#Which dev do I need to eat out to make this happen

[kazunarei]

I’m fucking crying (again) (Howling even)

I'm losing my fucking mind dudes. q(^-^q)

The name alone is sending me into the stratosphere. o(*≧▽≦)ツ┏━┓

Do you think this Dante will be a guardian? He'll need to be one with how fans are going feral over him. He'll need the extra defense for protecting his ass. ( ≧∀≦)ノ

Its me. I'm the one gunning for that untouched hole. (o≧▽゜)o☆

[griffonsong]

do the Inquisition choices matter in Northern Thedas?

lol this got long but his is mostly to make sense of things for myself. anyway, not gonna speculate about what those 3 choices that DO seem to matter, mean for the setting/lore/gameplay in Northern Thedas. my overall take on all this is: yeah I eat those tiny mentions of choices in Origins/2/Inquisiton up like the little crumbs they are, but they don't affect the Northern half of the continent like, at all. hear me out

so this is mostly about the choices/main quests in Inquisition & results per country, with an extra 3 for the game/North in general

DO THE CHOICES MATTER IN NORTHERN THEDAS

WHO IS THE DIVINE?

Tevinter: has their own Divine, Chantry politics & structure, so no

Antiva & Rivain: follow the Orlesian Chantry, but unless they somehow feel the need to show their power/announce an Exalted March against the Qunari invasion (in Antiva), there's no reason for us to hear from the Divine other than "they send prayers & 5,000 Templars" or whatever

Anderfels: literally same as Antiva/Rivain, but perhaps with more political intrigue/Archdemons which outweighs Divine/Chantry politics

Nevarra: I mean technically but like… it's been 10 years, it's business as usual, bureaucracy, unless she visits personally who cares

2. MAGE-TEMPLAR WAR OUTCOME?

Tevinter: 0 importance. they got their own Circle/templar structures & were never part of the war. only involvement might have been dealing with refugees from outside the country

Antiva: depends on what you did with mages or templars (recruit, disband, reform etc.) but since we also don't know how that templar-mage war unfolded in Antiva (who says the Hinterlands is representative? do we even KNOW all the Orlesian circles fell into the same chaos?) we don't know shit, and the devs can say whatever. all we can assume is that there may have been Red Templar/Venatori active during Inquisition. for all we know the Antivan Circle mages just moved into a local library and drank tea after the Circles were disbanded, who knows

Nevarra: see Antiva. possibly they also had a much better grip on Templar/Mage relations because of the standing of Mortalitasi & mages in general, so it could be there were no major tensions like in Ferelden/Orlais/Free Marches. as evident from the Mortalitasi apparently being business as usual at the time of DA:TV

Rivain: same as Antiva re: what happens to the Templar Order there (100% speculation), but re: the mages, the Circle was Annuled and all its mages slain for following Rivaini traditions re: magic. Might be safe to assume Rivain was just like "ok we never cared about strict Circle structure anyway" and Life Went On. not great impact

Anderfels: we literally know the major political power of the Anderfels, the Grey Wardens, were taking in refugees from the Mage-Templar war and conscripting them. so i doubt they fucking care

3. WHO RULES ORLAIS?

Tevinter: who cares. we've got invading Qunari

Antiva: who cares. we've got invading Qunari

Rivain: who cares. we're so far away

Anderfels: who cares. nobody cares about us anyway

Nevarra: probably liked Orlais much better when it was having a civil war, will treat its new ruler with wariness either way

4. WHAT'S THE FATE OF THE GREY WARDENS OF ORLAIS?

Tevinter: not my circus, not my wardens, also we don't comment on Venatori involvement, how dare you

Antiva: not my circus. we have invading Qunari

Rivain: please we're so far away

Anderfels: they didn't stop being Grey Wardens whether it was with the Inquisition or exiled from Orlais so who cares. they'll come roosting home eventually

Nevarra: probably has the fewest problems of all nations taking in disgraced demon-summoning mages, if the wardens were exiled; could be absorped into the Nevarran wardens. either way, probably 0 big influence

BONUS GENERAL

5. WHO DRANK FROM THE WELL OF SORROWS?

None of the individual countries in Northern Thedas have a direct stake in this (nobody probably even knows it exists). And we already know they've got something planned for Morrigan (and the Inquisitor's appearance) so I'm gonna be bold and assume it'll work itself out. Just some mention of Mythal/Flemeth's spirit being yote out of the sphere of influence and you're good. Morrigan/Inquisitor is likely bound to whoever Mythal/Flemeth's essence passed on to, which is either Morrigan herself, or Solas (who has his own reasons not to do anything right now, since he's ""trapped"" in the Fade / just waiting things out).

6. IS THERE A KIERAN AND IS HE AN OLD GOD?

Once again, same as the Well of Sorrows question, just gonna assume they work that one out. If we're gonna be TOTAL vague, just have Morrigan mention "the ultimate fate of Urthemiel's soul is that its power… was processed…. for some goal…. and is now gone from this world……." so like, it can't hurt us anymore, unimportant

7. WHERE'S THE WARDEN OF FERELDEN?

more complicated to avoid mentioning that altogether, but not impossible. (YES, NOT IMPOSSIBLE, with the power of spite & vague wording & 10 years of rewriting lines, everything is possible)

again, stopping a blight within 1 year is impressive, especially in Northern Thedas which bore the brunt of the previous 4 blights, but it also lasted 1 fucking year, hardly affected them in terms of refugees/loss of forces/etc. and left no other mark. the only people who are gonna care about mentioning the HoF as Someone They Know Personally* are either 1) not in Northern Thedas (Leliana, etc.), 2) in Northern Thedas but not appearing (Zevran), 3) Varric Who Just Got [Redacted] and 4) Morrigan, who is the only more complicated option. but we'll see

[orange-peony]

For the trope mash-up: I used a random number generator and got

8: Hospital AU

And

63: Everybody Knows/Mistaken for Couple

And I think those would make a great lil snowbaz AU!!

Thank you sooo much for your ask and sorry it took absolute ages!

“Baz, you’re needed in room three,” Niall says, looking like he hasn’t slept in two days (he probably hasn’t). “Your boyfriend managed to get another injury for the sole purpose of coming to snog you.”

“Snow is not my boyfriend!” I reply for the umpteenth time, but my legs are already moving faster than I thought my tiredness would allow.

What the fuck has he done this time?

“Baz, Simon has come to see you! What a lovely surprise,” Ebb proclaims with a smile as I walk past her. She also probably hasn’t slept (or showered) in ages, but she somehow never loses her lovely manners and sweetness. “You know, he always says he was a terrible boyfriend to Agatha, but it’s so nice to see how much he’s changed.”

“Oh, I can confirm he was a shit boyfriend,” Agatha comments drily while she makes a poor man wail in pain as she changes his dressing. 

“Still not my boyfriend,” I declare, deciding to ignore them.

Room three is just at the end of the corridor. I calm down when I hear him chatting cheerfully with the nurse on duty—it’d better not be Smith-Richards, that fucking flirt. 

“Oh, hello Baz!” Snow greets me with a grin, his cheek smudged with something that I hope is just dirt. My eyes go automatically for his arm, which is carefully being tended by Pippa (thank god it’s her). 

The cut looks pretty deep, but nothing life-threatening. I sigh in relief and tell Pippa she can go. 

“When are you going to stop being such a reckless idiot?” I ask as a greeting, and he produces his usual apologetic smile, not even batting an eyelid when I start cleaning the wound, trying to be as delicate as I can.

“Baz! Your boyfriend’s come to visit you!” Dev exclaims after popping his head in with a shit-eating grin. “Don’t forget—no hanky-panky at work.”

