#This seemed like such a throwaway conversation in-game but I was like

[a2zillustration]

Having a little heart-2-heart with Minsc and Boo

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[sl-vega]

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪MY FIRST (GENUINE) LOVE

pairing: Otoya Eita x [FEM!] Reader

genre: fluff, oneshot/drabble, partial chat/text fic, crack/comedy (?), mild Otoya character study, school/no bluelock au

synopsis: Otoya and your's date went well, a little too well. 'Cuz now all he can think about is you, your laugh, your smile, your voice, it's driving him crazy. Which results in him patiently awaiting to any and all of your texts. (Or, in which a certain playboy finally falls in love for real)

CW: brief/mild language, implied suggestive content, ooc Otoya (?)

The second Otoya arrived home, he made a bee line directly towards his room, and threw himself onto his bed, the soft mattress enveloping him in it's plush comfort.

Normally whenever Otoya did this, it meant that he went on a less than good date an hour prior that left him exhausted. Usually the girl would've been too clingy, or tried to move too fast, and he usually didn't mind it, but some women just didn't know when enough was enough.

But neither of the reasons were the cause of his need to lie down. The date wasn't bad, it went super well actually. If anything, it went too well.

Earlier, he was on a date with you. The two of you met via Karasu, Otoya noticed that you were waiting for the latter after one of their games, and he had absentmindedly called you cute, not expecting anything to come out of it since his subconscious had already assumed that you and Karasu were an item.

Otoya had already braced himself for some kind of response along the lines of "Yeah she is" or the worse (and more likely) response of "Buzz off, she's taken". What Otoya didn't expect however, was Karasu's nonchalant offer of;

"Why don't I set the two of ya' up?"

And who was he to turn him down? A date with a cute girl where he didn't have to go through hell and back for a quick one-night-stand?

Fuck yeah, you should set us up.

You seemed nice enough from your initial meeting, you had a cute smile, nice voice, and you managed to be impressive enough for Karasu's standards, something that none of his previous flings achieved.

But what stood out the most to him was how genuine you were.

Most of the time when he went out with girls, they were only there for a quick hook up, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, were the completely clueless girls, the kind that legitimately thought that he would stick around in the long run, only to be disappointed by his inevitable infidelity, which usually resulted in a bunch of tears, and a slap, both of which that Otoya would always be on the receiving end of.

You on the other hand, were neither of these types of troublesome women. You clearly weren't using him for a quick night of pleasure, but you weren't in the dark about his previous antics either.

If anything, you knew a little too much about his previous sexual escapades. Probably because of Karasu's big mouth, or maybe he wanted to make sure Eita still had to put effort into his potential relationship with you.

The two of you went out to some semi-fancy restaurant for dinner together. You and Eita had made some small talk, the conversation ventured into deeper, more in depth topics occasionally (not that Otoya minded, but he'd digress), but you seemed to have fun, even though it was pretty surface level.

The date had ended on a nice note, Otoya had called you beautiful, not pretty, or cute, or sexy (or the other usual less than two syllable words he usually dropped on most of his throwaways), he had actually made a point to say it because he really did mean it.

He didn't know why you had left such a good impression on him, why you clearly meant more than some mere plaything that he would've discarded the following morning. Nor does he know why the thought of bringing another girl into his bed other than you makes his heart feel heavy and makes him feel nauseous.

He rolled over in his bed so he was facing the ceiling instead of of having his head stuffed into his plush pillows.

Why was he like this?

Why did you make him feel like this?

He lifted up one of the pillows by his side and brought it to his chest, maybe the soft stuffing would muffle the sound of his racing heartbeat.

Suddenly, his once silent phone buzzes with a notification. He takes a quick break from his sudden crisis of feelings, and quickly snatched his device from his nightstand. It was a message from an unknown number

[UNKNOWN]-(sent 10:52 pm)

hi! otoya right? This is (l/n) btw, karasu just gave me ur number

Eita's eyes widened, part of him felt a pang of jealousy.

So you and Karasu must be pretty close if you were texting him that late to get his number.

Wait, why did he care? His other girlfriends had guy friends before, and it never made him feel jealous like how you and Karasu's relationship did.

God, what's the matter with me?

Before he wasted too much time, he turned his phone back on, to respond to you, while making sure to change your contact name before he forgot.

[L/N <3]-(sent 10:54 pm)

otoya? you there? istg if karasu gave me the wrong number-

[You]-(sent 10:55 pm)

dw karasu wouldn't lie abt smth like that

[L/N <3]-(sent 10:57 pm)

dang, that reply was faster than I thought it would be, ig ur not as much as a red flag as I pegged you as

[You]-(sent 10:59 pm)

stfu, what did karasu say abt me?

[L/N <3]-(sent 11:00 pm)

nothin' I just figured you out on my own, i'm just smart like that >:3

[L/N <3]-(sent 11:01 pm)

'k i'm partially kidding, he warned me a bit abt you, but you're pretty good company, for an f boy at least

[You]-(sent 11:03 pm)

for an f boy? i'm hurt

[L/N <3]-(11:04 pm)

lol jk, I actually had a lot of fun tonight, we should do it again!

[L/N <3]-(sent 11:05 pm)

srry I gtg, ttyl?

Otoya's heart sinks at the realization that your short, yet sweet, conversation had already come to an end. He was already missing the comfort of your words, not they he would ever admit how much your little messages made his heart flutter.

[You]-(sent 11:07 pm)

yeah, gn

[L/N]-(sent 11:08 pm)

wow, dry much? gn, sweet dreams!

He mentally berates himself for his dry response, but a few seconds after, he starts grinning like some lovesick school girl.

Is this how some of his past flings felt about him?

No, he wanted you to be way more than a fling, maybe this would be the first time he tried, the first time he actually wanted to get serious about a girl, about a relationship.

Maybe this would be the first time that this would end with a ring around his finger rather than a slap on his face.

He hears his phone buzz again, he lunges towards it, hoping that it was another text from you.

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:19 pm)

i'm assuming the date went well since l/n hasn't told me that ur such a jerk yet

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:20 pm)

jk (kinda) i'm glad that you might finally have a shot at a real relationship

[You]-(sent 11:22 pm)

stfu you stupid crow

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:23 pm)

ilyt eita :3

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:27 pm)

cmon, no thanks for setting you up with your future wife?

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:28 pm)

i expect to be your best man at the wedding

[You]-(sent 11:30 pm)

nah i'll give it to yuki if you kept pestering me abt this

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:31 pm)

THAT'S NOT A NO TO THE WEDDING THO

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:33 pm)

GOTTEM

[crow bastard]-(sent 11:34 pm)

SO YOU DO LIKE HER

[You]-(sent 11:35 pm)

maybe I do, maybe I don't

Eita briefly set his phone down, thanking the gods that Karasu couldn't see his bright red face.

He definitely did...

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I'm probably going to do a terrible job of articulating myself here but every time I think about the worldbuilding in Hatoful Boyfriend, I think about the implications of having the birds simply have adopted the structure and policies of human society and go insane.

It's clearly originally just for the ridiculousness of it all for the players, but AGH it explains so much regarding the extremely rampant classism/racism/speciesism and how apparently normalized it is. It also, to me, adds a bit of moral nuance to the Dove - Hawk Party conflict.

(Long post under the cut. I'm so sorry I just kept going.)

First off, I'm obsessed with the concept of the birds becoming sapient and simply... taking over a society that was not structured for them. It leads to difficulties in universe! Bird wings are not made for doing tasks that human hands can do naturally - there's a couple instances where the characters ask for Hiyoko's assistance or express envy since she can just do the task more easily than they can. The birds are outright disadvantaged in certain areas of life, and yet, the society is in such turmoil due to the newness of it all that there still aren't really any workarounds for stuff like this.

Not that there haven't been any suggested solutions, such as the Labor 9 series, put forward initially by the Dove Party. Yeah, you know, that one throwaway line about how the party that up until this point have been the "good guys" wanted to take still semi-conscious human brains and make robotic slaves out of them Cyberman-style? What the hell. And what gets me is that Shuu was able to find the initial proposal, which he really only made tweaks to, which means that the project was at least close to being finished on the conceptual/planning/design phase before somebody went "hey this is a little fucked up actually".

