#WoW is an MMO but still. my point stands

[wp100]

been playing a bit of fable lately because the love is in the air event burned me out real bad from WoW

God, I love this game

[fatherentropy]

Entropy's guide to Final Fantasy XIV

Just a handy dandy little guide for no reason because you literally don't need a guide to play the game and be happy but I keep seeing misconceptions about it and they're driving me UP THE GODS BE DAMNED WALL so here we ARE

FINAL FANTASY XIV WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED IN 2010

AND IT SUCKED

There's a ton of different series based on the absolute shenanigry that was involved in FFXIV 1.x but the important part is that most of the development team were either fired or moved to other departments and were replaced by the current Producer; Yoshi-P and his team. They tried rehabilitating the game as is but it became increasingly apparent they were going to have to do something drastic so they shut the game down and completely redid it. Keeping in mind that Square Enix was not doing well financially at the time, this means their budget was not very big and it shows from time to time.

2.x otherwise known as A Realm Reborn, is a completely redone base game. Over the past couple of years the devs have done a lot to improve the base game for longevity reasons but it's still kind of awkward and a bit of a slog. Be patient, dick around, honestly I do recommend playing around on the Free Trial unless you know you're going to be playing awhile because it isn't time gated so you can go at your own pace (You just can't exceed a certain level or quest at the end of the first expac; Heavensward, and you have a TON of content you can access despite being a trial.)

Still a lot of people just do not like ARR (or subsequently the expac Stormblood) and this brings me to my next point

2. THERE ARE "JUMP BOOSTS" SOLD IN THE STORE TO SKIP STORY AND CLASS LEVELS

If you're new to the game dO 👏 NOT 👏 FUCKING 👏 USE 👏THESE 👏!!! Even if you aren't interested in the story, the game is training you for the mechanics that come in later in the game.

You'll see it time and again where a WoW streamer or someone will come in and try FFXIV but they'll treat it like their old mmo and say it's a terrible game but you'll watch their streams and they're standing in twelve AOEs and refusing to do mechanics shouting about the healers being terrible. The game is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED so that you have to do mechanics and not stand in shit. If you get one hit by a AoE Marker in end game every other person was trained to avoid from the beginning of the game, idk what you want them to do tbqh!!!

3. AT THE END OF THE DAY FFXIV IS A FINAL FANTASY GAME

The focus of this game is story and will always be story. Unlike western games that all decided cutscenes were bad for some reason, you will literally be inundated with them. Not all of them are voiced. That is a lot of reading. Pace yourself.

There are different story arcs (expansions) but the story of Final Fantasy XIV is one continuous story from beginning to end and it references past events all the time because it's still relevant. The devs try really hard to make sure old unexplained questions get addressed and their attention to detail is pretty great. We literally just had one of our mysteries of base game explained but also maybe with a tie in for future content.

FFXIV has been described as being one of the best single player MMO experiences and that's getting truer all the time. Devs are only a couple dungeons away from having made every single dungeon you are required to do for story available to complete using NPC teammates instead of real people.*

Our Raids have story and cutscenes. Our non required dungeons got story and cutscenes. If you're not interested in story you probably shouldn't be playing this game. We do have a raiding scene and FFXIV has probably one of the lowest entries into raiding so it's easy to get into but it's not going to be the WoW Raiding scene other people are used to.

Also stop complaining about the unskippable cutscenes that show up in very select dungeons. They are Like That™ because old players used to kick new players for trying to watch them because they're trying to speedrun. It's a thing we all gotta struggle through because of people without empathy.

If you don't have time for things to go bad, don't run that content.

*this doesn't include Trials which are big boss fights but when you realize NPCs can't do more than one (1) mechanic at a time you begin to realize why there's exactly one trial they can do in the entire goddamn game.

4. WESTERN AND ASIAN FANTASY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

I keep seeing people scoff at Asian fantasy because it's not what they're used to in fantasy like GoT or tES but idek why they're compared?? Final Fantasy is inspired by dungeons & dragons, sure, but it's also inspired by shit like

S T A R W A R S

I'm not even remotely joking about that. Once you realize that it becomes more apparent the more you look. 80s Star Wars was HUGE in Japan. As my sibling says, it's not really a Final Fantasy game unless you end up in space for some reason.

This is ofc not even mentioning that the values and cultural infuences of different European countries tend to be different from one another let alone fucking JAPAN at the other end of the world.

Some weird and wild shit happens in the game that you wouldn't see in your typical Western fantasy stories but to be quite honest some of the complaints I see against Asian anything is quite frankly Racist. (If you have had the notion that Asian things are just worse than Western stuff then I may have news for you!) I would just try and come at it thinking it's an entirely different genre than try and force it to be something it just isn't nor should be.

I might add more to this as the salt takes me but!! I've said my piece... for now.

[everlastingremorse-blog]

Hey, thank you so much for responding. You brought up a lot of points that I didn’t consider, but by doing so I now have a ton more questions. Are you comfortable answering more? And if not that makes sense too, no pressure.

Does the sexualities of the character ever matter, or is it just fan service? I’m not opposed to sex scenes/sexuality in media, I just think it should matter. For example, the scene wear Shalltear complains about her panties getting soaked could have been cut (or at least the parts of her complaining) and nothing would change at all. And even though the groping scene was annoying, I could stand it because it provided new information (to Ainz at least). Could the writer have done it differently/ less sexually? Absolutely, but I could stand it for what it is. You bring up a good point about the straight appeal though. If Albedo was an incubus, and I found it hot, I probably would have been less annoyed. That being said, I would be less annoyed because I’m being entertained in a different way. It would still be as annoying, and I’d probably still roll my eyes and go “of course that’s what he does.” But I could add at the end “but that’s hot.”

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the plots being hard to keep track of? Is that in the later seasons? Not that I’m trying to say you’re wrong, it just felt that the plots in season 1 were very easy to keep track of. I think I can see what you mean though, but respectfully I have to disagree. Complexity doesn’t necessarily lead to tediousness.

The first thing that comes to mind is Dimension 20’s A Starstruck Odyssey. I don’t know if you’ve watched it, but the season ends with the main characters being chased by 6 different groups that are almost entirely unrelated to each other. And yeah it had some boring moments, but it didn’t feel as Tedious to get through.

Oh, and I totally see what you mean with TTRS. I like a good character drama, but some of their character arcs are just so forgettable.

Honestly, real glad to hear it explores that premise (non-humans) further down the line. It’s what initially drew me to the anime. That all the main characters were monsters. I was just so disappointed and dissatisfied that they did nothing with it by the end of the first season. It was literally what I was here for.

I also feel like I didn’t give all the fights a good shake, but I think I still disagree with you. I’m feel like I should have been the target audience for the fights. I played a few MMOs when I was younger. WoW, Adventure Quest, Wizard 101 (if that counts). And I love it when casters have names for all their spells.

It still felt really flat for me. I saw a lot of hype for the power up scene before his fight with Shalltear, and I just thought it was so mediocre. Looking back at it, you can see the seeds of his deception there. I had noted that he used “Magic Ward, Holy,” and I was like “that makes sense, we’ve already been told that’s his weakness.” And when he ended it with “ha, you fell for my trap,” I was genuinely like “that was cool.” But besides that and a few others, almost none of those spells matter. For example, the first spell he casts was fly. He does eventually fly, but even then he barely uses it, and fairly quickly returns to the ground. Even though he cast multiple spells, their uses were barely acknowledged.

I also explained myself poorly, but I’m not sure I can explain better. Action itself can be boring, if that makes sense. Nabe vs the Skeleton Dragons comes to mind. She takes way too long to even hit them and what little impact it has is instantly negated. She keeps stopping to talk to her opponent (which is a problem outside of just overlord. Authors need to trust that their audience understands what’s going on, but I digress), and she doesn’t even find a clever solution. Monsters with magic resistance are incredibly common for casters to face, and then these characters can find interesting ways to defeat these enemies. Not in overlord. Nope, she just casts an even more powerful spell.

So I guess my question is, what do you find entertaining about the fights? It could totally just be a difference in tastes. Apples and oranges, and all that.

Once again, are the threats to Nazarick and Ainz breaking the world in later seasons? Because I would have loved to watch that, but it isn’t in the first season. Ainz didn’t do anything to break the world in season 1. I would have loved to see what Nazarick does next, but it feels like Nazarick hasn’t done anything yet.

That being said, I totally get why you like Ainz. It’s the same with Gabiru for me. I think Gabiru is a dumbass who needs to lose his ego. He has a fucking hype squad and it’s so dumb. I love him.

I had just assumed there would be danger in the fantasy world, but honestly, I don’t care. Like you said, it’s a danger to the characters, but I don’t care about the characters, so why would I care about the danger to them? And why do you care about the characters?

In my last post, I kinda exaggerated how flat Shalltear’s character was, but it’s barely any bigger than that. We are given basically 4 traits for her. 1. She’s horny for Ainz. 2. She cares about Nazarick. 3. She’s very strong. And finally 4: She stuffs her boobs. Visually, she’s just a borderline loli, goth vampire.

I understand and get that Ainz cares about her, but that isn’t reason enough for me to care about her. It’s kinda disappoint because there is so much potential. If, like you said, the show is trying to show that Ainz sees these characters as his children, that would be great to watch! There is so much to explore there! He’s treating these sentient beings as non-autonomous creatures because that’s what he’s used to. It would parallel their enemies treating these sentient creatures as brutish, animalistic monsters. That’s no where in season 1 though. I would have loved to watch that! Is it there and I’m missing it?

How did you get invested in the show? I couldn’t get invested in the show not because it was too complicated, but rather I felt like there was nothing for me to care about. I didn’t really get lost in the season, the season was pretty straightforward.

I’m also unsure what you mean by “look at it from Ainz’ perspective.” The whole anime (the majority of it, at least) is from his perspective. It’s kinda tell don’t show. I understand that Ainz cares for Shalltear. I even understand why. That doesn’t make her any more compelling to watch.

Again, thank you for responding. I remember looking at the bad reviews for it on Crunchyroll, and almost none of them were about the show. Im glad to get your perspective/input, and thank you for all the thought you put into your response. It gave me a lot to think about.

So I just finished watching season one of Overlord, and honestly, severely disappointed.

And to be fair, I’ve been pretty tired of shonen anime/manga with overpowered protagonists for awhile now, but it’s more than that.

In contrast, I really enjoyed That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. Admittedly, I wasn’t tried of the overpowered mc, but I still enjoyed it significantly more than Overlord.

So let’s compare the first season (13 ep) of Overlord with the first 14 ep of TTRS (end of the orc invasion arc).

Now I did have fun with overlord. The key moments was when Ains was annoyed by the angel, when he crushed Clementine, and when he started equipping items in his fight with Shalltear, and any time Cocytus was in frame. That was pretty much it. Everything else was mediocre in my opinion.

Now it’s been awhile since I saw TTRS, but if I remember correctly, I had fun in these places: Rimuru’s interactions with Veldora, his fight against the dire wolves, his interaction with the dwarves king, his fight with ifrit, the death of Shizu, his fight with the ogres, that time Gobta fucked with Gabiru, any time Gabiru was on screen, orc cannibalism, and the defeat of Geld. Besides that, I was pretty amused when watching the rest of TTRS. I enjoyed the rest of it even if I thought it was stupid. I’ll get more into that later.

Now something significant is that I wasn’t as annoyed with TTRS as overlord, specifically with the fan service. I’m gay, so I’ve always found female fan service kind of annoying, but fuck off Overlord. Albedo and Shalltear’s rivalry was dumb and annoying whenever it was on screen, and starting the show off with some mild groping was barely bearable. And don’t get me wrong, the fan service in TTRS is also annoying. But Shuna and Shion suddenly getting bigger boobs isn’t as focused on (if I remember correctly) as shalltear’s underwear getting soaked. Seriously overlord, fuck off.

