#actually it feels like some of the later game side quests have some stronger writing than some of the early stuff

[softgrungeprophet]

listen johnny, just—

how am i supposed to say no to that

[monstersdownthepath]

Demigod Dossier: Velstrac Demagogues, part 1

Pictured: Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Lawful Evil Mad Artists of the Shadow Plane

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 120~121 Additional information is also present in Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 74~79

Our second-ever Demigod Dossier, now fully in-swing! The Velstrac Demagogues are the rulers of the Shadow Plane and all the lives within, though many of said lives within aren’t really fans of them. Natives to the Netherworld find the presence of the Velstrac an annoyance at best and a threat to their lives at worst, and would much prefer if they went back to Hell where they came from, but unfortunately for everyone everywhere they don’t appear too eager to throw themselves into the jaws of the inferno just yet. Instead, they’re busy throwing themselves into the jaws of one another.

The Demagogues represent the pinnacle of a specific subset of the Velstrac’s twisted senses of ‘art’ and ‘perfection,’ either because they’ve mutilated themselves into something wholly unlike anything else that can, did, or could exist, or they’ve pioneered a form of artistry that other Velstrac couldn’t even conceptualize in the first place and gathered a fandom. It takes some very twisted, alien forms of thinking to become a Demagogue and get others rallied behind you, even moreso because the Velstrac themselves are, putting it kindly, completely out of their gourd. When your audience already expects the insane and outlandish, you have to go even further, and many of the fiends you’ll soon see have.

We’ll only be covering four in this initial post, with the rest to be saved for later...

Demagogues view mortals as little more than primal clay to be shaped, and thus see little worth in investing true divine power into them, worshipers receive Boons that are are relatively simple: a trio of spell-like abilities, each of which may be used 1/day. Boons are normally gained slowly, at levels 12, 16, and 20, however entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes can see the Boons gained as early as levels 10, 13, and 16. Note that while they are Lawful Evil fiends originally from Hell, they are not devils, thus you cannot enter the Diabolist Prestige Class to obtain their Boons without DM fiat.

Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Demagogue of Possibility, Revenge, and Sanctuary Domains: Evil, Law, Protection, Trickery Subdomains: Deception, Defense, Fear, Tyranny

Obedience: List the names of those who have wronged you until the writing covers a page, then consume the parchment. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist compulsion effects.

What a completely normal, sane, and healthy thing to do! As the first of the Demagogues to flee from Hell, Aroggus is EXTREMELY angry at the devils for locking them up in the first place. Angry enough to want revenge on the whole of the diabolic race, as well as the Asura... Angry enough that he hasn’t yet even started getting around to enacting his revenge, instead just constantly thinking about and refining it as if no iteration of suffering is perfect enough to match his fury.

True to form, he wants you to ruminate in your anger rather than doing anything to enact your vengeance, blacking out a page with the names (or just one name) of all who’ve wronged you no matter how petty or insignificant the inconvenience they may have caused. Unfortunately, no two ways about it, you’re going to look insane (in the literal definition of the term) doing this every day, especially if you only have one or two people who’ve wronged you enough to get onto your list. Scrawling their name, front AND back, until the page is filled and then eating it is behavior that will raise eyebrows no matter who you’re adventuring with. Best to keep this one behind closed doors. Make sure you have a glass of activated charcoal after, because all of that ink day after day (unless you write with, I don’t know, berry juice or blood) is going to do amazingly terrible things to your constitution.

The benefit is good. Compulsions are typically Save-Or-Suck effects, so having more Save means less Suck for you later on. It’s useful at any point in your adventure, so I can’t say anything bad about it! My only wish is that it was a little stronger, since some other gods give +4 vs compulsion and charm effects.

Boon 1: Nondetection Boon 2: Forcecage Boon 3: Imprisonment

Nondectection is a good spell for those times when you need to sneak by diviners, hide magic items from scrutiny, avoid the gaze of a Paladin who’s a little too judicious with Detect Evil, or to add another layer of shroud over Invisibility and the like. It’s a spell that’s a pain to prepare every single day, but useful to have when you need it... but you only have one casting of it per day, so using it wisely is paramount. Ironically, it combines well with your own Divination to find out if you’ll even need it later.  More often than not you won’t be using it at all except to idly ward yourself when going into town or diving into a dungeon.

Forcecage is a completely different animal, the offensive and defensive applications of the spell simply mind-blowing, to the point that keeping this to just one paragraph to save space is going to take some herculean effort on my part! So, the basics: Forcecage has two versions, both of which halt all movement through them: A 20ft square of force bars that allow spells, projectiles, and line-of-effect through, and a 10ft cube that blocks line-of-effect and all forms of magic and supernatural abilities. A Forcecage is effectively invincible (having Hardness 30 and 20hp/level) and impossible to move, so anyone trapped inside without the ability to teleport is likely to stay there for the spell’s duration. Also, to put it simply, shoving enemies in the cage is the main point, but if you cannot, a 10ft/20ft square is an enormous roadblock to stop up narrow passages with.

Which leaves Imprisonment, a portable hole you can shove all sorts of problems into, which will likely create new problems down the line if the target had anything you needed on them. I recommend knocking out a foe, stripping them of their valuables, and then shoving them into their baby jail for all eternity! With the Freedom spell being the only means to undo Imprisonment (even Wish and Miracle fail), you’ll have no actual way to undo the spell against any target you cast it on for one or two more levels, if at all (depending on the party composition). Make sure to use it only when the villain has no MacGuffins, or is a powerful recurring threat. Imprisonment works on anything and everything capable of failing the Will save (take note, anyone wanting to fight Kaiju, Great Old Ones, or Spawn of Rovagug), which gets a -4 penalty if you know the target’s name and some facts about its life, so famous villains are even more vulnerable to being thrown into the Eternity Marble! 

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Barravoclair, Lady of the Final Gasp

Demagogue of the Elderly, Fatalistic Insights, Resurrection Domains: Death, Evil, Healing, Law Subdomains: Murder, Restoration, Resurrection, Undead

Obedience: Practice breath control, holding your breath until you nearly pass out. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on checks to resist drowning and on saves against inhaled poisons.

A hell of a step down in terms of unhealthiness in terms of Aroggus, and significantly less suspicious, too. Breath control is practiced by people of all stripes, from athletes to explorers to simple monks attempting more profound meditation. While ‘nearly passing out’ is skirting an edge most people won’t approach, it’s not exactly as dangerous for you as, say, inhaling water or eating poison every day. Without any materials needed, the Lady of the Final Gasp is one of the simplest and probably the single cheapest Obedience ritual one could ask for! There is a minor caveat in that races who can’t breathe can’t technically do this Obedience at all, but those aren’t the audience Barravoclair wants anyway.

Unfortunately, the benefit is as weak as the Obedience is easy to do. Drowning is unlikely to come up as a danger unless you’re physically dragged into the water by a monster (which means holding your breath likely isn’t an option anyway), and inhaled poisons are the least common poison type in the game. Against the odd Catoblepas or Green Dragon it will come in handy, but it’s protection from injury poison you really need, which the Lady of the Final Gasp doesn’t provide.

Boon 1: Speak With Dead Boon 2: Resurrection Boon 3: Soul Bind

Alright, let’s face it. Some days, you need Speak With Dead to keep the plot running smoothly. Whether your overzealous DPS kills everyone in the room, your Fireball-lobbing Sorcerer kills everyone in the room, or your summoner’s unchained beasts kill everyone in the room, chances are at some point in your career you’re going to save the party a lot of headaches by being able to pull answers from a corpse. Having Speak With Dead available every day will likely not matter 80% of the time (meaning you can typically use it at your leisure just before going to bed), but much like with Water Breathing and spells like Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, having it for those 20% of times you need it can keep the wheels spinning and stop unneeded side quests.

... And speaking of side quests and things you’ll need once in a blue moon, Resurrection? For free? Even 1/day? With the hefty cost of 10,000gp for the normal spell, even a well-off party will feel the impact every single time they have to use Rez, but the removal of the cost ups the power level of the spell by a margin so enormous that it doesn’t really matter what Boon you get before or after this one; THIS boon rewards worship of Barravoclair enough to justify putting up with her empty benefit. Even without factoring in the ability to raise party members, you can now curry favor with people of all stripes and demand all forms of insane payments for your ability to raise centuries-old dead at no cost but time... or do your work for free and call in favors at a later date. Do note, however, that you’ll also need someone else on standby to remove the negative levels/stat drain caused by the resurrection process.

I said it didn’t matter what the third Boon was and I stand by it. Unlike with the free Rez above, Soul Bind’s enormous cost still makes its use as anything but a once-per-campaign finisher of an annoying enemy irritating and unfeasible. Spell-likes normally require no components, but Soul Bind operates in a gray area of the rules in that its focus component becomes the subject for the spell, meaning that a DM can very easily and very rightly say you DO require the  gemstone whose value must equal or exceed the target’s HD x 1,000. Binding even a simple 5 CR creature requires the tall order of a 5,000gp gemstone, and if you want to use it on a target that’s worthwhile, it gets expensive fast. It’s way cheaper and easier to just hire a Cacodaemon. 

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Fharaas, the Seer in Skin

Demagogue of Experience, Murder, and Patterns Domains: Evil, Knowledge, Law, Repose Subdomains: Ancestors, Fear, Memory, Souls

Obedience: Study the interior of a freshly severed limb. Benefit: You are immune to bleed effects that deal 6 damage or less.

This Obedience is deceptively simple for what its implication is. You’d best get yourself a Sack Of Rats or have access to a lot of disposable prisoners (or the Regenerate spell)! But thankfully, there’s some wiggle room in the wording: ‘freshly severed’ means no cheating and using Gentle Repose on the same arm over and over, but it ALSO means you can carry around a single corpse and slowly slice it apart, as the limbs themselves don’t have to be fresh, just freshly cut off for the purpose of the ritual. Also, you can use the bodies of Undead, Constructs, and any other creature that technically has severable limbs! Though Fharaas, the Seer In Skin, will likely punish you if your ritual doesn’t involve the examination of actual flesh.

You’re going to look really weird, is what I’m saying. At least if someone barges in on you, you can claim you’re inspecting them for something or other. Infection, signs of magic, etc, whatever you can come up with to blunt the blow. You can cover yourself moderately well by being a butcher or a hunter in your day job, as the severed limb doesn’t have to be human, or even sapient (hence why I suggest a Sack Of Rats), letting you freely slice up and examine your kills.

Bleed effects are fairly uncommon in the grand scheme of things but are also a pain in the neck to deal with in the middle of battle, so this giving a +4 bonus aga--wait, sorry, hold on no, this isn’t a bonus to saving throws? Or skill checks to heal bleed? It just... Stops them if they deal 6 or less damage? You don’t even have to make a save?

Okay. Okay, alright. So you’re just immune to bleed, then?

More or less, really. There are very few monsters that deal more than d6 bleed damage with their attacks (be warned that higher-level ones can sometimes stack their bleed!), and this ability also works on the rare but dreaded stat bleed, and off the top of my head there are NO monsters that deal more than a d4 dice in stat bleed damage. My main problem is that it doesn’t reduce the bleed damage you take by 6, so taking even 1 more point of bleed damage makes this ability useless. Still, though it’s fairly narrow, being effectively immune to a dangerous and irritating status ailment at level 3 or so (when bleed is at its most threatening) is well worth taking up butchery. 

Boon 1: Keen Edge Boon 2: Vision Boon 3: Foresight

Keen Edge is a spell you absolutely want to slap onto any vaguely pirate-y or hoity-toity party member you may have, as cutlasses, rapiers, and scimitars all leap from a dangerous 18~20 critical range to a terrifying 15~20, meaning they threaten to critically strike 1 out of every 4 attacks instead of just once every other fight or so. With a duration of 10 min/level, the enchantment will likely last multiple fights even if you only have it 1/day, but unfortunately it refuses to stack with any crit-boosting enchantments or feats the wielder may already possess, lessening its usefulness as your adventure goes on and your martial party members pick up increasingly fancy gear and pad out their collection of feats. Still, it’s useful for when you get it, and will remain useful for several levels after.

Vision is a whole different beast, and a dangerous one at that. It operates as the Legend Lore spell but vastly accelerated, allowing you to scrape the public consciousness for any information it may have on a specific person, place, or thing. I’ve complained about the general niche uses of Legend Lore before, but Vision grants the information in a much shorter time (a single standard action) at the cost of a potential for failure and a slap of fatigue whether you succeed or not. I don’t like 1/days that do nothing on a failure, but since Vision is purely a downtime spell (unless you need to know the boss’ weakness or info on the Evil Doom Artifact right now immediately), it’s not as much of an impediment to lose out on whatever information it could give you. That being said, the DM will likely have ways for you to do whatever plot-relevant research you need anyway, so Vision is more of a way to speed up the process than anything.

Which leaves Foresight, a spell whose main benefit relies intensely on DM cooperation, as I’ve ranted about here. Mechanically it’s fairly unimpressive, but if the DM reads the spell carefully, they should realize it gives whoever you cast it on a 6-second glance into the future at all times. Whatever horrors befall the victim 6 seconds from now should spring into your mind before they happen, making you the best trap radar on the planet, and the spell’s warnings for the best ways to protect yourself will urge the DM to grant you information about the enemy’s capabilities you may never otherwise know... but what do you expect from 9th level magic? It SHOULD be filling you in with details you’d never figure out!

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Inkariax, the White Death

Demagogue of Preservation, Absolute Cold, and Solitude Domains: Evil, Law, Void, Water Subdomains: Fear, Ice, Isolation, Slavery

Obedience: Inventory your collection of hoarded knickknacks, reciting your unique name for each item as you do Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist effects that would petrify or paralyze you.

God, finally, someone normal. At worst you’ll look like someone with a few obsessive issues, but at least you won’t look like a menace to society as you lay out your, I dunno, marbles or bone dice or dolls or what have you and make note that they’re still there, cooing to them with names only you know. It’s fitting for Inkariax, of all the Demagogues, to have an Obedience that requires no self-harm, physically or psychologically; unlike all the rest, he was born perfect and doesn’t need to chase after it. Instead, he pursues finding perfection in others, freezing and collecting people and items he believes represent perfection in whatever unusual way he desires that day (having perfect posture, or a perfect scream, or a perfect pair of eyes, etc). Much like him, you’re encouraged to expand a collection of whatever you deem perfect and desirable, which you’re often going to do just over the course of normally adventuring. I’ve yet to see a player character that doesn’t start amassing all sorts of junk in their pockets the moment they get a Bag of Holding or similar.

Indeed, you can just pick up whatever catches your fancy, be it stones, sticks, or severed bits of an enemy, though I’m sure Inkariax will ever-so-slowly raise a disapproving eyebrow if you just pick up any old junk. Make sure to curate your collection now and then! Being able to perform this Obedience with anything you happen to gather is especially helpful if you’re ever separated from your collection (always a danger) and need to start again, but note that each item you gain in your collection must have a completely unique name. That’s only really a danger for especially RP-heavy campaigns, but in such campaigns Worship of the White Death isn’t for everyone who just names all their collected bird feathers Jeffery. Start getting in the habit of stretching out your inventory sheet with names for all your items!

The benefit you get from lovingly counting up all your stolen statuettes and dusty books is resistance to two of the worst status effects in the game. While petrification is relatively rare it typically appears in Save-Or-Suck form, which makes protection against it far more valuable than, say, protection against something like the far more common fatigue or exhaustion. Paralysis is an ailment just short of a death sentence by itself, costing the victim their turn at best and their life at worst, so even a +4 between you and that is something you need to cling to with your entire being.

Boon 1: Sleet Storm Boon 2: Sequester Boon 3: Microcosm

Sleet Storm is a very simple spell with a decent number of functions. Its Long range means that any enemy in your line of sight can potentially be a target, letting you lash out easily at ranged enemies or dangerous casters by creating a 40ft-wide and 20ft-tall area of concealing sleet that’s impossible for any vision to pierce (except the rare and niche Snowsight or Fogcutter Lenses). Anyone inside will have to rely on Tremorsense or Blindsense (though the jury’s out on if the splashing of the sleet would confound those, as well) to navigate it, and 40ft of difficult terrain can feel impossible to clamber through when you start right in the middle of it with no idea which way is the way you need to go. It’s one of the strongest vision-blockers in the game due to its immunity to common tactics that thwart lesser spells (Gust of Wind, True Seeing, etc), forcing enemies to either blow their valuable uses of Dispel Magic or suffer for its entire duration. My only complaint is that you only get it 1/day and that it screws over your party just as hard if you use it incorrectly.