“I’m not a horny incubus like you and Niall,” I reply, my eyes fixed on Snow’s wound. I don’t want him to have a scar. Not another one. Those butchers who treated him before I met him made such a shit job at patching him up. But I’m going to make sure that no one else gets their hands on him. “And we’re not together.”

“No need to lie,” Dev says dismissively before he leaves us alone.  

“I was hoping you were going to be in,” he murmurs before I warn him that the anaesthetic is going to sting. He grimaces but makes no sound, a loud intake of breath is all I get for an injection in a spot that would make even the burliest men swear out loud. 

“How did it happen this time?” I ask, my tone probably harsher than I meant for it to come out. My eyes leave his wound to meet his gaze, and he smiles at me, licking his lips.

“It was actually Gareth’s fault,” he comments easily. “But I’ve got to admit I was a bit distracted. Someone was telling me about this concert. It’s the symphonic orchestra, and they’re doing this thing at Watford theatre on Saturday evening. I was thinking…would—shall I take you to see them? Hear them? I’ve never been to a concert before…”

My hands still, our eyes locking as I stare at him with my mouth open like a fish out of water.

This sounds like a date.

Is this meant to be a date?

“Baz, I’m going to lunch,” Niall calls from the corridor. “How long are you going to be with your boyfriend?”

“Very long!” I reply, and Snow’s uncertain expression slowly melts into a grin.

Is he actually my boyfriend?

“I mean, when we went to IKEA together,” he starts tentatively, “you said you play the violin. That you like classical music.”

“I did,” I confirm, still unsure if he’s asking me out.

“And the last time we went to the cinema, I picked the film,” he adds, “so it’s only fair that this time we do something you like. I mean, t-t-that is if you want to come—”

“Of course, I want,” I reply, so fast that I almost give myself whiplash. “Pick me up at seven. We can go to dinner first, if you want…”

His smile makes my heart melt like an icicle in the sun.

“It’s a date,” he says.   

Fuck, Snow is my boyfriend.

[snowbaamgyu]

Bro your last fic (the piercing one) was SOO CUTE 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 I need more like this..

I was thinking this time a with soobin. But when he gets the piercing he’s like actually sick (with a cold or something) and he gets a nose piercing so since he has a cold he has to blow his nose and stuff but he can’t because of the piercing so he gets really frustrated and ends up crying so the members take care of him (i think if that happens Irl soobin would end Up taking it Off because of his rhinitis lmaoooo). That’s my idea hehe :>

Pretty Mistake

"Alright Soobin-ssi, since the fans love it when you have a sticker faking a piercing then if you do it for real won't do any harm, just make sure it doesn't affect your performance okay? You're dismissed" Soobin bowed and a happy smile spread on his face after hearing the head manager of the team give him the green light for him to get done a nostril piercing.

Soobin has done enough research by now, the nostril piercing is one of the fastest to heal and on a scale of pain from 1 to 10 it was only a four, which for a nose piercing was decently low as the septum one was rated on a 10.

The leader scheduled an appointment and was accompanied by a staff member that had worked with them since debut, a friend if Soobin had to answer what his bond with him was.

"Good morning Soobin-ssi, you're here to get the nostril piercing right? follow me this way please, have a sit there and wait until all instruments and the piece are disinfected" the lady bowed and so did Soobin, his friend looking at him and smiling a bit "Aren't you scared?" Soobin shook his head, "I think it'll look cute so that's why I asked for it so many times until the company said yes, after all I think moas will love it" they laughed for a moment when the lady returned.

"Okay, I'll apply an anesthetic foam so it won't hurt" she started, Soobin frowned a bit at how cold it felt but all of a sudden he couldn't feel the right side of his nose, he saw how the lady took out the needle she'll be using and how she showed it to him for him to see it was totally new.

"You're going to take a deep breath when I count to three alright? One... two... three... breathe" Soobin could just feel the needle passing through his nostril, a tickling sensation appeared and he had to try so hard to stiffle a sneeze because it totally would not end well. As soon as it started it ended, the little piece of jewelry was placed there and had a red spot surrounding the skin where it was, without realizing Soobin had a single tear rolling down his cheek, the lady quickly explaining "It's because the nose is connected to the tear ducts, like when we cry" he wiped it and stood up "So.. how do I take care of it?" he said as he took a look at it, it was cute.

"Avoid eating spicy and hot or steamy foods, don't blow your nose too hard and please don't move the piece, it'll slow the process of healing. That concludes my job here, thank you for coming by" she bowed and then left.

"Hyung I forgot about something..." his friend looked at Soobin as he spoke a bit frightened; "I'm always struggling with my rhinitis".

At first, it looked so nice that Soobin didn't mind, Yeonjun complimented him everytime they bumped into each other, Taehyun always said it made him look so cool, Beomgyu said he couldn't wait to see him wearing a ring and Kai said he looked cute.

But they don't know how much it hurts.

Each time he sneezes a sharp pain comes but it's okay, it fades away quickly; and each time he blows his nose no matter how careful he tries to be, it still hurts.

Anyway, he blinks away the tears that formed in his eyes and opens his camera, takes a selfie or two and posts it on weverse and twitter, as everyone expected moas were freaking out, making it a trend.

As days passed Soobin expected that the pain would fade and stop at some point but it wasn't and it felt as the first day he'd done it, no matter how many painkillers he took it was to no use.

And on top of it all, he developed a fever and the nostril where he had his piercing was bruised and maybe a bit swollen.

He tried, Soobin really tried to endure it, but the cherry on top of it all was when he caught a cold.

"Ah.. fuck..." Yeonjun turned to look at him once he heard Soobin swearing after sneezing for the nth time that day, the leader bundled up on the couch, a box of tissues on the coffee table, as well as a glass of water and painkillers. "What's wrong?" Soobin sniffled, "My piercing is not healing as it should and it really hurts when I sneeze or touch my nose by accident, you don't know how painful it is right now with this stupid cold" Yeonjun sighed, going to pat his hair a bit "Then why don't you go to the place where you got it and get them to check it? Maybe there's something they can do or just take it off" Soobin nodded, not really wanting to experience any more pain.

He called the lady who did his piercing, relaxing when she picked up. "Hello Soobin-ssi, is there anything I can help with?" she asked, Soobin didn't know where to start but still talked "Hey um... It's been a week but the pain isn't going away and my rhinitis is acting up, but also uhm.. I caught a cold and honestly it's painful, so I don't know what I could do if I can't even blow my nose properly without making it hurt even more and I think it's infected or something like that" she listened carefully to all of it, humming when he stopped "Soobin-ssi I think it's better if you take off your piercing, it seems like your body is rejecting it but still I'll have to take a better look, come by and I'll see what we can do".

As she and Yeonjun said, he had to take it off, disappointed that he couldn't make it last, so to cheer himself up a bit he started a weverse live.

"Hey Moa how are you doing? I came by because I missed you" almost instantly the comments started popping up, he read one "Soobin let us see your piercing.... ah guys... how do I tell you this? Uhm... I don't have it anymore, you know I struggle with rhinitis and it was making me kinda sick so for health reasons I had to take it off, I know all of you were so excited about it but unfortunately it's over, also this week I've been a bit sick with a cold, but don't worry everything is completely fine now" he said with a sad expression and tone, once again the comments changed to cute messages saying things like "It doesn't matter! Soobin's health comes first! ❤️❤️" which made Soobin really happy, he felt more relaxed when he realized moa just wanted him to be healthy, it was a bummer yes but at least he feels a lot better.