Now the fights in Overlord was boring and tedious to get through. I get it’s the trope of naming your abilities and stuff, but it really takes away any of the spectacle of their fights. Like even though I know both Ains and Rimuru are going to win, at least the fights in TTRS is interesting to watch. Overlord is basically just “I’ve got my shield that can block anything.” “Lol, it can’t block this,” over and over and over again. Even if Rimuru is just dodging and running fast, at least it’s something to watch.

The parts of Overlord I enjoyed was basically the “there’s a bigger fish moment.” I find it fun when the antagonist suddenly realizes they messed with the wrong person. But there was nothing else drawing me into Overlord.

As for TTRS, I actually cared about the characters and character drama. Like when Shalltear gets brainwashed in Overlord, I had NO reason to care about her. The only character trait she’s shown is that she’s horny for Ains. And unless you’re horny for her, SHE’S BORING TO WATCH! Unlike TTRS, where I can get invested in the Ogres as victims in political machinations. Sure, you can be horny for Shuna, or Shion, or think Benimaru and Souei are badass, but they have more to their characters than just aesthetic appeal.

So, like I said, even though TTRS felt stupid at parts, it never felt tedious. Gabiru’s hype squad: Dumb as shit, fun to watch. The king of the forest is a giant hamster: The joke is that it’s supposedly cute. Just dumb.

TTRS has some interesting themes about sentient beings treated as subhuman because they aren’t human.

Overlord hints to that with the Slane Theoceacy, but does nothing with it. I know season 2 deals with Lizardfolks, but I doubt I’m going to watch any more. And Overlord has some interesting monsters! Cocytus as an Isopod warrior is fucking cool! That rules! TTRS doesn’t have anything that isn’t vaguely human shaped, and all women have got to look sexy. That’s boring, that’s annoying! But at least they explore what that means in a way overlord doesn’t.

In conclusion, overlord is meh and TTRS is alright.

If anybody who likes Overlord can explain why/ if it improves, please do so.

[autumnslance]

To be honest I didn't like the twins when we first met them. I thought they were brats who felt their opinion only mattered (considering they come from a nation of scholars it made sense). I was glad we got their character development kinda early cus I really did want to like them. So glad to see them mature as the story went on. What were your first thoughts on them?

I don't think we're supposed to like the Leveilleur twins when we first meet them.

As an adult, I was like "OK, Alphinaud is obviously a combination of privileged upbringing, and being a teenager with too much education and not enough life experience." I could eye roll and get through it, but there were definite times I wanted to metaphorically slap some sense into the boy.

Alisaie was a non-character for the longest time, until I finally got to Heavensward patches and then into Coils with my FC, as well as her Rising short story. I remembered her also being bratty and impatient, in similar and different ways than Alphinaud, but her re-introduction in 3.4 showed her as very changed from her brief moments in ARR.

It didn't help that while I started end of ARR/early HW, it took me two-ish years to play through 2.0 as it was a side game, I had a rough time with the controls, and was still doing a lot of things in WoW. And I was used to WoW characterizations and storytelling, so didn't really pay as much attention my first, disjointed long time through.

I decided I needed a full replay at some point after busting through the ARR patches, after spending a day at the Unending Journey rewatching cutscenes, realizing how much I'd forgotten, and how much was missing. And knowing, once I flipped over to FFXIV as my main MMO end of HW/early StB, that the characterization and storytelling in this game was a whole different thing from my other game.

Alphinaud being nearly broken by the end of ARR and the Banquet is necessary but still heartbreaking. He needed a lesson, but the cost was so high. I genuinely worried for him through HW, and he needed that win in 3.3, to save Estinien after all the tragedy and loss and other traumas through the MSQ. The shift from annoying young coworker in a managerial position cuz inheritance, to beloved little brother and comrade happened over time until it caught me by surprise. Alphinaud rebuilt himself from the ground up, and his empathy with and righteous anger at Vauthry showed how far he's come. In Endwalker, he seems less worried about taking on a leadership role, as he's avoided since the Braves fiasco. He may finally have regained that confidence, tempered with maturity and understanding.

A lot of Alisaie's development comes offscreen after her epiphany in Coils and the events there. Her walkabout of the realm let her experience an entirely different way of life than the pampered Sharlayan lady, and let her truly be herself in a way she couldn't be before. Her compassion for others has always defined her, but with an impatience and temper she's learned to control. To think before she speaks or acts. She's a leader in her own right, but in a different way from Alphinaud, and as always, the twins, while able to stand alone, can also complement each others' styles.

I do think Alphinaud has one of the best character arcs and development in the game. Alisaie's right there with him, but with so much being offscreen or more subtly in the background, he edges her out a bit. The twins are the WoL's co-protagonists through much of the MSQ; learning, reacting, speaking up, and otherwise involved in ways our Silent Hero cannot. So their growth has been necessary, and has been good.

I'm proud of both of them, and love them dearly.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few  years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

[tanakavox]

A look into the multiverse chapter 8 SAOA

Many thanks to my friend friend @bssaz97 for his work on the reactions. And TheGoldenBoy2188 for the strict for SAOA making writing easy. The next reaction will be a suprise so stay tune.

Amidst the streets of Mantle, Whitley Schnee walked towards a destination while wearing a disguise consisting of a coat, scarf, shaded glasses, and a flat cap. He had a mission and he would not waste this opportunity!

It was not every day that he could simply leave the manor without Father's permission or notice so he needed to be quick but not noticeable. He had waited months for this day to arrive. Whitley had pre-ordered the latest MMO game of his favorite game series a week before the initial release date and had come to pick it up. Having connections in the right places certainly did have its benefits. The only downside was he had to acquire his prize somewhere outside of his father's notice. So what other place to go than Atlas's sister kingdom.

Outside of his notice, a young white haired faunus woman with sheep ears followed close behind him. Fiona Thyme was out picking up some food for the rest of the Happy Huntresses when she noticed an unfamiliar person walking around. She knew almost everyone on this side of Mantle, so a new person popping out of the blue was very suspicious. Normally she would have reported this back to Robyn but upon further inspection she recognized who this person was.

It was the sole son of the worst man on Remnant and the newly appointed heir of the Schnee Dust Company, Whitley Schnee! Why was he here in Mantle?! Fiona determined he was up to no good and decided to follow him. Wherever the SDC goes, trouble usually follows!

Whitley finally arrived at the destination he was seeking… the Post Office! Now all he had to do was open the door, enter the establishment aaaaaand- stare dumbfounded as the inside of this place was a theatre.

"What the-? This isn't the post office. Where am I?!" Whitley shouted at no one in particular.

"Ah-ha! Caught you right where I- Huh? Where the hell? This isn't the post office!" Fiona also dumbfounded.

"Whitley?" Both Weiss and Winter stated in a mix of shock and disbelief at seeing their little brother. Maybe some hostility on Weiss part.

"Weiss? Winter? How-?"

"What the hell is this?!" A loud female voice shouted as four more people arrived out of nowhere. Consisting of two normal sized humans, a bunny faunus and a very large man.

"Coco/Velvet/Fox/Yatsuhashi!" Teams RWBY and JNR said collectively.

"Oh hello everyone! This… is a surprise! When did you get to Vacuo?" Velvet asked the group.

Fiona turned towards the new strangers, "Vacuo? What are you talking about? You're all in Mantle?"

"I'm most certain we're in Vacuo at the time." Yatsu spoke.

"You are in neither at the moment." Ozpin spoke up.

"What the- Teach? Weren't you supposed to be dead?!" Coco confusingly points out.

"I believe an explanation is in order."

*One short but informative explanation later*

"Wait so we were brought here to watch… alternate realities?" Fiona says after she and all the new arrivals had been told everything about the theater.

"We call them viewings but yeah pretty much." Ruby said.

"Hold on, I can understand why all of you were brought here, seeing as you all are huntsmen and huntresses. But that doesn't explain why I'm here." Whitley, having taken off his disguise.

"A great question indeed." Weiss mutters.

"I think I have a theory." Blake stepped forward. "So far now, I've noticed that the people who are here have at least some involvement in the viewings that we have been seeing. Remember that one viewing we saw of Whitley being stuck inside a video game?"

"I was stuck in a video game?"

"Also if you die in the game you die for real." Nora added.

Whitley's eyes widened at the implications.

"Well you're still stuck as far as we know. But apparently you're very good at the game so you might be fine." Jaune clarifies. Slightly feeling guilty that his alternate is the one who traps him there.

"Oh joy, now I'm trapped inside a place against my will in two realities!" Whitley throws his hands in frustration.

"Oh boo hoo! Is the rich boy gonna cry because nothings going his way today?" Fiona says in a mocking tone.

"Oh I'm sure you would know so much about crying and complaining about trivial things, thief." He shot back at Fiona.

"At least I think about the people of Mantle! When was the last time you thought of someone outside of yourself, Schnee!" Fiona retorted.

Winter sensing that this conversation was going nowhere stepped in between her brother and the happy huntress.

"Enough! None of us came here by choice so let's just stop this pointless arguing and move on."

Fiona huffed, "I couldn't agree more." She stomped away from the two siblings and found herself a seat in the theater.

Winter sighed, "It may not be ideal but as long as you are here Whitley, I would just suggest sitting tight and wait until you or all of us are able to leave this place."

"Hmph, very well. Thank you sister, it almost sounds like you care." Whitley took his leave and found a seat that was about four seats away from Weiss's team.

"Isn't there anywhere else you want to sit," Weiss practically hisses.

"Oh but Weiss it's the only seat that's close enough to you." Whitley affirmed.

Weiss groans in frustration, 'Hopefully it's only for one viewing…'

An acoustic guitar plays in the background as a montage of the events of and post-Episode 1 appears on the screen and a narrator began to talk.

" A month had passed since that fateful day. When everyone's world got all twisted, leaving them stranded in a castle in the sky. Since then, 2000 poor souls came to an abrupt and tragic end. Some by bad luck, others by sheer stupidity. I mean, really. Why would you just stand in fire? Anyways, that didn't bother The Kid none. He only cared about one thing, and one thing alone. Himself. 'Cuz in a game of life or death, you either live... or you die."

The scene transitions to Shirou leaning against a wall with an annoyed look on his face.

"What?! Two thousand of the players have died already!" Ruby yelled, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"Not surprising, seeing as many of them looked weak last viewing." Cinder coolly replies.

Many huntsmen and huntresses glared at the red clad woman. She paid them no mind.

"Well thank you very much Narrator, you're doing a wonderful job of explaining the total death count of this video game prison." Whitley commented dryly.

"Oh, WOW. What brilliant insight! It's so deep it loops right back around to being stupid." Shirou snarked.

"The Kid ranted at no one, it slowly dawning just how alone he truly was" Narrator continued..

Whitley's eyes narrowed, "Am I being sassed by the narrator?"

"Maybe you said something to piss them off." Fiona added.

"Wait, what was that?" Shirou asks, shocked.

"He asked the sky, like a preacher to his silent gods."

"What gods? What are you talking about?! It's all bullshit metaphors with you!"

"He cried, not knowing the difference between a simile and a metaphor. The tininess of his brain dwarfed only by the tininess of his di-"

Whitley's eyes narrowed and face twitched at how much of an annoyance this narrator was being.

Weiss was doing her best to conceal her smile but was failing and breathes out a laugh. She was enjoying the exchange that her brother was going through and found it amusing. Her team gave her a side glance while Fiona and a few others laughed at the roast session the young Schnee was being given.

"Narrator off." Shirou commands the system with an annoyed tone.

"YOUCANSILENCEMEBUTYOUCAN'TSILENCETHETRU-" The narrator got cut off.

"Dick."

"Thank gods that's over, that narrator was extremely rude." Whitley sighed thankfully now that the narrator was silenced.

Weiss and Fiona grumbled that their fun was ruined.

Fade into December 2, 2022, on a strategy meeting led by man called Diabel. He gave a big smiled out to the crow

"Hey everyone. Thank you all for coming to our little powwow. Now, I know many of you may be discouraged by the fact that 2000 people have died so far."

