#also if you don't progress the dialogue it never ends. he will continue to do this infinitely until you press the button

[technikki]

hello ruby, i don't know either!! peasley here makes a bet with the bros before pulling out his sword and repeatedly jabbing luigi with it, after which he blushes bright red. i cannot give further context for this scene because there is none. neither of them had any reason to do this

[the-real-timeloop-tourney]

Best Character Stuck in a Timeloop

Propaganda for Niko:

Ok, I'm going to be honest here. This, if accepted would be the most "Technically a timeloop" thing in this competition. It's recognized in a few places in the story as the game repeating itself but never directly stated as a TIMELOOP. Following the "Groundhog's Day" timeloop image, in order to break the time loop you need to do the Solstice route (True Ending) to finally get Niko home for good. But if you don't do the Solstice Route and instead just do a Post-Game Route. You get small hints of the world repeating, Like Niko recognizing your name but not knowing where it's from and one time Niko needs to sign their name to progress and in the Post-Game route Niko notices that their name is already on there, faded. Here are two videos on Post Game Differences

General Differences

Post Game Affecting Dialogue in True Ending

------------------------------------

Propaganda art by @max-nexus

Propaganda for Noel:

As a note both to the organizer of the blog and to the audience should this be posted, the story being a timeloop is a spoiler for the first installment of the game.

He creates the timeloop in order to save his childhood friend, whom he refers to as his hero. The reason why saving her has to be a timeloop is because she is extremely prone to dying to various things. He drives himself to his absolute brink trying to save her. He also has a demonic curse. Please he is so desperate to save his favorite death magnet.

------------------------------------

"This dude makes me severely ill. (Witch’s heart and Madoka Magica spoilers in coming for like, the entire game!!!) he’s been looping in time for 10,000 loops that go for about 4-5 days at a time. Why you may ask? To save his childhood best friend (Claire who is also looping in time but doesn’t know it) from being killed. He was already cursed by getting pushed into demon hood (it’s complicated

But he is and is not a demon) and having to spend the day time in hell, inorder to avoid transforming into a giant blob of flesh, and can only be active during the night. He’s also using the a witch’s heart to keep looping each time, Claire is killed ala homura from madoka magica. Each time however, he won’t be able to remember Claire’s cause of death, nor anything around the moment of it, and the only loop hole is him killing Claire himself, something he absolutely refuses to even think about until late game, and still never follows through on because the thought of it utterly destroys him. By the end of the game, he has reached his absolute limit, suffering from over exhaustion by being bearly able to control his transformations into the flesh blob, and suffering from fits of coughing and his body basically giving out. He has gone through a complete and utter torment nexus to just let the one person who was a light in his awful life (his backstory is also completely and utterly heartbreaking) just to give her a chance to continue living, no matter how futile it may be.

Tldr: cursed kinda demon man exhausts every single part of himself for over 10,000 4-5 day spanning loops to save one doomed by the narrative girl, and is doomed by the narrative no matter what. He quite literally loops until time and space are about to literally break, and he’s basically dying from the exhaustion it takes, and is constantly about to break down from the stress!! Also he’s had to witness the two most important people in his life die each and every single time, with the second most important (Sirius) being alive 350ish times out of 999999 (or 10000 depending on ending), only due to murder ing Claire as a stress response (the rest of the times Sirius is just killed before Claire) there’s so much more I’m not even explaining because this is already long enough….. but yeah! He’s one of my favorite time loopers!!!"

------------------------------------

I love Noel and everyone, Witch's Heart is such a gem. This boy has done EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING to save the one he considers his hero, and every single time, no matter how hard he tries, he fails to protect her.

Not only that, but like the propaganda said, every time he resets/loops, his memories of HOW Claire dies are erased, meaning he's right back to square one on how to protect her. He tries his damn best and yes he is a very trusting person and maybe sees too much good in people.

But after the life he's lead and having such a HORRIBLE, DISGUSTING father like his (Seriously, that man comes with a SLEW of trigger warnings), Noel still being as kind of a person that he is is astounding. He just wants to protect those that matter, and even after everything he wants everyone in that mansion to get out alive.

Because he knows no one that's in that mansion is a bad person, just people who have suffered and lived through truly fucked up situations; just like him.

Also he has to relive what happened to him EVERY DAY and hear voices taunting him, and he just suffers over and over. But he tries so damn hard and even though he can barely stand he will be the person he has to be for Claire.

