#Really makes me want to replay lol

[sysig]

The return of all time <3 (Patreon)

[wizardsix]

about 30 hours into veilguard and while I have an essay worth of my problems w the game and how this is absolutely not ten year's worth of developing I do want to say what I do like. the maps (visuals/progression/exploration), combat, and the companions (only five of them. neve and taash annoy me and I would absolutely not recruit them if this game didn't force you to)... overall it's all right on its own but it's no dragon age game.

[electric-plants]

I totally believe you, but I'd be interested to see your receipts of haitham being nice if you're willing to share~

hello weary traveler please take a look at my wares~

top ten (read: 3) reasons alhaitham is a SWEETIE w/ receipts:

1) he’s got really good manners:

*leaves to the entrance to wait patiently for you so he can say goodbye* and i just like how offended he seems at the implication in the last one

these voicelines in particular stick out to convey that he doesn’t really want to be responsible for causing others trouble:

also tbh basically all of his about lines are just him talking about people’s good qualities, which always makes me a little sad when i think about most of the voicelines about him in comparison rip

here’s some faves though tighnari’s especially sticks out in regard to alhaitham being nice i think:

2) he does a lot of things for other people:

“i’m not going to field any questions” proceeds to take us to his house, gather a bunch of books to help us understand, and then field all of our questions🤔 also just the entire concept of him being able to be talked into being acting grand sage at ALL

also not included but little things like taking the time to teach us how to use the knowledge capsules, taking the aaru villager’s feelings into account/getting shani to talk, and just generally taking the time to carefully address the rest of The Squad’s™️ questions/concerns during sumeru’s archon quests

3) and perhaps some people will disagree with this one but i just think he has a very kind view of humanity:

(⬆️ from sq also not cropped cause pretty🥰)

i feel that if someone is so intimately aware of the limits and faults of humanity while also still having an innate curiosity about other people and an affinity for finding people’s positive qualities it’s indicative of an inherently kind/forgiving way of thinking

i can and will defend any of these examples if anyone disagrees😤 i spend every moment of my life ready for a debate😤

but seriously lol idk there’s just SO MUCH that he does and says that can be interpreted as kind if you look for it and connect it, like this isn’t even all the examples i could think of off the top of my head

also thank you anon for giving me an excuse to talk about him and how he is GOOD i owe you my life sorry for adding so much lol

my sources for your convenience: SQ = alhaitham’s story quest, TP = teapot dialogue, KH = kaveh’s hangout, PoP = the parade of providence event

[hecksupremechips]

The best feeling in the world is when there’s a piece of media you know you love and you’ve hyped it up as your favorite thing for so long but you haven’t revisited it in a while so you start to worry if it’s really as good as you make it out to be and so you go back and revisit it and it’s like. Oh this is even better than I remembered this shit rules

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

YOU'VE PLAYED DISCO ELYSIUM AND IT'S YOUR FAVOURITE GAME WHAT IS HAPPENING I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO EVEN KNOWS THE GAME I LOVE IT SO MUCH WHAT THE HELL

- @softgirlgonehaywire

MICKEY???????? THE WAY OUR SOULS ARE LITERALLY BONDED ATP 😭😭😭😭 DUDEEEE im going a lil crazy. plsplspls i need to know ur fave character…. and ur fave skill……. and maybe ur fave quote if u have one……….. its legitimately like my favorite thing ever ever ever that game changed my LIFE

AAAA and. u asked for poetry book recs in ur other ask so i am here to deliver 🙏🙏🙏🙏

first of all!! richard siken…. he has two poetry books out at the moment, crush and war of the foxes!! i used to prefer crush but now i like war of the foxes more. its rly just a matter of personal preference, both are super good…. i said this already but i associate literally every single poem of his w at least one jjk character. mostly gojo or geto or kenny or shoko (i am predictable)

for some reason u can find literally all his poems on genius psjfjs but here are some of my faves from crush (first three) and war of the foxes (last four)!!