The Dove Party wants peaceful coexistence with the humans, while the Hawk Party wants to eliminate humanity entirely. But we don't really go into how these two lines of thought evolved. I believe I have a suggestion for at least one part of the puzzle though.

Of all the birds in Hatoful, who enjoys the most privileges and the highest status? Fantails, it would seem. A breed of pigeon that is popular as a pet, considered beautiful and sought after, and achieve high accolades in shows and competitions - for clarity's sake, fantails were valuable in human society, and this status appears to have transferred when birds became sapient and took over. Conversely, which birds are ranked lower and often blocked from entering certain higher class places? Rock doves, who, in human society, are given an unfairly bad reputation, and considered anything from unclean and dirty, to nuisances, to pests. Again, this status transferred over when the birds took over.

So, while we don't know too many of the birds who make up the agents of the Dove and Hawk Party, let's take a look at who we do know of.

Fantails (Yuuya, Dove Party) are considered valuable over other doves and pigeons for being specially bred for their striking tail feathers

Cockatiels (Leone, Dove Party) are some of the most popular and beloved companion birds, kept as pets and considered very friendly

Rock doves (Ryuuji, Hawk Party) are considered unclean pests who receive a bad reputation, and are generally not treated with respect or appreciation &lt;;- notable thing to mention here is that Ryuuji actually does like humans - I think he was only Hawk affiliated for the grant money and research facilities, which... fair enough man.

Chukar partridges (Shuu/Isa, Hawk Party) are game birds, specifically bred and released to be killed and eaten, and considered a delicacy

...do you... see what's going on here?

(I haven't mentioned Tohri as he's a special case. Give me a minute and I'll get to him!)

The birds we see in the Dove Party are those birds that were already viewed in a more favourable light by humans, a favourability that transferred over to their new society. Of course they are more likely to advocate for coexistence! They have less to lose, overall. And the Labor 9 series, and how that could've ever been suggested in the first place, suddenly makes a lot of sense. For many of these birds, society the way it exists now benefits them. Some of these high ranking Dove Party folks may be less about actual peace and justice (like Yuuya or Leone) and more about maintaining the current order of things - humans coexisting under their control, while they get to maintain their status... which is itself a product of human invention.

The birds we see in the Hawk Party, by contrast, are looked down on or hunted. Historically, even before bird sapience, they did not have a harmonious relation with humans - and it's likely this status carried over to their new society also, with many of these birds being more likely to have been disenfranchised. Their goal of elimination is therefore reactionary towards perceived threat. After all, the people who suffer when things go wrong aren't the ones at the top - it's all the people who sit at the bottom of the social rung; the vulnerable members of society who do not enjoy the same advantages as others.

Of course, the Hawk Party has built itself up into such a powerful group that they may have lost touch with this starting foundation - the only thing that remains is likely that reactionary fear. After all, people caught up in the actual conflict - Nageki, Hitori, Ryouta, and Hiyoko - see this kind of horrible bloodshed firsthand (firstwing?) and just want it to stop.

Again, it's not usually the people in these political factions who are the ones caught up in their conflict. It's the individuals who lack power or influence.

But that's just the political groups themselves. On an individual level, it's kind of interesting to look at and theorize where along the spectrum our core cast falls based on their species/breed.

Ryouta (rock dove) is actually rather indifferent towards humanity as a whole - he just likes Hiyoko. However, his witnessing of the Heartful House tragedy led him to abhor violence and unnecessary loss of life, and I'd imagine his mother's later illness solidified this. Ryouta doesn't seem overly interested in political struggles or the broader implications of a lot of things - he's actually a rather self-oriented character when it comes down to it (this is not a judgment, nor a bad thing! I love my boy!). Ryouta just doesn't want to lose people, really. A conflict would mean more loss, and rock doves seem to have to struggle enough as is.

Hiyoko (human) is the daughter of two diplomats, but interestingly, we don't get to see much of her political views on things - perhaps because even if she expressed them, it wouldn't really matter - she's not herself a diplomat, and humans are the lowest of the low - her going to a fancy school doesn't really change that. Social-wise, except with her friends, she is tolerated, not accepted. Yet, it's safe to say that Hiyoko strongly disapproves of people who flaunt their status - she's quick to not take crap from Sakuya, to get angry on behalf of Ryouta and herself over the gull clerk's assholery, and also to defend Miru and Kaku as living beings worthy of respect. Interestingly though, she also uses Okosan's status as a fantail to get Ryouta to let go of him and let him do whatever he wants so... it's kind of unclear what her firm beliefs are. Perhaps, as a human, she still values fantails more highly. I don't know honestly. Implicit bias?

Sakuya, Yuuya and Okosan (fantail pigeons) may share the same breed, but their experiences are highly different. Sakuya is largely separate from the human-bird conflict, as he is unlikely to be directly affected by it. As such, a lot of his story and development has to do with actually learning and un-learning about the world outside of the limitations of his "father's" classist views, which he simply mimics without understanding the larger implications. Yuuya and Okosan, on the other hand, may be fantails, but are also looked down on and often treated as inferior - Yuuya for being a "half-breed" and for his reputation, and Okosan for being closer to feral than a lot of other doves. Interestingly, these two show more interest and respect for the individual than Sakuya does, who often makes sweeping generalizations based on status - which makes sense to a degree, as they've been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, whereas Sakuya hasn't. Okosan believes that each person has their own "wonderful names" (read: identity outside of breed or status), while Yuuya is a genuine fighter for justice who is able to get to the heart of people, especially in Holiday Star. However, even though they have experienced classism, they still have certain privileges with regards to species/race - take Okosan's shock when Hiyoko and Ryouta are barred entry from his favourite store. None of them are quite as out of place in everyday society as some of the other birds here, and it's notable that "diverse" St. Pigeonations still apparently has a significant fantail student population.

Shuu (chukar partridge) is really interesting, as he doesn't particularly care for the politics of the Hawk Party, and yet his role as a killer/hunter of both his fellow birds and humans is an interesting reversal of the chukar being a game bird. Shuu also has a disability (his semi-paralyzed right side) which hinders him in bird society even more than most. His extreme, yet coldly logical solution to kill all humans to stop the fighting between them, could be as much his rationality, as his joy in the sadistic, as a reactionary survivalism (remember he was caught up in a human terrorist attack as a child - while overall he considered this beneficial to him, he also did lose much of his colour vision and the use of his right side, so it did leave him weakened). Shuu attains control by "flipping the script" as it were.

Tohri (golden pheasant) starts out in the Hawk Party, but much like his colleagues, doesn't seem to care much for their politics. Golden pheasants are game birds whose eggs can be eaten, but are more often bred and kept for their plumage - they're not prey, but they're not exactly pets either. All this puts Tohri in this interesting position of being somewhat in the middle of this conflict, and indeed he goes on to be a part of (found?) the Crow Party - an opportunistic group that seeks to benefit from the overall conflict. Golden pheasants are birds intended to be admired for their beauty and intelligence more than anything else, benefitting in some ways from humans without a strong connection or a reliance, and Tohri's opportunism fits nicely with that. (As an aside, our sole crow character, Albert, is also something of an opportunist, being an assassin on the fringes of society.)

Hitori and Kazuaki (button quails) are somewhat interesting. It would be both expected and understandable if Hitori held hatred for humanity after the Heartful House incident, or even before then, considering they were all war orphans. Instead, he doesn't seem to harbour any particular ill-will - he seems totally fine around Hiyoko, and her being a human has nothing to do with his reticence with letting Nageki hang out with her in the shrine universe. Kazuaki, too, doesn't seem to mind Hiyoko being human and isn't afraid of her any more than he is anyone else. While quails are game birds, with both meat and eggs being eaten, button quails are too tiny for that and are mostly kept as pets - they are considered cute, silly, and entertaining, though a bit too jumpy to be outright companion birds. The quails don't seem to experience too much in the way of speciesism (except arguably with the whole mistaken identity of Kazuaki's corpse... there may be a bit of an "all quails look the same" thing going on perhaps). At the very least, they are able to occupy teaching positions at a renowned school as respected intellectuals, and did go to university. Still, it's kind of a known thing that you don't put button quails with bigger, more dominant birds, since larger birds will often pick on them or even outright try to kill them simply because they're small and shy - this may, in hindsight, explain some of Kazuaki's demeanour.