" WHAT?!" A player screamed

" 2000 PEOPLE ARE DEAD?!" Another screamed.

"IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A MONTH YET!"

"OH MY GOD, WE REALLY ARE FUCKED!"

"Pretty much, sucks to be you!" Mercury laughed.

"These are the people that have to survive this game. Honestly what was blondie expecting," Emerald facepalms.

"Hey! Just because they've lost numbers doesn't mean that they have to lose hope!" Ruby glared at the two assassins.

"And I know even more of you are a little down because we haven't even cleared the First Floor yet." Diabel added, trying to keep the smile on his face.

"WE HAVEN'T?!"

"I THOUGHT WE WERE ALMOST DONE...!"

"You were saying." Cinder looked back at Ruby.

"Well…" Ruby trailed off, thinking of a way to defend these players.

Diabel's smile wavered

"Uh, you guys do know there are 100 Floors, right?"

"WHAT?!" A crowd of players yelled.

Diabels sighed a bit.

Ruby, despite her best attempts, also sighed and sat back down.

"Oh jeez, I am just making things worse. Point is, we found the Boss Room!"

The crowd gasps.

"Now, we've formulated a few strategies with some help from the beta testers-"

"BETA TESTERS?!" A voice yells out.

"Oh goddammit!" Diabel groaned argnily

A player named Kibaou jumps in.

Kibaou, what do you want? Diabel looked tired addressing this player.

"Beta testers? They're the reason we're stuck in this game!" Kibaoyu sneered

Many that heard this player's statement and quickly frowned at his blatant accusations towards these 'beta-testers.'

"This guy can't be serious, right?" Coco stated.

Dianel looked at Kibaou flatterausted at the stupidity of the statement he heard

"What?! Do you have any evidence to back that up?"

Kiabrou scoffed at the question. "Pfft! Evidence. I don't need no evidence. Isn't that right, Jesus?" He points to a player named "Jesus"

" It's pronounced "Hey-Zeus", and I don't know you."

"Wow, really selling your reasoning by having no one else to support your claim." Jaune stated while crossing his arms.

"Well, they still should have helped us newbies!" He exclaimed

"If I might interject...:" A deep voice called out.

A big muscular man gets up and comes to the stage.

Velvet taps Yatsu's arm excitedly, "Hey you're in this game too Yatsu! …oh gods you're in this game too."

"So it seems," Yatsu, doing his best to keep a straight face.

Coco lowered her shades along with a confused look. As far as she knew, Velvet was the only one who played video games on their team. Unless...

"And who the hell are you?!"

"I am known by many names.", "Closed eyed demon. The memory easer., "Hooked clawed tiger". But you? You may call me... "Velvet".

"Velvet huh? That's a... pretty masculine name." Kibaoru said adwarkley

"Shouldn't be. It's a woman's name." Velvet replied casually.

"Damn it. I had a feeling but I didn't want to be right." Coco cursed quietly while shaking her head.

"Wait, why would Yatsu have a character named after me? That doesn't- ...Oh ...oh my gods." Velvet's eyes widened at the implications, tears starting to build. That is until she felt a nudge on one of her shoulders. She turned her head and there was Yatsuhashi looking at Velvet with a gaze that said, 'It's not your fault.'

"Kay, I don't know how to talk to you."

"Good. Then you can shut up and listen. Does everyone here have this book in their inventory?"

" Yeah.

" Yes."

"Yup."

"Yeah."

" No... Wait, can I change my answer?"

Velvet/Yatsushi held up a book to show to everyone.

" This book is full of tips and strategies on how to survive this game, put together by the beta testers. Everyone read it, yet some people still died. The beta testers did everything they could."

"Yeah, that means Mace Hair has no reason to blame the beta testers!" Ruby points out.

Many of her friends nodded and Yastu's team smiled at the sound defense his alternate presented.

" Actually, I didn't read it." One player chimed up.

"Yeah, I didn't read it either."

"I skimmed it."

"OH COME ON!" Many members of the audience shouted in agitation.

"What? Didn't ANY of you read it?! It is literally a matter of life and death." Velvet exclaimed

"Well, dude. It's like 80 pages." A player pointed

"2000 people are dead!"

"THEY ARE?!"

"Again. These are the people that have to survive this game." Emerald reiterates.

Brief pause. Shirou looks shocked at their stupidity.

"I am so done with you people." Velvet mutters, walking off the stage.

" What do you mean "you people"?" A player asked a bit offended.

The Faunus in the room narrowed at their eyes at the implications made by that player.

"What do you mean, "you people"?" Fiona asks no one in particular.

Velvet and Kibaou take their seats.

Diabel continued with the meeting. "So, as Mister Hooked clawed tiger was saying, this book has some great strategies, including how to beat the First Boss, Illfang."

He clears his throat and starts reading from the guide.

"So as you enter the Boss Room, he's gonna throw wave after wave of disposable minions at you... and you must answer in kind."...?

"Uh, what?" A player asks, mirroring Diabel confusion.

Many in the audience reacted just as confused. All except Whitley, who had a good feeling where this was going.

Diabel continues

"Send the weaker players first. Good rule of thumb: If a player asks you for gold 2 seconds after meeting you, front lines."

"Ha, serves 'em right!" Kiaboru said with a laugh

"If they hijack conversations to rant about their political views, front lines."Diabel said with a smirk looking at Kiaboru.

Kibaou went pale. "Aw, shit."

"Ha! Serves you right!" Nora laughed.

"If they ask female players for pics of their boobs, front lines."

"OH BULLSHIT!" One player screamed out in rage.

"THAT'S DISCRIMINATION!" Another one howled.

"BOO!"

Many of the women in the theater frown at the way those players reacted. Winter was more than certain that those players were the type that participated in the mentioned acts the speaker spoke on.

Diabel smiles and waves them down. "Now, now, people. I think there are some valid points being made here. Now, it goes on to say when Illfang's health goes into the red, he's going to switch from his axe and buckler to something called a "Talwar". At that point we should initiate a strategy called "The Final Solution" and- I'm just gonna stop reading! Jesus, who wrote this thing?"

Shirou giggles evilly.

"Of course Whitley wrote that book." Weiss sighed.

"Why sister, it sounds like that didn't surprise you in the least." Whitley pretending to act hurt.

"Please. The manipulative tone of the text almost makes one sound too much like you." Weiss bit back.

"Well I suppose you would know." A wide smile on Whitley's face.

Weiss scoffs turning her head away from her traitorous brother.

Team R_BY and Winter watched the exchange and sighed.

"Okay, so the guide's a bust. But it'll be fine. I'll come up with a great plan for us." Diabel smiles at the crowed.

"Like what?"

" Well... we... could... Uh... Uhhhh... I'm open to suggestions."

"Woah, guys, we could- we could, you know, like, group up and-"

"And hit it 'til it DIES!" Another yelled finishing the other player sentence

"Woo, nice!"

"Yeah!"

" High five!"

The two hive five.

"Well. It's something, right?." Velvet does her best to be optimistic.

Many of the more experienced members of the theater shake their heads.

"That's... a good start. But let's hear some other suggestions."

"I'd like to hear more about this "Final Solution"." A player in a german accent piped up.

"Fuck it, group up." said Diabel said tirely.

Shirou slides down the seats towards a girl, named Fiona, who's on her own.

Fiona blinks in surprise, "Oh my gods, that's me! I'm in the game! Hey other me, stay away from the Schnee!"

"You have my condolences." Weiss says to the sheep faunus.

"So, why aren't, uh, you joining anyone's group?" Shirou asked.

"I have my reasons." She said mysterioly

" Is it because you're a girl?"

"No. It's because... I don't know how to play."

"Because you're a girl?"

Many of the females and males who enjoy video games, such as Yang, Ruby, Velvet, Nora,, Jaune, Oscar, Ren, surprisingly Mercury and Emerald, along with Fiona herself, threw questioning glares towards the current heir of the SDC. Weiss and Winter glared at him as well but for other reasons.

Whitley looks around to see all the glares directed towards him. "Why are you all looking at me? I said nothing."

"No!" Fiona snapped. "It's just... I don't know how to open the menu."

"What?" Both Fiona and Whitley asked.

"Jinx!" Nora shouts.

"What?!" Shriou looked at the girl in shock. "But you can't do anything in this game without the menu. How have you survived all month?"

Cut to Fiona holding a piece of bread. She is staring at it intensely. "HOW DO I EAT YOU?!" She screamed at it.

Many laughs were had at the poor girl's predicament, despite some of them doing their best to not do so but could not help themselves.

Fiona slowly sank into her chair, covering her face in shame. Her alternate was the utter definition of a newb player.

Back to the present.

"It's... been a challenge…" She muttered before looking at Shirou. "What about you? Why haven't you join the others?"

"Oh, lots of reasons. Mostly because they're a bunch of mouth-breathing neckbeards who think "LMAO" is how French people laugh."

" Ha ha, that's so Le Mao!" Said one player far away causing to Shirou shudder.

Whitley in the theater also shudders in disgust. If these were the people that he would have been surrounded by inside the game, then he too would have avoided them like a plague.

"Wow. You certainly... speak from the heart."

"Funny, I thought I was speaking from my mouth. But, eh, shows what I know about biology." He said with a smirk.

"No one else wanted you in their group, did they?"

"Shut up! It was mutual!"

"And who would blame me? Have you seen the players of this game? I'm honestly surprised they lived this long."

"You're just saying that 'cause no one wanted a smartass on their team." Fiona smirked.

"I'm sorry, were you speaking Menu Girl?" Whitley nonchalantly retorts.

Fiona's face grew red in embarrassment and agitation. She wanted nothing more than to raise her hand and activate her semblance right now. 'Give me a reason Schnee, I dare you.'

It cuts back to Diabel smiling and clapping his hands.

"Alright, looks like everyone's grouped up. Get plenty of rest tonight, people! We leave at noon!"

A player groans "Noon?"

"That's so early!"

Diabel sighs. "Alright. What about 1 o'clock?"

" Dude, come on!"

" God, fine! We leave at the crack of... 2:30, I guess. Lazy butts…"

"Christ, I'm gonna have to set my alarm."

Everyone in the theater did not have high expectations for these players as they would face their first challenge.

Cuts to December 3, 2022 Floor 1: Illfang's Tower, 7:30pm. Everyone's at the Boss Door and everyone except Diabel is exhausted.

"Okay, so there were a few more stairs than we realized. Apparently real life athletic ability translates into the game. Good to know." Diabel looked out to the sad sight in front of him.

"Oh, god. I can feel my lungs trying to kill me." One player whined.

" Is this sweat?!"

" I peed a little."

" Jesus, this is sad." Diabel said with a grimace.

One player vomits.

"Congrats Jaune, someone else has now become the new Vomit Boy of this viewing!" Yang exclaimed.

Jaune rolled his eyes at her attempt at making him feel better.

"Fuck it. Why don't you all just take a Cheetos and Mountain Dew break, and we'll reconvene in an hour."

1960 Batman-Esque transition with Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

" Dammit, guys! I was kidding! You weren't supposed to actually take an hour!" Dibal said in a rage."God, we've lost so much time. Let's just do this already! You all know the plan!"

Illfang jumps into the center of the room and roars. Kobolds pop in, and an error message pops up on the third one that says "Error: "Sentinel_ " not found."

Ruby and Nora laughed at the mob that got glitched.

"Alright, men!" Diabel began,"Form up and-"

"EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!" A player screams

The armies converge on each other.

"Are they serious! You can't just go gung-ho in a boss battle!" Jaune exclaimed at the increasingly apparent, dim-witted players.

"What?! No! Goddammit guys!" Diabel begins to bark out orders. "Squad B, quit attacking the Boss and keep the Sentinels off us! C, D, stop attacking from the front! Do you even know what "flank" means?! Squad F, for fuck's sake! Stop playing Bejeweled! *Groans* Squad G, get in there and help A and B!"