straw house, straw dog // planet of love // wishbone

landscape with a blur of conquerors // self-portrait against red wallpaper // portrait of fryderyk in shifting light // glue

but siken aside!!! frank bidart my beloved <333 hes so weird. his style of writing is very unique and can seem a bit very odd but u get used to it quickly!! i love him. my absolute favorite frank bidart poem is half-light, i’m fucking obsessed u dont understand, pls read it. (its so satosugu to me) and then u can find some other poems of his here! coincidentally his writing reminds me a LOT of disco elysium which is. probably maybe why i love it sm in the first place LMAO

AND AND AND…. lastly. ive tried getting into franz wright but i didnt like the collection of his that i bought :’3 HOWEVER hes written this one poem i absolutely adore, dedication. its so so so good. ”it’s true i never write, but i would gladly die with you” // ”although i never write, secretly i long to die with you, does that count?” have permanently altered the course of my destiny

… that was probably a lot im sorry PJDKFB i didnt even mention clementine von radics…. she has an instagram account where she posts some poems i think. ive run outof links so i cant show some i like but </3 her collection mouthful of forevers is super good!!

[voidfeather]

finished playing the coffin of andy and leyley and gonna throw out my theory that i'm sure other people have already thought of

i think that the parasite emergency is just a front and that the government is actually wanting to starve out and sell the blood and organs of "undesirable" people en masse, not sure why they're targetting AB-types specifically rather than say O-types considering AB blood is the universal receiver while O blood is the universal donator but it'll probs be answered when the full game comes out...whenever that is

as for why i think that they're several apartments worth of "undesirables" is mainly because all the people that have been shown so far are, as few as they are, aren't really the types that are "acceptable" in society:

ashley seems to have ASPD or at the very least something similar, has repeatedly been described as being someone who other people find annoying, and is highly codependent with her brother to the point of (technically just being an accessory to) murder and possibly even to the point of covert and/or overt incest

andrew has PTSD (that he seems? to hide relatively well) in addition to his codependence (even if it's not as prominent as ashley's, except in extreme circumstances such as when she's in danger...or when she mentions sleeping with another man lol) and while he's charming enough to have a gf that doesn't really matter when ashley harasses them

the cultist is...well, a cultist (it's clearly something he was interested in long before the quarantine judging by the front door sigils and the fact he has all the materials ready) also maybe it's just the desperation but the fact that he apparently has no problem blasting his loudass music may indicate traits that have lead to people casually wishing his death

the girl from 302, a hardcore hikkikomori and while her beauty may make her a bit more appealing that doesn't change the fact that she's functionally agoraphobic and doesn't want to provide for herself

ahley and andrew's parents are clearly pretty neglectful but the timing is just. a little too convenient y'know? like I'm pretty sure they knew this was happening, and the fact they were so ready to get a new apartment as well like we don't really know when in the timeline that happened but the fact that they're just so ready to move on like that is so suspicious

idk how the lady who got in an ambulance fits into all this though, there's just far too little information about what happened to her for me to say -- i don't think she's getting her organs harvested though, the ambulance wouldn't be in such a hurry if she was

now it is possible that the parasite problem is real and the infected apartment are just really unlucky or really neglected by the government, however, with the whole selling organs thing it just doesn't seem all that likely to me considering yknow nobody wants infected organs

a possibility is that the government is starving the apartment dwellers for the purpose of inducing starvation ketoacidosis which may kill the parasites somehow??? before they harvest the organs, not sure why the blood type would matter though if that were the case

now, since demons do exist in this world, it could (and most likely) be some other secret third thing but with all the information we have right now this is all i can really come up with

[crossbackpoke-check]

in love with your novels in the tags, they're so much fun to read - @softvikings

thank you!!! i have so much fun writing them and i love hearing that they bring other people joy as well, these are Our Tag Novels now 🥹💕🥰

[elegyofthemoon]

it's a curse to be replaying through honkai even if i haven't actually finished part 1 in its entirety ( /_\)

I still really wonder why they decided to reuse certain characters over and over again - the way they decided to reuse Sakura between Previous Era and then Yae Village, and then decided to use Himeko (or well idk if her name was Himeko) in both Previous Era and present time.