Nageki (mourning dove) and Anghel (luzon bleeding heart dove) are the two who are uncommon bird species in Japan. Nageki is another war orphan, who would be forgiven for harbouring resentment for humanity, but instead is appalled at the violence and made a huge sacrifice to get it to stop. It's kind of unclear how Nageki fits into this society, as mourning doves are not prey or pets - they're wild birds. They live on the outside of the human world, and while Nageki exists within current bird society, he likely doesn't have a designated status within it. Nageki is unfortunately also alienated from much of the action due to his illness and later his untimely death - this is why a lot of Nageki's thoughts are somewhat from an observer's perspective, with his most emotional moments being derived from his rare direct experiences - specifically the Heartful House tragedy and the human killings he was forced into, which solidified a really firm stance of not wanting anyone to suffer like that. Anghel is another outsider, this time genuinely a foreigner, as opposed to Nageki. Again, Luzons are wild birds, not prey or pets, and so it's a bit unclear what his status is. This might explain why Hiyoko repeats Sakuya's remarks towards him without apparently realizing they're actually insults - Anghel is removed enough from the conflict she is familiar with that it seems she doesn't quite... get it. Again, Anghel's role is as this strange kind of omniscient observer, whose perspective is closer to the player's than to the rest of the cast. He definitely frowns on the Hawk Party's overall goal - the Demon Spores are evil to him, and his main objective is to stop them from spreading, as they would cause damage to both birds and humans. I attribute his morals to his mother having raised him right lol. The lack of a clear status for both of them may be why they appear to take the stance of judgment based on individual actions, but are not heavily involved in the conflict itself - while humans tend to like mourning doves and luzons, there isn't much interaction that goes on between them. Nageki and Anghel are simply less embroiled in bird society's human-derived status conflict, which makes them both outsiders and observers.

As a bonus note, Azami, Rabu and Kenzaburou are all species of birds that can be kept as pets (java sparrow, budgie, parakeet), which may account for some of their friendliness towards Hiyoko, and Kenzaburou's willingness to hire her. Kenzaburou is even a bit old-fashioned it seems - he sleeps in a cage, which implies his ancestors were probably pet birds themselves. It's likely he, in particular, has more positive views on humans.

...Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent ages thinking about the implications and workings of a fictional post-apocalyptic bird society. Also I hope this made sense I kind of went off the rails here.

[melverie]

When was the secret room in cocytus hall mentioned ?I don't seem to remember ,was it at the start of the game or is it in a card story ? 🤔

It's actually from one of the daily chats! It's the 'Forbidden Room' in the 'House of Lamentation (New)' group chat

It might have just been a little throwaway line with no further meaning behind it, but having a dedicated daily chat that's only about this room, plus revealing in a devilgram that Solomon once fought a war against demons by himself, plus him knowing Nightbringer (based on their conversation in 10-A) all seems like...a little too much to be mere coincidences. At least to me

[just-here-with-my-thoughts]

It’s so hard to pick from your WIP list!!! Can I hear more about nightmares, diamonds, and bdhb-fairground date? (And bdhb-smut if you wanna 😂)

It seems greedy to ask about FOUR options for the WIP game (that is more than a third of the options on offer!) but seeing as @probadbatch also asked about the Beach Days and Hair Braiding series, I shall indulge you :P

Nightmares is your own request anyway, so you know the premise! It's based off a throwaway line in "Forget I asked", and will eventually result in Hunter being there when Crosshair wakes from his nightmares, even if their own relationship is still rocky at the time. But you can't have Crosshair being comforted by Hunter without contrasting it with the time he has spent alone...

Crosshair woke with a flinch, arms instinctively coming up to shield his head. Protect his eyes. His enhancement made him useful, an asset. It was the only thing keeping him from decommissioning. No. Wait. This wasn't Kamino. Panting to full wakefulness as tremors of adrenaline shot through his limbs, Crosshair peeled himself up from the hard cot and steadied himself with a palm on the wall. The sleek rasp of durasteel scraped under his clawed fingers. Breathing through his mouth, he tasted the chemical tang of disinfectant in the recycled air. If he listened, he could hear the erratic night-cycle breathing of other prisoners in cells out of view of his own. Blinking away the last vestiges of the nightmare, his vision cleared enough to focus on the barred gate that sealed him in. He let his gaze track over the scuffs and pits he knew by heart, those small details intimately familiar to him. He’d had nothing to do all this time except stare at the wall, trying to stay sane even as despair eroded his will to do so.

TechPhee Diamonds is inspired by a conversation/challenge to find a way to feature my own Specialist Subject in a fanfic somehow! So what better way than to have Tech and Phee debating the merits of natural vs synthetic diamonds?

Of course Tech is arguing that chemically, physically, optically, a synthetic diamond is identical to its naturally occurring counterpart. Phee just doesn't see the romance in it - not compared to a natural treasure of the earth, grown millions of years ago under the ground, then brought to the surface in a volcanic eruption and weathered from it's host rock for some lucky person to find.

In the end, she promises that if he gets her a big enough diamond, she won't even ask where it came from :P

Beach Days series below the cut! (Cloneshipping here, don't like? Don't click!)

I mean firstly credit also goes to my co-creator @ninjadeathblade because you wouldn't have had this series at all without them!

I was asked about the BDHB series last time this game went round so you can find a bit more info Here :)

As for my current WIPs? We're half way through Fairground Date; the rest of the planned chapters are 5: Drop Tower, 6: Splashdown/Sideshow Games, 7: Tunnel of Love and 8: Fireworks. Sneak peek for upcoming chapter 'Drop Tower' below :P

“Remind you of waiting to drop into a combat zone?” the other clone asked, his voice a low rumble, Hunter could only pick his words out thanks to his enhanced senses – this was clearly a comment Crosshair was making for his ears alone, not as general conversation. He shivered as Cross’ long fingers skimmed across the skin of his palm, sensitive despite years of callouses. Despite how small the point of contact was, it set up a delicious feeling throughout his entire body. “That’s how I felt… waiting to come and see you today,” the sniper continued, lips barely moving. He was facing straight ahead, but the gentle action of his hand tracing Hunter’s told him he had his full attention. “How I’ve felt every time I thought about you since… that night.”

Interlude (505) and Laundry Day are officially in development as the next 2 stories after Fairground Date. It's probably going to be a while before any of the disparate snippets in the WIP doc currently titled 'BDHB smut' reach the story but I certainly don't plan for it to stay as cute hand-holding forever...

"Fuck." Hunter bit out the oath, tears welling and beading on his lashes as he scrunched his eyes closed. "Cross, it's too intense..." Crosshair stilled their bodies, waiting for a moment as Hunter gasped. "Do you want to stop?" "No," he whispered brokenly, pressing his forehead to Crosshair's. Fighting the urge to move, Crosshair stayed where he was, long fingers pressing divots into Hunter's hips but waiting for the signal to continue. After a moment Hunter hiccoughed something that sounded on the edge of a sob, and Crosshair drew his head back in soft horror. "You're crying," he rasped, voice curling with guilt. "Hunter, we don't have to do this-" "I want to." Hunter cut him off, a laugh shuddering through him as he lifted his arm from Cross' shoulder, swiping his forearm across his face to dry his tears. "I want you." There was a note of self-frustration as he shook his head. "It's just..." He trailed off, lifting his face to fix Crosshair with a gaze that glowed with devotion. "It's you. It's really you." After a moment Crosshair moved his hands on Hunter's sides, a soothing stroke. "You're okay. I've got you."

Listen smut is just a vehicle for two characters to have a really strong connection to each other, by the time they reach this point the boys have been through a lot together to get this far. I have been staring at this for far too long agonising over what to share from this wip; there's definitely *sexier* stuff than this but their eventual, emotional, long-awaited first-time seemed like the best option :)

[aeirithgainsborough]

I absolutely loved this episode of the last of us but it really emphasised how mean spirited tlou part 2 is and that it was heralded by people as such a masterpiece makes me feel violently depressed about what that says about the bleakness of life and this planet we live on. 