Sequester is as niche a use spell as there ever was for players, requiring a bit of forethought about what or who you’d want to hide with it. The target must be willing or inanimate to be affected, so tricking an enemy via Charm or Dominate into accepting the spell can keep them fresh as a daisy for weeks at a time if you ever have a reason to do such a thing. More often than not you’ll use it to conceal items you seriously don’t want seen or detected, such as a Bag of Holding or similar loaded with your collection of knickknacks or emergency supplies, a particular hostage, an NPC you need to keep alive, or your phylactery if you’re a Lich. If you’re especially sadistic, using it on an item someone else needs and throwing it into a well or a hoard of other objects will keep them occupied for a while. If you’re a more martial character, using it to hide your armor is viable, making it seem as though you’re invincible when enemy blows bounce straight off, or even your weapon to confound your enemies who seem to be taking wounds from an unseen item. Your mime routine will be killer, literally! Just... Just don’t drop the thing, because in the heat of battle you’re never going to find it.

Microcosm is one of the best spells you can hurl into a crowd of commoners or a swarm of foes meant to gum you up instead of actually threaten you. Its 30 HD limit will mean it likely will only strike one or two creatures capable of actually threatening you, but it’s brutal even then. The spell is permanent, trapping your victims in an illusory world in which everything goes right for them even as their bodies starve to death in the waking world. Anything with less than 10 HD is automatically affected with no saving throw, the spell easily mopping up mobs, while anything with 11~15 HD escapes automatically after 10 min... per level you have. On a successful save. There’s Save-Or-Suck, and then there’s the immensely rare Save-And-Suck! No wonder Microcosm is ONLY on the Psychic’s list! Anything with more than 16 HD is unaffected if they succeed their save, but all their allies are likely in an everlasting dreamland now. The big issue is that the HD restriction is way tighter than you may think; creatures, especially at higher levels, usually do NOT have HD matching their CR, but if you’re mainly battling level-appropriate Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid creatures, Microcosm is fairly reliable in such battles, as those foes typically have HD that roughly matches their CR. But if you’re up against, say, Dragons or Outsiders, good luck bud.

Side note: Microcosm and Sequester used in combination make for excellent ways to start your own morbid collection of living creatures, just like your icy master! Just make sure you have some non-Divination means of seeing them, as Sequester blocks even True Sight.

[iturbide]

the fact that edelgard is the villain in 3/4 routes and yet intsys STILL glorifies her to no end enrages and annoys me. no other villain has been given that perspective of “well actually maybe they arent so bad” except for the hypocritical tyrant. even when she has *literally become an inhuman monster* intsys is still like “oh no dont worry she was right actually!” and it upsets me deeply

It upsets me, too, friend.  IntSys seems to really like glorifying people who don’t deserve it, especially in recent games (Walhart in Awakening, Rudolf in Echoes -- I can’t say if his whole ‘orchestrating a plan to have his son murder him’ thing is carry-over from Gaiden or not, but it definitely exists in the recent remake so I’m including it), but Edelgard actually ends up as a bit of a weird case. 

(I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I’m just going to cut preemptively.)

Now, I’m actually not opposed to Edelgard being the protagonist of the fourth route in Three Houses.  Anyone who’s been here a while knows that I generally see Grima, a figure that IntSys generally tries to paint as a rote villain, as at least a sympathetic villain (and possibly even a secret hero in the events of Awakening itself); it’s entirely possible for someone that’s a villain in most of their appearances to have legitimate reasons for what they’re doing and why, and revealing that in their personal route could be incredibly powerful if done well. 

And here’s the thing: Edelgard really is a compelling character, in large part because of her moral ambiguity.  I actually agree with her when she says that the Church of Seiros is corrupt at its core and the system needs to change.  She’s right about that!  While Seiros might have had decent reasons for establishing things this way, over the past thousand years human societies have changed while the church itself remained stagnant -- something potentially exacerbated by her selfish ambition to restore her mother -- and this has led to a structure that once served an important purpose becoming a toxic and destructive mess for humanity at large.  Edelgard has a completely valid point there, and it’s something that I could absolutely get on board with if she had gone about achieving change in some other way, because she does have other methods available to her that she writes off without real reason -- and even that can relate back in part to her deep trauma and difficulty trusting people after the betrayals she faced at the hands of her “uncle” and her own father’s powerlessness to stop the nightmare she and her siblings suffered through. 

IntSys probably could have crafted a narrative that showed from her perspective why she believed war against the Church was the only valid option available to her.  The issue is that she undercuts her own argument by targeting all of Fodlan, rather than specifically going after the Church: she doesn’t give the Kingdom and Alliance a “stay out of my way or else” warning, she literally turns her sights on the Kingdom as soon as the monastery falls and attempts to fully annex it once Cornelia sets up Dimitri’s fall, leaving the Alliance only because she has her hands full with Faerghus.  She didn’t have to take Cornelia up on her offer of making the Kingdom into the Dukedom of Faerghus and sending troops to finish the job: she could have just left the woman to her own devices, forcing the Twisted to utilize their own people to maintain and secure full control of the region while she worked on addressing the systemic issues, which would have had multiple benefits:

The Imperial Army doesn’t get overwhelmed and exhausted fighting in conditions they’re not equipped to deal with, leaving them stronger overall while the Twisted forces are potentially weakened by the same

Hubert is able to better assess the threat they’re dealing with, including learning their capabilities and possibly even where they’re coming from before Merceus

Edelgard actually puts her money where her mouth is and ends up helping the people she claims to be doing this for, rather than just using them as fodder for the war to grind up

Unfortunately, the way she’s written ends up just making her an imperialist.  She’s not just going after the corrupt core of the Church, she’s trying to forcibly unite the continent and return Fodlan to some long gone ideal where it was all united under the Imperial banner because she refuses to believe that Adrestia could have split by natural causes.

Crimson Flower ultimately ends up being a particularly egregious example of this glorification phenomenon in action because they give her a personal route that makes no effort to critically examine her actions and make her face consequences for them.  This, I think, does her a massive disservice as a character, because that aforementioned moral ambiguity that makes her so interesting could have been utilized to great effect -- and the proof is actually there already, because they do it in Dimitri’s route.

Dimitri is himself another interesting character, and outwardly presents as Edelgard’s polar opposite: he recognizes that he doesn’t have all the answers, struggles to figure out the correct course of action when presented with difficult subjects that have  no clear-cut answer -- like the fact that reliance on the Crest system is toxic for noble families, but it’s those very Crest-bearers and their Relics that help keep Faerghus safe from invasion by Sreng -- possesses incredible strength but specifically refrains using it in most cases to avoid harming others, and generally takes everyone’s problems onto himself to his own detriment.  He’s also deeply traumatized and was never given a chance to deal with it in a healthy manner, which contributes to how he snaps -- and Azure Moon starts with Dimitri being so far out of reach that you can’t unlock any of his supports and can’t even engage with him in the weekly discussions.  He’s lost himself to his survivor’s guilt and need for vengeance, considers himself to be nothing more than a monster, and has no qualms about killing if it helps advance his quest; as the story progresses, he faces a direct consequence for this murderous inclination in the form of Fleche who attempts to exact vengeance for her brother’s sake in the same way that he’s attempting to claim it for his family and friends -- only to lose Rodrigue, and have his dying words be a plea for Dimitri to live for himself rather than those who died before him, at which point Dimitri sets his sights on opposing Edelgard rather than killing her and seeing to atone for the crimes he committed.  While I think the game made the change a little too abrupt, it’s handled well overall, and shows a real development arc complete with both actions and their associated consequences that directly relate to Dimitri’s growth as a person.

Contrast this to Edelgard in general and Crimson Flower as a route.  Edelgard believes that she has all the answers despite not trying to engage with anyone outside her own House, decisively chooses what she believes to be the right and proper course of action regardless of how difficult the subject matter, possesses great strength (both physically and of sheer will) that she uses to dominate others, and forces others to join her in addressing what she sees as problems -- such as her line about making her own people into “worthy sacrifices” for her “higher cause.”  Crimson Flower is the only route where her attack on the monastery fails to capture Rhea, but once Byleth returns she sets her sights on attacking and subjugating a territory that has remained entirely neutral through the past five years, turns on the Twisted while she’s still in a vulnerable position which ultimately causes the deaths of at least a third of the forces she left at Arianrhod once they fire their warning shot, lies to her friends and allies about what happened there, murders her step-brother, and allows a city full of trapped civilians to burn unchecked while she deals with what she considers to be the “real” threat on the opposite side of the Faerghus capital -- and all of this is capped off with her never dealing with the Twisted, and cute little endcards that talk about how everything worked out fine and there were no problems ever, The End.  Edelgard doesn’t get a development arc in her route: she’s never challenged, she never faces real consequences (and the one she does face she literally lies about to her friends and then leaves as a problem to deal with later), and she pretty much ends the game exactly where she started it: completely assured that she made the right choices.  The moral ambiguity inherent in her character is instead cast as “of course she’s in the right, she’s so great and there’s nothing at all wrong with what she’s doing or how she’s going about it, isn’t she wonderful?”

At least in the main game, Hegemon Husk Edelgard is treated with real gravity, shown as the pinnacle of her drive to see her ambition come to fruition and the tragic consequence of her inability to change course and find another path.  The Forging Bonds event just takes the CF brush and paints her actions as the right ones, even though what made her so compelling is that her reasons were right while her methods were horrific.  Edelgard really could have been wonderful.  The potential is right there in her character.  But IntSys completely botched the execution of it, so that her route feels rushed, incomplete, and at best unsatisfying (or, if you’re me, utterly disgusting for how it glorifies imperialistic conquest), and her Heroes appearances only make it worse.

[vg-sanctuary]

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Moonsprout Games - Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC - 2019

I don't like the core gameplay of 99% of all RPGs, but the ones I do like have been some of my favorite games I've ever played. case in point, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, a modern interpretation of the classic Paper Mario formula and an ideal example of indie developers adding to the legacy of a cult classic. its main feature is turn-based combat with action commands, like old Paper Mario or the Mario & Luigi series, and strategy in its intentional design and small health and damage numbers that goes way beyond "spam damage and heal every third turn, use mana items as needed". (in case you want to be 100% blind for your playthrough, past the Keep Reading link are some very minor spoilers: an item a specific cook can make after a side quest, some basic enemies, environments that are about halfway through the game, and the names of some medals.)

“wow, vg-sanctuary posting about a game that's not even two years old at time of writing? and it's an RPG? are you not a retro/legacy blog anymore? who are you and what have you done with the writer?” I still am a retro/legacy blog, mostly, just this time I thought I'd share something that its developers still get money from, and whose developers aren't mega corporations. and I just beat it, enjoyed it, and really felt like writing about it because it still doesn't have the popularity it deserves even after that puppet guy on YouTube talked about it. not that this post is going to reach any significant number of people, but still. I'll write about some more indie games sometime in the future. (and indeed I am writing about another RPG and you better believe it has a lot to talk about.)

anyway, Bug Fables starts with a brash little bee called Vi and a polite and honorable beetle named Kabbu wandering into an explorer's guild and not having a partner to join the guild with. they reluctantly decide they're going to fight together because companionship is a requirement for this guild, foiling off each other and sometimes off their third friend Leif, a blue moth they find in a cave, for the whole game. every character has a distinct personality and all the party members get some valuable character development through a side quest, which I really liked, but I'm no connoisseur of RPG stories. while I'm on story, people that come here looking for a well-made world will get what they want from the many optional lore books hidden around the world.

the plot becomes more complex and compelling as the game continues, though it generally lets gameplay take the spotlight. which is great, because the gameplay is also mostly great. about a third of it is doing puzzles on the overworld using the abilities of each character to move forward a la the Mario & Luigi series. they generally make use of whatever your newest overworld ability is, and some areas early on have inaccessible things you have to come back to, sort of like a Metroidvania except it isn't required to do this for progression. some puzzles take longer they could because they involve using Kabbu's horn to repeatedly fling an ice block many times over a distance. it's never egregious, but it could have been faster if the guy would use his arms. this is a minor caveat and not a majority of the game.

a lot of people probably don't know how the combat for this or Paper Mario works, and it's really important to Bug Fables, so I'll explain that here. it's turn based, which is typical, but basic attacks and skills need you to time a button press to do as much damage as possible. you can also time a button press when an enemy attacks to take less damage. Paper Mario and Bug Fables also both have medals instead of other equipment that give characters higher max HP or a new skill, for example. you have limited medal points and stronger medals require more points.

this is going to sound like a lot, but any RPG's combat will sound like a lot if you try to detail it in a single paragraph. the game introduces these things slower than I am here. in Bug Fables specifically, the character standing in the front of the group does one extra damage but is more likely to be attacked, and you can pass turns from one character to another in exchange for that character dealing one less damage (which is a lot because basic attacks only deal two damage by default). certain enemies can only be hit by certain attacks; some enemies fly, so Kabbu can't hit them until Vi knocks them down with her beemerang. not a typo, beemerang. and many of Bug Fables' status effects have upsides -- being paralyzed reduces damage taken everything by one, poison has many medals that make it a good thing, and being asleep heals the sleeping character every turn. there are others that are straight up bad things, though, and usually don't come until later. all of this adds up to even small encounters having strategic depth, which is great, and if you don't feel like small encounters you can just avoid them. skills that would typically be relegated to one character, like healing and support skills all going to one, are instead split between party members to make decisions more difficult in a good way. there's also a lovely medal that instantly kills any enemy the game deems too easy for you, sort of like in Earthbound.

I figure I spent more time doing housekeeping like cooking (simple A+B=C or A-becomes-B crafting), buying items, and arranging medals in Bug Fables than in any other RPG, which is because it was designed that way. by the way, cooking recipes start hidden, but a foodie at each restaurant will share some strong ones for free, which is a big help early on. anyone who's played The World Ends with You (i.e. me) will be spoiled by its excellent quality of life: no consumable items and you instantly heal to full after every encounter. it makes items seem like a ridiculous formality that RPGs only still have because they've had them for years, but in Bug Fables any item that isn't simple healing -- a lot of them aren't simple healing -- has great strategic use, and the exact way you spend your medal points can determine whether you win or lose any fight, especially bosses. for example, one character having one extra damage for two turns when they typically only do two is pretty important, especially when they use an attack that does multiple hits, and having it in item form saves valuable medal points and skill points. part of that time was kind of a waste, though, because I generally had one set of medals I use for multiple enemies and one I use for single enemies like bosses. being able to save loadouts would have helped a lot. I would like to compliment Bug Fables on allowing you to restart any boss with different medals without having to repeat cutscenes, and commend it for letting you do-over your level up bonuses late in the game when it starts to matter.

it's not like spending a lot of time on strategizing before fights is strictly mandatory. I was mostly playing on hard mode where enemies have more health and more difficult attacks, and mostly with a medal called Hard Hits that makes all enemies deal one extra damage in exchange for extra money after each fight. it can be less difficult if you'd like, but it's never mindless; even if you're doing a strategy that manages 20 or 30 damage (again, a lot in this game) in a single turn, it takes effort to choose your medals to do so much damage and actually play the strategy out in combat. the combat strategy is the best part of Bug Fables, and it makes each fight almost like a puzzle. I've typed some form of "strategy" six times so far, which is fair because it's the best part of Bug Fables. don't let it put you off, though, it's RPG combat strategy, not chess-like or RTS or something, so if you've enjoyed any other turn-based RPG it should be easy to get used to.

it's also worth mentioning the ample side content. each chapter of the game unlocks a handful of side quests, some about trading, some about combat, and almost as many bonus bosses as main bosses. you're allowed to fight them fairly early on, and a few become available after the final boss that are actually a bit harder than it in classic Paper Mario fashion. basically, if you like Bug Fables, there's a lot of it to play. there's even a trading card minigame because of course there is. it's fairly fleshed out, too, and unlike the one in Chocobo Tales the animations between turns don't take six years. the reward for the whole card side quest isn't something that's important for combat, so you can skip it if you don't like it; I didn't especially like it so I think that was a great decision on the developers' part.

rewards for some of the other side content, though, are so good it's kind of a wonder they can be completely skipped. it doesn't make the game harder to not have those skills or medals, but they are some of the best in the game and undeniably really useful. they make great side quest rewards in that sense, but it's important to know for the people that usually wouldn't do side content. I don't know if that's a common kind of player, but just in case. (this game's 100% achievement has been earned by a sky-high 5.9% of players on Steam. usually it's more like 2% or less. the point is none of the extra content is overly obtuse.)