But I do love that both cases I'm seeing, both characters are trapped to fate some way or another. I went off about Sakura before, but I didn't realize that the Vermillion Knight battlesuit is supposed to replicate the Herrscher of Fire -- the Herrscher that possesses Previous Era Himeko. Just something about something from Previous Era carrying on into present time.

While Sakura's story ends more in tragedy, and well so does Himeko's, I kinda like the idea that contrast to her time as the Herrscher of Fire that brought about destruction, she uses a similar power to protect and save her student and give her student a chance to live out a better life.

It adds a lot more to her words: "You can still end this story the way you want."

Just like how in this life, Himeko chose to use that power of destruction to save, Kiana can use those powers of the Herrscher to protect as well.

[sludgeguzzler]

i actually really really like the more ambient music in ultrakill. in the presence of a king, a thousand greetings, chord of the crooked saints, it all hits. they are bangers to ME

[dicipher]

after replaying a thousand times to confirm every word, cross referencing and asking my japanese friend specifications (because some words in japanese that are in the dictionary just. dont exist in english in some cases) THIS is i think the closest i could get to a near perfect dictionary, if you wanna try it and you find anything odd feel free to tell me since i'm using it along with the jpn dictionary as a base for the mod i'm making. i tried to explain any that were confusing but tbh playing this game on english is truly hard mode lol! And yes! Some words are redundant, it's a japanese translation issue, i tried to give them nuance?? Both honestly some words are so simmilar it may as well be the same in english..

'resident' is their specie, it's the fan given name so i used it

'Somebody' refers to a living being, a presence, it can be of any specie, it's broad

'Weak' is moreso untalented (to be bad at something)

'Frail(weak)' is more like vulnerable, physically weak/brittle, subject to damage

'Affliction' is because it can be disease or a curse, something that eats away at the health/body/mind, that needs to be 'cured'

'Incapacitate' is something like 'weaken', to make someone unable to hurt or move for example, or to lower their autonomy

'Like' can also be 'love', japanese doesn't really differenciate

'Different' is also 'wrong', they're the same word, it's confusing ik but essentially think of it as 'it's a different answer', sort of a more gentle version of 'you're wrong' . Again this is a jpn/english issue thing..

'I understand' and 'i will do it' are also rlly a japanese thing. Both sort of mean in a way 'i understand and am acknowledging what you said' ... but this is the closest me and my jpn friend could settle on.

'Hit' and 'knock' are the same. In japanese you say 'hit a door' more than 'knock a door'. That's why they're used interchangeably

'Distressed' is sort of like 'in trouble' , in need of help

All the verbs are placed in neutral forms (ex: to search, to find, to go, to lead, to want, etc)

THERE IS A CANON DICTIONARY. It's in the game code and it's in jpn. This is just my personal approximation.

[sysig]

Anyway, back to testing (Patreon)

[tealfruit]

it's really fuckin weird being, I guess, Good At Dealing With Grief while being around people who are just absolutely brokenhearted and wrecked. and having to be like Well Guess I'll Just Get Busy On The Business Stuff.

[crest-of-gautier]

IM BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING!!! (i played 2.5 hours of PQ today!!!)

some thoughts under the cut! today has been mostly exploring the 2nd spot/floor of the group date cafe and i'm like 79% done with it :3 (and i did the whole arrest the food bandit! quest today)

i really enjoyed returning to this game, the sidequests and character interactions i saw today were fun!

i was particularly endeared by naoto's enthusiasm and interest in aigis, i think it's really neat that he's just so curious about her! i mean.. who wouldn't be LMAO

there was also an event where aigis says:

"Including incidents within Tartarus, Junpei-san has now run into a total of 27 dead ends."

and i honestly thought that was the funniest shit ever??? and how they go on to talk about how aigis's data is piped to fuuka's database on her pc. i really enjoyed how this interaction highlights this aspect of aigis and fuuka's relationship, they definitely make a good team given fuuka's inclination toward technology.

i think that's what a running theme of persona spin-offs are to me- i just enjoy seeing other ways in which the different character dynamics between cast members can be expressed!

