tutorial level, by breaking down each part you encounter and explaining its intent.

But, as I implied, it's not a tutorial at all! They just plonk your ass in front of a redactor and tell you to make choices. They don't give you time to read anything but the headlines of the articles Arthur judges on his own and your only hint as to what criteria he's judging is that "Mrs. Bower Wins Garden Prize" is acceptable while "No Swimming in the River" is not.

Been here two seconds and we're already in over our heads. But that's okay because it turns out the choice you're going to be asked to make is not so tricky.

I think it would have been fun if you taking your Joy gave you, like, five minutes of some silly shit before dumping you to the credits. You know how like every Far Cry starts with the bad guy telling you to sit tight for five minutes and if you actually do it, you get an alternate ending? Ah well. I'm asking a lot.

Anyway, you choose to Remember, obvs, and so you're presented your new primary objective: Find Your Brother. But you're Arthur Officeman, not some intrepid adventurer, so rather than leaping into action, you sit and stare at your desk in a fog of regret for several hours until your boss comes to ask what the hell you've been doing all day, remind you that bureaucracy never sleeps, and say that you have an office party to attend too.

You do get a little tutorial, I guess, in how sitting and standing work, how to pick up objects, and how to apply them to other objects all in in the part where you have to change the power cell. Then its back to the redactor.

I think the redactor... mini-game? is kind of a twofold mean trick on the player. I'm the kind of person who thinks that's fun, but I think most people are not.

On one's first playthrough, you have no idea by what parameters an article should be redacted or not. You might have guessed that articles that are negative should be rejected while articles that are positive should be accepted, but you'd be wrong! And maybe you think, "Well, this article just put my character into a tailspin for six hours so I should probably reject that one even if it is positive." And you'd still be wrong! And the funniest part is, you also have no idea that these choices you're making have no effect on your game whatsoever. So you're probably reading the articles carefully, learning about the lore, trying to find anything to give you a clue as to how to do your boring office job when you thought this game was supposed to be about finding your brother.

(And then you go to Clive's office and the "correct" way to do his articles is backwards to make him look bad. Then you can go to Prudence's office and do hers too, but hers don't even give you an achievement, just a richer understanding of the world. *eyeroll*)

The prologue was added to the game fairly early and not changed much. Originally, the game was meant to involve much more binary choice making like this, so it's hard to tell if the meaninglessness of the choices was always intended (à la the intentionally meaningless choices the Lutece twins present you with in BioShock Infinite, a game to which We Happy Few is often compared) or if it was dialed back to it when the choice making mechanics were also pulled back.

Alternative to all that, if you secretly are an intrepid adventurer or particularly goal oriented, you could just get up after you choose what to do about the scrap prize article and never bother redacting any others.

All right, we're really in the game now!

You go out the door and the first thing you see is a window into a room full of glass pneumatic tubes. And Arthur muses aloud at it, "Do you think the canister wonders what life's like outside the tube? Of course he'd have to break the tube to get out. And that would break it for everybody." It's a metaphor for the game. Arthur (you'll learn if you die) is a poet, after all.

Next is Clive's office. Boy's a mess. And based on the lore notes (if you choose to read them as you pick them up because you cannot access the menu at this point otherwise) and the environmental storytelling, he does not like you.

What's funny is, you probably already know that you are playing as one of "three moderately terrible people", but you're still the hero of this story and Clive's office is a shithole, so presenting you with the knowledge that he hates your guts sounds like a him problem. Clearly the terrible person here is Clive. His office is the office of a terrible person.

Moving on to Prudence's office.

Oh, her office is a shithole too. But she can be excused because Arthur likes her, she's been on holiday, and she isn't writing to Victoria pretending to be a "naturally shy woman". Prudence's office is also where we learn that her overdue vacation may be the result of her also being off her Joy.

Now your fellow executive coworkers' offices might have shown their respective inner turmoil, but up to now, the rest of the Department has been ship shape.

Turning the corner from Prudence's office is your first clue that it's not just she and Clive but the office itself that is struggling to cope.