I will complain about the forced stealth sections though. and be astounded that they fixed the main issue with them in the last stealth section. these are minor caveats and take well under an hour total unless you're really, really, really bad at sneaking, but they bothered me when I got to them. I mean, I understand why they're in the game, I understand why Zelda has them, but I didn't really like them. the main issue for all but the last stealth section is that there's no vision cone or other indication that "if you stand here they will see you" or even an opportunity to recover from mistakes which are incredibly important for playable stealth. the last stealth section does have a vision cone and does have an opportunity to recover from mistakes, which is a great step up. I would like to use even more italics to remind you that these sections total less than an hour of gameplay. Zelda: Breath of the Wild's forced-ish stealth was much worse than this.

I don't know where else to put it, so I'll add here that the soundtrack is great and the graphics are perfectly Gamecube-y and the sprites capture the cuteness of Paper Mario really well, even though they're, you know, bugs. each environment is distinct and themed well, and each one’s music matches well. I really wish I knew how to talk about music because there are a lot of different songs in this game that work well for what they go with. boss music sounds intense and boss-y and appropriate for each boss you're fighting, the not-music hits just right, and everything else feels good. some songs use Nintendo 64 MIDI instruments, which I loved. and the bee boss music has a synth that sounds like bees buzzing.

anyone that likes RPGs -- and even some people that don't -- will probably enjoy the story and strategy that make up the excellent Bug Fables. it goes beyond being a homage to Paper Mario and becomes its own thing entirely, though its roots are obvious from the art style. not that this takes away from it -- Paper Mario is a great legacy, and this manages to be even better. for all its little bad things there are a dozen great ones. I admit I haven't played the classic Paper Mario games, but this made me want more -- I guess I'll have to go back while I hope for Moonsprout Games to continue forward.

[warsofasoiaf]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola. 

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that. 

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[prettywordsyouleft]

Bothered

Prompt: #129 for @syuperseventeen​ – “Please, forgive me.”

syuperseventeen said:

Hi! Could I please request #129 for the drabble game with S.Coups of SEVENTEEN? Would love a bit of angsty office!au (enemies-to-lovers, maybe?) if possible otherwise anything else you can write is fine! 😊

Pairing: Choi Seungcheol (SCoups) x reader

Genre: enemies to lovers / office au

Warnings: none

Word count: 1576

You stopped mid-sentence, your gaze boring into the man at the far end of the table, your mouth falling ajar.

You couldn’t believe it. Had Choi Seungcheol just fallen asleep in the middle of your presentation?!

Blinking rapidly to regain composure, you smiled hastily, attempting to pick up with the same enthusiasm you had held this entire time. Yet, your attention drifted towards Seungcheol multiple times, causing you to stammer and sound less capable in delivering what you had been working day and night on for weeks.

You would kill him for this.

If there was one thing that was established within the office you worked at, it was that Seungcheol and you regularly butted heads. He was in charge of sales and you ran product support. You should be able to work harmoniously together to ensure the best products and deals reached the hands of your customer base.

However, there was nothing but animosity between you.

After thanking the other members of the meeting for joining you this morning, you collected your things and stalked towards the exit, slapping the back of his head with your file folder as you went by.

Seungcheol should’ve been thankful that was all you did to him right now.

It didn’t take him long to venture out of the meeting, and your current task was brewing yourself a cup of camomile tea to calm down the rage that surged throughout your body. You wouldn’t stoop to the level of screaming at him today.

No, you had done that twice already this week and wanted to attempt to show some level of professionalism for the remaining hours you had in the office today. Still, as you waited for the water to boil, you wrung your hands together, in hopes that would settle the need to wrap them around Seungcheol’s neck instead.

You didn’t need to look up to see it was him when someone entered the staff kitchen a moment later. He chuckled softly. “At least you have a strong hand on you.”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Why, worried you might start screaming again?” he teased, smirking to himself as he reached for a clean cup to place under the coffee machine. Seungcheol then cocked his head to the side. “Nice presentation, by the way.”

You scoffed. “Like you heard it.”

“I haven’t slept that well in weeks! I ought to thank the person who helped me get some much-needed shuteye. Your voice is great for sending me off to sleep. Maybe I should record it so I can play it before bed each night.”

“I cannot believe you!” you shrilled, balling your hands up in hopes to settle yourself before you exploded. “I worked so god damn hard on that and you don’t even have the decency to just sit there.”

“But I did, I didn’t leave the meeting like last time. See, improvements.”

You were passed the point of caring, your calming tea all forgotten about now. “You owe me an apology!”

“Please, forgive me for I have sinned,” Sungcheol proclaimed dramatically, his eyes crinkling up with amusement. “Look, Y/N, it’s not something you needed to speak forty-seven minutes about. You could have just emailed the statistics to everyone instead of wasting their time.”

“Wasting time?! That’s what you do! I asked you for a predicted sale trends report a week ago. Where is it?!”

“Somewhere under the pile of actual work I need to do to keep my department running. If you needed it, you should have-”

“If it wasn’t going to end me in jail, I’d kill you.”

Seungcheol grinned, picking up his coffee. “Ooh, that sounds like fun.”

“Fun?! You’ll be the death of me!”

“Well, then, we’ll die together in that sentiment, won’t we?” he offered before clucking his tongue in farewell, grinning as he left the room.

You screamed in frustration, dumping the tea down the sink before reaching for something stronger.

There would be no way to calm your nerves now.

You were amazed to last four days out of the next week without butting heads with Seungcheol. It was only two days the following week and then you felt as if you suffered daily by something he would instigate.

The problem was you bit the bait each and every time.

“Have you ever stopped to think he’s doing it on purpose?” Joshua mentioned over lunch and you looked at your manager, nodding heartily.

“Of course, he is. No one is that irritating incidentally.”

“No, I mean, with a specific reason.”

You rolled your eyes. “Seungcheol’s quest in life is to make me miserable.”

“Or something else.”

“Like what?” you wondered, blinking slowly at Joshua’s knowing look. You hissed and shook your head. “Are you kidding me?!”

“What, you’re an attractive, hard-headed woman. And Seungcheol is as competitive as they get. You spark a whole lot of banter in him.”

“And he enrages me with pure contempt.”

“Y/N, take a moment to lessen the annoyance and look beneath the surface. You do it too. You wouldn’t speak to Wonwoo in Logistics like you do Seungcheol.”

You agreed. “Because he’s not an asshole!”

“No, because he hasn’t risen your blood pressure above anything amicable. Yet you have a crush on him. Why?”

“Have you seen the guy, he’s gorgeous!”

Joshua shrugged. “And Seungcheol?”

You stopped, allowing yourself to contemplate for a moment over your arch-nemesis’ appearance. He looked strong, as if he worked out regularly. When he smiled at another co-worker, you had once noticed his dimples and found yourself thinking about them for the rest of the day. In fact, when you started here, you had found your eyes travelling towards Seungcheol quite a lot.

You cursed inwardly, even if he was an asshole, he was an attractive one.

It didn’t matter if he was sculpted by the Gods himself, however. There was no way you’d find him someone you’d want to lock lips with now. He infuriated you relentlessly.

You couldn’t allow someone that toxic into your life.

Except, was he really toxic? If you were truly that offended by him, wouldn’t you simply avoid him at all costs?

You blinked out of your unsteady thoughts when you heard Joshua laugh. “Like I said, Y/N, don’t you think there’s more between you both?”

It bothered you to no end. Joshua’s words played over in your head for the rest of the day and by the time you had finally managed to wrap up your tasks for the day, most of the other workers had left.

Groaning loudly at the thought of having dinner even later now, you collected your belongings and stood up, tugging on your coat. When you went to step off, you realised someone was still in the office with you. Seungcheol smirked. “Do you always zone out and think you’re the only one around? Imagine if your sweet Wonwoo heard you groan like that.”

“Must you bother me now?” you grumbled, though with your increasing heartbeat, you began to feel flustered. You closed your eyes in hopes to ease the experience but when you reopened them, Seungcheol was even closer.

You inwardly began to curse out Joshua and his impractical help.

“Why not, you seem to enjoy it.”

“Do I?”

“Well, don’t you?” he asked as you both headed towards the elevator. You looked at him stopping beside you and swiftly turned to the stairwell entrance, hoping if you took the three flights of stairs you could justify the reason for your heart beating this rapidly.

What you didn’t expect was for Seungcheol to follow you. “I didn’t take you one for exercise, Y/N.”

“What did you take me for then?” you huffed, wishing you hadn’t worn your highest pair of heels today. You gasped when the man passed you and then blocked the path forward, teetering in your heels as you cursed out loud.

He smirked. “I’m hearing it all today, huh?”

“Would you just stop bothering me?” you pleaded and Seungcheol’s brows furrowed together. “All day you’ve been bothering me and I’m just tired of it all.”

“I’ve spoken to you less today than all week, do you really hate me that much?”

“Yes,” you immediately answered and then sighed. “No. No, but I need-”

“Need what?”

Sizing him up, you threw your arms around his neck and pressed your lips to his. It was instantaneous, the way his mouth caressed yours and his arms wound around you, pulling you closer to him. You sighed into the kiss and that allowed Seungcheol the opportunity to deepen it, the pair of you turning toward the wall for leverage. You didn’t even care that the railing was pressing into your back, too focused on the way Seungcheol was stealing your breath away.

Gasping for air, you separated, staring at one another as you caught your breaths. Seungcheol smiled warmly. “You needed that?”

“More than I realised,” you admitted and he chuckled.

“Maybe you hated that you hadn’t taken a taste yet. You only ever bite so far with my attempts.”

You gaped at him. “You mean…”

“Why else would I make our office life so interesting, Y/N?”

“You better not stop being an asshole just because I kissed you just now,” you instructed and Seungcheol smirked. The emphasis on his swollen lips made you groan and reach for another kiss.

When you pulled away, he nodded softly. “Who knows, maybe I’ll find new ways to rile you up.”

_________________

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[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

How would the Quidditch characters work in a dating quest?

(Courtesy of an Ask by @dalekofchaos) 

First of all, thank you for your patience. I know I took forever to finish this one, but as someone who’s become quite invested in these four little misfits, I wanted to get it exactly right. There are two ways to go about this. One is to back and attempt to write the Quidditch characters into past dating quests like the Celestial Ball. The other is to start from scrap and design a completely new quest concept. I am going to do the latter. Perhaps someday, I shall write versions of other quests, but I’d want to start from the Celestial Ball, and I’m pretty sure I only have access to Valentines Day and the Festival Quest data-mines. Let’s get started. I’m calling this TLSQ ‘A Wonderful World Journey” for reasons that will become clear soon enough. Due to reasons of conflict in Season 2, I’m gonna say this would need to drop in Season 3 or 4. I’m also going to say that the pre-existing dating quests are going to be ignored for this - Quidditch is a different timeline, so as far as I’m concerned, this is the first date MC will be on. At least, the first one that matters. So, how does it start?

It starts with Orion gathering his team (plus Murphy) for a pre-Practice discussion like he often does. This time, it’s about Quidditch as a concept, and the players’ commitment to the game versus their commitment to their team. MC is given a choice - do they play because they like Quidditch, because of the friends they have on the team, or some other reason, like glory? But this is interrupted when Face Paint Kid shows up to tell everyone that he’s pretty sure he saw Ethan Parkin on campus, and that he was talking to Erika Rath’s team! Skye and Rath have buried the hatchet, so Skye is mostly curious about what her Dad is doing here and how he even knows Rath. MC resolves to ask her after practice. 

MC and Rath meet up in the Great Hall. There can be a Turkey Sandwich mini-game here. Rath admits that Ethan Parkin is on campus, but declines to explain why. Telling MC that it’s supposed to be a secret, and that Skye and the others will find out soon enough. Here, MC and Rath can have a more in depth conversation about feelings and such, and MC can have a dialogue choice to respect Rath keeping this to herself, or not respect it. But the conversation ultimately veers, again, into the concept of loyalty to the game, versus loyalty to your team. MC bringing up what Orion said. Rath proposes the question of whether or not MC can truly like and trust her then, if they’re not on the same team. Going to try and avoid using the word “friend” in this quest for obvious reasons.

After this conversation, Murphy meets up with MC back at the grounds, to tell them that Ethan Parkin has indeed been seen on campus by several witnesses, and has also been seen conversing with the other two Quidditch teams, meaning that MC’s team is the only one he has yet to visit. Both Murphy and MC speculate on why this is, and MC can be given the chance to choose between a few guesses. Murphy then asks MC to help him spy on Ethan, to find out what’s going on. Here, we can have further development of Murphy’s motives - what I’m trying to push is the idea that all four of these characters are dedicated to Quidditch for different reasons, and I also feel like Murphy is the kind of person who can’t resist a mystery. That could be his reason for being dedicated to Quidditch - the excitement of not knowing the answer, and trying to discover it beforehand. 

MC then tracks Ethan Parkin to the training grounds, and spies on him talking to Madam Hooch about some big event that’s coming up. The spying itself can be a task, and if Talbott’s quest has been completed, then the option to spy using one’s Animagus form can be available here. However, all of this is interrupted when Skye shows up to confront her Dad. Post-Season 2, she’s more mature and their relationship is stronger, but she’s still (somewhat justifiably) upset that he hasn’t come to see her at all, and is visiting other teams. In keeping with tradition between these two, it’s all a misunderstanding. Ethan sent Skye a letter ahead of time, and thought she already knew. He promises to make it up to her, and tells her to gather her team. After Ethan and Hooch leave, MC comes out of hiding to comfort Skye, and the theme of why people play Quidditch can be further explored with Skye talking to MC about her Dad. Skye can also admit that she almost never checks her letters because she gets so much fan-mail, and MC can express whether or not they think she has any fault in all this. 

It’s time for the big announcement. Ethan Parkin gathers all four Quidditch teams on the Pitch to announce the truth. He has a spare ticket to the next round of the World Cup that’s approaching fast - it won’t be in Britain because of canon, but you’ll soon see that isn’t going to stop me. Ethan himself cannot attend because of plot reasons, but he wants the tickets to go to the person most dedicated to Quidditch - hence a little competition. It won’t be an actual game, because that would exclude folks like Murphy, but it would be some kind of audition by heart. Basically, Ethan is going to hold a big party and talk to everyone who’s present, and figure out for himself who would deserve it/enjoy it the most. You might be asking why he doesn’t just give the ticket to Skye, and that will be explored, but the short answer is that she’s most likely attended World Cups before, so it’s not as big a deal for her. 

After the announcement, MC, Sky, Murphy, Orion, and Rath all linger in a kind of semi-circle and talk about their motivations. Murphy wants the experience of getting to see a World Cup game - it will be the ultimate challenge to analyze and deduce the plays before they happen. Rath wants to see Professional Quidditch players up close and learn from their talents to better her own skill as a Beater. Skye is getting all starry-eyed and nostalgic, since she probably hasn’t been to a Cup since she was a little girl. For her, this will be like going back home. Orion is strangely quiet about his motivations. But he encourages the others in his usual mystic way. After everyone parts ways, MC hangs back to ask Orion about his goals. Orion admits that he has no intention of vying for this ticket - because Quidditch isn’t a challenge or a project or a way of life for him. It’s simply the place that he settled and found his family - the Cup would not interest him. MC can convince him to try anyway, but whether or not he does will depend on a choice that’s coming up. 

MC meets up with Penny and Andre in the Courtyard, who have just been gossiping about the huge party that’s being hosted by the Ethan Parkin. Penny is excited at the chance to meet him again, and Andre wants to throw his own hat in the ring to win the ticket. But, sorry Andre, that’s not going to happen. You’ve got your own dating quests. What is going to happen is that Penny will excitedly ask MC about if they’re going to bring anyone to the party, surprising MC. When they express confusion, both Penny and Andre agree that a party like this is a perfect opportunity to have a date. Face Paint Kid, who was listening in, also agrees. If we want, we can also throw in a line about him going stag, to clarify that he’s not an option - sorry FPK fans. This can prompt Penny to ask MC if they fancy any of their Quidditch friends. The answers can be something like “Yes, I fancy one of them.” and, “I’ve never thought about it before,” and even “Actually, I fancy more than one.” But at the end of the day, one will still need to make the choice. At Penny and Andre’s prompting, and Andre’s promise to make MC an awesome outfit for the party, MC now begins to consider who they would invite. 

MC will next visit the Changing Rooms, only to find their four friends all rehearsing what they’re going to say and do at the party to make sure Ethan notices them and thinks of them as the choice for the ticket. (Side note: I think it can be a show of how far everyone has come that Rath is just here, hanging out as well, and no one bats an eye.) Face Paint Kid can appear again and tell MC that this is the perfect chance. Go over and offer to help be a sounding board to one of their friends, and in the process, ask them out! This is where we get that classic screen of the four Quidditch characters with exclamation points over their heads. MC makes the choice, and chooses which ending they get. They talk to their choice, help them figure out how best to present them-selves, which also includes talking about what they would wear, and one energy-collecting task later, MC asks their interest. No tricks here, all four characters gladly accept, though they behave differently about it. Rath is more subdued, Orion is more mystical, Murphy offers calculations, Skye definitely says, “Smashing!” Etc. 