and i think that's why i really enjoyed doing the arrest the food bandit quest too- i'm very endeared by the dynamic between the velvet room family. i feel like from what i remember in mainline persona games, it's something that only really gets alluded to in the attendants' dialogue lines (as opposed to seeing the siblings actively talking to each other). i fucking love elizabeth she's great.

there's something about the attendant's curiosity toward life (and how much they have to learn) that i find very charming, but i also think that this aspect of them is great for like.. absurd situations that don't make me cringe. (this is a not-so vague at teddie, i find that atlus tends to focus on teddie's more grating traits aka Hitting On The Girls?? which im not fond of LOL)

the way theo was the culprit because he didn't understand that chie was speaking in hyperbole about yosuke being a dead man if something bad happened to the meat jelly is just. the funniest thing ever. so have an excerpt of my reaction/liveblog document from obsidian that has some transcriptions of the event:

like genuinely. i love the velvet room attendant family a lot. i think they just hit a lot of Appeal PointsTM for what i personally find interesting in fiction (characters learning their way through life who have wonder and curiosity for the world), so i've just been?? thriving off of any interactions they get from the sidequests??? it's great.

mechanics-wise i am very interested in seeing if there's stuff i still can unlock...? it's been kind of a pain in the ass to level up sub-personas specifically (i haven't finished the legendary medicine quest bc i needed to raise a guy up to get an agility binding spell... and now that i did raise the guy i just need to Use It). so i am assuming that there's a mechanic that compensates for the lack of arcana bonus exp LOL (and i'm pretty sure in P5R you could sacrifice ur personas to each other?? can we do that here? thanks.)

anyway that's all for pq liveblogging (more like reflecting but y'know). i'm excited to pick up the game again- i might try and finish the group date cafe this month assuming i don't get carried away with other thingiemajigies!!

[doctorjotaro]

It’s crazy how I was not feeling Ichiban in the beginning of the game like he was pissing me off, but now I can’t stop thinking about him.

[hexhomos]

little random but i really appreciate your dissections and analysis of Mel mainly bc the fandom either adore her and won't admit she is a flawed character and get over defensive when you call her out, or straight up hate her and make her out to be completely evil.

Mel is written as morally grey for a reason and when ppl try to act like she was morally correct in everything she did, it goes against the whole plot. yes, she regrets most of her actions by the end of the series and is left to deal with her family's leagacy and the weight of her actions, but that doesn't undo anything she did. and her eventually starting to care about Jayce doesn't just cancel out that she manipulated him (you'd think this would be obvious)

what bothers me the most i think is meljay shippers who say Jayce mistreated her and that Mel only ever helped and care about him and aided him in rising to power politically, and how she was so understanding of Jayce's and Viktor's friendship. yes, encouraging methods of political corruption in order to gain more power is so caring and kind of her! ❤️

Mel might've told Jayce to go spend time with Viktor after finding out he was ill, but the one time in the show she interacted with Viktor was... prejudiced to say the least. she never directly spoke to or answered Viktor, and the expression on her face any time she looked over at Viktor was so clearly full of dislike. it shocks me ppl still believe Mel and Viktor could get along and respect one another, especially romantically. no way.

anyways, sorry for the rant. just tired of how many bad takes there are in this fandom and very fond of your account lol

you are right and you SHOULD say it re: that oft repeated argument about her "only wanting what's best for him" bothers me so much. Its just... weirdly patronizing and spousing pro-piltover nationalism every time i see it being brought up. "She's doing what anyone would do/what is best for the city!" IDK MAN I AM NOT ROCKING WITH THAT. Im not an ubercapitalist. I don't think any of that was the good option actually lol. Probably I hate piltover too much to humor these arguments but from day 1 we are shown this is a city of immense class inequality in which the elite few holds all the power and all the profit gains at the cost of everyone else's submission and humanity. (Not for nothing: these are also the classic old guard Noxian tenets of supremacy. That's how they do colonization.)