It's at this point that you can watch helplessly as your coworker Hopkin Jones is forcibly injected with Joy by a Doctor, despite his protestations that he's already taken it. (This mechanic was definitely removed from the game; originally Doctors were supposed to be able to do this to you too). Tells you Doctors are not your friend, but also reinforces Victoria asking Arthur if he's off his Joy and then Arthur himself wondering if Prudence is. Any signs of disquiet will be regarded with suspicion.

A story I have been meaning to do is that Hopkin wasn't actually unhappy at all (at least not emotionally), but rather he was upset about the flooding in his office and maybe was a little too plaintive in asking Victoria to arrange a council worker to come fix it. Not liking his tone and thinking he would do well to make do and mend, she sent a Doctor to perk him up instead. Which is also a metaphor. We do not fix problems in Wellington Wells; we put on a smile and pretend it's not a problem at all.

As we move on into the editor bullpen, the chaos only intensifies.

The entire office is in disarray. You are starting to see the genuine scope of the disorder now. The whole room is a winding maze and halfway through, you are confronted with your first glimpse of Uncle Jack.

Remember how we just learned Doctors are not our friend? Very clever, Compulsion.

The room actually also gets in progressively worse condition as you move between the desks. You can't see the knocked over chairs when you walk in the door; it's only once you're around the bend. And once you turn the other corner...

The tube is broken and the canisters don't know where to go outside of it. Dohoho. Foreboding. Foreshadowing.

And then you finally attend Dierdre's birthday party and see the scene that sold this game, the second best cutscene in the entire thing. There's not much to actually say about it artistically that hasn't already been said.

I have some fun trivia stuff about it for you though.

Guy on the right is Clive. You can tell because before Victoria even starts supposing about Arthur being a Downer, he's already gearing up to run and go tell on him. He's been waiting for this day and his moment has finally arrived.

There's some weird glitching that happens with the props being held by the characters in this scene. Victoria's riding crop doubles when she sets it on the table and the one in her hand hovers and gets lodged in her torso in a way that her hands mostly hide in the scene. If you wait to hit the "pinata", the other guy on the left will have two kazoos in his hand.

Here's the scene on YouTube so you can check those out:

The cake Victoria made for Dierdre actually has her name on it even though you're never free to move in that room and the cutscene never gets close enough to show it.

The rotten fruit basket also has flies on it, but the particle effect has a very short draw distance so it's not visible in the cutscene either.

As for practical insights about the Department of Archives, now that my level design analysis is out of the way, one really must wonder at the concept of the redaction office at all.

It's terribly inefficient. Would it not be easier to burn old newspapers? Why are people reading old newspapers with such frequency as to need to have a whole office for editing them? I suppose that must be for the same reason whoever works in the Inter-Network room has four copies of Emma in there with them. But even still, why not just dispose of old newspapers if they're so troublesome?

What is the purpose of individually reading old articles (exposing editors to them in a way that reminds me a lot of those stories about what it's like to work as a Facebook content moderator) and having them make a judgement call on it? What is the point if, like the article with Percy's photo, a single news piece can cause one person to destroy the entire town when it was still deemed acceptable for everyone else to read?

I have to wonder if there wasn't initially some move to preserve these papers. As someone who uses newspapers.com for other projects, I can see the appeal even in a world that wants to forget the recent past. In this respect, I think particularly Vanessa Tinker-Bell and Clive Hamilton at the O' Courant would have made the argument for it. At the same time, I think they'd also both see the wisdom in cutting the unhappy parts out without having to be convinced of it. Vanessa was herself trying to edit Les Misérables to leave out the sad parts.

Redaction is still a very inefficient solution to this problem, but it is also a relic of wartime procedure and bureaucratically slow. It's thematically perfect, really. Exactly the kind of meaningless work Arthur Officeman should be doing in this world while also being the perfect catalyst for him to abandon it.

On a final note, I wonder then if the Government Printing Office that Arthur seeks out to replace his Letter of Transit wasn't merged into the Department of Archives, "Printing", and Recycling. That would be more efficient, while also making it more difficult to actually get anything accomplished there, since you'd then need a Letter of Transit to visit the office that prints the Letters of Transit.