Andre then sends MC one of those little owls, and the player will have to wait a few hours to unlock this next event, but it makes sense in-universe. Andre is finishing up the outfits, and he needed to clear everyone out because this event will also take place in the changing rooms. I don’t have too many ideas for what the outfits would look like, but I want there to be three or four, perhaps one that is slightly inspired by each character. Not to the point of being that noticeable, but if you look close. Like, one of the outfits could be a trench-coat. One could have a tie. One could involve MC putting a highlight in their hair. But they’d definitely all have their own unique spin so that any outfit could coincide with any date. During this scene, Andre also drops a question that MC has been too busy to even consider - what happens if they win? Why do they play Quidditch? It can be a choice, whether they’d prefer to win them-self, or if they want their date to win. 

Party time! I know the Quidditch Pitch has already been a setting for a Dating Quest, so this party could really occur anywhere. The Courtyard, the Great Hall, etc. But in my head, it’s happening on the Pitch. During this opening scene, MC can interact and trade banter with the other three characters who were not chosen, before finding their date and exchanging more playful, flirty banter. They can wander around and mingle, spending energy to do so, before MC’s date gets stage fright when Ethan is approaching. This can vary from person to person. Exclusive dialogue for Skye since he’s her Dad, more reserved dialogue for Orion because he’s still uncertain about winning, Rath’s social anxiety acting up, Murphy fretting that Ethan won’t see him as a “real” Quidditch player. At the last second, it will occur to MC’s date that MC hasn’t said anything about whether or not they want to win the World Cup ticket. Ethan arrives and MC’s date hesitates. MC can have a dialogue choice here between encouraging their date to speak up or filling in the silence them-self. Either way, Ethan moves on, and MC’s date apologizes for having been so self-focused. 

The time has come for the winner to be declared! Gonna tell you right now, the winner of World Cup ticket is determined entirely by the choice MC made during the outfit scene with Andre. It’s very simple - if they said they wanted to win, they will. If they said they would rather their date win, then their date is going to win. But no matter who wins, the scene plays out in similar beats. If MC wins, they express that they’re giving their ticket to their date instead of keeping it. Likewise, if MC’s date wins, they instead insist upon giving the ticket to MC. That’s when Ethan drops the plot twist that I’m sure you all knew was coming. There are actually two tickets, and with how moved everyone was by the selfless gesture, he’s giving the tickets to MC and their date. Much excitement, much celebration. Happy faces. It’s wholesome. But it’s not the end. 

There’s no way in hell I wasn’t going to put the World Cup in after all that teasing. Look, we’ve seen with the Burrow and the Portrait Vault that they can include one-time only locations that aren’t anywhere on the HPHM map as we know it. The same thing can occur here. Ethan calls MC and their Date over to the Training Grounds where he and Madam Hooch have a timed Portkey waiting, probably a Quaffle or something. Hell, for added fun, it can vary - be a Quaffle for Orion and Skye, be a Bludger for Rath, and a Golden Snitch for Murphy - though in the latter two cases, it obviously wouldn’t be “active.” There can be exclusive dialogue if MC has already used Portkeys, and if we really want to, we can have an easter egg line about “Portkey games.” Ethan gives MC and their date the tickets, and reassures them that the Portkey will reactivate after the match is over. So the whole question of “wouldn’t they be stranded?” is handwaved. MC and their Date touch the portkey, and ZAP! 

It’s game time. They arrive in the top box, and some generic wizard sprites usher them in to help them find their seats - having known ahead of time from Ethan that they were coming. Probably speak in an accent because this is definitely a different country. MC and their Date can see the sights, enjoying themselves and trading sweet banter as they await the game to start. And here’s one final surprise - the Player them-self is allowed to play in the World Cup. It’s just a re-skin of ordinary Quidditch games with a new background and new character sprites, that wouldn’t be too difficult to program. To be clear, they’re not controlling MC for this sequence, but the professional players. MC and their date are watching the match. It doesn’t matter if the player wins or loses though, since no matter what Britain isn’t playing in this match. But after it’s over, MC and their date cheer. We can return one final time to the theme of figuring out why everyone plays Quidditch, and the four characters can all express that, no matter their reason, they like having MC by their side as they follow a Quidditch career. We can return to Rath’s doubt that MC would be close to her since they’re on separate teams. Murphy’s fear that he wouldn’t be seen as a “true” Quidditch player. Orion’s uncertainty about his own place in Quidditch. Skye’s reevaluation of the environment she’s grown up in. All of these topics can make a return, depending on who was chosen. There can also be some exploration of MC’s bond with the character. Murphy can appreciate that they listen to him with his hyper-fixations. Rath can chuckle at the memory of how hard they tried to reach out to her. Orion can dwell on how they’ve always been kindred spirits, maybe reference the Quidditch-robe gift scene. Skye can allude to how much MC means to her, even after all of their ups and downs. 

For a final cut-scene, I dunno. I just kind of imagine fire-works going off, as MC and their date cuddle up in the top box. Maybe a forehead or top-of-the-head kiss can happen here. Maybe some hand-holding. Can go a few ways, as long as it’s sweet and wholesome. Rath might have a unique animation simply because of her different sprite. Either way, that’s how the scene fades out. We don’t see them make the return journey, because we don’t need to. That’s already been hand-waved. As a final reward, I like to imagine that the portkey, now inactive, is added to MC’s dormitory. 

Oh man, this was so much fun. Thank you for sending me this, and thank you for waiting on me to get it done!

[lozheadcanonsandmore]

So, I’m cracking the surface and finally dishing up some botw 2 stuff!

This isn't necessarily headcanons or theories, just some ideas I sprung up from a convo in a discord server I'm in. 

It basically started by someone asking if we think they will do dungeons as apposed to the stuff the in botw, divine beasts, etc. So I'll start with that.

I personally would like some sort of Sheikah related thing and some dungeons, (cause dungeons are really cool). 

Based on what we know there is a good chance that there will be dungeons, considering the fact that based on the botw 2 trailer we know that the Sheikah tech seems to be gone. So, there most likely will not be a lot of that in the game. 

The thing about dungeons however is since they have been in Zelda games is that there is always a item you get in each one, a boomerang, hookshot, etc. This can make the game more linear. There are ways to combat this, as Wind Waker I find overall really fun, as there are Islands that don’t matter to the story, a bunch of side quests, treasure charts, etc. 

But Botw has a completely different feel, it is so much more open world, considering the fact you can go beat Ganon right after finishing the Great Plateau. This game is open world, so how does one combat this with dungeons. 

The first thing would be the fact that there is no order to the dungeons, like how you need the one item to even start a different dungeon in some Zelda games.

Now that I have chattered on about the way it would work, how about a few dungeon ideas. 

A Zonai dungeon. This dungeon could be played out two ways, a sort of tutorial or a way to increase your power. This is running off the assumption that the the green arm magic in the trailer is Zonai magic. 

A great way to think about this dungeon is like Hyrule Castle in botw. Most people weren’t eager to rush right to it as it was a dangerous place and looked very scary with Ganon there. But if you did get to the Castle there were all sorts of goodies, like really good weapons. On my first playthrough In never even went into the Central region, I was terrified of Guardians, I couldn’t kill them.  On my second playthrough I immediately went there to pick up a few go weapons. So, the Castle more or less, is extremely helpful, scary at first, and mandatory (if you wanna beat the game)

So the dungeon itself would be like that. In the Faron region which has gotten filled with monsters or something else that is dangerous, stopping someone from traveling over there. Not the whole of Faron just the little part of the Zonai Ruins, so it wouldn’t disrupt your playthrough. Faron might have slightly more monsters than other regions, like Central did. 

So the dungeon itself. 

You would enter the dungeon through a Zonai ruin. You enter and collect your information on the dungeon via a stalactite (the one coming from the ceiling). The floating letters/language (from the trailer )come in and the info about the dungeon map is given to the player. You go through the dungeon use your array of Zonai Magic and combat tricks, eventually getting to the place where there would normally be a boss. But here there isn’t one. Just a Zonai. You are actually seeing one. And then cutscene that explains some stuff about Link’s role, the Zonai, or something. The old zonai sticks his hand forward and sort of fades into green specks. They swirl around Link and then are gone. He feels stronger and a voice speaks to him, telling him he is at his strongest now. A door opens and we go into a new section that has us work on the new power.  A strong power that makes malice fade into nothing, (I’ll have to work out the specifics later) At the end there is key, and Link places it in the lock to open to a vast room and the boss appears. A three-head monster, the heads of a boar, dragon, and owl. The eyes are closed and then one head awakens. You beat each head for three phases Link gets his heart container and walk out through the door and exit from where you came in.  Then you realize, it’s all a circle a cycle. Everything is.

--

During the course of writing this up I had a lot of fun so I will save other dungeons for different times If you want me to elaborate on any of this, feel free to ask. This includes the boss or any info. This is really cool, so I will definitely cover a lot more in the future for botw 2

[eri-blogs-life]

Tales of Vesperia is a game about how bitcoin is bad

Okay, not really. But kind of. Hear me out

Now, this write-up is gonna be full of spoilers, I just love the Tales of series and always feel a lot when I finish playing one, so I wanna get my thoughts down on “paper”. If you wanna know my overall thoughts on the game in a spoiler-free way, here they are: It’s really good and I liked it a lot

So, the Tales of series has always held a special place in my heart. I played Tales of Symphonia when I was in middle school and high school, and I played Tales of Symphonia a LOT during that time. Eventually I found Tales of the Abyss on the 3ds, and I also played Zestiria on PC. When I heard Tales of Vesperia was getting an enhanced port to the switch, I was so excited!! When it came out, I picked it up right away and played it... But after about the first major story arc, I set it aside to play something else and didn’t return to it for awhile. But, finally, a couple weeks ago I got back into a kick of playing big RPGs again, and Tales of Vesperia was a perfect candidate! So I marathoned it over the last like 2 weeks.

Story: Story is usually the core of a Tales of game. They’re big, they’re grand, and they usually have some kind of stance to take on an issue with society as a whole. Plus they’re called Tales. That’s literally just story.

Tales of Vesperia’s story was good. But, at least to me, it fell a little flat later on. Act 1 felt really strong as a standalone piece, but then it felt like the game’s theming started falling apart a little as it progressed, switching from an individual story about our protagonists to a grander story about the world. I don’t think the latter parts were bad, necessarily, but from Act 1 I felt the game was going to have a much more personal story when it ended up becoming a much more worldly story.

The game doesn’t break itself into “Acts”, this is just a way I’ve been thinking of the game myself. That breaks down into this sort of story summary:

Act 1, Introduction: Yuri leaves his home because their aque blastia got stolen and they need to get it back. Along the way, he has to make the decision that in order to deal with those who the law cannot touch, he has to become a vigilante, killing corupt politicians and other figures himself rather than letting the law attempt (and usually fail) to reach them. Act 1 ends with Yuri accepting that he can’t necessarily do all the vigilante work on his own and he joins up with Karol and Judith to form the guild Brave Vesperia.

Act 2, The Buildup: With Princess Estellise as their first client, Brave Vesperia is dragged all over the world on a quest to learn more about Estelle’s family history. Eventually, we learn that the ancient people awoke a dangerous monster called the Adephagos, and it has the potential to be reawoken if the world continues to use blastia (a technology in the Vesperia setting). As Act 2 wraps up, Commandant Alexei and his swarms of unquestioning soldiers activate an ancient weapon so Alexei can rule the world. But oops! It’s not a weapon, it was a barrier meant to keep the Adephagos out of the world. Alexei is killed.

Act 3, The FInale: With the Adephagos threatening the world, Brave Vesperia has to find some way for the people of the world to get by without access to blastia, as even if the Adephagos is killed, continued use of blastia will cause the world’s aer to go out of control and create a new Adephagos. The party finds a solution in the ability to turn ancient creatures known as Entelexaia into Spirits, elemental creatures that have the ability to manipulate and preserve the world’s aer, keeping it from going out of control. Meanwhile, a figure called Duke has determined that the best solution is actual to kill all humanity, because they will always find a way to pollute the world’s aer or in some way ruin the natural world. In the end, the party defeats Duke, and Duke decides to actually help the party stop the Adephagos in the end, allowing for humanity to live on and find new ways of surviving without the blastia technology they have relied on for so long.

So... I felt like the game really neatly fit into this three act structure, but each Act feels like its own distinct story, with different themes throughout, rather than a single unified story. Act 1 focused on trying to answer the question of “How do you deal with people who the law can’t touch?”. Act 2 focused on the question of Is it okay to blindly follow a charismatic imperialist leader? And Act 3 focused a lot on the question of How do we deal with our own technology causing problems with the natural world? So, it felt disconnected to me

The game’s “Characteristic Genre Name” is “Enforcing One’s ‘Justice’ RPG”. So presumably the game’s story should have a theme of enforcing one’s justice. And Act 1 focuses heavily on that with our main protagonist Yuri. I think an argument could be made that Act 3 focuses on that with the duel between Brave Vesperia and Duke showing the two sides trying to fight for their own “justice” in their view of how the world should be. Act 2 then feels a little disconnected, but I think an argument could be made that a lot of its focus is on Estelle learning to make decisions for herself rather than just be pulled along with whatever it is that other people put in her way, so she is learning to enforce her ‘justice’.

So, back to my catcher line at the top, no, Tales of Vesperia is not directly about bitcoin being bad. But it has a heavy focus in the latter parts about technology causing problems with the environment, in much the same way that our own technologies like bitcoin mining create pollution that causes our own air to be polluted. The Adephagos, being a creature that breaks through a barrier in the atmosphere when Terca Lumeiris’s aer is polluted, feels like a pretty dang good metaphor for global warming becoming a problem once our ozone barrier layer depleted as air pollution has increased on Earth. 

Characters: Tales games may be big on their stories, but the thing that really sells how good Tales of games are... it’s the characters. Tales games have really strong casts, and do a lot of optional characterization for the characters in ways that you really don’t see in any other JRPGs. Tales games give you the ability to watch Skits, which are just little dialogues the characters do, sometimes about some kind of story beat that just happened, but a lot of the time the Skits just focus on the characters interacting in some mundane way, and it really helps give you a stronger sense of who these characters are. And honestly, when it comes to a lot of Tales casts, there’s usually someone I feel pretty meh about. While I liked her story, Presea in Symphonia wasn’t very interested as a character to me, for example. But the main Vesperia cast is really strong and I really liked them all. So I just wanna talk briefly about each of them:

Yuri. The main character, the POV character for most of the game. Yuri starts out searching for a blastia and trying to bring a thief to justice, then becomes a vigilante killing corrupt politicians, then eventually becomes the leader of a guild whose stated goal is to enact justice and help people. Yuri was a really fun character to explore, even if I felt like a lot of his character development didn’t feel very strong after Act 1. 

Repede. The second character we’re introduced to, Repede is Yuri’s friend who also happens to be a dog. Or at least look like a dog. Repede doesn’t have much of a story going on, but god damn is he a dog. And has an alternate costume in the definitive edition that’s a 「J O J O   R E F E R E N C E」

Estelle. Princess Estellise is the driving point of a lot of the plot. She’s part of an ancient race of people who have magical powers without the need of blastia. But her people were mostly wiped out stopping the Adephagos a long time ago. She starts out as just this quiet little princess who’s trying to warn Flynn that people are hunting after him, but she really starts to grow to be her own person by the end.

Flynn. He is a knight, and struggles a lot with how to deal with those the law can’t touch, much like Yuri. Flynn and Yuri are very much foils of each other throughout the story. They’re old friends, and both tried to join the knights in order to change a corrupt system from within. But Yuri left the knights when they weren’t producing any results, becoming his vigilante self we know and love. But Flynn stayed in the knights, and between both of their opposite approaches to the world, they’re able to eventually change the world

Karol. The leader of Brave Vesperia, Karol is just a child. He starts out trying so, so hard to do cool things so he can impress people, but by the end he learns to work together with others to help people. And hey, that’s the coolest thing you can do.

Rita. A genius blastia researcher, Rita is integral to the plot, especially later on as it focuses more on the dangers of blastia. Rita has to come to terms with how the thing she loves above all else, blastia, might actually be hurting the world and shouldn’t be used.

Raven. Raven’s a neat character. He’s the classic Tales trope of the character who betrays you halfway through. In Act 2, it’s revealed that Raven is also the knight Schwann, and he’s been working both with your party, but also as a member of Alexei’s army. He has to deal with how he is just a pawn of Alexei, blindly following a characteristic imperial leader, and eventually he throws away his old identity as Schwann and becomes just Raven, a member of Brave Vesperia’s crew.