[valeriantempest]

"So, You Want to be Part of My Club?~"

"Club Dev Hour is a nightclub which is host to all kinds of individuals. Open every night each week, you will find some comfort in the music to dance the night away to, the tasty drinks and if you want to, in the pits of someones gut or have your gut filled~"

Here are some things about the Club Dev Hour lil universe. You are welcome to make original characters or writing based in this universe, see more info below~:

You must have a ticket to enter.

Do not remove your wristband you receive while in the club, you will not be allowed back in if you leave or you can be removed if there is no valid proof you had a wristband (eg; copy of a ticket, ticket receipt, etc.)

No devouring anyone without permission! Any misbehaving with this rule will have that happen to them, often carried out by Valerian himself.

Do not do anything without another permission PERIOD! Again, this can result in a ban from the club or possible Karma brought to you.

If any guests are making you uncomfortable, harassing, etc; report to the guards or staff of the club. We strive to make sure everyone feels safe in this environment.

All employees as part of their contract will be assigned reformation to ensure if the boss does get hungry, you will return!

Some job roles include; bar tender, bouncers/guards within the club, clean up duties, performers, dj's, receptionist and hosts.

Valerian has his personal body guards which are separate from those who's roles are to make sure everyone is safe in the club

Like any job, you are given holidays and with Club Dev Hour, you are not expected to work every night!

The pay is fair for everyone

If you are having issues or problems with your tasks or another staff member, Valerian and/or his body guards will happily help out in any way they can.

You call in sick? Don't worry, we all have our off days and Valerian will happily make sure to take the time you need to rest up.

You are allowed to devour on duty, but do adhere to the rules of the club.

All guest are recommended to have an active reformation in place. We can provide a single night reformation service if you do not have one in place.

There are seven types of tickets; Prey ticket (if you are strictly prey; you will receive a special code to remember along with your full name if you are to be digested, more info below), Pred ticket (if you are strictly pred), Switch ticket (You lean both towards prey and pred, you will also be given a code like the prey ticket), D.N.E ticket (Do Not Eat which is a ticket for those who do not wish to partake in any vore happenings but wish to attend the club for its other entertainments or wish to observe instead.) and the highest priced tickets, V.I.P. tickets (Very Important Prey, Very Important Pred or Very Important Person (for those who do not want to be part of the vore aspects); these ticket holders have access to special rooms and services the club provides)

There are seasonal tickets as well which are like membership cards for reoccurring customers if they are interested. Tickets will be at a discount for these club members and offers such as a free drink or an upgraded ticket can be handed out to luck winners too.

You will receive a colored wristband which allocates you to your ticket so everyone can be identified. There are signs around the club to help you identify what each wristband means

These wristbands can not be destroyed easily so, for example, if you are an endo or temporary prey, the wristband will not dissolve.

There is on sight reformation locations for those digested on sight which allows you to receive your wristbands again. This is where you say the code or your full name to a staff member who will happily be of service to you. If you are a pred who has tested the waters, please provide your full name and we will see what we can do.

Of course I have this open to anyone who would like to create an oc or even do some writing based in Club Dev hour! There are some rules to follow that i am sure you all will do anyways:

Do not claim this as your own idea, its not nice to steal peoples ideas :(

No, you cant vore Valerian. He is strictly pred, sorry!

If you see anyone stealing this idea, please let me know!

Feel free to tag me in your works! I would love to see them so much if anyone does do anything! I might even do some works with your ocs (with permission of course ^-^)

There is a special tag for this now, #ClubDevHour ~

If you have any questions, my ask box is open for public and anon messages alike! You can also directly message me here or on my twitter or discord!

Thanks for reading, and do enjoy your stay at Club Dev Hour~

💟 Support me on Eka’s Portal for more content~

💟 Follow me on twitter where I'm most active! I also have discord under the same username, I am not very active there but feel free to send over a message there!

💟Ask box open on tumblr for anon messages if you have questions or suggestions~

[ecruvian]

Here's my new story idea:

There's two characters who meet. Character 1 is super weird in how they interact with basically everything and everybody, causing destruction seemingly at random and picking up only the weirdest and most pointless objects - this is a person who has no credit card or driver's license, but does have a sack full of shaved-down pencils or something. Most people in society object to Character 1's existence, constantly yelling at them and protesting their behavior. This isn't without reason; they're usually harmless, but will just break a hole in the hallway wall of a hotel for no reason and then leave. Character 1 more or less ignores people.

Character 2 is just a normal, average joe who's fascinated by this behavior and starts hanging out with Character 1. Character 1's nature becomes more mysterious over time: they can't eat most food, they can't enter most elevators or use stairs that are the wrong size, they can only open certain doors, etc. Character 2 is definitely curious, but takes it all in stride. Character 2 is used to dealing with such odd behavior - maybe they're a disability rep at a school, or maybe they have a loved one with OCPD, but they adapt almost seamlessly to Character 1's "rules." Character 1 is ecstatic and they become the best of friends.

If you're getting video game vibes from this, you're correct! It turns out that, years ago, an indie game dev died and ascended to godhood, and with nothing better to do with these newfound powers, started to build a videogame framework on top of the real world in the form of hitboxes and assets. This young god is having a lovely time being a god. When Character 1 died in a freak accident, their soul was snatched from destruction by the video game dev god, who wanted to give them a second chance... but only had one way to do it.

Character 1 is living with some very severe limitations, but is definitely glad to be alive at all. However, since they are operating on an entirely different set of natural laws compared to the entire rest of society, they started to tune people out as a survival instinct: when people offer them food it's usually inedible, when people tell them to stay out of that "employees only" area they're limiting access to the only regen point in this part of the city, et cetera. Character 1 had to learn not to feel shame or awkwardness because they were going to have to walk in on a lecture happening at a random university if they wanted to get the random item drop that they need to proceed to the next quest location, and if they don't go to the next quest location, they'll be forced to wander into parts of the map that are incomplete. The dev god tries to incorporate feedback from Character 1 in the world's design, but first of all, dev god is a limited being who can only build so much at a time, and second of all, Character 1 knows that the amount and quality of resources will be much better if dev god is allowed to pursue dev god's own special interests and aesthetic preferences. So, Character 1 just abides.

Character 2 ends up having a great time following Character 1 on quests, and dev god, ecstatic to have an audience, starts to tailor make levels that are accessible to both characters - which has the side-effect of improving Character 1's lifestyle.

Anyway it's a heavy-handed metaphor but I think it's fun

[definitelynotshouting]

I said I was gonna stop cause it’s late but I thought of another question that I think you might enjoy

What exactly is the Listeners’ ecological niche? What do they do? You’ve mentioned that they’re symbiotic and function similarly to some fungi, and that they can even form a sort of hive mind with other Listener hosts to work towards the same goals, but what are those goals? How sentient are Listeners on their own, without a Player host?

WOOOOO OKAY SO THIS IS A POST IVE BEEN MEANING TO MAKE FOR A WHILE NOW AND ONLY JUST GOT THE TIME TO DO SO

Buckle in everyone lets talk about:

~Ecological Niches~

So to answer this question, im gonna ironically set the stage by talking about something that doesnt SEEM related but trust the process alright this is necessary background info

What we need to briefly dissect is server formation.

Ive mentioned before that singleplayer servers form around spawned Players--- much like a star, code coalesces and forms both Player and world, as a shield between them and the in-between. The thing ive only recently settled on is that all servers are formed by Players in some shape or manner.

Essentially: Players drive server creation.

I'm going to skip the mechanics for how multiplayers are formed rn because thats information for another post, but the essence of what you need to know is that Players are the driving force behind server formation. And the thing about Players, as entities, is that they have a drive to play. And the thing about playing is that sometimes... you get bored.