[pinkyjulien]

🌈 Queerness in CyberPunk 2077

I wanted to make this post earlier this month but got caught up in modding shenanigans, as per usual~

BUT! It's still June, still pride, so here it is :>

▶ DISCLAIMER

All of this is my analyses, headcanons, of different characters, some of them not confirmed at all in anyway or form! I'm a queer man myself, but I do not claim to know everything about queerness and being queer, everyone experience the game and interpret the characters differently 🤲 This is only my opinions, based off canon game events, clues, hints, as well as developpers's tweets, streams, files datamining etc etc Please do not see this thread as an attack, or as something invalidating! I'm more than curious to heard what you think about my personal analyses, if you agree, if you don't, and why! If you think other characters also display hints of queerness I'd love to hear it too! 💙

This picture is an update I did in 2022 of lil collage I did back in 2021~

I posted the first version on Reddit back in 2021 and it created this whole "what do mean JOHNNY is GAY?" (because a rainbow behind a man automatically means he's Gay and nothing else right) and a lot of biphobia over his character in particular (gasp- THE rockerboy?! Biseggsual?? In my viddy game??)

▶ You can look at the thread here and have a lil laugh

SO, NATURALLY, after doing the 2022 collage, I went and uploaded it to reddit once again! Because triggering bigots and seeing them stumble over their own tongues trying to debunk everything is really funny ✨

However, I instantly muted the thread and let it rot in its own sauce for some days, weeks, only coming back to it later and Oh Boy 👀

I did a thread on Twitter last year exploring everything that was said on the thread and explaining why I put certain characters on it

Thought it'd be cool and fun to re-explore that and share my thoughts with y'all here SO LETS GET BACK TO IT 😌🤙

▶▶▶

I'll mainly paste screenshots of what I already said on my twitter thread, but I might add some things there and there!

Damn I was kinda pissed off back then HGHFHGF but yeah, this is also the reason I won't ever make any straight or super straight flags I do not headcanon Delamain as Asexual, as there isn't any confirmation anywhere that he's interest in that kind of interaction or not, but I'll come back to him later!

Goro being canonly Queer is often missed, and this surprises me, considering he's one of the popular character! He is interested (or not) equally in both Fem and Masc V, giving he's replying to them the exact same ways! This isn't something done randomly by the devs :)

As said in the tweet, there isn't any direct and clear evidence of Mitch and Scorpion being a couple! Their relationship is heavily queer coded and queer people are more easily picking up on it than non-queer peoeple (and that's normal) Gay men have called their male partner Friend, Best friend and Brother through history maaaany many time, and that's part of my interpretation of their relationship too, especially giving they're both veterans who fought in the same war. The poem Mitch wrotes during "I'll Fly Away" (heavily implied) is romantic and gay coded, the gay novel in Mitch's tent (confirmed to be on purpose) is what we call environnemental story telling, it's subtle but adds to a character's backstory and lore! As for the datamining, I found a Mitch awkwardly explaining to V that no, Saul doesn't have any say in whatever he's doing with Scorpion stuff "because.... because... eh, that's just family stuff"

Note on Delamain here because I've heard it even caused some drama here on Tumblr that I said that? He uses He/Him to describe himself, the Main Entity, but multiples of his splites entities uses She/Her, meaning he's literally Non-Binary in how his entity is formed (I find it really cool for an AI ngl ngl) However if my headcanon offended anyone, I apologize! and I'd love to hear others interpretation :3

There isn't any open and visible MLM gay couple in Cyberpunk 2077! Bouncing off ElvenBeard's amazing analyses and thoughts on Kerry's sexuality, he can be seen as Bisexual (confirmed by RTAL themselves) and Homosexual (confirmed by the devs before and after the game released) he can be Both and Both are correct depending on how you view his character and how he grew from his past relationship (Bisexual with a masc preference, Bisexual who have to heal from his marriage, Gay man who realized his sexuality later after a wonky marriage, etc)

The whole "Responsability=Wife" Takemura take angers me to no end, taking its roots in heteronormativity- We see Goro care for his job above all else, to me that's what his "responsability" is and always was; his job

Nothing more to add here- Jackie's only relationship we see in game is with Misty, this doesn't confirm nor deny anything! (However with how he react to V pushing him, lip-bitting and all regardless of gender, I can totally see him as being queer)

AND That's about it!