Judith. I love Judith. She’s all about destroying blastia. She knows they’re a problem, but doesn’t know why until joining up with Brave Vesperia and adventuring together for awhile. Like Rita, she’s gotta deal with a lack of purpose later on in the game, as once blastia are no longer used, her life goal of destroying blastia becomes pointless. She’s a really fun character, but I don’t know that I have the words to describe in what way.

Patty. She’s an interesting case. She’s the new character added in later updates to Vesperia, and wasn’t there in the original game. She starts out as an amnesiac who believes herself to be the granddaughter of the legendary pirate and outlaw, Aifread. But eventually it’s revealed that she is Aifread. And that brings up a lot of questions about why is she so young if she was a legendary and feared pirate captain? The optional late-game dungeon provides one explanation for this, in her having taking a sort of drug that allows one to extend their life, and the effects on humanity may be more drastic than just extending life. Patty’s a weird character. But, overall I’d say that I think they did a great job of incorporating her story into the overall Vesperia story, I think. Though oftentimes she feels very gimmicky and one-note, being all about pirate-y things and the sea. 

Gameplay: So how’s the game stack up, mechanically, to other games? Well, it’s got that great Tales style gameplay, a mix of RPG mechanics and a sort of 2.5-D fighter in its combat. And it’s noticable, being an evolution of the mechanics I loved in Symphonia that were expanded on in Abyss. Vesperia really feels good to play. 

One of my favorite things in the Tales series is how there’s usually this big cast of characters and you can have any of them be your player-controlled character. There’s usually like, your default character, Yuri in this case, that the game normally gives you control of. And Yuri was very fun to play as! But I also enjoyed trying out everyone else, and I put together a team that had me playing as Judith which was my treasure-hunting/gald-grinding team. I really liked Judith’s acrobatic high-flying combat style.

My Final Thoughts: Tales of Vesperia is really good. I think I’d rank it as my third-favorite Tales game that I’ve played so far, out of 5. So in terms of the Tales series, it’s middle of the road from my experiences so far I guess? But the Tales series is consistently above-average in my experience, so... Tldr it was a really fun experience and I’m glad I put the time into playing it.

[videogametim]

My Top 10 Games of 2019

It was pretty hard to narrow down the list this year. 2019 was a lot stronger for video games than 2018 and I feel a LOT more confidant about my picks and GOTY choice. In addition, there were also a lot of indie games not mentioned here that I think I will highlight in another post a bit later. For now, here’s the Top 10.

10. Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo)

Sayonara Wild Hearts is something special. Although clocking in rather short at just under an hour long, I would best describe the game as an Album Video Game. Each of the game’s 23 or so levels has its own song. The actual gameplay consists of mostly on-rails segments where you have basic movement and avoid obstacles and collect pickups to boost your score, but every level has a unique take on that concept with major climax levels being full tracks with vocals. It’s incredibly stylistic and tells a heartwarming story about dealing with heartbreak. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys musical games.

9. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent Systems)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the first game in the series that managed to grab me. It’s a very competent tactical RPG with one of my favourite casts of characters this year (especially the Black Eagles house). I was consistently impressed the most with just the sheer amount of content and detail that went into it. An unnecessarily large amount of the dialogue is voiced, the second half of each of the three selectable house’s routes are totally unique, and each route takes around 60 hours to complete. I really never thought a Fire Emblem game would be my new most played game on the Switch by a mile but here we are. 

8. AI: The Somnium Files (Spike Chunsoft)

Kotaro Uchikoshi’s (creator of the Zero Escape trilogy) latest work might be his finest. AI: The Somnium Files is the game on the list this year with the most heart put into it. Consistently funny and over-the-top, a wonderful cast, and a really well executed sci-fi murder mystery. It makes me hope that Uchikoshi continues to make the kinds of games he wants to make, because you can definitely tell he had the most fun making this one.

7. Resident Evil 2 (Capcom)

Resident Evil 2 is the new gold standard for game remakes. I could go on and on praising it for how good it feels to play, the sound design, and the painstaking detail of recreating the original game from the ground up to be a third-person shooter. Quality of Life changes like the map marking items and telling you when a room is cleared and telling you when it’s okay to throw away key items are such fantastic additions. It gives me really high hopes for the RE3 Remake next year. Capcom’s hotstreak continues.

6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (From Software)

Sekiro rightfully earns its spot as my second favourite FromSoft game. The Souls formula is still there, but the gameplay is fairly different now. Taking Bloodborne’s aggressiveness encouragement another step forward, Sekiro rewards not giving the enemies a chance to breathe more than ever. Boss battles are a tug-of-war of trying to break each other’s posture and perfect blocking to mitigate it. The dodge button pushes you forward by default and you often hope to have your attack blocked more than a it be a direct hit. Some of my favourite FromSoft bosses reside in this game with the final boss perhaps being my favourite overall. Level design is also at its best with the game finally giving you a greater range of movement and verticality with jumping and grappling. There’s even decent stealth mechanics. Sekiro was a really pleasant surprise and I hope they continue The Wolf’s story.

5. Judgement (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)

Judgement is a Yakuza game in all but name, and RGG Studio’s first one set in Kamurocho without Kiryu as the main character. After giving up being an attorney, Takayuki Yagami becomes a freelance detective and investigates a series of murders in the city with the help of his former law office and ex-Tojo clan friend Masaharu Kaito. Substories are framed as side cases that Yagami can take on to earn some extra money, and new mini-games like drone racing and the Paradise VR board game are incredible additions. Anyone who is a fan of the Yakuza series should really check this out, and newcomers can jump right in without prior knowledge. 

4. Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)

Disco Elysium has some of the best writing I have ever seen in a video game. As an amnesiac detective, you explore the rundown post-wartime district of Martinnaise trying to find who was behind the lynching of a mercenary before the situation gets out of control. What sets Disco Elysium apart from other RPGs in terms of gameplay is its character builds. As there is no combat, the 24 skills that you can put points into when you level up are all social skills. The higher you have various skills leveled, the more you will hear advice from them during conversation trees. A high Authority level will constantly remind you to tell people you are The Law, where a high level in Inland Empire will let you talk to inanimate objects to gain new perspectives. I also feel I have to give a nod to your partner throughout the game, Kim Kitsuragi. I’d rather not give anything away but they could not have written a better character to support you throughout your journey. I’ll likely be thinking about this game for a very long time.

3. Control (Remedy Entertainment)

I think Control flew under a lot of people’s radars until the publicity from the overwhelming number of Game Awards nominations. Control is a game for people who like SCP, psychokinesis powers, cool architecture, and a bit of Alan Wake. It wears its inspirations very blatantly on its sleeve and wraps a very cool story and even better side quests around them. It’s very stylish and has phenomenal lighting. Perhaps this is my Remedy bias but I really really adored this game and featured the coolest moment of the year for me. Please check it out if you get the opportunity.

2. Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix)

Kingdom Hearts III has been a long time coming and what I think it nails best are the size and scale of the worlds. Olympus is the best its ever been with how much of the area outside the Colosseum you get to explore. The Caribbean is more expansive with boat combat that’s better than it has any right to be. Monstropolis has a great original story with some incredible tie-ins to the Kingdom Hearts plot. There’s a ton of incredible fanservice moments too for everyone waiting to see their favourite characters again. I still think a lot of it is really hype albeit cheesy, and it finally puts to rest an arc that has been going since the very first game. Kingdom Hearts isn’t over, but KHIII wraps a lot of things up in as satisfying of a way as they could for a story so expansive and often times convoluted. It’s very rare when a game that has been anticipated for so long not only doesn’t fumble it, but delivers on what I had hoped for, so I’m really glad it got to finally release this year.

1. Devil May Cry 5 (Capcom)

Speaking of games that I’ve been waiting a very long time for, DMC IS BACK! Every moment of DMC5 is a treat. Dante and Nero are at their most fun to play in this game, and V is a very cool addition both story-wise and gameplay-wise.This is the game from this year that I’ve kept going back to the most whether it’s for getting good at harder difficulties, or playing through bloody palace until floor 70 and give up ,or practicing with different weapons. It makes me happy to know that Platinum haven’t just been relegated to being the character action studio and that Hideaki Itsuno’s still got it. There’s no question that this is my Game of the Year and anyone who loves action games but hasn’t ever jumped into this series really needs to address that because DMC5 alone is worth it. 

That’s all for my GOTY 2019 Top 10. If you’ve read this far, thanks for doing so. I really enjoy writing these and there’s a lot to look forward to in video games next March year, so please join me again next time when we can do this all over again!

[suicidefrantic]

Name: Chuuya Nakahara

Alias: Arahabaki, King of Sheep (Former), Twin Dark (former with Dazai Osamu), Slug, Ability User A5158 (Special Ability Department)

Hair Colour | Eye Colour: Orange | Gray (Former) , Bright Blue 

Birthday | Birth Place:  April 29 (Taurus) | Yamaguchi, Japan 

Gender: Hermaphrodite (Identifies as male) 

Age: 22 , Merged with Arahabaki at age 7

Height: 160 cm (5'3")

Sexuality: Pansexual 

Likes: Hats, Fighting, Alcohol, Rock music

Dislikes: Claims to hate Dazai Osamu 

Ability:  For The Tainted Sorrow

Affiliation: Port Mafia, Sheep (Former)

The quest to find a vessel for Arahabaki….

Chuuya was born to two loving parents, they were accepting towards their child, and wished to give him the very best of the world. Chuuya showed no signs of being abnormal at his birth aside from him being born a hermaphrodite rather than one specific gender --- though his parents would have happily allowed their child to choose their ideal sex when the time came. However, that time would never come. It was all due to the appearance of Chuuya’s ability that began to draw unwanted attention to the small ginger who didn’t know much about the world. He was two years old when his ability first manifested itself. The ability was harmless, simply throwing small fits if he didn’t get his way and floating up to the ceiling and away from his parents--- sometimes just being found sleeping up on the ceiling rather than where his parents had left him (this was how they had discovered Chuuya’s ability.)

Chuuya’s parents had two names picked out for their child, for a boy Chuuya--- for a girl Chiyura. Though they had decided they would let the child choose once they became of a decent age where they knew what they felt most likely, but decided on calling their child ‘Chuuya’ until that time came. They were loving and accepting parents, but life wasn’t meant to be simple nor loving for Chuuya. By the time he turned five the government had set their sights on the young gray eye boy, seeing potential in him. In fact they had a firm feeling that this child was the one who would bond with the god, Arahabaki, in the future. They sought to make a deal with the child’s parents, offering to buy the ginger from them--- only for Chuuya’s parents to refuse. The government were forced to take the child by force instead and to do so they made sure they disposed of Chuuya’s loving parents. What was worst was the young child could only watch as he was carried away and the sound of gunfire was heard and the spray of blood. Something inside Chuuya broke that day , he couldn’t fight back as he was forced to sleep soon after he saw the blood fly up into the air. 

When he awoke he found himself completely stripped of his clothes and in some weird testing chamber, submerged in water with a tube shoved down his throat. His body was pressed tightly into a ball and he couldn’t move. He continued to fade back and forth into consciousness,fluids were pumped into his veins to test his body to see if it was in fact compatible with Arahabaki. Chuuya was not known as his name but rather as Ability User A5158 . He was branded with that ID upon his neck , a fact that Chuuya was not completely aware of. By the time he turned six, that was when he began to hear a voice in his head. At first, he believed he was hearing the men in the white lab coats talking to him through some odd device, but it was different. He didn’t feel alone, it was like someone else was with him. Yet at the same time, they weren’t the same either.  Though all of this changed when Chuuya turned seven and the entity got stronger. 

His body couldn’t handle the sudden burst of power and the gravity manipulation only grew more and more until finally an explosion happened. Chuuya blacked out, though he could only vaguely remember being tricked into saying some passage or saying--- “ Oh, Grantors of Dark Disgrace, Do Not Wake Me Again.” That was enough for the small seven year old to break out of his prison and create mass chaos. Though since the merging was still new, Arahabaki fell asleep leaving Chuuya freed and very confused. Arthur Rimbaud was the one who had truly been responsible for trying to use Arahabaki--- thus freeing both the God and the child that was now his vessel. This is the main cause for why Chuuya and Arahabaki both lost their memories of anything prior to this--- though not many of Chuuya’s original thoughts had remained behind to begin with as Arahabaki had been feeding upon the child trying to absorb him and make him into his own body--- thus making the child’s existence fade away. 

Chuuya could recall the existence of Arahabaki ,which was surrounded by blue-black darkness and sealed away-- though only vaguely. He however has no clue how the seal was removed, he could only vaguely recall someone’s hand pulling from the seal and freeing him (a thought that later appeared after he got over the shock of all that had happened prior to him being free.) Chuuya decided he would do anything in order to find the truth about his origins. 

-Chuuya was brought in to Sheep by one of the council members by pure accident. It was a happy accident, especially once word got out of what Chuuya’s ability was. This led most of the Sheep members (who were old enough) to take turns raising Chuuya and training him how best to fight. 

-Chuuya had no memories, but it was another happy accident that he could recall his original name, Chuuya Nakahara. This only happened after a nasty blow to the head during training one day. Prior to that, he was simply going by the name of “Lost Boy.” Chuuya didn’t really care for that name and honestly thought of just making up any name, anything was better than Lost Boy. He didn’t know why he hated it so much. 

-He continues to claim he will grow, but deep down knows he most likely will not. He secretly hates himself due to his hermaphrodite status. Thus claiming he would rather not get too close to anyone, shamed by how his body didn’t look like what he believed a ‘normal’ male should. Yes, a little Chuuya was curious one day. 

-He used to like milk, but now can’t stand the taste of it due to being forced to drink it so much . Milk did not help him grow. 

- Being merged with Arahabaki is why he has such a low tolerance towards alcohol. He doesn’t understand such, though he loves the taste of wine and doesn’t consider himself a lightweight. 

-Once when drunk he declared he was a God while standing on top of the bar. This did not go well for him in the end.

- He can sometimes hear Arahabaki and actually has conversations with him, or attempts to. The God is protective enough of his vessel to not allow him to die too easily. Though figures if he did happen to die within the right conditions, he could snag his body. Chuuya hates Dazai because he can easily allow Arahabaki the right conditions if he let’s Corruption last longer than fifteen minutes. Arahabaki’s strongest times where they can converse is when Chuuya is asleep. 

-Chuuya’s dreams are typically filled with chaos and destruction. He however does wonder what the life he forgot was like. 

-He has a collection of Fedora hats, because he has come to like the style. His favourite besides the hat that used to belong to Rimbaud is a white fedora with black around it. 

-He feels most at ease around Kouyou (Ane-san), especially when she strokes his hair. It easily calms him down, even when he is in extreme anger like state. She is also the only one he has ever confined in about his ‘self image issue.’

- Chuuya was once forced under a psychiatrist’s care, prior to Mori stepping in to ‘sort things out’. Chuuya was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Chuuya was not happy being held hostage. He was drugged and could not use his ability, and it was the only time he could not hear nor feel Arahabaki. He was there for exactly a week. He couldn’t help but feel like Mori might have done this on purpose, at first he had blamed Dazai though. He didn’t share either thought out loud. 

-Chuuya’s eyes used to be gray, but upon being poked and tested on(not to mention merging with Arahabaki) they turned bright blue. 

-He has a really good singing voice. He is typically embarrassed about it unless singing drunken karaoke. 

- He is one hell of a cook, something he downplays a lot. 

- Because he had no memories of his childhood, he tried to give himself a childhood (which he was robbed of). He came up with this on his own, and even kept it a secret from everyone (until later when he told Kouyou about it.) Growing up in Sheep was a blast, but he knew deep down that Sheep was not exactly a normal childhood. 

- Since  he lived like he did when he was in Sheep, he enjoys the finer things in life. He especially loves lobster.

-He does sometimes get lonely when he is in his place alone. He was used to Sheep for the longest time and sometimes this causes nightmares. 

-He keeps a journal (diary) , as well as writes and sketches from time to time to center his mind. 

-He once made a drunk video once and sent it out. He still doesn’t know who has the video and who has seen it. Dazai was the first person whom he sent it to. This was one of the very reasons why Hirotsu started supervising (babysitting) Chuuya when he went out drinking--- even taking his phone away when he tried to call Dazai. 

- He is very competitive, especially when it comes to games. 

-He has had some very interesting dreams, that were nightmares. He calls them the what if dreams or exploration. They make him wonder about his life, and his choices. He typically will begin to ponder about his life after waking up from these dreams. 

-He has a strong fear of dogs, he doesn’t know why.

-He has a tendency to bite the inside of his cheek … a lot. 