Theres a tendency to abandon old servers and old worlds--- it happens eventually to pretty much all of them, and its a natural process. Servers arent supposed to be around forever. But sometimes a Player will abandon a world that isnt that old yet, that isnt ready to be recycled by a virus, often for a myriad of reasons. One of these is boredom. Sometimes you just dont click with a with a new world. Sometimes you dont want to continue playing, and so its fairly common to just abandon the world and start a new one.

The problem with this is that theres only so much capacity a dev crystal has to maintain its server cluster, and overstuffing it with more servers than it can take will lead to its collapse (which as ive mentioned before, is CATASTROPHIC for the entire cluster). And this is where Watchers come in.

Where a Player's ecological niche is to create servers, a Watcher's is to keep Players within that server for a greater length of time. Basically, Watchers are a bit like herding dogs (and massive shout out to the anon who gave me that idea); before they were hunted almost to extinction, Watcher colonies would flock to different multiplayer servers and feed on the Players within them, heightening their emotions which very lowkey softlocked the Players into staying on that server for a greater length of time than if they were left to their own devices. When youre invested in a world, in the people within it, and your emotions are heightened while inside, you arent exactly focused on leaving, yknow???

So Watchers, on an ecological level, are essentially pinning Players in place to feed off of them, and keep them from abandoning servers for new ones at an unsustainable rate for the local dev crystal. Seekers, when they were around, would then hunt down the Watchers and eat them, or run them off in the process--- which then freed the Players to finally move on and make new servers again.

Which brings us to the ACTUAL question here, about Listeners.

Listeners are a relatively new type of entity, i think. With Seekers fully extinct, and most Watchers also hunted to critically endangered numbers, the universe needed a new solution for keeping Players in place for long periods of time so dev crystals wouldn't get overloaded. So Listeners were created as a new and more sophisticated way of forcing Players to stay in server worlds for a longer amount of time.

While Listeners dont have a super strong sense of individualism, they are independently sentient from Players and as entities they have a vested interest in remaining on specific servers as long as possible--- specifically because ive recently decided they are specifically connected to sculk. The explanation for that is ALSO for a different post, i think, but essentially Listeners can make new Listeners through the exp orbs Players expel after death, if they die near a sculk catalyst. So Listeners have a lot of incentive to stay on servers and get their Players to build up tons of exp levels before getting them to die so they can continue to make More Listeners, if that makes sense.

So to recap:

Players: create servers

Watchers: feed off Player emotions to trap them on servers for a longer period of time

Seekers: hunted and preyed on Watchers which released any trapped Players

Listeners: formed semi-recently to bridge the ecological gap made by the Seekers going extinct and hunting the Watchers to near extinction, for the same purpose of keeping Players in place for a longer period of time

I hope that answers your questions and then some!!! :D i need to make some posts about the new Listeners lore at some point soon, plus more info on multiplayers, but i'll leave those for a later date :] thank you for being patient while i percolated on this, i hope you like the post!!!

[shadow-ren]

Obey Me Nightbringer - Theory

Obey Me Nightbringer! Spoilers and Thoughts undercut

It is kind of long and rambly.

I was in the middle of going through Lesson 11 and 12 thoughts, but nope, our devs decided to drop Lesson 13 instead and leave it on a cliffhanger, like usual.

The first thing is damn you Barbatos. You know what the hell is going on and you refuse to tell us because you need us to do our own thing. I need to say that before I go on. I love him, but I wanna make him eat Solomon's cooking right now.

That screenshot is just one of those several times where he gets very quiet, knowingly quiet. I've said it before and I'm pretty sure that Barbatos is Nightbringer. Everything is just pointing to Barbatos being Nightbringer and if it is not him, then it is a demon we have yet to meet.

I have many thoughts and theories of what is happening and what is going to happen. I'll try to simplify them, but one is that Nightbringer did not bring us down there with malicious intent. They truly wanted us to be happy as they said,

The main thing that I can think of, it is just a theory, but I believe this is the beginning of our story. What we have gathered from hints and tidbits is that Nightbringer can see the future, and past and is very powerful which is why it makes sense to be Barbatos. It gives them the ability to see what will or could happen. I don't believe there was a time when it specifically said that it was a concrete thing. The future will be based on our choices. We are a wildcard that has great power.

Diavolo compared our power to the level of a grimoire, that book that makes a demon obey you without a pact. That high-level magic. We are always told we are powerful, but we truly frightened Lucifer when we got that grimoire. All the more impact it made when we gave him the book instead of using it. A choice that Solomon didn't realize we would do. We are always surprising the others to no end which is amusing, but again, we are a true wildcard. I am getting kind of sidetracked. Back to my point, our power gives us the ability to choose. We were told our choices would make an impact in this game and I believe others have stated it as well- we can choose how the future will change. It is a running theme of just how unhinged we are, of how our choices keep shocking those around us, time and time again.

So why am I bringing all that up? Simple, we are at the center just like Solomon was before. Being forced to pick a side- one of 3: Celestial Realm, Devildom, or the Human World. Solomon picked. We know what he picked, but Solomon also didn't have any real attachments to the up or down. We do.

We've made friends with angels, demons, and even a neutral party. We have a connection with all three worlds, strong connections and we could go anyway which is very dangerous. Our connections made a new thing called 'The Ring' that make chaos in all three worlds. It was so powerful and unstable that it could've killed us and everyone if it wasn't severed or we got to stabilize it with the ring of light. We are powerful and are a threat. That is why Diavolo tried to send us back to the human world(which wouldn't work anyway) and why the mystery voice decided to warn us.

Who do I think this is? Simple, Michael. It makes the most sense. Let's talk about Michael aka the Sugar Jellyfish for a second. He is a very interesting character to me. We have yet to actually physically meet him in-game, but he sure does know a lot about us. It is quite possible he heard everything from Luke and Simeon after all, but Raphael tells us that he learned a lot of MC from Michael.

Michael is such a strange existence for me. He is a powerful being like Diavolo and of course, Lucifer. He is Diavolo's counterpart at this point more than likely since they are the de-facto rules of their respective realms. He shares a similar personality to Lucifer - they were like "twins" as Satan has put it. He was known to talk to out and not use violence as that was Lucifer's goto.

"Michael is calm, yet stern, when he is angry. He prefers to talk rather than use physical discipline, in contrast with Lucifer." - Obey Me Wiki (Michael). That is a great way to put it, but he wasn't above physical discipline.

Now, what about that sentence about the Celestial Realm being less tolerable regarding our behavior? That could be from the original game. We were getting very close to the Devildom. It is shifting the power too much for the CR's liking.

Barbatos said it all in the first game. After all, this is a continuation of the first game. When you finish lesson 80 the door will instruct you to go to Nightbringer to continue the story. When we were in the coma, the voice brought up the fact that they saved us before.

In the first game, there are only 2 separate events that the voice could be referring to. The event when we received the ring of light(38-17) OR when we got sent back in time in a dream from eating Solomon's cooking(44-18). I believe they are referring to when we were sent in the past. The Ring of Light saved us, not the voice in the ring event, but the voice did send us back to our own time from the food event. They also have the same tone.

Plus time wise- it makes sense. We were sent back when the brothers were still angels. So this event of us promising and falling under the curse technically happened after this. It makes more sense for the voice to refer to that than the Ring of Light event. If this is Michael, it makes sense he is still on edge. The war just ended, and the wound is still fresh. Time hasn't passed enough that he has come to regret his actions because he does. He has thoughts of what ifs and could haves. Luke tells us this about Michael looking at where the brothers' pictures used to be, about he's always asking about them, he kept so much stuff of Lucifers. He loved the brothers and misses them.