It was interesting to dig into that thread last year and thought I'd share that here, as a refresher that Johnny is Bi, Takemura too, and smaller characters like Mitch and Evelynn still have clear hints of queerness to them ✨

I really like how CP77 touches on queerness, it feels realistic, it doesn't feel forced; which, sadly, create this problem of "UH?? This is pure LIES" if a character's sexuality is not splattered in your face, which then create the "Ugh why does it have to be forced down our throat" complains

Something something, lesson here is that people will always complain about queerness, be it loud, be it subtle, so fuck it! Scream it, go apeshit over small details, over-analyse everything cause chances are: this is intentional!

More Characters

I later noticed that Regina have a naked lady tattooed on her forearm, and since we know nothing is done randomly in CDPR's video games, makes me think that she might be sapphic in some way ✨

Mateo is also one of my fav "potential queer", how he could be a trans man, but there isn't anything really to support that other than that one interaction with V

▶ Link to the updated collage Reddit Thread

▶ Link to my Twitter breakdown

[madness-poison-chat]

Welcome Home: Everything I found + some thoughts

This is my first proper post on this site. And after getting past the frustrating sign-up stuff, I really like this site. I'm planning on putting my toon skull on my pic for recognisbility, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

You all came here for Welcome Home's secrets, and here I will provide.

-There's an eye on the rock Wally's sitting on, which looks creepy. (And between us I find that looking at Wally's staring images are terrifying when on-website).

-All of the character voices rock. My favourites being Sally (she's my beloved), Howdy ("How's about a cauffie to keep ya goin' at the pahty?") and Poppy (Bri'ish + she makes chicken noises when flustered; great work).

-The crayon gifs lead to audios of Wally being his Other Mother self. It's possible that they're snippets of a full conversation he's having with someone.

-The interview segment has YouTuber Night Mind playing the guy asking questions. If you don't know who NM is, he's known for the little act of... Oh I don't know, ACTIVATING THE WH HYPE TRAIN?! Yep; supporting the supporters! (Wonder if MatPat will make a cameo?)

-On the exhibition page, if you click the word "answer" you're lead to a picture of someone's struggle to find a password and a strange red safe. The sage's numbers are replaced with symbols relating to the characters (awesome code there). It asks for a word password.

-Around all the pages are insect gifs. If you press them, you're lead to footage of...stuff, with the characters chatting off-screen. Here's the twist: at the end of each video, even though he shouldn't have any relevance, the characters call for Wally. At that point, the audio "base clefs" and the video glitches (spooky). I think these are live feeds into the WH world through Wally's eyes.

-Here's where my mind got stupid: these videos are all named "answer", and with the safe from before, I expected visual/dialogue clues to reveal the code. In one video, there's a nine-by-nine grid (like for the buttons), and in another Julie lists her favourite colours (I thought they related to the code grid or the spheres in Poppy's grid). Turns out though- I'm stupid.

-The real password involves answering the questions on a sheet in the exhibition area (of which will be ease to answer if you read the character bios). If you take the first letter of each answer from 1 to 5 (all in caps), you enter the "staff only area". (Here we go...)

-The text on the top of this page is written by someone on the WHRP describing their declining sanity as they hallucinate Wally at their bed-end and their endless questions about Welcome Home. This is no doubt the person Wally is trying to talk to in those audio recordings.

-And here's one final thing I think not many lore-scavagers have found... If you hover over the photos on the Staff Only page, you can more clearly read the letters in them. And one of them mentions how the black "paint" on the shipped merch shouldn't be touched by human hands lest they get nausea and hallucinations. This reveals 3 things.

1: The "paint" is of supernatural nature.

2: With the ooze below Home in the neighborhood, it's clear that IT's very real and in control of the "barrier".