Never more than in this week’s episode have we seen so intimately Joel’s mental state. This is an addition in the show; the conversation between Joel and Tommy is very different in the game. We know Joel feels like that but it never says it so explicitly. And that’s a good thing. So much of who Joel is is shaped by his devastating loss. He has severe ptsd and trauma from not only losing Sarah, but the way he lost her. He wasn’t able to save her, he failed her, and that’s why Ellie terrifies him! Because he presumes he’s going to do the same thing again. He’s going to lose her. He even lists ways he’s already let her down. It’s made patently clear in the way he is with Ellie and things he says to her that this fear is because he cares about her. He tells her he does outright. And as he begins to care for her, we see his ptsd rearing its head in more obvious/physical ways. Makes sense, right? Loving someone, caring for them— that’s Joel’s trigger. But we also see something else. We see Joel talking. Jesus he’s barely talked this series so far in the way he does in episode 6. Most of the time his conversations have revolved around logistics and plans. Now he’s talking about dream jobs and football and his old life. And he’s smiling when he does it. He’s laughing. There’s so much contentment in him in his scenes with Ellie. This is what healing looks like. There are painful, heart stopping moments. But there’s also joy. When was the last time Joel felt joy, do you think? 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Last of Us Part 1 is a love story at its very core. It’s about how love is where you find a reason to live even in dire times like an apocalypse. It’s about how things can seem so bleak but if you allow yourself to love, you CAN find pockets of joy. You can find hope. This is what Joel learns through Ellie. Love makes life worth living again. And, in fact, it saves you. There’s a reason we have a cutscene with Bill in the game in which he tells Joel that caring about someone only gets you killed. It’s not just a throwaway line as we traverse Bill’s Town with him. It’s a proper, cinematic cutscene. Bill tells Joel/us this, and then the narrative works the rest of the time to undermine it. Ellie’s love for Joel is what saves his life in winter. The things she does to keep him alive and safe are insane. It’s not just finding food and water for them both at 14 years old. She finds medicine. She uses herself as bait to keep David away from Joel. That’s nuts! And it’s because of love. Love is what helps Joel not get killed. It’s the same for Ellie later: because Joel loves her, he saves her life instead of letting her get killed. He sees her as a person of value, as a person whose life means something irrelevant of her immunity. He sees her as someone who deserves to live. Love literally saves her fucking life. And as well as all this, we see how love saves Joel and Ellie in every day ways. Ellie is no longer alone and scared. She has someone. Joel finds joy in life again. He pets giraffes and he laughs at stupid jokes and he talks and talks about a life he’s been burying for decades. Who is the only person he’ll accept Sarah’s photo back from? Ellie! ‘I’m taking a ride with my best friend.’ And they ARE best friends. This episode went to great and beautiful lengths to emphasise how broken and afraid Joel is, and how hard it is for him to show up for Ellie, but that he does because he cares for her. It goes to great lengths to show how Ellie is starting to affect a change in Joel; that she’s helping him overcome the grief that has lain stagnant in him for 20 years. It’s starting to show how they’re best friends. It was an exceptional episode. I loved every second of it. But when I think about part 2, I’m so stuck on how mean it all is and how it works against what they (bruce i see you pal) were telling us in part 1. 

In fact, it’s not just mean, it’s cruel - both to Joel and Ellie, and to the fans who love them and are attached to their journey and got something out of it. What’s interesting is considering Bill and Frank’s story and the changes that were made to it. I absolutely loved the episode but it’s difficult to completely ignore pinkwashing claims (if you care to look, there have been many complaints about the game and its overall treatment of lgbt+) when Bill is rewarded for doing the same as Joel: he protects his one person too. In doing so he hoards valuable resources that could be used to help thousands of people. In twenty years ordinary people just looking for safety will definitely have made their way to Bill’s Town  and been turned away. Bill’s refusal to turn his town into some sort of a functioning community like Jackson definitely killed people. But this is presented as a good thing. He’s protecting Frank. That’s his job. And he’s rewarded with so many happy years and a peaceful death in an apocalypse. There’s a reason that resonates with people more than Bill’s original story which is bleak and sad. He ends up alone. Frank dies hating him. To see instead that actually you can have joy and hope and love in a post apocalyptic world is meaningful to people. 

Joel and Ellie are not so lucky. Joel does the same as Bill. He picks Ellie. He does what he has to to protect her. He defends them both from hostile attackers. His refusal to let her be a lab rat prevents a cure (arguably) so people will die but he saves her life and gives her a life worth living, the same as Bill does for Frank. He isn’t rewarded for it. There’s no great love is so good message here. Unlike Bill, Joel is punished so horribly for years in the narrative through Ellie. She’s used as a pawn for the vehicle in which the narrative tells us Joel did something wrong and he deserves punishment. This hurts her too by the way: love has hurt her too. But the narrative has to punish Joel this way to really make sure we know he did something so terribly wrong, so for 2 years Ellie isn’t allowed to give Joel a proper chance to explain. He isn’t allowed to defend himself. And after these long painful years, Joel is then killed. But he’s not just killed. It’s so brutal. It’s long. It’s painful. And Ellie is there to watch, to be held down on floor level so he’s all she can see as he’s killed, and she’s begging him to get up. Bill’s stance and actions are presented as a good thing. He’s the hero who saves Frank and allows him to live a good life. He gets a hero’s story. Joel, on the other hand, is a villain for doing the same thing. He dies a villain’s death.

Ultimately, Bill is right, despite what part 1 appears to be telling you (that’s part of why I hate 2 SO much, it’s so contrary to the themes and messages of 1). Love does get you killed. If Joel didn’t love Ellie he wouldn’t have saved her and he wouldn’t be dead now. Love will make you soft and stupid. You’ll run into rooms of armed strangers without concern after 20 years of being constantly on guard, or at least that was Neil’s explanation as to why Joel would get himself into a situation that was so out of character for him. If you love someone you will be punished for it. They’ll stop speaking to you because you loved them and because of that love knew you had a life of value that was worth living and not because of immunity. They won’t even give you a chance to explain, after all the ways love drove you to keep each other safe and alive. If you love someone you’ll be brutally tortured and murdered and you’ll deserve it. You will be constantly punished and criticised and villainised for that love. Literally, love makes you a villain. You will suffer because of love, you will lose everything. What’s the message here???? What on earth were Neil and Halley trying to say (sos bruce we miss you)???? That healing from your trauma will get you killed? Will get you punished? That Joel should have stayed broken in the QZ? Because if he’d done that, he’d have been better off than his ultimate fate. He wouldn’t have lost a daughter again and he wouldn’t have been beaten to death slowly and died quite likely thinking Ellie’s going to be killed after him so he’s let another daughter die, and he’d probably still have Tess. 

Joel, through Ellie and overcoming immense fear and ptsd in order to love her, heals from his trauma, he’s finally able to deal with his grief and move on. He, after twenty years of rejecting it because it caused so much fucking pain, loves again! He truly loves! Then it first hurts him again, and then it kills him. Love is good, love is necessary they told us in part 1. But in part 2 they tell us it WILL get you killed though. And that’s so fucking miserable.

[sweetfirebird]

AITA

AITA If I try to Set Up My Brother?

goddessofmfdeathandspring:

This is a throwaway account because even though he never comes on here, my brother just knows things, so I am taking precautions.

My adopted older brother is kind of my best friend. When I say adopted, I mean that he adopted me. He found me shortly after I’d run away from the bio mom’s for the millionth time and even though he was just a teenager, he brought me back to his home and his family, where I was welcomed. Honestly, I’d love him just for that but we really are close. Which is why I want to do something for him about how lonely he is.

Oh, he’s not lonely in the sense that he’s alone. Our family is big and he is loved, and he has friends outside the family that he visits a few times a year. No, this is the romantic sort of lonely. We tell each other a lot, but he never volunteers anything about anything like that. –And before anyone says anything, look, he might be ace and that would be fine, but I truly don’t think he’s aro. Why? Little things. The way he looks whenever someone in the family brings their new boyfriend or girlfriend or lover to meet him. (It’s sort of a complicated family dynamic but for this, you might think of him as like the family patriarch? Or something along those lines. Although he’s not even thirty.) Things like that which tell me that my brother, let’s call him Louis, doesn’t want to be alone in the way that he is.

