#Really! Fucked Up Entry

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

REALLY! FUCKED UP ENTRY

I think a large part of the modern construction of SBURBventures is the feeling of like, everybody knows about SBURB’s mechanics inside and out by now. There’s a sense of like, there being a solid foundation from the audience to be able to grasp and understand the core conceit of why, for example, everything is on fire in the first panel of this fanadventure, and thus we don’t need to spend any time on it. RFUE is very much of the mindset that you need to get rid of everything that is unnecessary, that includes Introductions to the characters, introduction to the setting, and introduction to the mechanics. “Come on,” it seems to say. “You already know what’s going on. We don’t need to explain anything. You know why you are here, and why you are here is to watch a bunch of people mess up the SBURB entry sequence and fail around like idiots, while meteors fall overhead.” It’s Touys, and it’s touys being done at such a rapid pace that there is room for nothing else. It’s a very…Time-Aspecty driven story, if that makes sense? Only dialogue and jokes and entry sequences, back-to-back to back, at least at first.

The cool thing about this approach is that, whilst we, the audience know about like. What is happening, the characters don’t. I believe they call this “Dramatic Irony.” Also I guess the audience also does not actually know what’s happen, because of the lack of anything that isn’t just “YOU’VE GOT TO GET IN THE GAME *NOW* GO GO GO GO GO.” We don’t know who Ruby is, who AG is, what Ruby’s home life is like, and that’s OKAY, because that’s not necessary for the Fanadventure to function. In a lot of ways, despite it's speedy plot, it’s almost…minimalist in that sense? Like, not like how I could describe You’re Someone as Minimalist, but like, in the way I’ve mentioned above. So we don’t have any clue on the typical things that some might say make or break a story, but the characters in the narrative don’t have any clue on the mechanics of the story they occupy, or how to actually enter the game. Idk I just thought that was a neat parallel.

I think I’ve run into this issue many times before but I’ve never really commented on it because I either didn’t notice it in time but DID notice it and just decided that it didn’t fit in the flow of my writing so I guess I should say it now. There’s a lot of gif animations in a lot of these kinds of “Playing with Touys Mode Only” MSPFAs, and that’s fine and dandy and works well…to a certain point. There’s a reason, I think, why Homestuck used Flash Animations that had like, arrows to replay the flash animation, because when you *didn’t* see an arrow, you knew that the animation you were watching was, in fact, still going. I’ve had many instances where I’d thought I’d seen the bulk of the animation, only for the animation to actually keep going and for me to only realize that it did after clicking away to the next page. It’s not, like, game-breaking or whatever, but it is a problem to note because it kind of takes away from the breakneck pace because I have to go back, thus reversing my momentum in the story, if that make sense. Pacing for MSPFAs is one of the most important things I think, and I think this only highlights it. Again, doesn’t ruin it for me, but it’s something to watch out for.

I love how Homestuck only offers a tiny piece of like, the ludocris things that one could do with a game built kind of around the notion that people will be time-traveling and could, potentially also travel across universes, and that MSPFAs are taking up the mission for these kind of ridiculous scenarios and running with them, at least in the modern, neo-classical era that we now find MSPFAs in. Idk I think it’s kind of neat. That’s the second time I’ve said this in this review so I’m going to stop taking notes now I guess, but before I go I will say that this fanadventure was really fun, and I really liked it, so…take that as you will, I guess.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[crueldudethesis]

ʃ who are you? an angel.

what’s your name? satan.

ʅ my interpretation on the “demon” lol

[savefrog]

Scouring the public domain for collage assets is all chill, seeing art that feels ahead of its time or really cool illustrations, all until you inevitably stumble across the most wildly racist shit you've seen and get your noggin blasted, repeat ad nauseum

[front-facing-pokemon]

[lonelyheartspen]

i’m so overwhelmed by things that shouldn’t be overwhelming...