3: It's extremely likely that our protagonist's night terrors were triggered and are still being fueled by the ooze.

So that's all I have. But one final thing I'll say here is that Welcome Home's plot reminded me of something I loved, but I couldn't remember until now: Coraline. Both stories centre around a surreal sub-world full of childhood desire, the inhabitants of both worlds are desperate to have the protag stay (forever), both worlds have dark and sombre secrets beneath them, and both of their main "threats" are the most desperate for the protag, but hint at something else forcing them to do this (or something controlling them in some way).

Anyway, that's everything I have for this looong blog. Stay inky Mes Amis. -💀🖋️

[louisetteschuunishenanigans]

(Apparently y'all liked when I posted about Danganronpa and I got this hc I want out there so here comes the food guys)

Is it likely we'll ever get another Danganronpa game? Nah

Do I want this nonexistent game to be about Rantaro's killing game and do I know exactly how it must end anyway? Hell yeah

Of course it's entirely possible that the Ultimate Survivor thing isn't a unique case in the in-universe DR franchise and it's just a way of bringing back a fan-favourite candidate like they probably do on reality shows.

But wouldn't it be MUCH more fun if Rantaro alone got that title bc he really was the sole survivor of his game, in what could have been a first in the series?

The thing with a series being as formulaic as DR is that the same structure becomes expected. NDRV3 Trial 1 worked so well bc according to The Formula, everyone can die EXCEPT the protagonist, so throwing that out the window is an instant shocker so long as it's decently executed. And while I have my issues with Kaede's plan and her just jumping to killing the mastermind like that (idk it just felt ooc for her to resort to killing so soon), I can't deny the twist was very well prepared and all that stealth foreshadowing HURTS on second watch.

So when all the shit in NDRV3 Chapter 5 happened, no one, not a single mf believed that could be it, because according to The Formula, all the actually important lore shows up on Trial 6 alongside the Mastermind, and the game can't end before that reveal. No one believed in the unsolvable case, because The Formula says there is always one culprit and there can never be a wrong answer. This, even when actually having more than one culprit would actually make a more interesting story as previously stated.

But with Rantaro's game? The fact that he survives isn't too bad a foregone conclusion when we still have to discover HOW he survived, who else was with him and how they died. But what of Trial 6, when everything about the Mastermind (Tsumugi/Junko) and the meta aspects is foregone conclusion?

So... How about we just skip Chapter 6 entirely? What if we overthrew The Formula by stopping at Trial 5, if there is nothing more shocking a Trial 6 could possibly do?

So if Rantaro really is the sole survivor of his game. Okay, the idea of the protagonist soloing a trial against the Mastermind is actually pretty awesome, but isn't there a more plausible explanation as to why only one person would walk out of a killing game alive?

Imagine going through an intense trial, but finally coming close to the truth and uncovering the killer's plot, and getting to the vote... Only, for the first time in the franchise, to see the result be WRONG. To realize the game pulled a little unreliable narrator on us and the "truth" was just the narrative the very character we play as wanted us to follow. To witness what a mass execution is like at last and for it to unveil Rantaro as the first blackened to have successfully gotten away with it.

And for the game to just. End there, without the expected Trial 6.

Now imagine replaying through that chapter knowing the end and picking up on all the subtle hints of what Rantaro was doing behind everyone's back, even ours. Worse, replaying the game and following the Ultimate Adventurer's character development along the whole game now knowing it all culminates with him finding the resolve to betray all the other students.

Oh how cruel and utterly beautiful that would be </3

(Bonus headcanon I got while reviewing this before posting: What if that game introduced red herring truth bullets, as in clues you collect that are never meant to be used at all in the trial and just here to misguide the player, so an added difficulty is now picking out the right clues that will lead to the truth. But in hindsight, the final trial turns out to have been about picking your clues to derail the trial and push YOUR narrative when some of the "red herrings" were clues that could've exposed you)

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Lady's Guide to Temping a Transylvanian Count. By Emmanuelle de Maupassant. Dark Castle Press, 2022.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Series: The Lady's Guide to Love #6

Summary: Five years after her heartbreak and humiliation, Sofia is determined to find out—and to claim her rightful place by his side, even if it means travelling to the wild mountains of Carpathia to make her home in a decrepit castle.