And ok, it’s not just romantic loneliness. There is really no one around on his level. For some background, Louis is a polymath. He’s very smart, and he, for lack of a better way to explain it here, knows things before other people do. Added to that, he has some disabilities as well as some facial scarring from an incident when he was like 19. Personally, I think the scarring makes him look like a wizard or something from a fantasy game, and honestly, the people in town don’t seem put off by it—the opposite in fact—but he’s sensitive about it. He’s also very tall and, as I have overheard more than once in the shop where I work in our small town, to most people, he’s hot. I’m not sure if people are too intimidated to ask him out, or if they do ask him, but then realize midway through their first conversation that he might be a little awkward, but he is also just… on a completely different level than they are.  

He’s not rude about it. If anything, he’s too nice to people who don’t like finding out how much he knows.

Anyway. What I wanted to do is ask someone for help finding someone for him. It’s just that the person I want to ask is maybe not Louis’ favorite person in the world? So… Louis is not straight, and our town is very… accepting in some ways, but tricky about this one issue. (A big name in our town is gay and for some reason this gets a lot of wannabe small town royalty heated.) The person I want to ask is I think gay.(I’ve never asked his preferred label but he has off-handedly discussed men with me from time to time. But even if he’s not gay, he still knows people and isn’t a bigot. He is also well… if one person in the world could intimidate my brother right back, it would be this person.

I’ll call him Robert. Robert is the opposite of my brother which might be why Louis gets weird around him, tense and stiff and more awkward than I knew he could be. Robert is bossy, and, opinionated and feels things out loud, if that makes sense? And he can see more about people than even my brother can. So I want to ask him if he knows of anyone who might do for Louis, in town or anywhere close by. I don’t think he will be angry, but my brother might be. From the way he frets before any encounters with Robert, you’d think Robert had kicked his ass once or something. As if tiny little Robert would. He’s just busy all the time, and distracted, and if he snips at Louis, it’s over silly things like how he thinks Louis works too hard or lets people in town demand too much of him.

Which is rich, coming from Robert, who is constantly working, and really needs someone to take care of him according to my mother, but when I ask who would do that, she just makes a funny face and asks if I’ve seen Louis recently. All the same, Robert will fuss over Louis, and peck at him for being overworked, and chide him for wearing store brought scarves and things (Robert is a highly sought after fabric artist) all of which usually makes my brother frown in return and then go off and mope for a while.

He doesn’t explain when I ask, and only ever says nice things about Robert. But, as just one example, the last time Louis had to go over to see Robert, he paced in our kitchen for ten minutes before finally girding his loins to drive over to Robert’s house. I have no idea what happened once he got there, but when he came home, he only stayed for about an hour before he packed his things and went off camping in the woods for a while, which is how he broods.

But I really can’t take the way he watches when the kids in the family do silly fortune-telling games to find their true loves, or the way he avoids the subject when one of our brothers who has decided he is a matchmaker tries to discuss it with him, or how quiet he gets when I suggest he go out to the one bar in town that caters to the younger crowd so he can find someone. Once when I suggested it, he just smiled sadly and didn’t say anything except that he was, “Waiting.”

Ugh right? It’s terrible. He’s a little different than most, yeah, but he should have someone who isn’t afraid of him and can look out for him. Because Robert is right. Louis does let people in town demand too much of him.

So. Even knowing about his discomfort around Robert, WIBTA if I snuck behind my brother’s back and asked Robert to help me find him someone?

Edit: A lot of you in the comments are convinced Louis has feelings for Robert for some reason. I don’t even know how to tell you how ridiculous that is.  

[phantasm-masquerade]

How can you be so sure of yandev’s innocence though? How do you know if you’re biased just as much as the antis are biased since those dumbasses think “oh he sexualized underage pixels of course he would do this” I mean you can be biased in favour of a person as well

Idk antis are dumbasses but this guy seems sketchy (not cause of his game but like this is the second time he’s been accused of this sort of thing )

which doenst nessailry mean he did it but idk

1) The teenager this supposedly happened to said the "evidence" had been deliberately manipulated. This is credible because it's happened to Alex before in regards to other allegations (people changing or editing his words or taking them wildly out of context)

2) She also said she was "not traumatized or groomed by him and not a victim." She said his words were taken and edited drastically out of context to make it seem as if Alex was making sexual advances on her, which he was not.

3) Alex apologized for his conduct but said he did not make sexual advances on a minor, and the girl's story matches up as well.

4) The alleged victim released screenshots of the YouTuber who broke the "story" using very manipulative and controlling language towards her and repeating that she had been groomed when she disagreed with that assessment.

5) the anti YandereDev subreddit r/Osana deleted the alleged victim's post and went on to harass her and call her names and make disgusting claims about her supposed brainwashing by Alex, which is a horrific way to treat someone they think is a grooming victim (even though she was not groomed by Alex and I suspect the antis know that on some level too)

6) the first allegation you mentioned was posted on a throwaway Tumblr blog and had very little evidence besides a picture of "I love EvaXepheon*" written on someone's arm in sharpie, and someone saying they loved him in his public stream chat. It also said the alleged grooming took place in Skype convos that were deleted by Skype, but Skype back then would not only not delete conversations but save every single one. Needless to say, that one is incredibly shady.

*Alex's tag as a streamer before he was YandereDev

7) I can't tell what exactly you mean by sketchy, but as we say in the proship community, DLDW

[leastdatablebracket]

When I picked up Fire Emblem Awakening all those years ago as a wide-eyed kid, I went out of my way to unlock every support conversation, including for Nowi. The trope of "oh it's okay to marry her if she's basically a child, she's actually 1,000 years old" IS gross, and so are a lot of things about her design, I will not defend that. But I will throw Nowi one, solidarity crumb of apologetics; if my memory serves, it's shown in many of her conversations that her childish behavior is actually, well, a complete act. In those thousand years she was alive, she experienced a lot of hardship and grief, and at times can offer genuine wisdom to the people around her. It's just that she finds it's a lot more fun to act silly and childish, and she likes disarming people (this is meant to serve as a contrast to her daughter in the future, Nah, who acts very mature and serious despite the fact she's very immature deep down. I kind of think Nah deserved to be here more than Nowi despite having a more conservative design, since a good handful of her supports were really bad, but that's just me. It's the same crappy trope either way).

Elise, however? Elise does not have this factor. Her immaturity isn't a guise for anything. She is that childish but we're supposed to just take it at face value that she's ~technically an adult~ through some throwaway line from Leo. Despite this, her age is never confirmed and everything about her seems to be designed to read as "man, this girl is fucking 12 at most". The whole game, she loves you as her sibling. She calls you "big bro/big sis". Idk. I'm hardly a squeamish person, it takes a lot to disturb me, and Elise isnt the worst thing I've ever seen. But the fact that she can be romanced always rubbed me the wrong way way more than anything else in her game and honestly this whole franchise.

(**it doesn't help as well that the child unit mechanics are a lot more unsettling in Fire Emblem Fates. At least in Awakening, your child units arrive from an apocalyptic future using time travel shenanigans. Since this is the case, there is wiggle room to imagine when those kids were actually conceived, like, maybe Nowi hit a random growth spurt within the next couple years before she had her daughter or something, which is a bit ridiculous, but it's not impossible. Elise doesn't have that luxury. The second you marry her off, whether it's to her STEPBROTHER or any of the variety of men much older than her in your army, she basically has her kid immediately which is just. No. Why???? Why did u do this IS come on guys)

.

[novantinuum]

Glow or dark for ask game? 👀 not usually an and/or situation here....

Ty friend!! :33

So, this one is (or was, I guess) a one-shot I started writing for a recent Connverse prompt week. “Glow or Dark” were the two choices for day one, so I decided I wanted to try and find a way to mash them up together into one. This is adult Connverse, they’re like… engaged by now.

Basically, the idea I had was “Connie is kinda Big Bummer Steven doesn’t use his powers much anymore” and like… they’re all huddled in bed together, having a sleepy convo about this. My thinking is like… for a while Steven over-compensates? And he’s like… putting all his eggs in the “being human” basket and now somewhat neglecting his Gem side, and that makes Connie sad, because she loves both sides of him, and wishes he felt more comfortable expressing himself in all ways with her.