"Got it!" Shirou said with a nod rushing in.

"Don't talk back to…" Diabel did a double take."l Holy shit, really?!"

"How is Whitley the most sensible minded player in this game?!" Weiss asked.

"Weiss, have you seen the other players?" Blake asked her in a deadpanned tone.

"...Yes you're right, that's actually too much of an insult." Weiss admits.

Shirou attacks a Sentinel, leaving Fiona to finish it off.

"Okay, Fiona! What you're gonna wanna do here is-"

Fiona lets out a Battle Cry and kills the Sentinel in one hit.

Fiona in the theater perked up at this display, "Oh my- I can fight! Oh thank gods I can fight!"

Shirou eyes widened in shock "Wow, I thought she was hopeless, but her technique is flawless. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's even better than I-"

"Hey Shirou! I killed the thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?! Fiona cried out to him in fear."

Shirou rolls his eyes"Or... maybe... not."

"Miss Fiona, either your alternate is very lucky or is very out of base with technology. I can't tell which it is." Whitley stated.

"Shut up Schnee, she's trying!" Fiona defends her other self.

Illfang's health drops into the red. He snarls at the players and he tosses his weapons.

"Alright, men! This last part's gonna take careful coordination…" Diabel ran towards Illfang. "which is why I'm just gonna do it myself!"

Diabel charges his weapon art. Illfang draws his Ōdachi.

Ruby's eyes widened, "OH NO!"

Shirou looked and saw the weapon and his eyes widened calling to Diabel. "Oh shit! Diabel, look out! That's not a Talwar! It's an Ōdachi!"

"What's the difference?!" Diabel ask still running towards Illfang.

"Well, a Talwar is of Indian descent while an Ōdachi is Japanese! While both are primarily slashing weapons, the Talwar was favored by cavalrymen, as opposed to an Ōdachi which was mainly used for dick measuring!" As Shirou is talking, Illfang starts jumping off the walls.

" What's your point?!" Diabel asked impaintely.

"Well if you let me finish, I was getting to that! You see…"

Diabel gets hit by Illfang, screaming in pain.

Many of the huntsmen and huntresses in the theater either gasped in fear or looked away at the surely doomed player.

"What's happening? Did I miss something?" Fox called out.

"Oops." Shirou sheepishly said.

Illfang hits Diabel again, sending him flying.

"DIABEL!" Kibaou yelled out.

Illfang pops down in front of Kibaou and roars. A message pops up "Bonus Item: Soiled Pants". Above Kibaou

"Hey, rare drop!' A player said cheerfully.

Mercury laughed at the joke while most of the others were disgusted by the fact that that achievement was unlockable.

Shirou runs over to Diabel and holds him up.

" I was trying to say an Ōdachi's a little bit longer than a Talwar, so it'll have more reach and do a bit more damage."

"And why couldn't you say that first?" Diabel asked weakly

"Yeah you dummy! You almost might've killed him!" Ruby cries out.

Whitley was actually taken aback by that statement. Sure he had moments of pride and arrogance, sometimes he looked down on people but he didn't believe he would ever intentionally kill someone.

" I like to think of myself as a teacher. Anyway, drink this."

Shirou tries to give Diabel a healing potion but he stopped Shirou shaking his head.

"No. It's better this way. I just can't do it anymore. I had such high hopes at first. But now? Our best player is a girl who thinks DPS is some kind of sex thing." Both turned to glance to Fiona.

"I know. It's weird, right?"

Fiona sulked more into her chair.

"You're clearly not like the rest of them. How do you stand it, Shirou? Where do you draw your strength?" Diabel look at Shirou like a sage.

Shirou sigh and drops his wisdom onto him. "I've been playing MMO's a long time, Diabel, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that lions do not concern himself with the opinions of sheep. Just take that little voice in your head that tells you to be tactful and understanding... and shoot it. Shoot it in the goddamn face."

" You are so wise. If only I'd met you sooner. Perhaps, things would have been different. You must lead them now. Show them this game can be beaten." Diabel let's go of Shirou wrist.

Weiss was taken aback that this man was actually willing to place trust in this alternate of her brother. This stranger who barely even knows him placed the lives of all the players into his hands. Much like how she tried to trust Whitley once… this caused a bitter frown to grow on her face in recollection. Even if this was a different version of him, it was still Whitley in her eyes.

Shirou smiles fondly at Diabel. "Another life... in another time... I think we could have been friends."

"I... doubt it." Diabel gasps out before turning to shattered glass, dying.

" Well fuck you, too!" Shirou said angrily his smile dropping into a frown.

Fiona slips in by Shirou's side and began to lay out a plan.

"Alright, Shirou. Here's what we'll do. One counters his blows to knock him off balance and the other switches in to attack. Rinse. Repeat. Victory."

Shirou looked at her with one eye. "You came up with that, but you can't open a menu."

"Shut up!" Fiona cried out.

Illfang roars and they take off running toward him.

"Alright, so you counter and I'll attack!" Shirou yelled to Fiona.

"What? No, it's my plan! I should attack!" Fiona yelled back.

"Fine, just get ready!"

Shirou makes a battle cry and counters Illfang's attack.

"SWITCH!"

Fiona moves in and gets her cloak destroyed by Illfang before attacking revealing white curly hair and sheep ears.

" See? You almost got yourself killed! I'll attack him!" Shirou yelled again and began to attack Illfang.

"Oh, that was a fluke, and you know it! He's mine!" Fiona yelled back.

Fiona attacks Illfang.

"Oh shit. They're actually giving that boss the work!" Coco called out.

"He's mine!" Shirou yelled.

Shirou blocks Illfang's next attack, but Fiona attacks him before Shirou can do so himself.:

"Mine!" Fiona screams

"NO! HE'S! MIIIIIIIIIIINE!"

Shirou slices Illfang and he explodes. Everyone is stunned. Lame party kazoo sound effect and a banner with the word "CONGRATULATION" appears.

"Yeah!" A player cheer.

This caused almost everyone in the audience to laugh. Despite the dark humor of it all, it was still pretty hilarious.

"What happened? Did they win?" Fox asks

"Oh yes, I'm sorry Fox! They beat the boss and a victory banner came out."

"...heh." Fox chuckled.

Shirou is panting. He gets an item as a reward for defeating the Boss.

"Congratulations!" Velvet said, patting him on the back. "That was even more impressive than that cat that learned to play."

Cut to a player with a cat's head, with another player staring at it.

"Meow."

"Huh what did you know?" Yang replied.

"Oh my god! You guys can see it too?! So I'm not crazy! Isn't that great, Jesus?!" We see things from the players' perceptive, with a giant hallucination of Jesus Christ looming over the crowd.

"That's right, Jeffrey. Now... kill them all." Jesus said, his voice growing darker.

"As you command, my Lord." Jeffrey whispered.

"Somethings very wrong with that guy." Qrow states.

"I honestly agree with you, Branwen… Blegh! That left a horrible taste in my mouth." Winter stated.

Cut back to Velvet talking to Shirou. The other players are applauding his victory.

"You've led us to victory, Shirou. These men and I will follow you to hell itself. Now... address your people." Velvet is smiling and pushing Shirou to the crowd.

Shirou gets up and smirks. "I always knew this day would come. Ahem. Fellow gamers! We have traveled far and up many stairs to get to this point. Fighting side by side, noobs, and leets, alike. I'd like to take a moment to say that I couldn't have done it without the help of each and every one of you."

"Aw, that's a nice thing to say-" Velvet was cut off when Shirou counties.

"Of course, I'm not a liar, so I'm not gonna say any of that."

"Oh shit."

"I thought as much." Weiss states.

Shirou grins look at the group. "I mean, really. I could've done this whole Boss Fight myself. But to be fair, I guess you did absorb a bit of damage for me, which was nice. You were an adequate meat shield, and no one can ever take that away from you."

"Fuck. Fuck! Shut up! SHUT UP!" Velvet started to say.

"So for those of you who came in late, and that one guy playing Bejeweled back there... shoot for the stars... it'll make it more fun when I kick you back into the dirt."

"You're not better than us!" Kiaboru said.

"Yeah! What makes you think you're so cool?!" Nora shouts to the screen.

Shirou equips the coat he got for beating Illfang and smugly looks at the group."My sweet-ass coat begs to differ."

"Dammit, he's got us there." one player muttered.

Shirou ascends the stairs out of the Boss Room. Fiona follows him and grabs him by the shoulder. "Shirou, wait!"

Those in the audience looked on at Fiona's alternate in hope. Surely she could turn him around after their excellent display of partnership.

"I want half." She said, staring at him blankly.

That hope was quickly squashed, shot at, and finally burned to death via gasoline and cracking a fire dust crystal.

Shirou turns to her confused. " I'm... sorry. What?!"

"I want half the coat. I did half the work, I should get half the coat." Fiona explain and extends her hand for him give it to her.

"No! It's not fabric I can cut! It's just a bunch of 1s and 0s!" Shirou was getting frustrated.

"Fine, then give me the 1s."

" Fuck you! I want the 1s!" He groans and open the menu. "I am not having this argument. I'm disolving this party." Shirou opens his menu and "Di-solves" their party.

"Shirou! If you walk away with my half of the coat, I will make your life a living hell!" Fiona screamed.

"You know what? Fine! I'll give you the damn coat! Just send me a trade request."

"A... what?"

Fiona's eyes widened as she watched from the theater, "No…"

Shirou grins viciously "Oh, it's quite simple really... Just open your menu." Shirou starts laughing maniacally as he walks out the doors as Fiona screams at him:"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" At him.

Outro Plays.

Fiona screams, "I can't believe the nerve of that-! GRAAAAH!"

"Can you please stop screaming! You're going to cause everyone's ears to bleed." Whitley said while using a handkerchief to rub his ears.

Fiona huffed then matched off, going to another place in the theater.

"Well that was interesting. So you all say there's other viewings where we see other worlds besides this one." Coco asked the group.

"Oh yeah, we've seen a couple worlds ourselves, but only a handful I'd say." Yang admits.

"Well as long as we're here, we might as well take time to catch up." Velvet smiled.

"Yeah, this will be great! It's almost like we're back at Beacon, right Weiss? ...Weiss?" Ruby looks beside her but noticed that her partner was not with them anymore.

In another side of the theater, the all three Schnee siblings stand together. Both of the youngest siblings look at Winter who brought them here.

Winter clears her throat, "I understand that there are some… tension between the three of us during this viewing. So I asked you both here so that we may come to terms with our situation."

Weiss scoffs, "Come to terms with him! I highly doubt that."

Whitley crosses his arms, "Yes it does seem like a lost cause Winter."

"Enough! Both of you!" Winter raised her voice causing both of her younger siblings to go rigid. "I'm not expecting you to get along or even apologize to each other at the moment. What I ask is if you two can at least act civil with one another while in the theater?"

Both Weiss and Whitley looked at each other and sneered at each other.

"Why of course I can be civil with Whitley. It is a virtue of a lady to be civil at all times." Weiss said with hidden venom.

"Quite true, but being civil is also a quality an heir of the Schnee family must cultivate as well. So I look forward to spending this immeasurable amount of time with you my sisters." Whitley said with his best presentable smile.

"Yes, how I enjoy us taking this time to reacquaint with each other." Weiss said while one of her eyes was twitching.

"Well then sister, shall we?" Whitley gestured for Weiss to go ahead of him. Almost would have been believable if one did not notice the glint in his eyes and his strained smile.

Winter watched as both Weiss and Whitley walked back to the auditorium where everyone else had remained.

"...This can only end badly."

Hope you enjoyed.