So if go by that, the event the voice has to be referring to is during Lesson 8 when we helped Adam. We opened the gate. We weren't supposed to open the gate. No one should be able to do that, yet we did. We did the impossible. We did it to help Adam. It wasn't meant to be a threat, but the CR sure saw it like that.

After all, no one knows us. We are in the past before we could make the friends we already have. We only have Solomon. The brothers and others aren't the ones we know. While Barbatos (probably) knows, he can't say anything. He has to let us do our own thing.

Nightbringer = Barbatos

New/ Old voice = Michael

I'm sure they are the same people that were talking to Solomon (10-A).

So again, I don't think Nightbringer brought us there with malicious intent. I think they brought us there for a reason- that reason is for us to be happy. And how are we happy?

We are happy where we were, with our friends that we made from all 3 worlds. The only way to have that is to get the ball rolling to where the story we know of will begin. When we are summoned to a certain council room as the new human exchange student.

So I think this is the beginning of our story and to start that, we have to make the world stable enough for us to be brought down in the first place.

There are still holes in this theory and will change as the lessons are released I'm sure since Candy(Thirteen's sister) might play a part in this since she keeps getting mentioned. There are bits that refer to Nightbringer as a demon and not a demon, but honestly, I think that is just meant to confuse the reader. Plus I like the fact that when Nightbrigher talks, the background is dark like the devildom, but when the other voice talks, we get light like the CR and when we were in the curse, first we spoke to NB then the other voice before we woke up. The reflection of the two is amusing to me.

[the-nocturnal-writer]

Evenfall Grove Dev Log 2

So real-life things have been kicking my ass, which was delaying everything I tried to do for the past few months. 🙃 A bit frustrating, but things have settled a little, so I hope everything will be back on track with my writing! 

Sorry for the lack of posting as well, like I said, lots of real-life shenanigans kept me offline and from being able to write. Now that I’m back, I’m going to finish designing the looks of some characters and as a bonus, I’m even going to draw concept pieces for certain locations in Evenfall (Like The Wolf Den)!

I plan to finish Ashborn up and get started on the second lot of romanceable characters- I shall reveal one name because I’m excited for them. 👀

ROWAN. Feral? Yes. Mysterious? Second to Heke. Overly calm about the chaos going on? Suspiciously so.

I won’t ramble on about it any longer, just happy to be back to things. I am, at least soon is the hope. Going to upgrade my equipment as well, while I’m grateful for my little Chromebook pushing through hell to work for me, I’d like to get a laptop I can actually use the software I need on, I’ve figured out ways on chrome to do it, it’s just not making my job easier. So, here’s to hoping I can save up soon (some are recommending opening commissions, but I’m still not sure…)

I have been brainstorming when I can! I had so many ideas I needed to get out, some not even relating to Evenfall (later projects for future Sin to enjoy). I’ll share some of my thoughts, but not all of them, don’t wanna spoil some stuff.

So I wanted to develop the MC’s background a little to better mix it in with the main storyline. It has a lot to do with their parents (who are deceased long before the events of Evenfall Grove). Basically, my brain needed a giant dose of ‘You have more to do with things happening then you think’, my favourite flavour of story. Yum. 

Another idea was only if going down Heke’s route, well it’s still present as a fact, but it’s only really touched on if the MC romanced Heke… Which will be very interesting to write (Painful too, but I think it will be worth it.)

Those are the two I can share without revealing and spoiling too much. Plus! I’ve got to get myself back into gear and catch up on everything.

Thank you so much, all of you! Thank you for being so patient while I get things in order and to new readers- Hello and thank you for your interest in Evenfall Grove! I hope to not disappoint… 🥺

Remember to hydrate, eat your meals and take medicine (if you take any)!

~ Red

[randomnameless]

"even if IS just said she was the villain and needed to be stopped, clear as day, people would reject it." Let's be real: the moment people started using "death of the author" to reject the Nintendo dream interview where IS confirms Supreme Leader is the villain, that's when we should've realized that people have already made up their minds and don't care anymore. It's like telling a flat-earther that the earth is not flat or trying to debunk a conspiracy theory to believers of that theory.

Tbh, I agree sometimes with disregarding the author's intent, especially in some games where the "author" wants to push "feels" and tells the olayer how they should react.

Take Berkut for instance, for a reason I still don't understand, SoV wants to paint him as a tragic figure, who ultimately redeems himself dying. You're supposed to feel bad for Berkut and sad for what happened, to the point where Alm, the Hero - who was challenged on earlier opinions - plainly states Duma is the reason why Berkut turned sour, and no one is here to tell him "uh no sorry to tell you but your cousin was a bona fide asshole".

Ditto for the devs's lunar interview about Clout's story being a "heart-warming story", like no, sorry, no matter how much you push for it, I personally don't think his story is heart warming, rather it's blood boiling.

Does it mean I use the "death of the author" like the people we're talking about?

Yeah, maybe!

But what is more gratting about those people isn't how they use DoA to make up their own canon and story (everyone can make headcanons!), but how they push their headcanon on everyone's lawns and asking for everyone else to treat it as the truth - the Aeneid is the perfect example, people really rec this fanfiction to have a "better understanding" of canon characters, or some people said it understands the characters better than the canon does. For a fanfic, sure, it's cool and all*, but to treat this as canon?

Like, there is no discussion possible between people who argue canon and others who argue using headcanons and imo that's the crux of the discourse bcs FE Fodlan is vague about 70% of its worldbuilding.

I don't like Berkut and believe he toasted Rinea because he loved being Rudolf's heir more than he loved her, but FE15 makes it uwu clear that Berkut apparently loved Rinea a lot and apparently torched her just because Duma promised him power, which makes somehow Duma the reason why Rinea was Bernie'd.

But you won't see me pop up in a discussion about FE15 or people talking about their favourite ships in that game to point out how Berkut burnt his fiancée at stake for "power" on his own volition - canon is canon - even when it blows - I'd rather rant about it and have my own HC in this space rather than piss canon-lovers/users with it.

Saying in your hcs Supreme Leader isn't the villain of the game?

Sure, do whatever you want, have a nice day, eat a sandwich, whatever. Maybe some people will join you, share your sandwich and you'll have fun developping hcs!

Saying in canon Supreme Leader isn't the villain and disregarding the dev's interviews?

That's going to be more problematic, in a way that this specific interview isn't subjective or open to interpretation (thus hcs, like Sylvia being FE4!Claude's relative or not), so people are going to disagree and be more vocal about it.

Some other blogs already explained it, but it seems like FE Fodlan attracted a lot of persons who aren't used to fandom, as in a place with transformative works and where making OCs and fics and having headcanons isn't "BaD" - so they try to retrofit canon in their headcanons because "fanfics" and transformative works are BaD etc etc (insert the general dislike for fanfictions from the early 2000s (?) and the regular/usual insults towards people who write fanfiction from the same era (them being fujos, etc etc)) so they're not writing fanfictions or arguing headcanons, no, they're just writing "totally meta pieces that are better than the canon".

Imo, the second you're disregarding canon to write something about a work, you're writing a fanfic (let it be a "real fic", random hcs, etc etc etc) and that's totally fine! You're not a "fujo degenerate" for not liking the canon and "rewritting" scenes, or building more stories about a character your like!

What's not "fine" is forcing everyone to adopt your headcanons and fanfictions - if the flower is red, you cannot force people to admit the flower is blue, otoh, if you write a story where the flower isn't red but blue, it's your story and you can whatever you want with it! Ditto with fanfic writers when someone argues canon against them, dude, you're reading a story where the author wrote the flower to be blue, like they gaf about the flower's canonical colour to be red - it's a fanfic!