Also her fiancé can glow like a goddamn glow stick and she thinks it’s pretty, so sue her— it’s pretty and she wishes she could see it more but under positive circumstances *wheeze*

Snippit:

_

“Y’know, it’s kinda a shame you only glow when you’re really, really stressed out,” Connie murmurs out of nowhere that night, nuzzling herself even further into his side. “I bet you’d make for a nice nightlight.”

“Wait, what?” Steven responds, his words punctuated by a sudden peel of bemused laughter. He props himself up in their bed, scooting apart from her wanting embrace (she gives a pitiful but very cute little whine at this, still half-asleep) so he can actually turn to meet her eyes. “Where’s this coming from?”

If he fully understands the underlying question in his fiancé’s drowsy doozy of a comment— a comment he doubts she’d ever make while awake and alert— then she’s probably inquiring about why he never consciously utilizes even half the full potential of his power, not even recreationally.

And if he’s honest, it’s a fair question. He’s been somewhat ignoring this part of himself ever since he moved in with her late last year.

After all, it’s not like there’s much practical use for many of his abilities anymore. There’s no battles left to fight. No empires left to dismantle. No need to host those monthly healing sessions he used to organize, ever since he and the Gems bottled a large stock of his saliva for long term use. It’s nice, in a way. It’s like an extended vacation from all the stressors of this facet of his existence. Instead, he’s been able to focus all his time and energy on other stuff— like finally pursuing his GED, and doing some experimentation with some new instruments he’s never played. 

Little things.

Human things.

That glowing she speaks of, though…

The remnants of laughter fade from his lips as he refocuses his mind on this topic.

He hasn’t gone pink in weeks. It’s the longest period that’s passed without a flare up since that month his gem fell into an energy conserving stasis immediately following his meltdown in his teen years. So why is she bringing this up now? 

What’s really on her mind?

He asks as such.

This appeal for emotional honesty seems to jostle Connie out of the brunt of her drowsiness. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes with the furthest edge of her knuckles and then parts her lips again.

“It’s just… you never use them anymore,” she says, her brow creasing inwards. “Any of them. And of course I understand why, but…”

“But—?”

“But sometimes… I wish things weren’t so muddled for you. That you felt free to express yourself as both a human and a Gem in this space.”

His brows thread together as he considers all this, his confusion-addled mind looping right back to the throwaway, sleepy statement that hurtled this whole conversation into being in the first place. “So, wait— you’re saying you want me… to glow for you—?”

[thelikesoffinn]

Hey hiya hi Hi, I stumbled across your Blog because of your Billy post and then I saw that you had this rly detailed and indepth dissection of that other character and I have no cleu who that is but I've still read the whole thing and it was awesome and now I wanted to ask you if you could make something like that about Billy maybe? You seem to like Billy and that would be so great 👀😫🥰

Well hello there, love!

Honestly, I would love to. Because you're absolutely right, I do like Billy a lot and I'm a slut for tragic characters and I really enjoy writing these analyses.

Thing is, however: I don't have much to work with, when it comes to Billy.

With Astarion - the chap from my obnoxiously long post - you get a lot of input, both actively and passively. There's a ton of conversations to be had with a ton of different options to pick, mostly each leading to its own answer and reactions.

But that's not it. You get to see where he grew up, you get a lot of backstory and you get to see his very passive reactions. You know, Astarion is from Baldur's Gate 3, a crpg where you make the choices. But you get to see his reaction to your choices, get to see what he approves and disapproves which tells you a fuck ton about his character and grants me a good basis to build my observations on.

With Billy however? Not so much. If I had to guess, I'd say the fella has maybe 50 minutes of screening spread out over four seasons, 15 of which he is actually himself. The other 35 minutes are either spent under the influence of the mind flayer or impersonated by vecna. So we don't get to see the true Billy all too much, so most of the things I'd write would probably be at least half bases on headcanons, which would probably still be fine but I personally like to stick to the things I can actually provide evidence for if you know what I mean. (At this point, it might as well be lasting uni trauma, haha.)

On top of that, there's another thing that makes Astarion somewhat of a special case and that is, quite plainly, how well he is written. You can tell that there was a lot of attention to detail and that the authors put both research and love into his character. (In my personal opinion, his writing even far excels that of other origin characters in the game, which is pure art because they're all amazingly written.)

Combine that with Neil Newbon's - Astarions VA - performance and you have a proverbial feast for people like me.

We don't get that with Billy. A lot of Billy - both his charme and his tragedy - rides on Dacre Montgomery's shoulders. His performance and his very obvious love for the character make up a lot of the Billy we've seen but, in the end, I don't think he is that well written as a character. There were a lot of moments where I felt they wasted his potential by letting him fall flat because he was nothing but this throwaway character, throwaway "villain" they build.

(Which matches up with what Dacre Montgomery said, how he asked them to give him a story because that boy wouldn't be evil for no reason, which just once again proves that all Billy we got to see was entirely carried by Dacre Montgomery and Dacre Montgomery alone.)

This a problem the stranger writers all seem to have, somehow. Characters they don't deem that important can be rendered a bit flat, which makes them pretty two dimensional between the otherwise colourful cast of stranger things and, as someone who holds side characters and minor characters in extremely high regard, this annoys me to no end. A story without side characters is lifeless and empty, so the least they deserve is to be paid attention to. But they don't, which is why I personally find it extremely easy to guess which character is going to stay and which one isn't.

So far, the only character that surprised me was Steve. I was 100% convinced he'd be gone by the end of season 1, because season 1 Steve also felt like a caricature of himself. "Main good girl's popular boyfriend that gets knocked down a peg by the "looser" character and falls from grace". So when he came back around in season 2 - and with that much added charme - I was like damn? Pretty boy is still around! And he has a proper personality this time!

Anyway, sorry love this turned a bit ranty towards the end there - to make it short: I would really truly love to write an analysis on Billy Hargrove, but I don't think I actually can do so properly, I'm sorry! 😭

[assortedvillainvault]

Hello you are the first person I've found who also has an abiding fondness for Dick Dastardly! I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on him, either in a shipping context or just as the dedicated villainous villain we love.

~goodgriefwhatanerd (the guy you saw gushing over a monster that's just a pile of corpses and gave a little like to, thus cementing you in my heart)

GASP hello fellow DD enjoyer!! It's so rare to see someone else even know who he is, i think I've only ever gotten one? Ask? about him before? A crime.

(also yeah I fully respect the hardcore monster crushing! It was a crime not to at least leave a like, you have excellent taste!)

I'm always torn between writing for DD in his Flying Machines era or the Wacky Races, as I grew up with both. I love the batshit nature of Flying Machines (and personally think being part of the squad would be a scream) but Wacky Races holds a very dear place in my heart, especially becuase in at least one episode Dick actively, knowingly sabotages his own win, which was the only time he was clear to win in the whole series. Can I extrapolate 3 pages worth of character analysis from 10 seconds and a throwaway line? Absolutely!

One thing that always got me about WR is that the racers could actually hear the narrator, and the character with the most interactions with the narrator directly was Dick! Granted he's the protagonist, but he wasn't just reacting, instead actively engaging iin short conversations with the omnipresent voiceover. In universe, this gets me thinking...

...DD's car, the Mean Machine, is legitimately, 1000%, unavoidably, the best car in the entire race. It's faster, more armoured, has a shit ton of tricks and is even the final unlockable car in the WR game, as it's the best there too. Dick is a specacular racer, so there is absolutely no reason he isn't winning every race if he actually tries. And the one time he's set to win, he stops to sign an autograph for Mutley, who is already in his car and could've waited two minutes??! That's the thinnest goddamn excuse I've ever heard.

The racers are either actively aware they're in a broadcasted show, and adding manufactured drama accordingly (Dick is therefore contracted to lose every time via entertaining attempted sabotage, as in it's *in his contract to lose and he agreed to this*) - OR my personal preference, is that of all the racers, Dick is becoming genre aware and is fucking about with the races to see what he can get away with. He's not *fully* 4th wall breaking, but he's noticed that as the entire place runs on looney tunes physics and 1950's morals, he doesn't actually get punished for anything he does besides lose and get flattened. And since the races take place in a time static recurring void with no continuity, he can do this for as long as he pleases.

it might fuck with his anxiety and existential dread for a bit, and since no other racers seem to have figured it out he'd be pretty isolated, but his dog is his best friend anyway and it means he can uproot stop signs, plant acme bombs and plot oil slicks to his hearts content.

it's another crime that I can't find a single gif of his classic 'Drat', so please take this instead.