-He has slight issues with his vision. It isn’t anything noticeable as he has perfect vision--- though he believes it is a side effect from Arahabaki being merged with him. He sometimes gets dizzy spells and his vision gets blurry. He keeps this to himself , as he doesn’t need people to think he is weak. 

-He wonders sometimes how long he has to live before Arahabaki takes over him and he dies. This is a recurring nightmare for him. He doesn’t allow it to change how he goes through life. If he dies, he feels like it might as well be going down fighting rather than sitting around doing nothing. At least he was free. 

-He has a fear of enclosed spaces , thanks to certain flashbacks he gets from time to time in them. 

-He has a tendency to break things he touches sometimes. 

[writeforself]

Elysium Dream

Alexios x Adonis

A/N: It’s been a while. Extra note in the end.

To Adonis, Elysium is a prison.

He never has a voice in the decision, to be shared between two deities, and to be separated from his love, love itself, for one-third of a year. He never gave much thought to it. Like most of the mortals, he just accepted his fate.

During his time in Elysium, all he could think of is Aphrodite from above. The grandeur and tranquility of her palace, their time together as they tread across the most magnificent field he has ever seen, the charming words of the most alluring voice in the world, the affectionate touches between the exhilarating embraces. After all, what more could you ask when you’re loved by beauty itself? All he ever asked is to be returned back to her.

His mind wanders while he saunters across the field of Elysium. Persephone’s sweet praises sounds like nothing but the tedious autumn winds, her touch like the burning chain that gashes his glowing skin. A prisoner receives no love from his captor. Love justifies all behaviours; love deceives all. However, indulging himself in melancholy merely enriches suffering.

His time in Elysium provides him with some ideas. As he walks among the mortals and eavesdropping their conversation, he has learned the idea of rebellion. Freedom is not given but something to fight for, so he has heard. If he wants to spend more time with his love, he has to find a way to do it, even if it defies the will of gods.

His has set his goal. But how to achieve it? Although he might have some knowledge in hunting, or even fighting, he knows no arts of conspiracy, strategy, nor war. Not to mention the mortal in Elysium would ever think of defying its ruler. From the conversation he heard, he couldn’t distinguish if other mortals were afraid of the deity, moreover dare to defy her. He has no ally nor help, all he has is his stubborn self.

Adonis has a dream, to escape.

***

He only just notices the solitary branch of an apple tree creeping along the desolate wall. The white flowers glitter under the eternal sunshine. Faint fragrance of the tiny blossoms travels into his nasal with the gentle wind sneaking through the crack of the room. Chatters and laughters flies into his ears as the grasses around him rustling in the breeze.

He wakes up from a light slumber, and climbs up to the top of the ruined building for the panoramic view of their camp. It has grown so fast since Alexios’ arrival in Elysium. Until now, he still couldn’t believe that Alexios is not here to act as a spy of the gods, but solely here to help.

Nevertheless, he still has doubts that Alexios is sent by gods, without conscious, to evaluate Adonis’ loyalty to Aphrodite. He is not easily fooled. That’s what they do best, trickery. He won’t fall for it. No matter how Alexios possesses a different beauty compared to Aphrodite; no matter how honourable Alexios has been acting so far; no matter how his heart fluttered when Alexios first clumsily winked at him with those silly words. Although they have been flirting for a while he wants to fight against the temptation. He believes only belongs with one being. Gods are not fond of sharing. If this be a test, so be it. But a little spice to add up difficulties would be exciting.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpses a familiar shadow moving between the rebels. He can hear a clear voice among the clamour of them calling his name. Then he remembers his dream from the slumber. His fingers dig into the gritty walls. Standing still, he watches and holds his breathes, as the person looks up to the ruins and meets with his eyes. He turns, running into the shade of the building.

He quivers.

He is certain that there’s something in those chestnut eyes under those rugged eyebrows calling for him, luring something resting deep inside him. But he has Aphrodite.

“Ah there you are, Adonis.”

He saw him climbing into the room from the broken wall. He always finds a direct way. When he speaks, his expression seems to light up the room. The sun in Elysium has never been so ablaze before he arrives. No, banish these thoughts Adonis.

“Alexios! Back already?” He puts on a smile to welcome Alexios back. It doesn’t matter who Alexios might be. He has been a great assistance so far. “Your task was simple. I figured you would want it done as soon as possible. Plus, your presence brighten up this place.”

Alexios’ body shakes as he chuckles. The blood clinging onto his bare chest has already dried up. Adonis can see the splashed blood tangled with the chest hair, those strings of dark fibre looks even clear under the dark crimson. They rise and fall along the wave of soft laughter.

“A warrior bathed in blood is not a bad sight as well. Anyway, we have more urgent task at hand. Meet me at the collapse tower later.”

He smiles as he replies. Yet the muscle around his lips feels rigid. He turns his head to another side to concentrate. It is a great place to get a bird’s-eye view of Elysium. Butterflies drift in the warm breeze around them aimlessly.

“Alright, I’ll meet you there.”

Alexios leaves without asking further questions. Adonis is unsure whether he would like to hear more from Alexios. But there are formal matters at hand, no time for idle words.

He presses down his desire and ventures on his quest.

***

With the clear evidence in hand, he still could not assimilate the truth. He has been betrayed by the love of his life, the only motivation pushing him to escape from this place. Now he finds out that her love was as hollow as this paradise, her love as vain as Persephone’s. 

He has sent Alexios away on a trifle. He wants to be alone… needs to be alone. Doubts rise inside him, battering against his commitment. He needs to think, but what’s there to think about when the naked truth rips him apart like executioner’s bloody axe?

He retreats himself to a cottage located high on the peak north of Iapeto’s Ruins. Usually there’s only Leonidas who wanders around here, but right now he’s training the rebels. Therefore, Adonis can claim this place as his own, for now.

Little does he know, someone has arrived before him.

“Alexios? What are you doing here?”

Next to the tree lies Alexios. His dusty armours scatters around him, lying around as if he just took them off in a hurry. There’s nothing on him but a dark fabric hanging around his waist. He beams at Adonis as he approaches.

“Adonis! What a pleasant surprise!”

Alexios pulls himself up to make a seat for Adonis. Then he pushes the armour out of their sight, until the only thing left in front of them is the bonfire quietly grilling sticks of fishes and the small cottage standing beneath the blue sky. Elysium has never seemed so peaceful.

“What are you doing here?” Adonis questions again, still confused. “Having some fish of course. What does it look like?” Alexios laughs as he stirs the burning wood to make the fire stronger. “I mean HERE. What are you doing HERE?” “Oh, right… You see, this is actually my home. Well, my grandfather’s… this is where I grew up. Not here, back in Sparta. Actually I grew up in another island, it’s a long story. Anyway, this is the only place in Elysium I can feel somewhat relaxed.” He rambles on while he turns around the fishes. “It’s funny they have my home here, in Elysium. Maybe it’s because my grandfather was a great warrior. Well, still is…”

Adonis has stopped listening when Alexios started to ramble. He merely stares into the bonfire and Alexios. The dream from before comes back to him as he watches Alexios’ bare back shines beneath the sun. He gazes at how the muscles tense and soften with Alexios’ every move, trying to remember how his hands wandered across that glowing skin in his hazy dream.

He realises that he doesn’t care about anything right now. Looking at Alexios is all he needed. To hell with the god of love. He is sick of the flimsy promises and grievous betrayal. Two can play this game.

When Alexios is done with the fire, Adonis throws himself on him without a second thought. He buries Alexios with kisses that could take one’s breath away. Pinning down Alexios on the ground, he feels the coolness of the grass in shade contrasting the heat radiating from Alexios flesh. It reminds him of war, of quarrel, of violence. In the end, all things seem to be the same for him, delight, hatred, devotion, nonchalance… all are the two sides of the same coin. At the moment he just wants to detach himself from everything but Alexios.

Alexios remains still as he takes in Adonis’ unexpected action. His hands hang in the air, afraid to repay this affection. Then he gently lays his hands on Adonis’ back, like he is trying to provide consolations for a wounded child. He can taste salt in his mouth; drips of tears struggle to slide down those silky cheeks.

There are no transition of seasons in Elysium, yet Alexios could taste the essence of four seasons in an instant. The blossoms had fallen, tore down from the tree. Leaves had lost their chance to revive before desolation devoured all. It reminds him of the snowy peak of mount Taygetos. All lives kneel before thee, almighty oblivion, sweet despair. There is no hope in paradise.

Eyes closed, face twisted, breathes shortened, Adonis finally pulls himself away from Alexios as he trembles.

Alexios says nothing. He holds Adonis in his arms while caressing that his dark lustrous curly hair. His silent weeps ripple Alexios’ heart, nourish his faith.

“I will take you out of here.” He whispers into Adonis’ ears, as the burnt wood cracks inside the blazing flames. A voice like the soft west wind Adonis has never experienced. “I promise.”

p.s. If there be a sequel, the mechanic canon will be out of the window. I can’t write much with just simulation. :)

[genesisarclite]

I recently replayed A Criminal Past and also started yet another New Game+. In the latter, for the first time in several playthroughs, I actually sat through the opening scene in Ruzicka (normally, I just walk off, because I’ve seen it enough times that I can almost quote it), and I realized something about Adam and his character. Or should I say, something else, because goodness knows I can’t shut up about him for long.

(I made the mistake of listening to this while writing this up)

Other people have spoken at length about Adam’s empathetic side, and I’ve said plenty about him in past metas that can be boiled down to “Eidos basically fooled us” - gritty-voiced, generic-looking cyberpunk protagonist who is actually a deeply layered and emotionally complex man, whose heart is sometimes his crutch. There’s a reason he became one of my favorite characters (not game characters, not male characters, characters) of all time.

There were two scenes this time around that really stood out to me.

The first was the Ruzicka attack itself. On the surface, everything between the actual attack and fade to black is just cheap melodrama. Seriously, it’s kind of blatant, and I will admit it didn’t affect me as much as it was probably meant to. It’s all rather cliche in the end, really.

The thing is, though, Mankind Divided kind of tells two stories. One is the overarching narrative everyone says is too short. It consists of all the main quests, a few sidequests, and major cutscenes. The other is actually Adam’s personal tale, where we’re given a character who is no longer just an avatar for the player to inhabit, but his own distinct person. This consists of everything from the majority of the sidequests (who goes out of their way to take care of Neon? and what about the mysterious voice asking for help, who turns out to be Panchaea-Eliza?) to details in his apartment and optional content (hello shower scene, which is half fanservice and half development).

Adam survived the destruction of Panchaea, but by the skin of his teeth, and only through the intervention of Majestic 12. He awakens a year later to a radically changed world, his memory badly damaged and a sensation of having been somehow violated - later confirmed by the experimental augs. After the events of Black Light, we can tell he’s absolutely the same person, but that “streak of cynicism” he’s known for has grown a mile wide... and yet, he’s still an idealist at heart, still trying to save everyone. He can’t help it.

The Ruzicka attack isn’t significant just in being another notch in the Augs versus Natches conflict. It’s also significant because of Adam’s response to it. His first action is to get up and help Alex, only to stop shortly thereafter because someone is calling for help. No doubt there’s a lot of chaos and confusion as it is (and I commend his ability to stay so incredibly calm - seriously, he must have been an amazing cop), but he still has to go investigate. His augs have gone from being scars to tools he can use for good, which is clearly something he is attempting to do. He drops the shields, tells the poor kid to stand back, and immediately tries to free the woman trapped under the debris. He makes short work of it, and almost succeeds.

But the shot of her reaching out to him, then her hand just... sliding off his speaks volumes. We don’t even need to see his face to know how he’s feeling, yet we do still see a glimpse before he snaps the shields back on - which, as we long know by now, he uses as a protective layer between himself and the world. If the eyes are the “window to the soul”, it’s no wonder he keeps them covered most of the time, and why dropping the shields is significant. He’s an ex-cop, and he went into TF29 to help the Juggernaut Collective, which in turn was to stop the Illuminati so they couldn’t hurt more people. We know he was close to his mother, and we know from his backstory and behavior that he has a smidgen of Martyr Complex at the very least.

Being so helpless in those moments was probably soul-crushing for someone like him. All his power, abilities, and intelligence, and he can’t do a single thing to help anyone, nor could he have stopped what happened.

Some reviews and individuals have criticized this scene, and perhaps rightfully so, for being so melodramatic and feeling a bit cheap, but digging into Adam’s character reveals some pretty depressing layers.

The other thing is actually in A Criminal Past, when Adam and Guerrero chat for the first time. The moment in question goes so fast that you have to be looking for it, but once you know it’s there, it’s impossible to miss. When Guerrero is tased by the guard, Adam actually catches him before he falls, and while that happens, he looks really distressed.

Again, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but it’s there. Caught unawares and trying to talk down a potentially unstable fellow agent, he still can’t help himself.

The guard then tries to come after him, so he shoves the guard back and immediately tries to go back to tending to Guerrero. That in turn only lasts a brief moment before he grabs the shock prod and turns it on its user, before succumbing to the second one.

(slow the scene down to half-speed, and Adam’s expression is a little hard to watch. there’s obviously a lot going on there)

There’s a lot of people, including those who have played the games, who accuse Adam of being bland, or generic, or lacking emotional range. The thing about Adam is that he’s a classic introvert, whose emotional side is stronger than his logical side, keeping himself emotionally restrained most of the time. He’s inside his own head a lot, to the point where his official bio says he trusts his own judgment first. He appears cold and detached, but he really, really isn’t. He’s stoic on the surface, but tug on the right string, and the emotion under the shell will come out. Crack that shell, and you end up with things like his final confrontation with Megan, or his (potentially) final conversation with Miller.

He just feels, so strongly, that he’s a borderline empath, and perhaps being aware of this, he tempers what he lets slip through. It’s not perfect, though, leading to snippets of insight like what we see above.

[biscuitreviews]

Biscuit Reviews The Witcher III Wild Hunt (2-year Anniversary Review)

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is perhaps my favorite game to come out of the PS4/Xbox One/Wii U-Switch console era. It’s won tons of awards and was game of the year for many people in 2015. I didn’t get into the Witcher series until Witcher II: Assassin of Kings was a free download for Xbox Live members in 2016. 

After I finished Witcher II, I immediately went to Witcher III and my god, talk about an amazing sequel. It was bigger, it was better, and for being the end of Geralt’s story, it did a great job for making newcomers such as myself, not feel lost at all.

I’m going to be spoiling the game so if you haven’t played Witcher III, definitely play it before going into this review.

The story of Witcher III, revolves around Geralt of Rivia, a witcher looking for his adoptive daughter Ciri alongside his on and off again lover Yennefer of Vengerburg.

Geralt will travel through large open world zones during his quest. Velen took inspiration from the Polish and Northern German countryside, Novigrad is reminiscent of the Polish city of Gdańsk during the medieval era, and finally you have the Skellige Isles, taking inspiration from Ireland. Each of these areas are massive and beautiful to look at. It’s easy to forget that you’re in a world currently being ravaged by war or filled with monsters until you stumble across areas that give you a stark reminder that there is a war happening.

One thing that I love about the game is how it handled decisions. There’s no clear good or bad decision, everything has a shade of grey. Sure there are choices that sound better in the short term, but it could have long term ramifications that could come back to haunt Geralt. One example is Triss’s quest line in Novigrad. Sure, you’re helping mages escape the city to where they no longer have to fear for themselves, but by doing so, you give the witch hunters a new target to pursue, which are non-human races such as elves and dwarves. However, if you don’t help mages escape, than later in the story Geralt’s dwarven friend, Zoltan, can help him with a jailbreak. If you do help the mages, Zoltan won’t be able to assist Geralt due to not wanting to face the wrath of the witch hunters.

Even the types of decisions you make are fantastic as well. All of these choices are actions that Geralt himself would make and do in that situation, it’s just a matter what you believe would be the overall choice he would go with. With many choice based games, dialogue options cover many aspects of a character archetype, because normally, you are making a character and are taking that character on the journey. In this case, Geralt is a character, he has his own beliefs, likes and dislikes, and dialogue choices reflect his specific personality rather than a personality a player would create.

It’s also why some aspects in gameplay are limited such as crafting. Geralt is able to craft oils and potions on his own as long as he has the formula and the ingredients. Applying the proper oil and drinking the necessary potions are necessary for fighting monsters in this game, which I’ll discuss more about later. When it comes to making armor and swords, Geralt has to seek out a Blacksmith to make these items as Geralt himself doesn’t have the kind of skill set, therefore he has to seek out a person able to build these items.

I also love how story quests and side quests interact with one another. Main story quests could go differently if you’ve done some side quests that relate to that specific quest and vice versa. Also the fact that side quests have just as much weight as the main quests make them feel more important and worth doing for that extra bit of lore or for that impact it could have on the main story.