Don't like, Don't read!

*not withstanding with the actual quality and body of the Aeneid, which isn't something I'd personally call cool or "alright", but that's another debate.

[acarrcreations]

Things I want in Path of Titans...

...which will never happen because the devs pander to the people who just want to fight and nothing else.

I've been playing for about a year now and it went from "oh cool a survival pvp dinosaur game I could play with friends!" to "running around to the same 3 places on the map trying to find someone to hunt with the risk of being attacked by a mixpack of 10+"

Can we have more *survival* please?

Force people to move around the empty map more. The hunger and thirst is far too easy to keep on top of too once you get the hang of the game. The survival advice for the game shouldn't be "stay around the outside areas of the map if you're growing"...

How about:

Have areas of the map which could kill you besides accidentally tripping up over a rock and dying by accident from gravity (the fall damage is comically bad). For example, tar pits you can fall into or lava pools.

What about fires, flooding, drought: these could change around periodically and affect whole areas (which would stop people from hanging around one area). An entire area of the map could be on fire for the duration of the server being up for example.

Events. Have special herds of dinos roaming around, have chances of hurricanes, meteor showers... they could be different each week.

Disease. Get poison damage from drinking dirty water, eating old meat, being a cannibal, being around others who are ill for too long. (Maybe you can get better with rest/drinking clean water/eating specific plants?)

AI dinos. I didn't like the idea of this originally, but it would fill the map up more. Might be a good idea to also remove the generated corpses too, force carnivores to have to hunt for their food.

Get rid of the trophies!!! I have a bunch of trophies and it can be satisfying collecting them sure, but all they do is encourage toxic behaviour (this could be achievements instead).

And speaking of the quests: they do get old fast. Though I'm aware that the devs are going to shake that up this year, so we'll see how that goes.

And before someone says "Go on community servers", I'm not interested in community servers. They seem like an even worse experience to be honest. I'm sorry but I'm not interested in learning a million hyper-specific rules. At least with official servers, there is still a chance to run into other players in any part of the map and with the high penalty for dying and slow growth rate, people will actually be more careful with picking their fights.

Also personal opinion but baby dino killing is... fine? It makes the boring growing stage more interesting and makes you have to do things like hide in bushes and listen out for threats.

I really enjoy this game and play it often but I won't lie that it really needs some variety. Also the devs really need to work on the existing problems and not just add more dinos.

[forgottenluck]

So, life update here.

I know i've posted a few of these recently, but life's kind of got me in a choke hold at the moment and I've had little time nor energy to be on tumblr.

Because lets face it, tumblr is very energy consuming. There's always some sort of drama going on in some corner, or the devs have decided to push another update....something's always going on, and it takes quite a bit of energy to push through and get things done.

That being said, things....are calming down for me a bit. (medical stuff under cut, as well as the rest of what i want to say.)

Mom has finally stabilized enough to where she's out of the ICU. The doctors still refuse to tell me how bad of a stroke she had, but from what I can see? It was pretty bad. She can barely talk, barely lift her hands. She has to have assistance for the most part eating. (not swallowing though, she's got a hell of a swallow reflex which is good.) Her memory is absolutely shot. I've come up to visit her every day i'm off, and she still asks me when she's going home. She doesn't remember me coming any other time.

As bad as it sounds, I'm glad this happened when it did. It puts further emphasis on the fact that I cannot take care of her by myself, which makes it more likely that insurance will pay for her to stay at a nursing facility. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate her, that i'm glad she's in the hospital....because I love her to death and want her to stay around for as long as she can. But I have reached the end of what I can do for her, had for a long time now...but was lieing to myself. I was destroying myself to care for her.

With her stabalizing, i've found myself with a bit more free time. Mosst of this right now is being spent unpacking and organizing. My whole life is in boxes and totes and it's....hard. A little bit every day. I finally have a desk set up and a few of my shelves for books up. my dresser is in the right place....I've got some more things to move out of the living room, but things are slowly coming together. Me and my roommate are getting together and buying the things we know we're going to need.

I've had to replace almost all my bedding, replace all the cookware...I've washed my clothes at least 5 times. it's been hard, and rough.

The other thing i'm trying to focus on is my...personal health. I'm trying to find a skin care routine for myself. Hair care. Body care. I've joined PlanetFitness to try and loose some weight. (i'm only 5'2" and almost 180lbs. i'm afraid if i don't start now, i'll hit that 200 mark) I've never really been able to actually care for myself, always been focused on mom, and her care that i've exhausted myself on my own.

I think the thing that will be the hardest to overcome....is the fact that I don't actually have to care for her anymore. I don't have to have her in the back of my mind; i can't stay out later than a couple of hours, I have to get home to get her food, i can't do anything without asking her first.....all of that doesn't exist anymore. I can stay out as long as I want. I only have to worry about myself for food and groceries. I don't have to ask anyone if i can even leave the house/apartment. It hit me today while me and my roommate were out at PlanetFitness, just how free I was.

And just how sad it was that I was just now getting to be free. I'm going to be 31 in september.....and all my life pretty much has been spent careing for her. My formative years? High school, college? All focused on her. I'm only just now experiencing what a fresh college student gets to experience once they leave home.

There's a lot that i have to figure out.....with myself, with my life. Where I'm going from this point. But one thing I know, is that i'm not leaving tumblr any time soon. While it may take me some time, and I may only have muse for specific things, specific people.....i'm not going anywhere.

Tumblr has gotten me through the roughest parts of my life. There's no way i'm abandoning it any time soon. I just...might take some time to cycle back around and get back to work. I just want to give updates on what's going on. Not many people may care, but someone might. And maybe, someone is going through something similar. A rough patch, a hard time. Might feel like the world is crashing down around them.

Take it from me; it gets better. It takes time. And sometimes, life just decides to hit you all at once. But it does get better. It took 15 years for it to get better for me. But it is getting better. Slowly, painstakingly slowly....but still, just a bit. Every day.

[slugcatmusings]

Vulture Grubs are Mimics

Adghsdjgsdg so - I was not expecting an actual Rain World Downpour dev to reblog my iterators are colonial organisms post.  Also they said that the brain organisms in iterators are named CoralBrain in the files so???  Is this??? Confirmation??  About my theory?? O.O

Anyway enough fangirling about that, onto more musings!  This time isn’t so grand as the iterators - me and my sis like talking about various rain world worldbuilding stuff (I’ve been coming up with fanfic ideas and I like bouncing ideas off of her in the car when driving her places), and today the topic of “what the heck are vulture grubs” came up!  

(Alongside the topics of “is symbiosis with the Rot possible” and “what would a large population of carnivorous slugcats need to survive in Metropolis” which yes are both related to the fanfic idea.)

Our first thought - and the theory that my sister supported for half the resulting debate - was that vulture grubs are just, you know, vulture babies.  They make lasers like king vultures when summoning vultures, and when distressed call for help and have adult vultures answer.  However, my sister also pointed out that vultures sometimes seem to eat the grubs, and while some species have cannibalism as a thing I’m kinda meh about the idea - it's an actual thing that happens in nature, yeah, but... well, meh.

So what are vulture grubs if not baby vultures?  Baby vulture mimics!  You know how some animals will imitate other, more dangerous animals to scare off predators?  That’s what the grubs are doing!  They’ve evolved to mimic baby vultures in order to discourage predators from eating them.  The structures on their heads vaguely resemble king vulture heads in shape, and the lasers are DEFINITELY a mimicry of the king vulture lasers.  The screech, too, is probably a mimicry - they sound like distressed baby vultures, and that along with the flashy laser light show draws vultures to the noise, which usually means that whatever big predator was attacking the grub is scared away in a panic!