Best hanna barbera villain ever and classic 1960's version for life.

[bakafox]

Animated critical role rambling- possible spoilers if you haven't seen S3 trailer or heard some of the hints being dropped at cons by the cast.

I for one actually am quite fine, even thrilled, with the idea that there will be edits made to LOVM and even M9 animated shows to deviate them a bit from the live play. There's definitely (bathtub) scenes I really hope to see in particular, but I just saw it's been teased that the LOVM trip to hell may dredge up some EXU: Calamity stuff and seriously I am for that.

I view it like the differences between book and movie- and also just... look, I want the main story beats, and also yeah the stories between all CR campaigns are intertwined in ways that weren't gonna be visible in C1 or C2 and I am absolutely FINE with throwing that stuff together early in the name of a smoother serial storytelling.

And there's absolutely stuff that happened in the live games I won't miss if it's left out, and if a few things I wish were in aren't (BATHTUB?) I won't be heartbroken. I just want a familiar-enough-that-my-anxiety-lets-me-watch-it fantasy story told in really damn good animation and LOVM, esp in S2, was delivering on that.

I think anyone who didn't go into seeing animated CR with the understanding that 1000's of hours of live play being condensed into a smoothly paced story that's comprehensible to people who've also never watched the live plays meant changes were going to happen were kind of just not thinking it through.

Especially when we're gonna have seasons of animation for TWO campaigns running in tandem, at that. And I would again, much rather there be tweaks to LOVM and M9 animated than have to wait for LOVM to be done with (hopefully) 5 or so seasons before stepping into M9.

Anyway I just saw a clip of a hint that LOVM going to Hell in S3 rather than fire plane may involve Xerxes from EXU:Calamity and I almost screamed. And I am not going to lie also if at some point Brennan Lee Mulligan voices Azmodius in animated I am going to completely lose my fucking mind and go fully feral because MY GOD his Azmodius was amazing.

PPPS-

Any followers of mine who like good animation and good fantasy and are OK with some toilet humor and bawdiness and some animated gore, if you haven't looked into Legend of Vox Machina, even if you never were into CR, I do still rec it? The first 2 episodes go a little buckwild with the bawdy and toilet humor and some puking to sort of I guess 'warn' what sort of show it is, but then stuff smooths out to what I at least feel is a very good balance of funny and heartfelt and gory. Ep 1-2 give a decent idea of the BASEST baseline of the characters and set up some plot stuff, and then ep 3 of S1 takes off, and S2 gets even better than S1 which already I loved.

The love of animation and anime as an art form held by the original cast and the animation studio is fully on display, the cinematography and camera work and fight scenes have some truly epic moments and they are NOT ashamed of their anime roots while still having a more western feel to things too.

And for people who like to go 'aaaargh' over how some modern shows seem to need to hold hands, LOVM doesn't. You may miss important plot ticks that are hinted at, or forget something you did notice earlier but there's just- massively important shit sometimes going on in just background conversations and little moments that seem almost throwaway or ignored that do Come Back.

Anyway I need more people I can enthuse with over this T_T I acknowledge I'm not as excited for Veilguard as many of my best friends and mutuals (I'm looking forward to it mind you) but in return most of them aren't as excited as me about this lololol.

[atwas-gaming]

Spoilers for Axiom Verge under the cut.

This boss is about as far as I've gotten in the game, and so far, it's my favorite part. For one thing, I love the gameplay setup on the boss battle. It's honestly hard to tell who you're supposed to be playing as, and I feel like the battle was half over before I realized I was actually controlling the big plant-faced, flying green thing. To my knowledge, and from watching other videos of this mock boss battle, there's no way to kill the human-looking Trace.

And you've just come a rather long way from the last save room, and along the way, Trace and Elsenova are talking about how the pathogen seems to be affecting Trace. You cannot leave the pathway between that save room and the boss fight (in normal gameplay, that is- I would be surprised if no one ever figured out how to glitch out of it), which pushes you along the path of increasing sickness and hallucinations. Before you enter the room, you're wondering if you're gonna see Trace's doppleganger. You're wondering if you're gonna have to fight him. You're wondering if anything you're seeing is real- the hands reaching out to grab you, the ghosts that suck the life out of you, the monstrous, skeletal Rusalki faces in the walls. You wonder if your doppelganger is real, because Elsenova swears she can't see him.

And if you're like me and you've gotten invested in Trace's character, you're worried about him. "Oh, my gosh, he's so sick, is he gonna make it? How is he- how am I- gonna get through a boss battle when he's hallucinating so bad?" Smart move on the devs' part to make it a mock battle.

It's even worse if you die numerous times on the way, because the wavy heat effect remains at the same level of distortion as when you died. It doesn't start out too bad in the first room on your first time through, but it gets worse- wavier and more distorted, flickering back and forth from grays and greens to everything being red- as you progress through each room. So if you die on the way, the distortion level stays the same even after being healed in the egg, so you have to watch Trace's fever dream grow and worsen for longer and longer each time.

But it's even better from a story perspective.

All of these hallucinations are just Trace's fears are coming to life as you play. An hallucination of Ophelia tells him that Ophelia isn't real, because Elsenova says Ophelia is his one chance at a cure, and if he doesn't reach her, he's dead. Strange things, both machine and human, are trying to kill him in various ways, by shooting him, by sucking him dry, by simply beating him up- fears built up by him having dealt with this all along, plus some possible references to the explosion that left him blind and crippled so long ago.

But the worst part, I think, is the guilt. I may have some (or all) of the following wrong, but this is my interpretation based on what I've seen so far (like I said, the hallucinations and the conversation with Ophelia afterwards are about as far as I've gotten).

There are hints all through the game up to this point that Trace may actually be Athetos. When you get the lab coat, Trace says it looks just like his old lab coat and wonders what it's doing in the middle of nowhere (a seemingly throwaway line at the time, but it turns out to be foreshadowing). The scorpion boss seemed about to say that Trace looked like Athetos, but it didn't finish its sentence (this, btw, was about the time that I started wondering if Athetos was some kind of evil or dark Trace). And in Elsenova's explanation of the Breach and how Athetos trapped the Rusalki, the picture of Athetos looks like Trace- same long, brown hair and long face, but it's hard to be certain because Athetos has a mask over his face and he appears to be slightly older.

And then we see the doppelganger. And when the doppelganger first appears, we don't know that it's actually the first sign that the pathogen is affecting Trace. It effectively convinces us that yes, Athetos is Trace's dark double. And we think we're about to meet him and possibly fight him.

In the cutscene between after the mock boss, we learn what really happened in the accident, and how Trace published a new rewriting of physics and was branded "Athetos" by the scientific community. Trace forgot all about that until he passed out and had a fever dream. But this memory was still locked away in his subconscious.

In addition, it wasn't until we fought the scorpion that Elsenova finally told us, "Oh, btw, these are all mutated humans." News that appears to trouble Trace immensely. He's a decent person. He didn't like having to kill anything, anyway, but now he finds out that he's been killing people?

So he started seeing ghosts, and hands, and other body parts. The people he's killed coming after him, punishing him for the harm he's done- not just as Trace, but as Athetos, because somewhere, his mind remembers that HE is Athetos. This is also why the Rusalki faces in the walls stare at him with such hatred- Athetos trapped them, Trace is Athetos, they hate him for what he's done.

Like I said, I may have all of this wrong, but if even a part of this is correct, it's a really good look at how the subconscious screws with us even when we don't know or remember what it's talking about.

Another thing I found interesting: at one point during the hallucination run, Trace accidentally called Elsenova "Athetos." Could just be a slip of the tongue, but I wonder if it's also a fear that he's being manipulated. Elsenova seems to have been honest with him so far... but she waited through 4 boss fights and countless smaller enemies to tell him that he's been fighting humans. And he still doesn't know why he's here or how he got here.