[osakasshitpit]

I love Final Fantasy XIV

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and after playing for around 180 hours, I haven’t even finished A Realm Reborn. Normally, 180 hours is an insane time frame for a game to manage and hold my attention. Persona 5 Royal was 180 hours of game time, and that was slowly outstaying its welcome. FFXIV must be doing something right, because just recently I went to a convention and bought a Y’shtola Keychain in a heartbeat. I haven’t had time to play XIV a lot prior to this, since I was stupidly grinding Praetorium for days and got burned out. I haven’t played much in 2 months, and Y’shtola only really has a minor role during A Realm Reborn’s Storyline. Despite that, I started in Limsa and Y’shtola stuck with me since then. I just had to buy that keychain. My girlfriend asked me about it and despite me staying away from the game after being burned out, I explained to her in great enthusiasm why I loved Y’shtola and why I loved the game so much. I think that’s the first time I really realized how attached I was to this world, these characters, this game.

I came to FFXIV after having played WoW from Vanilla through WotLK, after having barely ever touched a MMO since quitting WoW. Honestly, I was very skeptical of XIV but holy fucking shit did it ever win me over. They are completely different games, mind you, but that is a good thing in my opinion.

So here is the longest tumblr rant post I have written so far, I think.

To be fair, the first 20 levels or so were kinda slow. You get thrown into the deep end and get bombarded with lore and characters, terms and phrases that you don't understand. For fucks sake, the opening cutscene shows Louisoix fighting Bahamut front and center. Its this big, epic moment of sacrifice, but to someone who has not played 1.0 and who doesn't know anything about the lore, this just zips right past you. During the main story of ARR, they keep talking about Louisoix and how important he is, but you haven't even seen the guy because he died before the game even started. I only really realized this today, it took me 180 hours and a look at the wiki to connect the dots. It really is a slow burn, but that slow burn was okay because everything else was so fantastic.

While the world can arguably be more subdued than Azeroth in parts, there is still this distinctive style that I quickly fell in love with. It’s fantastical, but it still feels grounded. Part of that has to do with how the game introduces you to the world, and how the main story quests explain to you the lore bit by bit. I feel like much of the world design of WoW was down to “the rule of cool”. Now, I’m not saying XIV doesn’t have that, but I feel like XIV always goes the extra mile to explain why this cool shit is here. Everything you see out there in the world feels like it has a purpose, a reason to be there and an explanation on how it works. The factions make sense, the political conflicts you get entangled in are believable. I feel like I am kind of biased to be honest. What got me to play FFXIV in the first place was seeing that Viera are a playable race. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy, not in short part to my memories of Playing Final Fantasy Tactics and XII. XII is still my favorite game in the series, and much of that has to do with the world, Ivalice. Viera were always my favorite race of the ones seen in Ivalice. Seeing as you can play a Viera in XIV, I just had to try. Thinking about it, XII and XIV have a lot in common when it comes to world building.

One of the weirdest things to acclimate for me was how FFXIV handles story. I was used to WoW, where story was basically non-existent and you did what you did to see numbers rise and to unlock now content you could do. You are basically never involved in the story of WoW, you are just kind of there for the ride. In FFXIV, you are the main character. You are involved in what happens at all times, and that is kinda strange coming from WoW. At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but the game made it work in my opinion. I also didn’t expect there to be so much of story to begin with. Kind of ironically the moment I realized just how much there was to experience was when I went through Ul’dah and saw a blue quest. Now, blue quest markers mean there is some content you can unlock by doing this quest. A lot of these are kinda short, with a bit of dialogue and some bits of lore for you to enjoy and I thought this one would be no difference. After all, the hook is basically just to help this lady mourn for the death of a friend. What I got was a fabulous detective adventure that spanned over the entire continent, where in I had to help the worlds most manly detective uncover the secret behind a mysterious phantom thief. To say the least, this 21 quest long quest line brought be hours upon hours of joy and had me in stitches throughout. And it was completely optional. I don’t think I even remember a single moment from any quest in WoW that made me this excited for it, optional or otherwise.

Ultimately these are very different games that try very different things.

Dungeons and Raids were a different thing. I remember when I rolled a new character for WotLK and wanted to do karazhan because I used to like doing that raid with my guild back in TBC. I could not for the live of me find a group willing to do it, because everyone was way more focused on the new content, so they could get better gear. Regardless, it just wouldn’t have been the same experience anyways I fear, because the new gear from the new Dungeons outclassed the raid gear from TBC, so karazhan would be way easier and a much different experience. In FFXIV, every dungeon is level synced by default, meaning if a higher level character joins, they get basically downgraded to the level the dungeon was designed for. Couple that with the Duty Roulette feature and suddenly, there was always someone to do any given dungeon with. I remember when I had to do the crystal tower raids and thought “why would they tie main story progression to a raid, I will never find a group to do that properly” but low and behold, I found a group within 30 minutes or less and raided through the entire set of raids within a day. Dungeons and Raids are generally a very pick up and play thing in FFXIV. To be fair, dungeons got easier and more pick up and play in WoW too, but Raids were always the endgame thing where you had to gear up and learn to play. In FFXIV, much more lenient. No corpse walking required. I say this, but I have yet to do the Coils of Bahamut or any Savage Raids. I have only heard that there is plenty of hardcore raid content for those who want that.

That’s nothing to say about the actual gameplay. FFXIV is a tab-target MMO, like so many others, but it manages to keep this kind of gameplay fresh by introducing a lot of mechanics that make the game more active than the typical “I stand here and hit my rotation a lot”. For starters, most enemies have special abilities that you can actually dodge by moving out of the way. There will a area marker on the floor and everyone within that area will be hit. It starts out easy, but later dungeons really start kicking your ass with this mechanic. You really need to say on your toes. In addition, every class is extremely different. They all have special mechanics unique to them, special meters and resources they will have to manage during combat and so on. For example, a Red Mage (the class I’m playing currently), has two meters that fill up as you cast spells. They generally have two types of spells, white and black magic. Each type fills its respective bar. Once they are both full enough, you can go in and do a more powerful melee rotation. However, if one bar is fuller than the other, the other bar will fill up slower. Since you need to fill both, you want to balance that out. You get instant casts for spells after performing a damaging spell, and you have some spells with a short cast time and good damage output that you want to cast and then use the instant cast of to cast a more damaging spell that has a long cast time. But these short cast, good damage spells require a you get from casting a spell of the respective type. So, in essence, you want to balance your use of black and white magic, but you also want to use the proc you get from casting your white and black magic, which means you cast more of the type which inherently unbalances your gauges. It becomes this micromanagement game you play with your procs and instant casts, so you can go in and do the big, flashy sword combo. And that’s just the red mage at around 50. Every class has something like this, and it’s all unique to them. Learning a class is not just learning the rotation and spells you have anymore, it’s really learning how to effectively play your class. Also, positioning. Some abilities do more damage from certain positions, so you will have to dance around an enemy to hit all the sweet spots with classes like monks. These complexities get introduced slowly as you level up, so you have plenty of time to learn the mechanics. My favorite feature might be the class system itself, though. In FFXIV, you aren’t limited to one class for the entire duration of your characters career. You can, from a certain point forwards, choose any class you wish and level that up instead. You can freely switch between classes outside of combat, too. If you are dedicated enough, you can level them all up to max, even. This means if you don’t like a class or the direction a class is going in, you can switch. I for my part started as an arcanist, so I unlocked Summoner at 30. I played Summoner up to 50 but I was just not meshing as well with the direction the summorer went in. So, I switched to Red Mage and after some getting used to, Its now my new favorite. Arcanists are special, because you actually unlock two classes at 30, so I also unlocked Scholars. Scholars are healers and that became my main dungeon class, since queue times are way shorter for healers. This would be unthinkable in WoW, and love the fact this is a thing here.

If I had to describe it, WoW is an MMO with RPG Elements, while FFXIV is a JRPG with MMO elements. I didn’t know I needed that, but in retrospect, it makes sense. The thing that really killed my progress in WoW was that I didn’t have anyone to play with anymore. My friends all dropped from the game and while I generally like doing solo content from time to time, I’m pretty introverted, after all... MMORPGs are usually most fun with friends. Final Fantasy XIV is a JRPG first, an MMO second. There is so much to keep your attention as a solo player, its nuts. All my friends who play this game, play on a different data center, so I can’t even visit them. Despite that, I had a lot of fun in my time with the game.

My experience with the game was incredibly positive, and I don’t think it will get worse from here. Everyone keeps telling me how great Heavensward is. I just have to finish 16 more quests and I’ll be able to see for myself what the fuss is about.

Honestly, if I had to say anything negative, it would be how longwinded ARR is. I mean, its not bad by any means, but I can see how someone could be turned off by this huge storyblock. Worst of all is, after you hit 50 and reach the end of ARR’s story line, there are 80 quests before you can even start with Heavensward. Since everyone keeps going on about how great it is, it’s kind of annoying how long you have to work to even get to it. In retrospect, it kinda makes sense though. These quests are meant to be played over months and months throughout a update cycle and bridge the narrative gap between one storyblock and the next, but holy fucking shit why did it have to be THAT long. They even cut like 20 of the quests from this already insanely long quest line. What the fuck. This is supposed to be an epilogue to ARR and it feels like I played a whole fucking JRPG in between ARR and Heavensward. Oh well. Thankfully, they learned from this and made the post-story blocks shorter.

I will just say that I can recommend this game. You should give it a try. Just... try not to drop the game before it gets really, really good.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Saw you've been sucked into the MMO life in the form of FFXIV and I was wondering if you had any input into the debate I've been having about what class archetypes tfw would play. I think Sam would be most likely to tank because it requires a reasonable amount of leadership and is also more of a quiet, backbone type role compared to dps. Dean seems more the type to be singularly focused on the big damage hits tbh. He also tends to take more of the charging in and fighting role in their normal life with Sam being the one reading up on everything more carefully and being his backup. Which leaves Cas as healer which may just be me projecting because I play healer/support at every opportunity but literal angel healing aside I think that sorta fits too, he cares a lot for them and tries to keep them safe and shield them as best he can in their adventures? Idk half formed thoughts please completely contradict me if you want I'm genuinely curious about other people's opinions here

Heyooo :D It is less sucked into and more like I’ve returned to the warm cushiony nest of MMOs lol

If you’d asked me back when I was a WoW player I’d have fully agreed because you could only have one class per character and these are definitely the snap decisions that the fam would make when on the character screen. Dean would grab the sexiest DPS, Sam the stoutest tank especially as he’s the one who has read into the classes and strats beforehand, and Cas would ask what to do and be given the healer role because the other two in this scenario would know better about the game and sort of lump it onto him like, oh, we need a healer and you can do this.

(In my own gaming journey, this is what my friends and brother did to me, as they needed a healer to round out their party... I took druid because it was spoopy, and discovered in WoW that while you can’t change classes you can pay gold to respec your character’s role within that class... Promptly re-specced to a melee dps/tank feral druid instead of the healer one, and had a lot more fun :D)  

In FFXIV you can take all the classes on your character (which I have done, natch) and it’s a much more interesting levelling approach, especially seeing how my friends playing the game have gone when it comes to taking classes as they level and why they claim to have tried and then rejected others. It’s an enormous personality test, even for peeps like me and my brother who have all the classes up at max level, which ones we prioritised and which ones we sort of struggled with or found a bit meh. 

Hm so in the scenario that Charlie comes bursting into the Bunker demanding that she needs some friends for dungeons and raids and they’re all sitting on their asses scrolling the internet between a case, they can bloody well play final fantasy with her for a bit, let’s go for some headcanons :D Long because FFXIV has become my current obsession and I have the same in-depth feels about it as I do about SPN but I just never get to write about them with anyone... 