As well polished and built the Witcher III is, it does have some minor glitches being an open world game. Sometimes you’ll find objects just randomly floating in air. Occasionally the input to talk to NPCs won’t work and you’ll have to either step back and walk forward to have the prompt reappear or just reposition Geralt himself for the NPC to talk to you. The fact that Geralt can either die or get heavily damaged from ridiculously low heights is also highly annoying and instills a fear of any small dropping points.

Another issue I would like to point out is that it’s not exactly the most socially inclusive. A lot of the main women are highly sexualized and sometimes feel that they’re nude for the sake of it. There are moments where you can choose anti-LGBT dialogue options when you encounter those characters, which I found exteremly baffeling that it was an option considering Ciri is bi and Geralt seems supportive in the dialogue they exchange. I get it, it’s a choice, you don’t have select those options, but the fact that they’re there to begin with just leaves a bit of a bad taste. Let’s not forget the entire ocean of white people in this game. I’m sorry, but including two people of color in a DLC just doesn’t cut it. Does it break the game for me? No, but I think not acknowledging that this exists within the game is even worse.

As mentioned previously, monsters have certain weakness and you are expected to exploit those weakness when fighting monsters. Using the proper tools to easily take down a monster feels great and makes you feel more invested in the world as you have to research these creatures in your bestiary to know their weaknesses. 

Going above and beyond to take on an extra tough enemy or a monster clearly above your level although feels great at first, it’s quickly brought down when the experience gained is very little and the loot isn’t something that equates the struggle you went through. It’s just a bit disappointing that you’re encouraged to research monsters and exploit weaknesses and when you do just that, the rewards just don’t reflect that.

There’s also one quirk with dialogue as well that’s honestly more funny than terrible, but the way it happened just made it more memorable to me.

This instance is going to a wake party with Yennefer in Skellige. She’ll comment on how she likes that Geralt is growing out a beard. Now if Geralt does have a beard in this instance, it makes sense, however if Geralt is clean shaven, Yennefer will still make the comment which I always found that to be a funny little programming quirk. It’s obvious that this response was to happen when Geralt has a beard and the programming within the game was supposed to read that. There are a couple of instances that NPCs will react to Geralt’s appearance and the reaction is appropriate in those moments. But the beard moment, always brings out a chuckle.

Granted for a game as massive as Witcher III to only have a few minor issues, it’s actually rather impressive. However, I will admit that it has been four years since it’s initial release and there might have been more bugs then, but now it’s a mostly smooth experience.

As mentioned in a previous post, I do refer back to this game a lot for professional research as well. CD Projekt Red used a branching writing program known as Articy Draft, a program I use in my day job. I’ll do different decisions, I’ll change the order of when I do quests and just imagine how the branching dialogue looked within Articy and the type of variables used to determine how certain events play out.

One also can’t talk about Witcher III without mentioning Gwent, what is perhaps one of the best mini-games within a game since Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad. Gwent is an easy to learn, but tough to master card game at the start. It’s tough at first as Geralt doesn’t have many cards at his disposal, but once you finally get a win, the dam starts to break little by little. Geralt will begin winning more powerful cards that can be added to his deck. Eventually it does get to a point where everyone becomes a bit easy to defeat as you gain more powerful cards and build your deck for effective strategies. Regardless it’s a game within a game that you can easily get lost in. 

Witcher III also set what many gamers regard as the “Golden Standard” for how DLC should be treated. Witcher III includes 16 free DLC additions ranging from additional quests, items, additional costumes, and Gwent cards. Then there’s the two paid DLC expansions, Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine, which involves two new stories.

Both of these expansions also add additional gameplay mechanics to make Geralt stronger, which you will need to take advantage of for Blood and Wine as monsters and enemies in that particular expansion are a bit tougher than in the main game and Heart of Stone.

Blood and Wine also contains my favorite quest in the entire game. The quest is called “Paperchase” and it’s hilarious. Something about a legendary monster slayer still having to adhere to the bureaucracy of a bank to get a reward for saving a guy years ago is just amazing. It shows that not all great quests have to involve you having an encounter that puts you on the edge of your seat.

The Witcher III is a game that deserves the praise and reception it has received. It has made a mark on the RPG genre that many developers are taking note and implementing in their games. The most famous case being Ubisoft with the Assassin’s Creed series by following a similar dialogue decision based structure and having side quests impact the main story and vice versa. This is a game that has earned its status as a modern classic, which I’m sure will keep that status for a very long time.

As I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone on Tumblr or any denizen of the internet, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt receives a 5 out 5

So far it’s been quite an interesting two years on this site. Frankly, I expected to just be a reviewer that would continuously scream into the void. To my surprise, I’ve had quite a few of you that like and share my posts adding more to the conversation whether you agree or disagree. I’ve also recently passed the 50 reviews milestone as well so the 50 and the two year mark happened rather quickly!

Here’s to the march on getting to 100 reviews...at some point!

[moistwithgender]

Media Roundup (February 2019)

I wanted to try and squeeze in one last finished show into the last day but I ended up having a really bad sleep schedule hiccup. Anyway, here’s what I finished this month:

Games:

This is actually the shortest list this month, on account of me mostly playing through a single game somewhat slowly. If you follow my posts, you might be able to guess what series it’s a part of.

Super Robot Wars EX (SNES): At the end of the previous post I warned that if you want to get into SRW, SRW2 is an extremely rough starting point, even though it’s canon to the four or five original SRW canon games mostly on the SNES. Thankfully, there is a youtube video that shows you all the dialogue and combat snippets from SRW2. That said... if I wanted to stick hard to canon, I would have either played SRW3 first, or waited for the incoming re-fan-translation that will drop probably at the end of March. BUT, I wanted to play SRW and not jump to a game so far ahead that the mechanics alienate me to the earlier games, so I started EX. EX is largely a contained side story that takes place in and revolving around the original properties of SRW canon. Said original properties involve La Gias, the world that exists inside of planet Earth, and a three-sided war involving mechs that run on magic. There’s a lot of politics and strategic talk and fantasy worldbuilding grounded in fantasy science and it’s actually really fucking cool. They take the time to explain how due to a (magical) scientific phenomena, prophecies are always accurate in La Gias (yet preventable with the right effort), which is exactly the kind of bullshit I love.

However, due to summoning rituals, the setting is also flooded with “Surface Dwellers”, AKA people from different mecha anime who have been written into a melting pot setting that contains all their narratives (sometimes cleverly tweaked to allow and complement each other). This isn’t just a hand wave, but worked into big plot points. It is genuinely stunning how much the creators of these games actually tend to give a shit about making these narratives believable and interesting. I say “believable”, though it’s also worth noting that, as with manipulated inclusion of various IPs, canon is general is somewhat malleable in SRW. There are usually multiple plot options in the games, and EX features a unique system with three separate campaigns that, depending on the order you play them, and also depending on the choices you make and how well you play, change the sequence of events in other campaigns as they weave into each other. It’s not handled amazingly, and to see everything, you may play the campaigns some three times each. I don’t really have that kind of patience, because these early SRW games are also sufficiently challenging games. While not nearly as bullshit as SRW2, EX features a fair amount of incentive to save and reset for better RNG, and you might spend an hour or longer on later maps because situations get really tight. EX is also considered one of the easier early games (phew). Despite that, the maps are almost all really enjoyable, you just have to be willing to work for your victory at times.

The writing, with much credit going to the stellar fan translation imo, is also a compelling read, and dialogue is frequently hilarious despite how much it also focuses on political intrigue and fatal drama. The “hard” campaign (at times equally or less difficult than the “intermediate” campaign) has you playing one of the main series antagonists, whose right hand minions include an oujosama who openly talks about how horny she is, a princess with hardcore stockholm syndrome (or is it?), and a semi incompetent little blue bird as a psychic familiar. A running gag is them chastising each other for using rude words. These characters have apparently been popular enough to reappear even in the modern titles, which largely are self-contained timelines of their own, with their own canonical tweaks.

Last point I want to touch on (this single game just has so much to it) is that playing this game out of order is interesting in how canon is referenced. In most self-contained-stories-in-greater-narratives, you’ll get somewhat forced exposition drops when a character is (re-)introduced. Most of these games so far tend to treat pre-existing characters on the same ground as OCs, where a character doesn’t say, for example “yo I’m goku I come from earth and I’m a super saiyan”, but kind of just realistically reacts to the scenario as per their characterization. If you learn more about them, it’s mostly via seeing them interact with other heroes or villains from their own canon (though later games include library bios to catch you up if you want). While this creates an interesting experience where, if you don’t know a series, you get that curious feeling of walking in on the middle of something, but instead from the beginning. The most interesting aspect of this, and what I consider the defining aspect of the game’s storytelling, is that the same delivery is used with the original characters. From the get-go, the original characters in SRW EX talk about other elements the way real people do, without vaguely audience-oriented exposition. Some people won’t like this, but it makes it feel much more real to me, and complements my recent exploration of the breadth of mecha, where I know a ton of names and have very little context, and slowly accumulate context as I go along. It’s a lot of little micro-mysteries. EX didn’t start this, either. SRW2, which is both the first SRW with a plot or even dialogue, introduces the main OC of SRW, Masaki and his Cybuster, who has a lot of his own lore, and tells almost none of it. You are left for the entirety of SRW2 to only grasp the fringes of what Masaki’s story is, and when he says “hey I’m actually leaving now in the middle of the game because I have my own plot bye” you just deal with that. SRW establishes that the world is way bigger than you, even though the core concept of the series is rooted in fanservice. Now, part of this is that Banpresto and Winkysoft probably had a big MCU-style plan from the beginning (cough most ambitious crossover in history cough), because, well, look at this release timeline and associated narrative chronology:

-Super Robot Wars (Game Boy, April 1991) No plot, or dialogue, but establishes the Big Three (Gundam, Getter, Mazinger) as playable characters and has the kaiju villain from an old 70s Getter+Mazinger crossover movie as the final boss. The pilots don’t exist, the robots are all apparently sentient beings. -The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES, December 1991) Beginning of plot, introduces a proper antagonist (Bian Zoldak), an antagonist force he leads (Divine Crusaders), light political intrigue, Masaki Andoh and his nemesis Shu Shirakawa are established vaguely while having a separate plot that is not explained. IMAGINE juking your audience with your own main character like that. He doesn’t serve as protagonist yet but is clearly, like, the most important OC? Bian and Shu even serve as the final bosses and you don’t even know who Shu really is. The kaiju villain from before comes back for a single map and evolves into a stronger form unique to the game. The heroes from SRW1 also all acknowledge that SRW1 happened and they know each other. This establishes that you cannot rely on canon. -The 3rd Super Robot Wars (SNES, July 1993) Haven’t played yet but I hear this is where they really started playing with canon. Mixes the Divine Crusaders plot with the plot of the original Gundam series. Multiple endings exist now, and plot regularly splits into dual branches. -Super Robot Wars EX (SNES, March 1994) Here’s where it starts to get complicated. This focuses on Masaki’s setting, while continuing off of SRW3′s plot. Elements introduced here will continue to be referenced in SRW4 (the ending screen even explicitly states that, which reinforces my idea they planned this all years in advance). Multiple campaigns with malleable canon means nothing is concrete ever again. -The 4th Super Robot Wars (SNES, March 1995) Campaign now splits into Super Robot (Getter, Mazinger) and Real Robot (Gundam) routes, which is easier to handle. This game finishes up the “Classic” SRW timeline, but would also canonically be replaced by two remakes on the PS1 (SRW F (1997) and F Final (1998). However... -Super Robot Wars Gaiden: Masoukishin - The Elemental Lords (SNES, March 1996) Masaki gets his own game five years later, beginning his narrative. This game has no mecha IPs, and is exclusively OCs. The most complicated aspect is that this game is split into two chapters: the first, at the start of Masaki’s story, and the second, which... if I have this correct, follows after EX and SRW4. The previous games have, supposedly, been referencing this game that has not existed until now, and this game references what has come before. Playing SRW feels like being lost in linear time. This game starts off its own timeline of games that, I hope, stay confined to the OC-centric games. 

So here’s the timeline:

First half of SRW Gaiden SRW2 (loosely referencing SRW1) SRW3 SRW EX SRW4 Second half of SRW Gaiden

As a result...I can never be comfortable writing a suggested order of play. In playing these games, you simply must accept that the world is bigger than you, and at all times you will be an outsider to some degree. You know, until you’ve played all of them. Which you can’t yet, because they aren’t all translated yet.

Phew! That’s a lot of words about Classic Timeline SRW, and I’ve only played through two games. Thanks for reading all of that, I hope it kept your interest. Despite how complicated that got, EX is a great game and easily in my top SNES RPGs now, up there with Live A Live and Dragon Quest V. Let’s move on for god sake!

Oh, right. Almost forgot: (SRW EX: Masaki’s Chapter: Beaten 2/9/19) (SRW EX: (One of the two versions of) Lune’s Chapter: Beaten 2/15/19) (SRW EX: Shu’s Chapter: Beaten 2/20/19)

Fun fact: In EX, if you use a cheat code on the title screen to play through Shu’s route with a suped-up absurd final boss-strength version of his mech, and run into one of the other protagonists, then when you later play as that other protagonist, you’ll have to fight the cheat version of that mech as a boss.

Orbital Paladin Melchior Y (PC): I had to play something else this month, and because I’m trapped in a fugue state, I made it something mecha related. Melchior Y is a small, hour-long visual novel/shoot em up made by John D. Moore, who I know mostly as a_new_duck from the selectbutton.net forums. I’m... not gonna have as many paragraphs to talk about this, or anything, as I did with SRW EX, so if he sees this I hope he doesn’t take that as a negative. Reportedly, this has multiple routes, though as of this writing I’ve only played one of those. I don’t know if that means multiple endings! I liked it for the small gamejam game it is, though. John is an academic and a mecha fan (and did his thesis on mecha, iirc) and so this is reasonably an introspective mecha story focused on children conscripted for space war purely for their utility, and adults who boss them around despite no longer being allowed to pilot once they hit the very beginnings of adulthood. It gets dark! A smaller positive about it is the matter-of-fact inclusion of queer identity, comfortably existing alongside religion without having to immediately make the plot about the conflict between those (at least in the route I played). I enjoyed it, and if you have the patience to explore artier games that aren’t polished AAA cash houses, you might gain something from it too. Here’s a link if you’re curious, it’s currently free.

Anime:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai: I already wrote about this last time, oops! Still, despite a couple stumbling points, this is fun character-driven supernatural lit, and if you’re mad at Persona games for bad political takes, then this... at least this doesn’t have those! The funniest thing about the series is that the bunny outfit is easily removable from the plot and barely relevant past the first couple episodes. (13 episodes, finished 2/5/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu)

Punch Line: I actually went in expecting something akin to the sort of wackiness I remember way back when FLCL was fresh. I didn’t get that, necessarily. What I did get was (as I would discover after I wiki’d it later) a fucking Kotaro Uchikoshi story. That’s not a bad thing, but if I had gone in knowing that, I would have been prepared. Uchikoshi writes light novels. Extremely convoluted, mysterious, non-linear light novels. As I was watching this show, I actually thought the whole time “is this a fucking light novel adaptation?” It wasn’t, but it was by the guy who wrote Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (one of my favorite DS games), and Ever17: The Out of Infinity (probably one of the most miserable game experiences I’ve ever had), and I was easily identifying his particular brand of storytelling. There is a LOT that can be said about his style, but I’ll try to keep it short with a paraphrased example (don’t @ me if this doesn’t explicitly describe any one of his plots, it’s close enough). He likes to tell stories that start as quirky or high-concept, but somewhat mundane, skip a scene at one point, and then progress until you suddenly hit a big plot point that turns everything on its head and, in my experiences, causes things to immediately end tragically. Then you see the scene you missed. The scene held a plot point literally so important that it completely changes what the story was ever about. From then on you are fed a trickle of left-field plot twists until eventually the plot is unrecognizable from how it started. His work is as stupid as it is clever, and he’s got the strongest grasp of continuity I’ve ever seen a human being have. This is the polar opposite of SRW’s “fuck canon” philosophy, and that’s not for the worse on either account. Punch Line starts as a story about a boy who dies, becomes a ghost, and then has to figure out... something? (I should clarify I watched all of this overnight while not sleeping as as the story built more and more upon itself I had to fight to keep following it) BUT ALSO, if he sees panties twice, he’ll accidentally destroy the earth. Those details are, like, one percent of the secret plot that the show is built upon, and by the end when the wacky dorm sitcom has become a full blown world war with government conspiracies, I was like “wait why is that girl a superhero again?” Everybody deserves to experience an Uchikoshi story once, just for the wild novelty of it. I don’t think this is his best work (I think 999 is better), but it perfectly exemplifies his style.