Of course, sometimes that gets the grub eaten by the vulture, but it’d get them eaten a LOT less often by big predators, which would mean they’d survive for longer and in greater numbers than they would normally.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

AND NOW I HAVE INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE: THE TOP LINKS ON REDDIT ARE GENERALLY LINKS TO INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE'S SITES RATHER THAN TO MAGAZINE ARTICLES OR NEWS STORIES

To get rich you need to raise money, they try gamely to make the point that the web mattered again. Even if the CEO is a programmer and another founder is a salesperson? What exactly is personality? So class projects are measured. But in technology, you cook one thing and that's what everyone eats. And in addition to the usual clauses about owning your ideas, you also don't want your valuation to be set artificially low because the first investor you've closed, then this could be the tipping point of fundraising. Yet that doesn't seem quite right, does it? It's hard to give general advice about this, you're probably mistaken. You won't have to babysit the round to make sure it happens.

For a startup, what you want, like you could before. It means a tedious, unpleasant task. One thing I can say is that 99. You don't need to move from smaller towns to London. Where is the man bites dog in that? Gradually through word of mouth they start to talk about that for a minute or so. So in practice the deal is handed over to corp dev guys to negotiate. This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three. The startups that do best are fire-and-forget in the sense of an all-star team. It's not what they originally set out to do—in the process of realizing you need to start doing something people want. So for now this is something startups are deciding individually.

Don't try to seem more than you realize. But did studying logic teach me the importance of startup hubs. Back when it cost a lot to start a new fad—a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts. Nor will investors hold it against you, as long as possible. But there are some who have an explicit policy of only investing after other investors have is worthless initially. If you try to raise money, what should you do? Several turned down YC-funded startups have been doing to mitigate the risk of starting a startup just one year later, they had some new ideas. Seeing a painting they recognize from reproductions is so overwhelming that their response to it as a painting is drowned out. Which in practice usually means, whatever existing agreement he finds lying around his firm. A lot of nerd tastes they share with the creative class, with different tastes from the rest.

6 million respectively. Knowing where you stand doesn't end when they say they'll invest. We can, however, the works they produced continued to attract new readers. If you're surprised by a lowball offer, treat it as a business, rather than being distributed, like slices of a pie, by some imaginary Daddy. After all, a Web 2. They were intensely competitive and were always trying to outdo one another, this could cause some friction. If it were, you wouldn't need PR firms to tell you, because hackers would already be writing stuff on top of whatever you sold in phase 1. Actually it isn't.

That's been a reliable way to get rich, or you've failed. So when people compare patent trolls to the mafia, they're more right than they know, that they can issue this stock to themselves if they get bought early. Ultimately it comes down to is users. But we'll figure out some kind of wall between us. In fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it. And if someone was lazy, the others would sign the same documents and all the previous shareholders' percentage ownership is diluted by a sixth. They may if they are paying you x dollars a year worth of work, done by a class of people called philosophers. Of course, space aliens probably wouldn't find human faces engaging. And that is how startups should approach fundraising in phases 2 and later. A is clearly heard-of. Didn't it already mean using the web the way it's meant to be used. It's a good exercise for you, too, to sit down and try to trace it back to the root causes.

By the second conference, what Web 2. Most hackers probably underestimate their determination. You don't do that if you wanted to sell as a startup founder wondering why some angel investor isn't returning your phone calls, you can ratchet down the coolness of the idea far enough to compensate. Stanford. In a startup you're judged by users, and sources of new ideas. What kind of anti-dilution protection do they want? Perhaps they need to. I disliked the term Web 2.

Thanks to rew Mason, and Jessica Livingston for the lulz.

[bixels]

Honestly, the devs/writers really fumbled the bag by having you save Marina in the tutorial. For the rest of the campaign, she's just on your side. Making Marina the damsel-in-distress/the-villain-to-be-saved would've given Agent 8 some actual personal stakes in the conflict (I know these tropes have negative connotations, but just bare with me, I'm referring to Marina being a driving force for 8's journey). It would've utilized character relationships that were set up in Splatoon 2; Agent 8 canonically looks up to Marina as the first Octoling who made it out, and Marina deeply cares about Agent 8. Putting her big sister figure in danger would've really given 8 the right motivation she's sorely missing in the story. Otherwise, there's no real goal for Agent 8 and she's just doing this to save random strangers. Remember, it's not enough for Superman to want to save the world, he needs to want to save the world AND Lois Lane.

Also, I unlocked the second entry to Marina's diary, which briefly mentions that she and Pearl got into some arguments while preparing for their world tour and! Why didn't they show that in the actual game? Why wasn't it a part of the conflict? I feel like this is a pretty huge writing no-no. Don't just mention an important conflict between two main characters in the backstory! Use it! How is it affecting what's happening right now? The fact that Side Order's story apparently takes place AFTER this conflict's been resolved and Marina and Pearl and completely chummy with each other is such a shame. I want that juicy interpersonal drama! Give me actual conflicts that are motivated by character moments!!! I wanna see them argue!!! It's boring if everyone's constantly agreeing with each other!

At the very least, Pearlina fans are gonna be eating because honestly, alongside Marina's bonus manga from Coroika, I think her feelings for Pearl are pretty much canon. The right screenshot is real, I've checked.

Splatoon 3: Side Order is good, but not great. I still highly recommend it, but if you care about the story, you're going to be disappointed. Quick review: spoilers ahead.

Side Order was the devs experimenting with Splatoon's gameplay loop. The campaign is a rogue-like, and it works amazingly well. Super fun, super challenging, building my deck and fighting through challenges with the stakes of resetting really scratched an itch in my brain. They did a great job with it.

Unfortunately, I feel like priority went to game design rather than story. Much of the mysterious artwork we saw in the first teaser trailer was completely unused; turns out, all of that was just concept art that never made it into the final product. Side Order failed to make me care about what was happening. I don't know why the protagonist had to be Agent 8; it could've been anyone else and the story would've worked the same.

Octo Expansion was the absolute peak of meshing story and gameplay. The campaign's hook is insanely strong; we immediately empathize with Agent 8 because we know from previous lore that octolings like her have been trapped underground for all their lives. We care about her fight to the surface because it's a fundamentally ideological fight for freedom. The plot stuff about Tartar and the Thangs is just nice set dressing; 8's fight for freedom is the real story.

There's none of that in Side Order. I don't particularly care about Marina's metaverse, even if it's tied to Octo Expansion's story. I don't know why Acht is there other than backstory stuff. It really feels like 8 is just told to do something and she does it because she's the protagonist; she has zero personal stakes or motivations in the conflict. This is a story blunder the devs did in Splatoon 3's default campaign––forgetting to give the protagonist a personal reason to fight––that I hoped would be fixed here, but alas.

What makes it worse is that the gameplay and story progression are completely out of sync. I beat the entire game on my third run in 4 hours. With each run, you get up to two keys to potentially unlock bits of story. That means you'll get about one piece of the story every two runs. There are twelve pieces of the story; I got the first and then beat the whole damn game. Now I have to go back and grind to see the remaining story when I've already beaten the final boss and resolved the conflict. I missed the entire story because I never had to reset because I blazed through the gameplay! It's just a real shame that I experienced everything without knowing... why it's happening. The final boss had me asking myself what the hell is going on because I don't know the backstory at all.