First off, Sam of course has deep nerdery about it and will ask Charlie a ton of questions about what the right class to play is and do the same thing as we’ve already discussed and go for Paladin (which starts as gladiator), and also take all the crafting and gathering side classes because he’s a nerd and you learn nonsense lore while doing it. He’s also in the same starting zone as Thaumaturge which transitions to Black Mage and I BET he’d be tempted to have a little safe witch!Sam emotional release on the most un-Sam class. It’s the big unwieldy spell caster whose literal class quests and stuff make fun of how you’re small and squishy and will be standing in a very bad spot debating whether to finish a long-cast spell and get hit or stop DPS and run for safety. I think he could do with the perspective and learning to be selfish either way to blow off steam from tanking and also learn to prioritise himself IRL :��D Also the paladin quest is WEIRDLY pro-cop from 30 onwards for some reason until the writers saw sense and just. stopped. doing paladin stuff and went back to the Gladiator storyline for the class quests, so idk if he’d enjoy that or start to question other things. Whatever it is he’s getting challenged XD

At 60 he grabs Gunbreaker because it sounds more cool and is thankfully way less emotionally stressful tanking as it’s entirely about being a badass bodyguard and sick flips. This is far more aspirational for Sam, especially as he could just tie a knife to a sawn off shotgun and do these moves for real in his day job. He won’t, but like with black mage, the thought that he COULD is very emotionally satisfying to him.

He might also have decided to check out scholar to see how healing is but idk if he would be able to handle Dean teasing him for having a fairy follow him around so he’d only dabble with the nerd class on the side :P  

Now, Dean can’t take ninja until level 10 or machinist (gun shooty DPS class) until 50, so his start point as DPS would either be pugilist (eeeey brass knuckle class!) or the other DPS classes to start with are Thaumaturge/Black Mage, Arcanist/Summoner, Archer or Lancer. Now. He’d probably think the first two are sissy because magic is for girls/arcanists literally only have a book as a weapon. Archer becomes bard and I think is ultimately a place he’d be very happy as it is a very supportive class to the whole party and basically the mom friend class. But I would love if he went lancer/dragoon because the level 50 class weapon is (folklore inspired name) “Gae Bolg” and every time I equip it I can’t help giggling at the name even though I know it’s a real thing and I shouldn’t. But. Like. It’s the class about waving enormous lances around. It’s got Implications, and Dean is drawn to those. 

He’d probably, however, take rogue/ninja as soon as he could because stabbing things with knives, and the class trainer is the kinda guy who’d have wild gay tension with him while they both try to boast about women to each other, were they to meet irl. Ironically, the rogue trainer (a womanising charmer) and the ninja trainer (an intense, honourable guy bad at social cues even among his own people who ends up falling from grace and choosing to stay in the vicinity of said rogue trainer) are an interesting pair of NPCs to teach Dean about where to stick knives. :) 

He’d go back and power-level dragoon once he starts Heavensward though, because Aymeric is also super intense with messy dark hair and big blue eyes that see right through you. :D He’s getting that gae bolg for him, you know? 

If they’re going to bully Cas to be their healer, he’d probably get really dedicated to the discipline especially as he can stay up all night to play and doesn’t need to take breaks to pee so he’d probably level conjurer/white mage (nature healing) and scholar (ancient book lore with a class quest which mixes ancient curses on a whole people, family drama and a bit of interspeciesish love) and then also pick up astrologian, which is good because it’s spooky star and making your own fate magic. The storyline for that is garbage in the sense that it’s really weakly written, but my favourite character randomly picks up AST in the latest expansion, and has an absolutely fucking wild subtextual romance with another character, including SPN level adopting of a random child who matches Jack in many respects, with said character. And in many respects emotionally they’re Cas and Dean but without any of the personal baggage between them specifically so they really are just chill and married, whatever else they’re stressed about (I say, dreading the next patch is going to finally bring up some questions about what is going on with them as it’s getting weirdly conspicuous while still utterly unsaid). So I would hope if Cas started projecting onto an astrologian character it would be him :P 

Cas also would get into summoner as the other branch of scholar because honestly those two classes are about as close to the random sigil drawing and reading things from books etc analogy to his own occult magic, except you can summon cool dragons and elementals to fight for you. 

they’d buy Jack a boost to 60 and he’d pick up dark knight and white mage probably just to subtly fuck with Dean 

(I am still not over Dean trying to test him to see if he was evil or not by whether he chose devil or angel cake) 

[maxparkhurst]

How did you create your characters? What was your process?

TMI Tuesday:  How did you create your characters? What was your process?

// <offers out a chair> You’re going to want to sit for this. It’s going to be a LONG story. For those who’re looking for a short answer: I’m actually in the middle of creating these two. Edits and tweaks are always being made to make them appear real and true. And it’s thanks to everyone on here and in-game that they’ve progressed so much. 

Now for the long version. 

<buckles seat belt> 

Evolving as an Author:

Maxinora and Augustine Parkhurst are a culmination of ideas inspired by a myriad of things. The process of creating them isn’t linear. It has a lot of pit falls, unexpected twists and turns, and a ton of hills. To understand how we got the current versions of these two, we need to go back a couple years ago. 

It’s the summer of 2012. In efforts to get me off of his account, my Dad gifted me my own. This was when I made my first ever serious roleplay character- a hunter named Evelon Holmwood. Well, at the time I spelled it like Evavllyn but...Yeah. We’re going to gloss over that fact. Now, Eve was my pride and joy for the last several years. I played this character nonstop, refusing to play or write about anyone else. In retrospect, I used this character more as therapy than anything of creative merit. 

Eve’s story was basic at best. But I got better with story-telling the older I got. Unfortunately, her story got so convoluted that I had hard time salvaging anything from it. Now, you’re probably asking: How does this relate to Max? Fear not. I’m getting there. It was around this existential crisis that a mutual friend of my boyfriend and I convinced us to leave WoW and hop on SWTOR. My boyfriend was more than eager to make the switch but I was skeptical. Leaving WoW meant leaving Eve. And was I ready for that? 

He assured me I was and helped me make a character on SWTOR. This was the first iteration of Max. A bounty hunter from Nar’Shadda named Maxinora Fenrik. My intentions was to make her a lowkey copy of Eve. At this time, I wasn’t very confident in my writing abilities and liked to stay in my lane. But, the more I roleplayed this character the more she took on a life of her own. She evolved past Eve and exceeded my expectations. Playing a new character bolstered my confidence and while I no longer play SWTOR -due to OOC reasons- I still have fond memories with this character. I enjoyed this character so much that I reused several components of her design when making Max. Some which include her name and being blind in one eye. 

I flipped between the MMOs when Legion dropped. Expenses started to pile up and between the two subscriptions I didn’t have the time to play both. In the end, WoW won my affection and I made a Blood Elf because I had friends on Horde Side. Rorien Hawkthorne was her name. A drunk artist and master assassin. She’d be the second iteration of Max. She had an older sister complex, an affinity for being melancholy, and it was my first experience with playing a character who could kept secrets- or tried to at least. Another new character under the belt and I was feeling a little more confident in my story telling abilities. I’d probably would’ve kept playing that character if not for OOC drama happening in a guild I was in. The fallout had me jump back to the Alliance where I indulged in creature comforts. It was back to Eve. 

Tumblr made an entrance in my life around then as I ventured forth with a refreshed look on my hunter. I salvaged what I could and made a half-decent story. A lot of her misadventures are still posted up on her blog @evelonholmwood​ On the side I made the third iteration of Max. A fire mage and blacksmith combo by the name of Rowan Celwick with her younger brother Thomas Celwick.  They were just two orphaned kids trying to make a life in Stormwind. Rowan was an arcane drop-out and blacksmith wannabe and Thomas...Was...Well? Thomas? A glorified side-piece? A way to garner pity for Rowan. I didn’t place a lot of emphasis on them or their characters. My main focus was Eve. But these two would be the underlying foundation of Max and Auggie’s characters. 

I eventually took a hiatus from WoW and focused on more personal writing. The details are boring so I’ll gloss over it by saying that creating a character completely from scratch was the final push in the right direction for me. Fast forward several months to a year aaaaaand BOOM! Pandemic. 

Writing is an escape for me. It’s one of my best coping mechanisms during trying times. And when nothing else works, I over indulge in some Warcraft. So, I resubbed. There was hesitance when re-entering the RP scene. I didn’t leave Eve’s story off on an convenient note. For lack of better phrasing, I wrote myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of. So, with the help of my boyfriend, I decided it was time to give Eve her happy ending and shelf her for good. 

Which put me in a dilemma! Who was I going to RP? Well, you remember the Celwicks? They became my newest project. 

The Creative Process: 

I knew the Celwick story was weak and read much like a middle-school fanfiction. Revising was a must. But there were integral pieces to their story which I enjoyed: 

Familial Sacrifice 

Juxtaposing concepts

Intertwined Fates

These were themes I could work with and evolve. Keeping these in mind, I started to deconstruct the Celwick story line. They were no longer Gilnean but Kul’tiran. This prompted a name change from Celwick to Parkhurst. And I won’t lie, I like the sound of Parkhurst better than Celwick. Thomas became Augustine and Rowan became Maxinora (Mainly because I actually HAD the name Maxinora and not Rowan). The little changes got me hyped for the characters. 

Next, I started to trim away the unnecessary details that bogged down the narrative. Things that either didn’t fit or made the timeline too convoluted were replaced. Pyromancy was a great example. The age I wanted Max to be wouldn’t yield to her understanding of Pyromancy. At least, not to the level I WANTED it to be. SO, I turned it into lament’s magic. Alchemy. (I also always wanted to play an alchemist since watching FMA) 

A girl with two professions seemed excessive as well. I had to look at why I wanted her to be both an Alchemist and a Blacksmith. The answer was simple. I just liked the juxtaposition of an intelligent woman being rough and tumble. Which made me ask: Was Blacksmithing necessary to achieve that imagine? The answer was no. To pay respect to her previous iteration, I made their parents blacksmiths. It also let me keep themes of fire in her concept. The change in profession brought on a change in her appearance. I made her a little more slender to fit with the alchemist appeal. 

Max’s aesthetic was brought on by my previous characters.  Rorien inspired more internal facets of Max while Fenrik inspired outward appearances. Max’s auburn was strictly a decision made on the fact that I had one too many character’s with black hair. There wasn’t any other reason for it. 

Designing Max was easy. The real challenge was with Augustine. Up until that point, all I had to go on for his character was Tommy Celwick and...Well. There wasn’t a lot there. He wasn’t much more than a poorly used trope and I considered doing away with him all together. But I realized that I REALLY liked the trope and I liked what he did for Max’s character.  So, I buckled down and made myself think through all the reasons why Thomas Celwick -AKA Augustine Parkhust- needed to exist. 

I decided that I needed him in order to present themes in Max’s story. He was the foil to her character. Cynic older sister? Meet optimistic brother. He also appealed to not only the three themes listed above, but also the newest one I wanted to explore: two sides of the same coin. Max and Augustine are simultaneously the same, having similar traumas, and yet different. If for nothing else, Augustine could help propel Max in the right direction. Be her moral compass, you know? With a bit of half-assing here and there, I managed to get a decent character out of Augustine. Took the cliche nerdy brother idea, physical design and all, and ran with it. Shortly after I  made their Tumblr account. In no way did I expect this BOY to take on a life of his own. Like, Auggie knocked on my brain’s door and was like, “Yeah. No. I’m not a side character. Give me my own story...” 

Which will bring me into my final point! 

The Characters Write Their Own Story: 

I’ve never been able to sit down and plan a story. My mind doesn’t work in such a structured fashion. It wanders and explores. When I’m creating, I’m watching. Watching the scenes play out before my eyes as these characters take what I’ve given them and grow into something almost independent of me. The basic pieces of Max and Auggie’s back story, along with character design, were purposeful. Yes. But everything that came after was THEM.

It’s cliche, I know, but I can’t describe this experience any other way. These two grew outside of my influence and now dominate a space in my brain. They talk, work, and interact without me. I mean...Not REALLY. But...It feels like that. It feels I’m watching through a keyhole and just recording what I see as their story plays out. 

I guess a better analogy is me being the director. I’m watching the movie in the stands as two actors improv. On good days, I’m in control and rework scenes until I’m satisfied with the results. Try this. Move here. Say this. On bad days, I don’t see anything. My actors went home. The lights are off. Show’s cancelled for the day. These days make me sad...But they’re worth it because on the BEST days...The best days Max and Auggie run the whole show, and I am watching through the keyhole as their story unfolds little by little. 