He may not be her prince, but he'll be her magician. Some one that will show her beautiful things and even if she doesn't know Noel is the one helping her, that's fine. All that matters to him is her happiness.

Also his birthday is on Christmas COME ON THE BOY IS HOLLY JOLLY CUTE <3

[lemotmo]

It's very clear at this point, people

Q. I guess my question is why the need to bring him back? I mean they broke up, he serves no story purpose.

A. He absolutely serves a story purpose. Look I talk a lot of trash about the guy because the actor who plays him repulses me on every level, but the character serves a genuine story purpose. The problem was Tim didn't stick with the original story plan and it allowed the story to get a bit muddled to the point that it created an opportunity for certain people to try and hijack the intended narrative. Tim mentioned a jealousy aspect in an interview prior to the season. For whatever reason between then and now he decided to go a different way. I have no idea why he decided against that story point because it was always going to be the easiest, most straightforward way to get the audience from point A to point B. It also would have made it much easier to get Buck and Eddie to their individual realizations at similar times within the story. It was a mistake to decide not to go with that particular route, and I would love to know why he changed his mind. I know most of us got to a point where we didn't want Tommy anywhere near any kind of Buddie realization, but the reality is that Tommy was always intended to play some part in Buck's realization one way or another.

The dialogue between Buck and Tommy in episode 8x11 was really, really telling. Tommy is the ultimate Buddie plot device. But because Tim kept dragging the story out all while not giving Tommy or the relationship any actual screen time, focus or development, because their relationship was never the point of anything, people kind of filled in the blanks with their own version of events. Lou did not help the situation because he encouraged people to believe a version of the story he knew wasn't true, but the show wasn't really doing anything to countermand the noise, early on Tim actively encouraged some of the chatter, something he later learned was a mistake. Yes the storyline was pretty straightforward if you were bothering to pay actual attention, but this is the problem with continually kicking the Buddie can down the road for later. Things started and stopped several times. And each time the progress stalled Lou was ready, and more than willing to fill the silence with his version of events. 8x11 was Tim basically resetting the narrative to the way it was originally intended to play out.

Tommy's one job was to make Buck aware of the Eddie of it all, and Tim finally had him do that in this last episode. Having Tommy be the one to verbalize for the audience that the BuckandEddie thing is something that does need to be reexamined and looked at with a new perspective, while at the same time admitting that he viewed Eddie as competition set everything up for the audience. Then having Buck react the way he did and say what he said, 'I don't want to have to sleep with everyone I have feelings for and I don't have feelings for everyone I sleep with' told the audience the entire game. Buck has clearly thought about Eddie like that at some point, and made himself shutdown and lock that train of thought away, and he didn't appreciate Tommy reminding him of that. The show used the second part of Buck's dialogue to explicitly state that Buck has no actual feelings for Tommy. It was physical for Buck. And this is the first time Buck has admitted that out loud. It was something Buck had to admit to himself, and Tommy, but it was also something they wanted the audience to be aware of. As far as Buck is concerned there is no competition. He will pick Eddie every single time, even if he believes it can only be in a platonic way. Tommy was used as the character to tell the audience that it might not have to be platonic. The relationship part of Buck and Tommy officially ended with that episode but I do think we will see Tommy at least one more time. The focus will now switch to Eddie, and there are several things they need to do with Eddie prior to any kind of feelings realization on his part. My guess is they will sort out the Eddie and Chris situation, and the Diaz parents thing and then address the Buck of it all out loud. Ryan and Oliver both saying that we will see phone calls and FaceTime calls between the two makes me really happy. The idea that the show might do another Buck and Abby parallel and kind of show both Buck and Eddie allowing themselves to fall for one another while talking on the phone is a really lovely idea. And I really hope that's what they're doing because not only would that be a really special thing to allow the audience to witness, it allows the realizations to occur within the same episode. I got sidetracked here, lol, but personal feelings for Lou aside Tommy always served a story point the show just pushed his purpose to this past episode. But they made his purpose clear, try as some people might to pretend they didn't.

Thank you Nonny!

Well said Ali! The show is finally ready to address the Buddie elephant in the room and so far I've loved every single second of this storyline.