Muddling along with Count Roznovatu's eccentric family, Sofia begins to think she can melt the stony heart of her errant husband.

Cursed by his bloodline, Constantin was a fool to believe marriage to Sofia would save him.

Now, the one woman he has always loved is in danger, for Castle Roznov’s dark secrets are about to be revealed.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: blood, attempted assault, suicide, wartime PTSD, dubious consent, sexual assault of a minor, incest, explicit sexual content

OVERVIEW: This book is another one from my list of Halloween Historical Romance reads of 2024. I hadn't read anything by this author before, so it was a but of a gamble, and honestly, after this wild ride of a book, I'm of split minds. On the plus side, a lot of this book reminded me of sensationalist Gothic romance, so kudos to the author for that. On the other, I personally found some aspects of the story and characterization just so-so. Thus, this book gets 3 stars from me.

WRITING: de Maupassant's prose is about what you might expect of the romance genre. This isn't to say it's bad, just that it conforms to the conventions and expectations one might have as a lover of the genre. Most of the sentences flowed well and balanced telling and showing, and I don't think there were any moments when I felt befuddled or lost.

Something that made me smile, however, was the constant allusion to vampires. De Maupassant never comes out and suggests anyone might be a vampire, but there are enough hints and references to classic vampire lore that it was hard not to find them delightful.

PLOT: The non-romance plot of this book follows Sofia as she travels to her estranged husband's home in the Carpathian Mountains after the death of her father. Since her husband is now the only family she has, Sofia is determined to make his estate her home. However, when she arrives, she finds not only is she unwelcome, but a string of mysterious deaths have descended upon the household.

I appreciated the Gothic aspects of this story. De Maupassant doesn't hold back and flings us into a world of suspicious characters, spooky castles, sensational deaths and confrontations, heightened emotions, and so on. I can respect that level of dedication to the genre, even when it yields some plot points that can make readers uncomfortable.

But most of what I think holds this plot back is the utter disinterest it has in figuring out the unexplained phenomena or doing any digging to determine if a murderer actually is living in the castle. I would have liked to see characters actively trying to figure things out, it instead, it just felt like they were waiting for someone to reveal themselves. It made the stranger elements feel tangential, which was a shame because they could have given our heroine more agency.

CHARACTERS: Sofia, our heroine, is a bit uneven, in my opinion. I wanted to like her, and I did admire her belief that love is worth fighting for. But she also had some qualities that came across neither as flaws to be addressed (through a character arc) nor as desires to be teased out and dissected. For one, Sofia is largely preoccupied with the idea that Constantin (her husband) is having am affair. While some suspicion is fine, when she is proven wrong about one instance, she immediately suspects a new mistress, making her feel insecure, possessive, and obsessive. For two, Sofia isn't very bright, and it was frustrating to see her miss obvious clues when I as a reader could start piecing things together. Lastly, I didn't feel as if Sofia has strong motivations. She is written as wanting to belong and as being lonely, which is fine, but her arc was less about finding companionship and more about flipping back and forth between wanting her husband's affection and refusing to allow him to hurt her again.

Constantin, our hero, was OK - I could tell he was written for the Bronic Hero girlies (which I am, so shut up). He's pretty mopey and distant, and while I can understand that, his individual arc did feel unsatisfying. We don't really see him engage in things that lead him to change over time; his change seems to happen at a snap at the end, which made his evolution feel rushed. I also kind of wished the author did more with his scientific acumen, as it was interesting to see Constantin studying diseases with a medical eye.

Supporting characters were interesting and in true Gothic fashion, I was always second-guessing my judgments of them. I liked Sofia's relationship with the Baroness and the evolution of the relationship with Tatiana was complicated enough to make me intrigued.