[thepandalion]

help I'm going insane over deltarune and Undertale stuff again

[muttmedley]

man i miss my eyebrow piercing so much but that shit would not heal :/

[dreadfutures]

just finished, 100%'d everything except the codex (88% final codex) with a platonic inquisitor redeem positive rook + mythal's release.

on a scale from worst game ever to best game ever, definitely best game ever. it is certainly one of the best games to play - it's just really fucking fun. it's smooth. it's delightful and it's deep in a lot of ways. I would recommend it to people! and the team should be really proud.

As a game that's a love letter to Thedas, it really really works for the most part! There is so much fleshed out that we have been wondering about for so long, the characters do feel so alive and lovely. This was the first game where all of the companions were really, really compelling and real feeling. I enjoyed taking all of them out in different combinations and getting to know them and their relationships to the world. I really enjoyed the evolution of combat - I'm sorry, DA has *never* had fun combat, by the standards of its own genres. They have always been great games, but there are better CRPGs, better tactical RPGs, better action games. This one manages to nail that and was a joy to play.

As the conclusion to our worlds, the ones we shaped, it falls flat in a lot of ways - and actively undermines our world states, and the points of the other games, in a lot of ways that just... feel wretchedly unnecessary.

i have a lot of bones to pick with the game (how it handles its class issues, how it doesn't even want to touch the moral complexity that it spent *so long* belaboring in the past 3 games regarding mages and non mages or the dalish and their religion or the racism and prejudice at the heart of many of these flawed societies, how it *definitely was not justified* in leaving so much of your past personalized world state behind and it's insulting to claim so). Other people can write those essays though it's 2am I have spent more than a week, every waking moment, playing the game and i'm tired and delighted and inspired.

[somethingsomethingcomic]

guess what I've been fixating on

[cryolyst]

~

[mister13eyond]

I just need everyone to know I am watching IWTV for real this time and I'm madly in love with it and I can't wait to finish s1 and then get to watch s2

[echthr0s]

usually I reinteract with media when a new instalment in its franchise is about to come out (like I'll rewatch a movie if a sequel is coming out, that sort of thing) because my memory is jacked up but also because it's a fun way to reimmerse myself in the world and get proper hype for the new thing

however. the very idea of replaying DA:I. my god. kill me

[tragedia]

While House Lazar does not have a talon among their ranks currently, and so can't be exactly considered a major Antivan Crow house, it's also very rich and has survived the guild in-fighting for a very long time partially because of their wealth and connections to nobility outside of Antiva. They have a branch in Treviso, but their major headquarters is actually in Antiva City, which is where Harlan was trained. The guildmasters are old money nobles, with the major grandmaster (for Harlan's story) being Valentin Lazar, who recruited Harlan personally and assumed his position after poisoning his own father, the previous grandmaster, when Harlan was already in training. Valentin's mother came from a noble house of Nevarra, so he also has family estates in Nevarra due to that connection, one of which he uses as a vacation house. Nevarra City is where Harlan was picked up as a child by Valentin himself.

Although House Lazar follows the standard guidelines of an Antivan Crow training and recruitment, their reputation and specialty lies with more subtle work, focused heavily on silent killings, critical strikes and, in particular, espionage and long-term operations (although not exclusively). Basically, there's a big chance that somewhere important, there's a servant trained by House Lazar feeding their contractor information.

Harlan's training was initially the same as that of a regular crow: tight headquarters, torture, in-fighting between recruits, traumatizing gauntlets. Later on, he was chosen by Valentin to be something like his personal attendant, often posing as his servant while Lazar handled his matters. That promotion was met with disdain and envy of his peers, however the reality of it was much more sinister. While Valentin certainly had his moments, making sure to give Harlan the highest form of training and education, he was also a cruel master, who could go from a friendly mentor and an almost parental figure, to a vicious jailer in an instant. Harlan had suffered a great deal during his time with Valentin, who was a control freak obsessed with political power and considered Harlan's particular set of skills and fade sensitivity as an asset to help him achieve his goals, thus trying to control virtually every aspect of his life. While he claimed that he was raising Harlan almost as a son or a younger brother, the truth was he was more of a prized pet that could never rise above standing in the shadows.