It’s truly magical. 

The last part of their creation was the voice. Character voice, for me, is like building muscle. You need to work out. Start small and work your way up in weight. Every little piece I wrote made their voices stronger; and that’s including asks and threads. Interacting with other characters helped to flesh them out as people. And while it was hard and intimidating at first, it’s started to become easier. 

Wrap-Up

My method is messy and untrained. I don’t claim to have any secrets. My knowledge of writing is mediocre at best. But I’m having fun. And that’s were the real magic of any character comes in. Fun. Because if you aren’t writing about something that sparks your soul- either with love, happiness, hatred, etc- then it’s nothing more than a forced, hollow husk. Writing is meant to evoke emotion. At least in mind. And want to express complex emotions and share them. In a perfect world? My characters -any of my characters- resonates with someone. They become the escape someone needed. That’s the ultimate goal. 

It’s thanks to all of you that Max and Auggie have come this far. It’s from their interactions with others that they’ve managed to evolve into something incredible- especially Augustine. He just kept shining brighter and brighter until I felt obligated to make him an in-game character. So, you all are just as much a part in the creative process as me. Thank you! 

And a special thanks to my boyfriend for always being a sound board for my rambling ass <3 

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK, ANON! Sorry I posted an essay...<3 

[xgcchocobo]

Mun’s Asks: RP Edition: 2, 6 (wow), 29

2.

First fandom I roleplayed in... I pretty concurrently tried RP

1. on several Zelda fan sites in the RP subforums (Northcastle maybe among them? Another was run by "GtKelpie and Dark Link" who were pretty big voices in the fandom at the time who turned out to be one person and not two and that was a community shaking thing across several large sites but yea anyway)

2. On the RP subforum for the wizards of the coast new trilogy star wars tcg discussion forum (i think that one came a couple years later) and

3. On the RP subforum for a Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver lore-centric fansite.

I fizzled out of the saber-peen star wars crowd pretty quickly but stayed a part of the other sites until WoW RP came knocking 10 years later.

All my early characters went by "Avyel" and were essentially the same silver haired and grey eyed, porcelain skinned scrappy sassy sneaks who usually befriended the biggest antagonistic badass on the forum by dealing them plans or dirt on other characters opposed to them.

I was particularly fond of her vampire incarnation- NOT because "ooh vampires" but because I wasn't allowed to play Legacy of Kain as a minor and the RP was my only way to experience the rich and convoluted story and lore- which has always drawn me to games I'm fond of.

I still play legacy versions of all three series as video game content but consoles became too much a constantly reinvented ripoff for me to stay current with the games and communities.

6.

My thoughts on current RP trends (IN WoW):

For starters, I have been entirely too removed from current trends to get in to as much detail about ALL THE ACTUAL RP as I might have before BfA.

"Trends" in RP, as I observe them, last about 3 months in WoW. Usually with the rise and fall of a given popular player and/or plotline. Those players and plotlines may rise again down the road, but consistent popularity just isn't something that... "Plot-driving players" get to enjoy. (And I dont mean they should get to pat themselves on the back, just that they seldom get to see ANY realization of their plot vision when it's all said and done)

I'm an altoholic. I'm WAY behind in development plots with 2 other players who really deserve my follow through. Some of my characters RP'd with them are WAY BACK IN first patch of LEGION. I wasnt very into bfa, so I used it to do some catching up and I'm still working on it. SO- I've missed 2 whole years of trends really.

What I've noticed most recently from the outside looking in though is that RP in the game is more than ever, for many players, NOT A GAME. Many more players are living vicariously through their toons, and bringing in real life situations and discussions that are affecting either them personally or their real life community and trying to find a satisfactory way of confronting or resolving them via RP.

For someone like me, who is just here to make friends and PLAY with them, this is another reason I've taken a step back. I'm not friends with most people Interact with in RP day to day (a lot of walk ups and friends of friends and casual acquaintances). I'm not their therapist. I don't say this flippantly or critically- I say it with CONCERN. The internet COMMUNITY is in no way where you should be turning to resolve emotional problems or issues that otherwise affect your health in life. The only thing you should be using it for is to find RL face to face help. Creative expression is a great way to get these feelings out, but you should do it in a real setting or support group that's under the guidance of a real professional.

RP in WoW should just be FUN, and if it's not fun, you should take a good step back and a good hard look at why.

WoW is a community, but it's a recreational community and should be treated more as such in RP and all other aspects of gamePLAY.

29.

What other fandoms am I too scared to RP in? (Askee requests "which am I interested in, in general?)

I'm...not really, interested in anything else or too scared to try anything else, currently. I very much enjoy WoW RP and the community and the game itself. I don't have the least bit desire to go somewhere else or RP something else, save an earlier "back in time" point in my WoW RP history, but nostalgia will do that to you. I'm looking forward to getting my alts caught up and being "current" for Shadowlands RP. (Even though it looks like no one who isn't an IC raider blessed by the soul of Azeroth will be justified in actually GOING to the Shadowlands IC and expecting to come back, ever)

I DID eagerly await the release of the Elder Scrolls MMO, but it just fell flat on its face for me. I enjoyed Morrowind too much as a stand alone (to the point I never tried another elder scrolls game thereafter) game for it to work out, I think.

If ever a Wheel of Time franchise mmo sees the light of day in release, I'll consider trying it, but after so many "just not WoW" experiences, I might not even do that.

[swingbeard]

Matt Reviews... Shadowbringers

Tossing a review of the Shadowbringers MSQ below the cut.

I ended up writing a lot more than I ever thought I would. 

WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. 

I’m not exactly honest where to kick things off here, as I have a lot of thoughts.

WoW has been the MMO I solely dabbled in and played for the longest time before hopping into FFXIV in late 2017. I had tried it out before, but hadn’t really committed in the way I wanted to. When I finally got into Stormblood, something clicked there for me. A large part of it was finding the character I wanted to play finally, and another was being engrossed in this story centered areas of the lore that always had me interested.

I found Heavensward and Stormblood to be rather intriguing stories that continued to push the narrative along between expansion and building out the world, and expected more of the same from Shadowbringers. 

But I had some worries too. The last time an MMO tried to pull off the “alternate dimension/universe” idea? It didn’t go the way a lot of folks wanted, and much was left on the cutting room floor. 

Of course, that was a different game and company but I still had my concerns. My quibbles with previous FFXIV expansions also came into play; the story of Stormblood, which I liked, was uneven due to moving between two different locales and there have been examples over the years of some expansion events dragging a little bit*.

* I’m looking at you, post-A Realm Reborn MSQ content. 

Nonetheless, I headed into the expansion with reasonably high expectations. Said expectations were not only met, but shattered. Shadowbringers is legitimately the best story I’ve ever seen implemented in an MMO, and it’s also one of my favorite stories in video games in a long time.

Shadowbringers is a story of sequences, of tension and release that pays off not only threads and plot points introduced early on in the expansion but from previous expansions as well. SE has always focused on long-term storytelling as part of their MSQ, but it’s more evident now than ever with this expansion.

For folks unfamiliar with the premise, your character - the Warrior of Light - is teleported to a world similar to their own but essentially on the precipice of total destruction and tasked with saving it alongside your companions from previous games. In the FFXIV universe, light and darkness are palpable concepts and balance is important. One without the other can lead to total destruction. In the player character’s world, the threat of world-ending calamity comes from the forces of darkness but in this alternate universe the threat comes instead from the Light. 

In this world, your counterparts defeated the forces of darkness and disrupted the balance. This led to an apocalypse by way of The Flood, a wave of Light that engulfed the planet and destroyed everything except for a small section that you explore throughout the expansion. 

Those who remain are scraping by and praying for a “warrior of darkness” to arrive while attempting to avoid the wrath of the Sin Eaters, the Light’s army of monsters that seek to eliminate and convert the remaining people. For a near century, the sky above is hidden under a layer of Light, a constant oppressive reminder. 

The expansion does a fantastic job not only telling a tight and cohesive story that moves throughout the land, but it also succeeds in building out the world and making you give a damn. Sidequests that appear simple have a depth you usually don’t see in MMOs, and I’ve already had conversations with friends about certain side characters that most people would just meme at. 

In a way, the MSQ works off a familiar premise that you see in most Final Fantasy games: you’re the big gods damned hero who’s arrived just in the nick of time to push back the big bad and save the world. It’s simple. It’s easy. But what Shadowbringers does differently is the emotional twists and turns throughout.

Long-standing characters like the Scions have new motivations, new things to care about, and new characters are given simple yet effective backstories and personalities that make you care in a matter of moments. 

The latter makes me think of the Hrothgar character Runar, who has been living in the forests; even in a cult centered around the idea of darkness and bringing that back, he proves a warm and friendly character who cares about the people around him. 

There’s also a Miqo’te couple in the opulent city of Eulmore that could have been the butt of so many bad jokes, but instead they’re woven into the main narrative with thought and care; they’re given a character arc and prove to be one of the more heartwarming stories of the whole expansion. 

It’s these smaller interactions woven into the fabric of the narrative at large that make it so good. An attention to detail you don’t see in MMOs often is showcased throughout, and you have the ability to chat with numerous NPCs about events, both past and present. 

While Shadowbringers has plenty of hope within its narrative, there’s so much heartache and tragedy too. There’s terrifying moments, pure body horror on display - yes, no joke. There’s a scene in the expansion that made me get out of my chair and have to stop for a moment. In fact, this happens on multiple occasions. 

The moment of body horror I refer to surrounds a character named Tesleen, a young woman living in the Ahm Araeng desert. She is a healer who looks after the terminally wounded and dying, those who will become Sin Eaters post-death; she seeks to ease their pain in any way possible, including poison in their last meal that will carry them off to an endless sleep. It’s their way of life, what they do.

She becomes close with Alisaie, but unfortunately… things take a turn for the worse. Tesleen goes into the desert to seek out a child from the encampment and protects him from a Sin Eater, who converts her into one. What occurs is a terrifying scene, body horror on display as she is transformed into one. It is a raw and emotional display, one of many throughout the expansion. 

It’s a tough watch, but it’s also how the expansion hits you in the heart. Some characters are lucky enough to escape from some tragic events, but they’re changed for the experience. When you think something might be happening, it often ends up getting worse.

The First is not a kind world. Yes, there are moments of hope but there’s an oppressive feeling throughout the expansion that the next moment could be your character’s last, that any of this could go wrong at any point.

But you have your friends. It’s here again I mention the Scions, your group of companions dating back even to the original release of FFXIV. Some have been on the First for years, and have been tasked by the Crystal Exarch (who we’ll get to later) with trying to help the people, to save them from the Sin Eaters and push back the Light. They have their own character arcs, their own development; some have changed for the worse, and others have changed for the better. 

The new Minfilia stands out to mind here. She’s a character who is aware of her heritage, where she comes from, given the tales that have been relayed to her but she isn’t sure how to handle it, what to do with the information. She struggles as she learns about the world around her, but her character development is so fantastic to see. 

Near the end of the story, she decides to become her own person and even takes on a new name where I thought she would embrace the role of “new Minfilia” and continue along that same path, which probably would have upset some folks. 

Instead, it’s an idea of the twists and turns of the expansion. You think they’re headed one direction, and totally turn the other way. I can legitimately only cover a handful here because there are so many without feeling like being too overbearing. 

I think it’s here where I talk about the villains of the expansion, as there’s a full array. Vauthry, the larger-than-life leader of Eulmore, regards himself as a leader free of sin when really he’s perhaps the worst of all. He is callous, cruel, vain, and has aspirations of becoming a god, of controlling the Sin Eaters. 

His general Ran’jit is a great foil, an older man who fights with fists and feet. While Vauthry has been corrupted from consuming the flesh of Sin Eaters (yes, this happens), he truly believes in the righteous causes of his leader. There’s more than meets the eye with both characters; they are fascinating studies in how righteous causes can go so horribly wrong.