The interactions Mel has with Jayce for majority of the series, before she watches that bomb come in and has her rapid onset change of heart, are her talking about how investors want his work and how she can use his discovery to advance this city (which is already built on exploitation!) or instigating his rise to power as a new ringleader for the council's rigged mercantile operations, and this is just not good or heroic in any way to me. This isn't love either, it's industrial convenience. The fact that she's conflicted by the end doesn't cancel these actions out! Jayce realizes that he's been used in ways he strongly disagrees with and any the affection in that dynamic vanishes instantly. The time he spends in isolation replaying his mistakes in that cave has an emphasis on mel/heimerdinger's voice on the council too, all of his regrets with blindly following someone else's vision or disappointing an idol he held in high regards.

And Jayce DOES care about the state of the cities, or he did before the writers forgot: He's the one who pleads for Zaun's independence at the end of season 1! He's the one who spent all his life trying to work towards improving the lives of common people, giving them the miracles they've been denied!

Viktor is a fucking nobody. He is extremely worthless in the eyes of the piltovan upper crust, only kept around on the merits working with Jayce have afforded him; and they still don't care. They're probably hoping he dies quicker. We *SEE* him being singled out and alienated during that weapons discussion where Mel is pleading for Jayce to think about "protecting his people" (only piltovans, never, ever zaunites- protecting piltovans against the zaunite menace.) and Viktor is set off at that whole exchange because it doesn't matter how loud he screams, these people can just tune him off and pretend he doesn't exist anyway. It's what they're used to doing. It drives me insane!!!!! His indignation is extremely under-explored and very inline with his act1 speech of feeling like an undesirable presence in piltover and having to push through with the grit of his teeth. It's open faced classism and I still see people pretending it didn't happen. Fandom makes all of these characters FAR less interesting by defanging them. The heart is in the friction and in the ugliness of them fucking up because they have very, very different conceptions of "utopia" - and some of those utopias require the death of the other characters present.

A lot of the Arcane character arcs have to do with realizing the above, and weighing if the sacrifice is worth the risk. Sometimes it turns out their utopias were shit.

[skvaderarts]

You guys want to hear something really funny?

I've been slowly showing my almost 80 year old grandma Arcane recently and she absolutely adores Viktor and Jayce, but especially Viktor. She's made me replay the part where Viktor made his speech to Jayce when he stopped him from jumping in season one like 10 times, she loves the "I'm from the undercity" part, she started crying when he ran across that bridge, and she looked physically devastated when she thought he was going to step off that ledge after Sky died and kept quietly repeating "no no honey no" over and over again and looked away from the screen until Jayce showed up and she literally sighed in relief when they started talking. She's actively upset that she can't adopt child Viktor because she said, and I quote "He would have loved Legos" and "has such sad pretty brown eyes". She has started making jokes about the "wait, this isn't my bedroom" line when she goes places in our house (much to my mom's confusion because she hasn't seen the show yet and can clearly tell she's missing out on an inside joke because we keep laughing so hard about it) and every time that Jayce says "partners" she just goes "uh-huh" and laughs a little. It's deeply funny.

Well, tonight I made a joke on a discord call with a friend about Viktor and Jayce and I said "The question isn't IF their fucking it's who's fucking who" and my grandma, in the background, completely unprompted just said "Oh, Viktor is obviously the one taking charge in that situation. Look how he looks at him and touches him. Jayce is a puppy. He's gonna do whatever Viktor wants."

And I don't think I have ever laughed harder at anything she's ever said in my whole goddamn life. I didn't realize she was on team Jayvik THAT HARD LMFAO. My grandma is part of Viktor Nation.

W GRANDMA!

Side note:

She loves the soundtrack. She doesn't understand how music streaming works so I basically had to make a playlist that just plays What Could've Been, The Line, Remember Me, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Enemy on loop for her. She likes bass, what can I say lol! She has good taste. I expect nothing less from the woman who wants me to take her to a Hozier concert next year 😭 She also likes What Have They Done To Us and Guns for Hire but said she can't listen to them as often because it makes her too sad lol she's real for that.

... She also loves Isha... She doesn't know yet. She's gonna be so sad.