After Harlan's desertion, while their particular relationship spared each other's lives one last time (Valentin because of obsession, Harlan because of trauma), there was still more than one contract sent Harlan's way, all of which failed. While Harlan vowed he would kill Valentin if he ever saw him again in person, after the few assassination attempts had failed, he was eventually approached by Valentin's right hand man and bastard son, Catalan Lazar, for something of a truce (outcome of this depends on the verse). This event also marked the beginning of Catalan's ploy to usurp Valentin's spot. By the events of the Veilguard, Valentin is either dead, or has fleed, while Catalan is the current Grandmaster.

[duckdotcom]

literally can I just lay down in a hole and fall asleep until I return to the earth as mulch

[astranauticus]

not sure if this counts as an AU but.. thinking about the Per Aspera crew as horror game bosses like.. you are wandering through a forested mountain range and you know somethings wrong because the forest shouldn't be this eerily silent, this devoid of life, and then you hear the crash of falling trees and there is a hand that is half your size glowing golden in the night and it is grabbing you and its claws are digging into your flesh and you see the spines running down the golden arm that is far too long as it lifts you over a crater in mountain, over a coiled, serpentine thing with a visage that is not of this world, and if you look closely you can see the shape of a child curled at the centre of the thing, golden hair reflecting the glow of the creature and if you listen closely you can hear her sobbing, 'Don't hurt me, I don't want to do this'. you are sailing through the astral sea when you see an ephemeral, resplendent spelljammer cutting through the starry waters and you rejoice because you have been lost on the seas for so so long, so you board the ship looking for help, supplies, anything, and you are greeted by a blue fire genasi (you wonder, do those even exist? but you can't get off the ship now because where else will you go?) and she tells you she is the captain of this ship but as far as you can tell there is no crew on board, and if she is not appearing right behind you from a trapdoor you've never noticed she is always in the engine room 'fixing the ship' even though the ship seems to be sailing perfectly fine ('Where are we going?' you ask her once and she doesn't even turn to look at you, 'Don't worry about it') and if you are ever so unlucky as to damage the ship in any way, you begin to catch flashes of red and orange out of the corner of your eye, a fire genasi wearing the woman's face who whispers at you with hollow, angry eyes 'Don't you fucking dare hurt my ship'. you are sailing through the astral sea when you see a rotting, decaying spelljammer, so badly damaged it's barely moving although you have to wonder how it's even staying afloat at all, and out of some morbid curiosity you climb on board and the deck of the ship is in no better shape than the hull, the marks of hard-fought battle - scars in the wood from sharp blades and arcane energies, stains of blood and oil splattered about - still fresh but you know time doesn't pass on the astral sea so who knows how long ago this all took place, and as you climb below decks you start to notice the writings on the walls, pieces of parchment nailed to every surface and connected with fraying, rotting threads, or words etched directly into the wood, the deep gouges barely readable, and you start to hear the creaking and clanking of rusted machinery slowly moving about and you turn a corner to see a figure standing in a room facing the wall, slowly scratching yet more of that unintelligible writing into the bones of the ship, and it turns as the rusted dented mechanite stares at you with eyes ablaze and he asks 'Who are you? Where is my crew?' as sparks of arcane lightning begins to arc through the room. you are running through a feywild forest and you know, even without the figure chasing you, that you have made a horrible mistake, you should have known better, should have been more careful, should have kept your impulses in check, and now you are being chased through an unfamiliar forest and the figure, the Hunter pursuing you knows this realm like the back of his hand, knows every tree and shrub and vine that is slithering up to grasp at your ankles, and you glance back desperately to catch any glimpse of your pursuer but there is no pursuer, he has hidden himself with some arcane trick or some innate power or just the knowledge that this realm is his home, and you hear his voice even though you cannot see him as he cries out 'You should not have hurt my family. Prepare to face the Hunter of Hundkiln'

sorry no Vhas yet maybe I'll update with one for him once we get more of his whole deal