In the cutscene where he remembers the explosion, he says that Elsenova knows he's Athetos, but she thinks he doesn't know. In the conversation with Ophelia immediately after that, he asks if they're leaving something out. I think he was trying to fish for them to straight-up tell him, "oh, btw, Athetos is your evil twin." He doesn't fully trust any of them. And I think he's losing trust in himself now that he remembers he's Athetos. Because what could have happened to turn him into such a monster that he would release a plague and trap the Rusalki in the Breach?

Since the doppelganger was an hallucination, I'm still not entirely sure whether Athetos is a dark Trace or not. But Trace seems to think so:

For a so-called "Metroid clone," this game really makes you think.

[fortheharbingers]

part 2 to this bc i got too many fcs to write to start this one properly...

streamer!scaramouche who won't stop indirecting you on twitter but always joins your streams, be it his official account or new throwaway one. on times he joins with his official account, he won't hold back from shittalking in the chat every two second, the stream ending up with less playing on your part and more bickering of the two of you. the viewers love it, some of the fans love, some envy it– scaramouche? he loves drawing those reactions out of you, voice getting high pitched once in a while, mouth hanging open, hands starting to shake, and no, it's not because you are doing a boss level or anything, the game is pretty much paused already.

streamer!scaramouche who always hated childe's parties but starts showing up more regularly once he finds out you are attending as well. lucky for him, the carrot bastard loves tacky drinking games, it gives him more the advantage to get you flustered. though he doesn't expect you to fight or tease back, at all. but on a game of '15 minutes in heaven' (really now childe? just say you want to make out with your boyfriend– you muttered) he catches you off guard, "better to pass the time like that, it'll go faster" he whispers to his lips after hovering over you. he doesn't expect you to kiss him back, nor the hand that goes up his neck and grips his hair tight, pulling his hair back, biting down his lip so hard, he can taste his blood.

twitch user kuni who always talks with utmost interest with you, keeping conversations going, making the streams fun– unlike the purple gremlin that calls himself scaramouche. kuni is everything scara is not; he is sweet, he is caring, interesting, intellectual, deep, understanding; and unfortuantely– unavailable. neither of you make a move to meet, it is too much, it is not a step but a jump, one neither of you sure would survive.

meanwhile scara? he is but a phone call away. voice more often than not husky and needy whenever you answer. all your teasing remarks fail when he says 'yes i'm in my bed naked, thşnking about your pretty hands wrapped around my cock' it begins with a stupid song and a stupider remark and becomes a regular. even just a call away, he gets you off, and you do him. the more the calls go, the more eager he gets to get his hands on you, to grip your neck like he always said, sink his nails into your thighs like you whispered, dive into you like talked, described and fantasized so many times before.

streamer!tartaglia loves to organize parties for his friends. the next one he does, everyone ends up shitfaced and drunk out of their minds. scara sees his opportunity and takes it. grabbing your hand and dragging you down the hall to a room he knows will be empty. kuni knows you've been stressed lately, but scara does not– the again, he doesn't need to, does he? he is observant, all it takes is to see how you down the drinks quickly, how you seem to doze off. when he starts kissing you again, much hungrier than that night, you're slower to kiss him back. 'give me the control then, i'll make sure you won't think or worry about a single thing by the time we are done.' you nod, and he proves you were right to place your trust in him. by the night all you can think about is his cold fingers on you, teeth sinking into your flesh, how good his mouth felt down there, how wet the both of you were that he needed little to no lube. as you pass out in his arms, he cannot help but inhale your scent, mixed with sweat and him; with your disheveled hair and rolled out eyes, mouth slightly open, what a sight you truly make.

one fuck is all he needs, is what he said himself. to get his mind off you, to get you out of there– except he finds himself craving more and more of you after that, wishing to see hickeys decorating you every day, sore legs and raspy voice, how many of your viiewers would notice? what would they think? what would you say in return, that he fucked you so good you couldn't think? hah, he knows you'd rather be dead than to say that, probably afraid sweet little kuni would get the wrong idea. well, aren't you a lucky person indeed, you've got nothing to worry about. just give in to him already, keep that spark, keep grinning against his mouth every time you draw blood out of his lips, scratch him, nail and bite at his skin, offer yourself to him– he knows you've got so much to offer and this was merely a taste of it. the carrot head should hurry up and throw another party sooner.

[dogcasino]

the old song coming from the sea (deltarune theory post)

i never expected onionsan of all characters to be the one whose dialog i'm hinging this theory upon, but utdr is full of surprises. also as a note before we start: all of these images are described! other note, the quality of them varies as some are my own screenshots, my friend's, or sourced from youtube videos. i have also had to splice some of them together into one image due to tumblr's image per post limit. this will be a long one so read the whole thing under the cut.

if you talk with onionsan in chapter one of deltarune, they will tell you they have something they need to tell you tomorrow. they've also, interestingly enough, forgot their own name. during the course of conversation, they also forget kris' name and the name you try to give them. this was not part of their character in undertale.

we'll talk about what onionsan has to say in deltarune chapter 2 in a bit, but first let's go into who shows up if you don't talk to onionsan in chapter one.

it's clamgirl! or at least it appears to be until you talk to them.

the character's idle sprite is clamgirl's but when you talk to them, they have the clamguy's talking sprites. i've taken to calling them clamindividual. anyway clamindividual here has something to tell you about a weird thing they saw yesterday.

wow, too bad you can't go back to when it was yesterday, huh player? (wink wink nudge nudge) . Ok, you're saying. Very cool , Cosmo, but why in the world would Mr. Fox want us to talk to onionsan of all people? why would he be worried about people missing that?

this is why. behold, onionsan's chapter 2 dialog. (some lines i have skipped over for sake of time and clarity, i'd urge people to go get the onionsan dialogs themselves since who knows where this plot thread is going honestly.)

well that's weird. onionsan sure seems like they need to stop forgetting things! my advice to them: don't do it! and speaking of things you've probably forgotten, this isn't the first time this "not new" sea song has been mentioned in these games.

to be fair, it's a pretty easily forgettable (or just plain missable!) throwaway line, just a little flavor text to make your journey to your next destination a little more flavorful. its also in good company with other "throwaway" lines such as: "beware the man who speaks in hands" and "beware the man who came from another world." riverperson clearly knows shit.

(side note: the delta rune itself is also pretty dang old, given its existed so long monsters have forgotten its original meaning. just thought that was interesting.)

and now for a clamgirl detour, aka: why it matters that clamindividual shows up if you miss onionsan.

well for starters, it makes yet another connection between suzy and the end credits song, don't forget. clamgirl is the only character in all of undertale who mentions suzy.

after having this exchange, a mysterious photo album appears in sans' workshop. and inside the photo album...

so that's one thing connecting suzy to don't forget. and deltarune chapter 2 provides the second thing. if you don't talk to onionsan about the mysterious song they've been hearing, you get basically told to by someone wearing the appearance of clamgirl, the one who originally told you about suzy. i think suzy is singing "don't forget." the phrase was already linked to her, but with onionsan's memory loss, i feel the song they are hearing sung might be don't forget. there's also another thing, suzy is very likely an aquatic monster.

the aquatic monsters in the city live in a crowded aquarium. for a child about frisk's age, suzy most likely lives with her parent, clamgirl's neighbor. clamgirl is an aquatic monster from the city so she likely lives in a crowded aquarium, for suzy to clamgirl's neighbor, she would need to be an aquatic monster as well. (perhaps some kind of marine lizard? susie also seems to relate herself to godzilla, who comes from the sea. maybe suzy's a godzilla?) either way though, she is underwater and there is a song that onionsan is hearing coming from underwater and there is one song that we hear in deltarune which just so happens to have a phrase strongly associated with suzy in it. it's not conclusive yet but this is why i think suzy is the singer of don't forget. i've also talked about this before but i don't believe suzy is susie! i think similar to catty and catti they may be related in some way but i don't think they're the same character or toby somehow misspelled her name in undertale (yes i've really seen people say that.)

i think the fact that suzy probably used to live in waterfall is also significant, waterfall is the only place where you can find a certain man who doesn't exist, after all. tell me what you think! i wrote all this in one sitting so i hope it makes sense haha =)