Again, I still really recommend. The devs did a great job, but Side Order remains in the shadow of Octo Expansion's incredible success. Like the default singleplayer campaign, there's just a lot of lost story potential here that, while not necessary, would have really elevated this DLC into something amazing.

[suhacidal]

hello

it's been so long since i've spoke on here. i do apologize, to myself, for falling out of a practice that is so healing and transformative for me. now i am taking the time to sit and honor my need of expression, regardless of what is taking place around me.

so, here we are, in the last (full) weekend of the month. i can't say i'm shocked by how alarmingly fast the time has flew, because it was just mid-july, and i was celebrating life to the fullest. i started mones, flew back to my former state to party (and see the oomf-ilf...but that didn't happen), and spend time with my dysfunctional family.

now it's september. it's been a month at my new job, two months on mones, five months sober. alot to take in, really! this weekend, i was supposed to be spending time with my mother and sibling, but circumstances arose for that to be rescheduled (to my ultimate surprise). i think it was a necessary shift, given this would be the first extended period of time i've had off from work since starting. if they were still to have visited, i fear we all would've been miserable! so instead, i've been perpetually cleaning my room, which i think can be classified as my own personal hell. i can say i have been doing this task for the past several months, seemingly making little to no progress, regardless of the long, laborious hours that were allocated for completion. alongside that, the weekend has been spent battling lengthy bouts of anxiety and mania! it's safe to say that they are WINNING. i am getting my ass whooped severely in this battle. nonetheless, here i stand, living to tell my story.

i think the recent manic-induced depressiveness (or depression-induced mania) can be chopped up to 3 things:

my new job. so, i began working a new job in late august, which i am so grateful for! i quite literally asked for this job. i went in, looked around, and asked if they were hiring. to my surprise, i was greeted by the store manager with an application and on-the-spot interview! that day was overall amazing. my interactions with strangers were much friendlier than usual, and the consistent vibe for the day was abundance. abundance of smiles, abundance of opportunity, abundance of amazing experiences. this i thought would set the tone for my work interactions and environment, especially given that the manager i spoke to almost immediately asked for my pronouns. i would love to live in a world where that is the norm, regardless of presentation. me being very visibly queer was obviously going to warrant some confusion and curiosity, so i let it be. fast forward to me starting, my first day was great! the customers were eating me up, i was learning the registers (this is a retail job btw), and i had not one bad interaction. that was until we were near close and i was standing with my manager as she talked to a customer. she began introducing me while in the same breath misgendering me. now...as previously stated, i truly understand the confusion, but she asked me my pronouns. it kind of rolled off my back, especially since she immediately corrected herself. she started apologizing to me and said that she "slipped". this statement stuck with me. because, is that how you actually think of me? in the vain of which i was misgendered; is that actually what you see? and not the identity i was vulnerable enough to come to you as--the one you sought out of me? i tried my best not to spiral and allow grace for mistakes and growth within this new environment; an environment that is not mostly or all queer like i'm used to. this would have been a sentiment i held onto if that was the only time this happened. my manager proceeded to misgender me again, as well as most of my coworkers. i was flabbergasted at this point and heavily considered tendering my resignation. i very obviously am not respected in that space or being regarded as the individual that i am, so why should i stay? the thought has been on my mind for a moment now, and i've been trying to devise a plan to make sure i'm not jumping ship with no lifeboat. needless to say the entire debacle has significantly impacted my mental health. this is without considering the interactions with customers. their perceptions of me can range from one thing to another instantly, no matter how i'm dressed, no matter how i sound, no matter how i begin to perform what i think will appease their curiosity around how to approach me. it's all very tiring and has made me question the basis of disregarding my wellbeing for the sake of money, and even partially for the sake of social interactions. i truly don't know where to go with this one.

hormones. now, this one is a more modern realization. i've been going back and forth and back and forth on what could possibly be perplexing me so, only to realize the massive emotional shift i'm undergoing. it was much more obviously felt within the first few weeks of taking them, but i feel now the noticeability has faded into the background. as with anything that becomes a routine, i've grown used to the thoughts and emotions that have became amplified by the presence of hormones. it's taken quite the toll on me, honestly. i can't lay in bed most days like i'd like to. i feel as if i have to put on a mask and perform for a crowd of people every day. i've began to be more assertive and possibly mean within my interactions because i felt as if i was just being pushed over. never in conversations around gender, though. whatever the customers perceive me as is their business. although, i am growing weary of the polarizing views. but i'm guessing that's something i'll have to learn to live with...? i don't know.

the looming, overarching shadow of dread casted by responsibilities i've yet to attend. there are alot of things in this world i'd like to do. attend to these responsibilities is not one of them, however i know i must to live worry-free. well...worry-free of these responsibilities. there is so many other things i have to focus my worries on, and these do not need to be taking up so much space. almost 70% of the responsibilities consist of facing emotional traumas in regards to my parents. another reason i was so grateful for the opportunity to be alone this weekend is because of the strange relationship i hold with my mother. yes, i love her, and yes, we ki down very often, but there is alot to be addressed within our dynamic that has been left unacknowledged or simply unspoken. her perception of me aligns with those that are convoluted by societal definitions of gender norms, which obviously creates some distance. i do my best to give transparency and vulnerability despite this major character flaw. i've explained to her the meaning of nonbinary, just not in my case scenario. i just don't know what's to come of it when i do finally demand respect. i know it needs to happen ASAP especially because...what have i got to lose? besides the odd relationship where alot goes unsaid, my livelihood is not at stake for me standing in my authenticity and claiming visibility in front of my parents. i don't know why i act as if it's life or death for me in this situation. the whole thing has been bothering me for quite some time now, and even more so with the progression of physical changes induced by hormones.

another thing i forgot to mention in my first point is the newfound access to recurring deposits of money. it's convinced me that the world is at my fingertips and i can spend my whole check in a week without batting an eye. i know my first few checks went to rent, but the last one, i couldn't tell you. actually, yes i can--that one went to bills as well. it's unfortunate that living in this world means working to survive. not to rest or reap the fruits of your labor, of course! i've been compulsively shopping with what i have left from squandering on bills. the manic spending of money has made things more dreadful for me, because i'd like to save. i've been too deep in the "live like it's your last" mindset for a while now and it's time for a change. i cannot say i'm completely disappointed with those decisions (i acquired some cool stuff), but i could be doing much better and living wiser without the see it, want it, have it attitude.

the main thing keeping me afloat right now is another planned trip back to my former state, this time specifically to reunite with oomf. also for a friend's wedding, but that's tbd. the details were given to me in passing and forgive me if i don't remember the very vague sentiments that were expressed. this friend also doesn't talk to me often, or at all for that matter! we may have exchanged one or two conversations since i moved. mind you, this person was a best friend to me, so imagine my shock when i was left on delivered for months. anyway, a trip away from the usual humdrum of life always gets me going, and this time i actually will get to stay with my oomfita. things have been rocky for us lately, so i'm kinda riding on this trip to provide us with some stability, and maybe even deeper connection. it's going to be their birthday so i'm hoping to make it very special. (me being there should be special enough...just saying.)

i can truthfully say that sitting down and intentionally dedicating time to write and express has lifted a weight off of my shoulders, and tended to some of the overwhelming anxiety that has been plaguing me for who knows how long! i must do better at holding myself accountable to talking/writing, even if there isn't much to say. i also have to give thanks to the soundbath i've been listening to the entire time i've given correspondence. it's been itching my brain in all the right ways. i just feel very zen and very light, finally releasing so many thoughts that have been with me for so long. i thank myself for getting up here, because i know it was not easy. i am excited to come and visit again tomorrow. hopefully with some prompts!