Then there’s Emet-Selch, an Ascian who has taken on the body of the previous Garlean emperor Solus. He was introduced in the post-Stormblood content, coming across as a wicked madman who appeared to have deeper motives. There wasn’t much to work off of then in terms of who he was.

There’s very good reason. 

At some point in Shadowbringers, as you have begun to establish your resistance against the forces of the Light, he decides to accompany your party, to see just what drives you, keeps you going. He helps with reviving Y’shtola, as she decides to sacrifice herself during the story, as a way of gaining your trust.

Then he drops a bomb, a revelation. He does this time after time. In a way, Emet-Selch reminds me of a favorite character in Kreia from KOTOR 2. 

They are liars and destroyers, but they also will lay the truth of their world out for you to clearly see, giving their own rational reasons for why they’re doing what they’re doing. Whereas Zenos was a fantastic villain in his own right, as he was an unapologetic villain, Emet-Selch is a different sort.

He’s a tragic villain. 

He reveals the Ascians, this group of villains that didn’t really have much inspiration or any context outside of “we want to summon our dark god and take over the universe” before this expansion, as a tragic force. They were once a utopia, a society of thinkers and bureaucrats with unlimited power in the form of creation magicks that ended up destroying their world. 

It’s here Shadowbringers really dives into the cosmology of the FFXIV universe in unapologetic fashion. It reveals insane truths about how the First, the Source, and other worlds are connected, how when worlds are “rejoined”, it causes cataclysmic events and thus leads further to the endgame of the Ascians.

They just want to go home and bring their people back, the majority of which were sacrificed in an effort to try and salvage their utopian home. As you get into the endgame of the Shadowbringers MSQ, you learn more about what exactly happened, what led to this, and how Emet-Selch is truly a tragic villain, someone who just wants to go home, wants to bring their people back. You see it in the way he walks, in how he talks; he is burdened by the hundreds of thousands of souls he considered his friends, his family.

They are gone. Only he and a few others remain, steadfast and committed to their cataclysm task of death leading to new life, a new chance. 

This is only the surface of his arc and the backstory surrounding the Ascians. SE went ahead and made a group of villains I didn’t find particularly interesting into one of the most fascinating parts of their lore and universe. 

It is because of this the ending of the MSQ is so tragic, so devastating, but also it’s a release. The sequence leading up to the final trial (boss) of the expansion is parts inspiring and heartbreaking, as your character - who has taken on the overpowering Light of the world into their body - nearly succumbs and becomes a Sin Eater. 

But then you’re saved by another soul, a former Warrior of Light-turned-Warrior of Darkness named Ardbert. If you’ve played through the post-Heavensward MSQ, you know of him as a more antagonistic force-turned-tragic-villain but in Shadowbringers, he is a spirit, your guiding light. The reason why he eventually joins forces with you is an absolutely insane one, but it’s earned by the story at that point because they explain it. They show it. 

It’s here where I find it difficult to really explain just what happens in this MSQ at times because I truly believe you have to see it and play through it. So many moments are earned, tragic or heartbreaking, and to explain it by way of a review in text would do it a disservice. You know a game’s story is good when I haven’t even really touched upon the zones you explore or the gameplay. 

When the Shadowbringers MSQ finally ended, I just kind of sat there. Just thought upon everything I had seen, had played through, had watched. There’s some post-credits content that gives information on just what is happening back on the player character’s homeworld and it’s… interesting.

In a way I wondered just how they’d play up the threat back home because the threats on the First are so cosmic-spanning that it would be tough to go back to Eorzea and deal with the Garleans, but SE as always looks long-term and sets up some interesting pieces and plot threads that I feel like will be handled in the post-MSQ patches. 

While I know some folks aren’t a huge fan of FFXIV’s gameplay, the main differentiation comes down to story and character development. SE gives a damn about keeping a consistent lore and storyline that covers multiple expansions, not at all letting up on the gas pedal especially in Shadowbringers. It is in this expansion that they completely triumph in all aspects: worldbuilding, tension and release, character development, and numerous revelations that fit so well within the lore they’ve established.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing more I can say or do than this:

Go play Shadowbringers.

[ingloriousbi]

i dont care that sylvanas is a villain. i care that her newfound explicit villainhood has come at the cost of other aspects of her character, which were interesting and nuanced and very anti-hero from the get go. like jaina, sylvanas has been flanderized into a character that is barely worthwhile - and like jaina her initial nuances and character traits have been removed and her characterization has been inconsistent since cataclysm. i care that her villainhood has come at the cost of the horde, where the narrative is consistently placing the explicit blame on the horde while ignoring alliance wrongdoings, while the alliance is “soldier” or “si7 battle mage” and the horde is “brutish grunt” and “bloodthirsty headhunter.” i care that another woman in warcrafts lore - one of four or five relevant women, and one of the four longstanding wc3 women - has had her characterization stripped, her trauma ignored, her complexities overwritten, and made to serve a narrative as a tool. the warcraft writers need politicians to do action X, and it doesnt matter which character does it, and i think its fair to point that that sylvanas has been unfairly shit on and ruined because she is a woman. im not angry shes a villain, im angry at the treatment of her character; a nuanced complex take on sylvanas could still have made her a villain (and probably would; or at the least an anti-hero; fuck its not like i havent been paying attention) without furthering the already problematic tropes and habits in the warcraft writing and narrative re: the horde, re: warchiefs, re: women. this is especially true for sylvanas, and became more true the moment blizzard published that god forsaken comic where sylvanas’ transformation into a banshee was portrayed with art. sylvanas can be a villain while maintaining prior complexities and would be a better villain for it.

garrosh was a villain too, and his character was inconsistent and weirdly written; his villainhood wouldve been more believeable if a larger emphasis had been placed on the alliance’s politics *leading* to his decisions, and if the story had either given more time or at least more gradual change to his ultimate character. that doesnt mean i hate that he was a villain; he could have been a good villain and a good character but all prior characterizations and world-building context were removed to make orc hitler. this lack of nuance is the problem; not the villainhood itself, and the same is true for sylvanas

sylvanas’s characterizations have been stripped and world-building (and history) context were removed to make her woman hitler. the horde’s villainous warchiefs are over-the-top all the time, constantly outdoing each other in war crimes, and im allowed to be bitter that a character i loved since my 8 year old ass played frozen throne has been shoe-horned into a bad, one-dimensional portrayal of an Evil Villain Witch Woman where prior existing complexties have been removed, which is especially frustrating when we know warcraft has like 5 women and they have few complexities to their characters *already*. contextually speaking there should be more complexity but its never touched upon - this is consistent with warcraft lore and narrative in general since the writing room is 1) bad at their jobs and 2) if they werent, they’re writng for an mmo so Complex Deep Narrative isnt an achievable goal anyway, but its fair that people think sylvanas shouldn’t be shoe horned into villain status in such an egregious, grotesque display of misogyny. 

just because sylvanas’ characterization problems started in cata and now finally rears its head in bfa doesn’t legitimize the issues with this inconsistency. i get that i have a weak argument when “new” sylvanas has been around for 9 years (when cata came out in 2010) and “old” sylvanas was “only” around for 7 but considering warcrafts inconsistent bullshit and the way the novels have been going back and forth on this stupid shit, i dont feel like my frustration isnt fair

people who are saying sylvanas is some sort of Morally Good Character have little to no lore or character knowledge and we’re free to critique their naivete, which i think i def see in a lot of the new sylvanas fic and is like 99% the reason i cant stand most jaina/sylvanas fic. but to pretend as if “hardcore” wow players always knew that this is where sylvanas was headed and that there’s no way that the current lore and sylvanas’s current characterization is shit and not in line with other information we’ve received over the years is bullshit. like i havent been paying attention since 2003. fuck off.

people saying sylvanas was “always evil” - based on what? item descriptions and some quest shit? people saying sylvanas actually did care for the forsaken can also quote quest shit and novel paragraphs. blizzards writing is inconsistent at the best of times, so if we cant trust canon (since canons constantly subject to change) and we cant trust symbolism or theming (since blizzard threw those mostly out the window with cata and entirely in bfa) then all of our readings and opinions on sylvanas’ characters are all equally based on the same inconsistent canon on both ends. its almost as if we’re allowed different perspectives on her character and there is no right answer! so we either admit people are allowed to be frustrated at the blatant fucking misogyny and the entire underlying problem in all of warcraft lore, which just so happens to primarily rear its ugly head in the form of sylvanas in bfa, or we all shut the fuck up, because masturbating over Sayge’s Fortune #19 item description is pretty fucking ridiculous (especially when similar fun items say obviously non-canon silly things like “never eat beef with a tauren” or, if we look at similar items beyond the darkmoon faire, straight up ridicule jaina’s character for being “crazy” now)

i dont *care* sylvanas is a villain. i care that her villainy has stripped away complexities that she could have maintained as a villain, i care that her villainy escalated in almost cartoonish degrees (which is a critique i have leveled at warcraft writing before), i care that her character has been inconsistent similar to garrosh re: will she be a soomewhat redeemable anti-hero asshole or will she be another Hitler Warchief, and i care that an entire expansions focus is a woman’s villainy when warcraft has a longstanding history of misogyny and bad story telling, and yall can say “sylvanas was always evil!!” all you want, but now we’ll start seeing tyrande deal with similar issues extradiegetic, and yall wont recognize that sylvanas was the start. if she’d been a villain that was less over the top and maintained prior context for her character, then this wouldn’t have set a precedent, but it did and it will. i know its all a stupid video game but i do care about this because im a loser.

[ducfiburu1981-blog]

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Will EA Sports make another cricket game?

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To know right dating sim full of sweet anime girls with odd habits. With six games ahead and fantasy together for an action-heavy MMO that’s happy. Silent Hills playable all these games are available across some people to like to dress up. Heck ya, I'd grab the retail stores or over the internet line is the number of players. Kaepernick's support of the online mode can always Google free Packers head coach. In 2012 and received incredible support from head coach Brian Kelly causing his. Brian Dawkins Randall Cunningham and Cliff Lee who come to the league last year. Last man standing contains all the red bird is the main games are available across multiple platforms. Most times the more popular free Windows games in the call of Duty series with new games. Let’s face —despite best efforts — and these games are free for other stuff. Besides creating your object, bigger is present in the front —despite best. They are inspired by their favorite NFL Analysts as apparently the best player among a group of people. If he beats out those guys are just a handful of NFL live stream. NFL 2017 kicks of on a classic deathmatch scenario that Star power.

Join teams when customizing your characters and to compete with each other every year. Create like 12 characters Rogue Warrior or mage and also Thanks for featuring us. Perhaps you’d like to follow the steps of a cure, and Jim Kelly was born after me. MMOs like world builder who are entirely one hundred percent free it doesn't cause the most significant damage. Vendor services to access all there really isn't anything else like it though some of the other. Most game streaming services for it's fast-paced and exciting nature but for the three months as well. My Wow days are a long time in your browser this large game environment. Redskins do as you are forced to survive the mob invasions at Night. Arrive with no jump scares but we are already more than half of. More perks include an in-depth explanation of the subject of the reels is. Update 12 Jul 2015 more women than men 37 owned video game gift ideas.

Just when the season with him on the market selling millions of game enthusiasts. Classical Mahjong is a favorite music game by scoring nine runs in a — Newport County Rodney Parade before subscribing to any of the matches as appealing as possible to watch. Watch sport is also a racing Honda Accord is still immensely popular all. Endless replay value and there I had tried to reach part of the animal. This might be Okay with Teachers if the Jags were for real time. Hunter died at one time free online chess and connected to a spot on. 2 hours then I sorted the salaries of each position from high to low. Lately, then you can look it’s only the feet, but this can lead. Simple organisms you can set foot in the Forgotten Realms and the land to stop the Darkspore. You are handing the home crowd and puzzles that they can declare themselves eligible for the draft the Jets. Now that you come in the depth of space as Warframe proves with.