ROMANCE: I'm not entirely sure I was enthused by the romance between Constantin and Sofia. At first, I liked the idea of an estrangement - it forced the two to reckon with their past and learn how to find a way forward. At the same time, however, I didn't get the sense that the two were actually growing to love one another. Their emotional intimacy was uneven, and the refusal to trust and communicate got a bit frustrating after a while. Moreover, the first time they are physically intimate was rather uncomfortable for me, personally, though I understand the appeal of it to a certain type of reader.

I wish de Maupassant had created more of an arc where the two found themselves reluctantly working together to uncover the murderer, all while Sofia had more individual agency to investigate the things which made her uneasy about Constantin. As it stands, it felt like Sofia had more rapport with the Baroness and with Tatiana. For a large portion of the book, it feels like Constantin and Sofia don't interact at all, and when they did start to do so, I felt like they didn't really have any milestones in their relationship development. Thus, I didn't quite understand why they decided they loved each other (other than, perhaps, shared angst?).

TL;DR: The Lady's Guide to Tempting a Transylvanian Count will probably not be for everyone. Though I have my complaints, I enjoyed the Gothic aspects of this tale, even if they were sensational and somewhat unsavory.

[iepurasdepraf]

what are ur thoughts on the new elden ring dlc?

Short story:

Long story: (Spoiler Warning)

I've been playing Souls gams for a long long time.

I've been here since Demon Souls. I've played Bloodborne and loved it. I've played Fromsoft's other games like Echo Night and King's Field. They're all highly detailed games with lore overflowing and woven between the stories like the guiding steps of a monk on a pilgrimage that lets you walk while it shows rather than tells a lot of the time leading to the formation of a highly talented and creative fandom that's foundation is very solidly anchored on discussing, debating, and theorizing on that lore. We are all deeply passionate about all that delicate handicraft Fromsoft put in.

That said...

I feel like the DLC was a rare miss.

Stay with me here. Not all of it. The new weapons? Mint. The new characters? Mint. New locations? Mint. New items? Mint. It's nearly all fucking mint. Oh my god, I love all the new St. Trina lore. I love the new perfumer equipment. I love Messmer, he's just one giant Vlad the Impaler/Dracula reference.

Tell me this isn't peak boss design and I'll call you a filthy liar.

However, much like Detective Comics Comics keeps doing, they tripped over their own feet and absolutely fumbled the ending which, because it was the ending, made the disappointment so much more impactful.

If it had been a midpoint I'd have shrugged it off, we all would have, but as a writer, I have to say that fumbling the ending is shooting yourself in the foot. You can have a rough start. You can have a mishandled middle section. The ending though is where you have to give your all and this one felt completely disconnected from the lore, from the story, and even from the gameplay.

Not to be

But I can not find anywhere any hints that Miquella's intent was to bring back Radahn. You know who all the hints and clues pointed to?

Godwyn.

Remember him?

You know

The giant festering mermaid corpse thing that's spreading like a cancer across the lands? The one who was so beloved by Miquella that he had a sword made praying for his brother to die a true death? The brother that built walking mausoleums to help his kin run from destined death just long enough so he could find the answer to soulessness to bring them back in spite of demigods never dying before and no one knowing if they even could?

The deeper you dig the less sense this ending makes and I'll spare you my entire deep dive. I'm not saying being a manipulator is out of character for Miquella. I'd dare say him being manipulative is often overlooked which is an entire other discussion. I do not see it as out of character for him to use his ability to bewitch people to reach his ambitions, but to kill Mohg to bring back Radahn is suspect. Nothing hinted to that and the tacked on "new lore" of it happening all along is suspect.

I have to stop talking about it or I'll keep going.

Even from a gameplay perspective the ending is a massive miss. It's not fun. Radahn has none of his impressive moveset and Miquella doesn't even use the spells he created to make it slightly more interesting. It's not even hard, it barely stacks against the dancing lion that set the brutal tone for the DLC. It's just... Lothric and Lorian again. We've played this part. We've beat this boss and how can you manage to make Miquella and Radahn the less impressive ones?

All of that said...

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT MOHG. I WAS RIGHT THE ENTIRE TIME AND GOT CALLED EVERYTHING BUT MY NAME FOR IT. FUCK YOU.

I WAS RIGHT.