Also, I spent the full binge watch (which I rarely do) thinking it was a visual novel adaptation. Absolutely convinced. But, it turns out that, no, he just writes like he’s making a VN game. The “panties = genocide” concept is so obviously a choose-your-own adventure mechanic that I thought it had to be. On the bright side, an actual VN adaptation later came out, and even came out in English on the PS4. And they added in apparently ten episodes’ worth of significant extra plot, so I might play that.

Also, it’s called Punch Line because in Japanese it sounds like “panty line.” That’s it. Also maybe it’s referencing plot twists, or mortality, idk. (12 eps, finished 2/6/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu/HIDIVE)

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (Movie): A month later, I finally got around to the rest of Gundam 0079. I think I might like this movie best of the three, even if it does feature a lot of character death is kind of a downer at times (granted, that’s kind of most of Tomino’s work isn’t it). This movie is where most of Kai Shiden’s character development occurs, and it’s nice to see his go from a bastard to a sympathetic, uh, bastard. He’s terrible and my son. (Finished 2/9/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (Movie): You know I really like the original Gundam in concept, and even execution, but sometimes I’m chewing through it. Even when boiled down to the compilation episodes I’m just pushing through at times. I mean, I think part of that is my burnout and executive dysfunction issues preventing me from fully enjoying things, but it could also just be that I’m baby. This was the movie I liked the least, despite having some of the best moments in the series. The final showdown is genuinely incredible, and there’s probably a lot of essays out there discussing the recurring theme in Gundam of invoking the figure of Newtypes, while also regularly denying being one (even to oneself!) after engaging in a lot of telepathy. My problem with MSG3 is that they packed the most plot points into this one, and it gets to a point where it was hard for me to follow. Mirai goes through two separate love triangles, and a huge tactic (bordering on the severity of a war crime) happens and then is iterated on in such a small amount of time that I actually lost track of who had it and how I was supposed to feel about it. If I were to rewatch it, I might grasp it better. I spent this movie feeling like I should have just watched the 50 odd episodes instead, for the sake of comprehension. Idk! Hate to end this on a negative note, because this series has layered characterization, complex examinations of war, the things people do in war, and the ways that war changes people, and also cool robots. It’s probably something you can revisit multiple times and gain new value from each time. (2/15/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Guess who watched this on Adult Swim a long time ago and almost totally forgot! This series is amazing and probably going to stay my favorite Gundam series. The animation is consistently beautiful and consistently had me comparing it stylistically to Cowboy Bebop, from the body language to the lavish mechanical displays to the character writing to the excellent english dub. The US got it ater it was complete, but the original airing of it was spread out over three and a half years, and given how flawless it is, I can understand why. If you’ve have a spot in your heart specifically for watching the switch axe change shape in Monster Hunter, you’re gonna lose it watching them do maintenance in this show. Character-wise, while 0079 was about watching whiny teens complain and break protocol on a regular basis, 08th MS Team is as much about living army life as it is about going on missions. There’s soldier superstition, there’s writing to girlfriends back home, there’s complaining about staking out in the desert for five days. I haven’t watched MASH, but the things I have heard about it make me link the two. 08th MS Team is also about a super unfortunate star-crossed love between people on opposite sides of the war. This plot element is a recurring one even back in 0079, but here it feels the most heart-wrenching, and with the very weighty and believable mech combat (it’s so pretty, good god), I was constantly worried about the well-being of all the characters, Fed and Zeon (except for Ginias). If you have any interest in anything, you have to watch this. I’m not good at selling things.

I watched all of this when Hulu was threatening to remove it, but now it appears to still be up? Uh, so go watch it I guess. Oh fuck, right, I almost forgot. The last episode of this is so bad they didn’t even air it on TV in the US. It’s tangentially related to the plot, claims to be about the main characters but instead centers on two side characters and like six new ones, has zero character development, has comparatively/definitively awful animation, relies entirely on misdirection towards the viewer to keep the plot barely hanging together, and has no satisfying payoff. Thankfully, it’s sort of an omake episode, and you can completely skip it. (12 eps (minus 1), finished 2/20/19, Hulu)

I can’t find a decent HQ poster so have this you filthy animal.

A Place Further Than The Universe: It’s not about robots! Wait. Is it about robo--it’s not about robots! I had heard about this show for a while, it was almost universally agreed upon by everyone that follows seasonal anime to be easily the best show of all of 2018. And wow they were not kidding around about that. APFTTU (oh god that acronym) is about four high school girls who decide to go to Antarctica. It is a feelgood comedy with occasional ventures into very real drama, and is rooted very realistically. The show is semi(?)-educational with the attention it gives to showing how real life expeditions work, while also liberally flowing into the poetry of the concept and experience of such a thing. The four girls are all hilarious and innocent without being cloying and, and this is the most important part, without being written with voyeuristic appeal. It is not off-base to have concern for the ways in which a significant number of female cast anime are written with intent to appeal to lonely men who want to feel a safe ownership of something innocent and attractive. It’s not all of them, but it’s a significant amount. Male gaze exists even in the lesbian shows, it’s something you sometimes have to roll with. Here, however, these girls are fully realized and believable, it is obvious that they are developing people, and that is treated as its own value, not as something to covet. If you’re lookin’ at thighs in here, that is your problem, and I’m calling God. A subplot that comes up involves a guy who gets a crush on one of the older women, and he tries to make it about his narrative and is immediately shot down by the whole cast, because this isn’t a vehicle for his romantic conquest. This isn’t anyone’s romantic conquest, really. It is significant to me to say, “this is an anime I could show to my mom and not be worried about.” I know I just said 08th MS Team was required watching for everyone, but A Place Further Than The Universe is required watching. (13 eps, finished 2/26/19, Crunchyroll)

Giant Gorg: At some point I picked this out to watch on CR without any prompting. Wait, I had one prompt. I knew nothing about this show except I think for seeing it on a short list of tumblr user @lightningclone’s favorite anime. It kind of floors me that this came out a year before Zeta Gundam and has way way better animation. Granted, Zeta has twice the episodes, which might be a big factor. The defining trait of this show is probably way it unravels itself, focusing for multiple episodes on exploring what of the great mystery of Austral Island and Gorg has been established to the audience, before revealing something more an deliberately taking it’s time as it takes you to the next reveal. The reveals don’t feel like twists, because a twist comes out of nowhere and sidelines you. The reveals here feel organic, and expected, but all the same compelling. Another good trait of the show is the characterization. Everyone fits into a very different role both in terms of personality and function, they all have their own motivations, and they all complement each other in unique ways. Also, this show has an Usopp. Back before Usopp was a thing. He’s Dr. Wave, and he’s the best character. 

If I have any criticism for the show, it all comes at the end. Near the end a character does a heel turn that, while a little twisty, is hinted in the beginning of the show, and in his heel turn the writers go a bit overboard and have him commit some sexual violence that goes on for an intentionally uncomfortable amount of time, and features frontal nudity. I know we’re supposed to think “oh god he’s a horrible person actually,” but 1) the main character is a child, I kind of expected this to lean family friendly with the occasional dark element (ignoring all the hilarious New York graffiti at the start that says FUCK in several places because America), but... okay! And 2) the stakes rise to a point by the next episode that the characters, including the victim of that violence, all just shrug it off, like whatever! The character is even redeemed by the end, which I wouldn’t mind if the betrayal itself was less physical. It’s a bit much for me, and I wish they hadn’t done it. Aside from that, I feel like the ending itself is a bit anticlimactic, but everything up to these two points had been so solid that I still think it was worth the watch. Worth it if you like mystery, adventure, and big robots, but worth bearing in mind the trigger warning for near the end. (26 eps, finished 2/27/19, Crunchyroll)

Manga:

Shin Mazinger Zero Vols 1-3:

[Serious Content Warning For Everything]

Shin Mazinger Zero is reprehensible garbage and I hate it. While inspired by Go Nagai and intentionally over-the-top, the absurdity is juvenile, offensive, and often just empty. Now, it may seem hypocritical of me to complain about transgression in something based on Nagai’s works, but I genuinely don’t find this transgressive, just extremely self-indulgent of toxic masculine fantasies, both sexual and violent. It has interesting ideas, about how Mazinger is both a tool possible of great good or great evil (literally the mission statement in every Mazinger work), and it wants to explore alternate timelines to see how characters can be corrupted or overcome corruption. The visual of a demonic Mazinger is genuinely pretty rad.

...Okay maybe he’s not, he’s kind of overdesigned. I like the toothy grill, though.

The problem with that exploration of corruption is that sometimes a character is just a horrible monster for no reason, without much explanation (so far?) for how that comes to be. Maybe in volume 4 they’ll get more into that, since they are currently in flashback mode, so there’s no undoing the damage.

Anyway, female characters so far are hypersexualized and submissive or motherly, or hypersexualized and, like, totally unreasonable. The hot robot girl sat on my lap in her underwear and did sex moans, why are you mad, main love interest? Men are testosterone as FUCK. The hero is constantly yelling to the point of visual distortion, no matter how the drama of the scene is being portrayed. The old man villain Dr. Hell is, for some reason, jacked as hell, and in the backstory to the main timeline (it’s all post-apoc) he shows his superiority over everyone by crushing Not Obama’s balls in his grip. I know exactly the kind of dude that would find this appealing and that’s the kind of person I avoid.

Honestly I knew this series was going to be a trashfire from square one and just kept reading out of morbid curiosity. The story starts in media res at the end of the world, with sexy girl robot disintegrating the hero so his soul can go back in time and try the timeline again. Okay, sure, I’m on board. Immediately next we’re shown what I would assume is The One Timeline To Get It Right, after establishing that there have been thousands of timelines where the hero is corrupted by evil. Pretty normal storytelling. And then, uh, the hero’s grandfather molests and murders the hero’s girlfriend, because the hero might become evil. My face is in my hands at this point. The incomprehensible shame. The hero is then corrupted and goes on a killing spree and humanity’s caught in the crossfire and the world ends. After *that* we get the One Timeline. Why? Why say things have always been bad (and I guess imply that bad things are the default) and then waste my time with the worst shock value trash that comes after for a full volume before actually starting the story? It’s edgy garbage! Why is this an official Mazinger work? Stuff like this is what makes me stop and think “wait are all Nagai’s works like this and I’ve been lying to myself when I like it?” Christ, this turned into a rant. Moving on.

[Content Warning Over]

Dumbbell Nan-Kilo Moteru? Vol 1: Idk if talking about horny manga after that mental breakdown is gonna make me look weird but hear me out.

Hot girls lifting weights.

You still here? Okay, good. I started this on a mutual’s recommendation and while it’s not regularly engaging with my own things (I’m more of a “watching fit woman deadlift and hoping she drops it on me and I disintegrate like so many dead leaves” person), and with the two main girls being high schoolers, I try to avoid engaging with that in that way. Luckily, there’s a teacher my age with a bob cut, so we’re good! More interesting, though, this is in the same genre as that Skullface Bookseller Honda-san anime (though less biographical), where the author just wants to explain their job or hobby while also using likable comedy characters as the vehicle. Anime made edutainment work.

I’m starting to get tired and I wanna wrap this up but unfortunately I have a bit to talk about regarding the last manga I read in Feb.

Tokyo Ghoul Vols 10-12: I’ve been reading this for the past, uh. I read it a lot last year, I don’t know when I started, though. Around 8 books in I started slowing down and taking long breaks because phew! I’d hit the end of the series’ big bad story arc and was having trouble picking up from there. I’m glad I did, though, because the story is still getting good. Here’s hoping I can handle the sequel series, because Tokyo Ghoul itself only has two books to go.

I’ve talked about TG a few times before, maybe just on Twitter. It’s very intelligent “vampire” lit that ramps up the stakes of transition by saying “you can’t just suck their blood and let them go! Human meat is your food and you’ll suffer without it.” At first, I was like “oh wow lol this is edgy” but the last twelve books have talked about trauma, alienation, and most importantly loss of innocence. It’s also about the importance of the bonds between people. The main character is perpetually at odds with himself, trying to be a good person in spite of the fact that being a ghoul is literally and figuratively being a monster. It could easily be an overwrought story of self-indulgence and angst but everything in it has been careful and effective. Ghoul culture is thoroughly built up and balances concepts of territory and posture along with careful deception for the purpose of staying a part of, and hiding from, human culture. It’s about predators who cannot remove themselves from their predatory nature, even if they want to be people with families and educations. There’s an organization that wears white and hunts ghouls with weapons crafted from ghoul bodies and functionally I can’t fully argue with them, sort of, but hey we’re starting to discover that corporations are corrupt (who knew?) and that’ll be fun.

But forget the poetry and human condition, the best thing this series does is that unashamedly works the Hot Topic aesthetic. The main character likes reading books and wears an eyepatch to hide his heterochromia and works as a barista. He wears a mask that evokes an S&M lifestyle. Ghouls can only eat people and all other food taste rotten. Except for black coffee. There’s also a number of ghouls with black nails and eyeshadow, and very heavily coded queer male characters (some more flatteringly portrayed than others but that’s a whole other thing). If Sui Ishida never listened to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, I’ll eat my fucking feet.

@sun-eater-official I think this might be up your alley. Or maybe not! But these aesthetics sound like you. Actually, you should probably watch 08th MS Team too, for the Bebop vibes.

So that’s everything! I thought I had a short list but apparently it was all things I had a lot to say about. Again, if you read all of this, thanks a lot, I hope I end up introducing you to a new favorite. In the future, I may have to split these into separate posts for each category. I have a lot of free time to write these lately. Writing two roundup posts back to back is a bit tiring, but I don’t have to do another until April starts.

[sidespart]

Sanders Sides Pokemon AU

This au won't leave me alone so even though I'm not a writer please enjoy some garbled head cannons: Roman -He wants to be THE VERY BEST like no one EVER WAS -On a quest to beat all the gyms and become a Pokemon Master Tm -loves battling newer, stronger opponents -loves his team to death and calls them all his darling babies, but a bit picky about which Pokemon have the honour of being on said team. - his team are all chosen for a combination of fighting power and aesthetic - originally wanted an all fire team (to match his fiery passion) and had to be talked out of it by Logan (it took way too long to convince him that real Pokémon Masters Tm don't get their butts kicked by the first water gym they come across) - tends to loudly announce himself in the third person which can scare off wild Pokemon -low key addicted to Pokémon beauty contests - for ages kept running into this freaky ghost Pokémon kid in the woods but he had always disappeared by the time anyone else showed up. -has decided the fact said kid keeps turning up (and looking all freaky) means that he is his nemesis. no one will agree with him Logan -is on a quest to Understand how Pokémon work -(this is essentially impossible as the majority of Pokemon make no logical sense) -(honestly Logan was the hardest to figure out because I feel like he would genuinely hate living in the Pokemon world? Real world Logan would probably like playing the game from the collecting/ type matching point of view but actually living there would drive him crazy) -(anyway) -ends up deciding that the best way to develop a unified theory of Pokemon is to complete the pokedex -gotta catch em all - has an enormous collection of Pokemon but sends 99% of them straight to Patton and doesn't actually interact with them much beyond cataloguing them -only has a few Pokémon that he keeps with him at all times. Insists this is because they're the most useful and are therefore a logical choice to keep near by (this line of reasoning does not last) -is pretty good at gym battles as he will analyse the type advantages/ disadvantages before hand and assemble a team from his collection that has the highest chance of winning. -tends to panic and fail when faced with a random trainer/wild pokemon which he has no prior data on. This makes Roman laugh. A lot. Team Logince -end up travelling together. It's all Pattons fault. -neither of them are happy about this at first - Logan once caught a caterpie and then 5 min later a metapod saying 'it's more time efficient then training it up to evolve' Roman is morally OUTRAGED and insists on taking it on to prove Logan's methods are bogus - Roman instantly regrets this as he now has his first ugly Pokémon which is also weak AF. Bug Pokémon are so not royalty. - Logan doesn't actually understand what point Roman is trying to prove and just wishes he would do it more quietly -the caterpie's nickname is Beyoncé. -Beyoncé eventually evolves into a beautiful butterfree and Roman is able to use her to win some important battle. Roman learns bug Pokémon can be strong! Logan admits the 'loyalty factor' probably pushed Beyoncé to perform at a higher standard then an equivalent wild butterfree! Roman agrees to work with Logan to teach Beyoncé some useful non offensive moves like sleep powered! Patton nearly goddam cries over this teachable moment! - Roman has passion, strength and the drive to power through any situation. Logan has a map and has actually thought about how to survive in the wilderness. Together they make an awesome team! And Virgil and Patton... I will write about another time!