As for Tommy? Uh-uh, the Buddie plot device is there to do its job and he did it well in 8x11. I'm sure he'll be off plot devicing some more in 8x14/15. I cannot wait to watch it and say goodbye forever to T. 🙂‍↕️

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[magnuspanoptes]

shaking your hand so hard at eliasjon dadson

re this post

REAL. their canonical relationship already lends itself very easily to that interpretation. elias functions as the gothic villain threatening jon and he achieves this through entrapment within his seat of power (the institute) where he restricts and controls both jon's access to knowledge and movement. this is all standard patriarchal dominance, i.e. the power he wields over jon is that of a husband-father (1:1 match with harker and the count in the opening of dracula)

and even outside those genre trappings, over the course of s1 elias establishes himself as a reliable authority figure jon can trust and seek out for advise, then during s3 elias is the only one who understands what is happening to him. because he made him. he's his creator. god the father. which is also canonically a mark of violation - "i did this to you that leaves you isolated from everyone else and with only me to turn to", a theme that is carried over in s4 when elias is Not there and jon's developing powers continue to be the source of alienation between him and his friends and once again when he's outed to his colleagues it's elias he turns to - "i thought maybe if he was more like me than we realise"—"he might have some advise?" (148)

and then there's dialogue like this alll over the podcast.

mag 80 - "librarian" // mag 101 - "another twist" // mag 158 - "panopticon"

he exhibits a clear sense of paternalism towards jon which is condescending obviously (because on some level he absolutely considers jon his object of possession. and he's violating jon's bodily autonomy. you can talk a lot about how jon chose to do a lot of things, i do, but the whole you are a chronicle of terror i'm going to have you marked by 14 different fears is also that. and i feel it's dishonest to handwave what he did to jon) but also affectionate because that's his boy! he's very transparently proud of jon's progress whenever he gets airtime during s3 and s4 and yes you can chalk that up to vanity about nearing his two centuries' long goal but i dunno you don't talk like this for no apparent reason -> he went from MY institute in 158 to in this world WE have made and the time of OUR victory is here <- guy who's always going on about using and watching and discarding people. he primarily wanted his ritual but what he saw in jon was someone who was remarkably similar to him and he spends a not insignificant amount of time trying to turn jon into a mirror image of him (92. that's what this place is jon) and well, at the end of the day the podcast was never all that preoccupied with their relationship, even before s5. but i'll always have this

[adventurermari]

I've slowly seen more and more you tubers talking about and singing the praises of the first cars game and that makes me really happy to see, however one aspect of these games that I feel like I haven't seen discussed is how much of a fantastic and natural job that game and it's sequels do at expanding upon the world building of the first movie.

Okay so first of all I wanna mention that in the first movie, in front of mater's junkyard, there's two buildings that are in extremely rough shape

in the first movie, the space that these buildings occupy aren't really relevant to at all aside from them giving lightning mcqueen is first impression of radiator springs, well, at least in a way where he can actually process where he is. Now then, fast forward to the very end of the first movie, lightning mentions that he's getting his own racing headquarters.

now take a look at this screenshot from the first video game, notice the sign mentioning a racing quarters for lightning in front of the abandoned buildings? if you look closely, it mentions "coming soon"

In the sequel to this game, Cars mater-national, that exact space of land where those buildings reside are replaced with lightning's racing headquarters, which it's own construction progesses as you progress through the game alongside lightning's own hometrack and it's all wonderful to see both of these landmarks slowly develop in the game

In cars race o rama, none of this expanded world building has been forgotten about, lightning mcqueen's new headquarters is still a part of radiator springs while not plot relevant at all, it is still nice to see it there mean while lightning's new home track, now actually having the name of radiator springs speedway, which isn't only a place that you can race in, but is also it's own hub world that you can explore which absolutely blew my mind as kid, also the track is also more developed than it was in mater-national, and has a drastically different layout for some reason but idk it's not a really big deal, especially because of how cool this track looks

Another thing I find interesting is that race o rama establishses the hudson racing acedemy, a racing a acedemy where young, future race cars can train alongside lightning mqueen which is a very interesting direction for his character, especially considering the mentor figure that lightning would later become in cars 3, Race O rama basically beat that movie to the punch with that concept and I find that very interesting

Like oh my god, I just love how much these games expanded upon the world building from the first movie so much in such a natural and interesting way, like I can't think of that many other licensed games that even do that and I feel like this aspect of these games should be discussed more often cause it's just so fascinating, like the video games practically serve as a great continuation from the first movie, especially with the first game already taking the interesting angle of taking place after the events of the first movie and then the other two games continuing after that first game. It's just one of those aspects of these first 3 cars games that I believe makes them so much more fascinating and special compared to the cars 2 and 3 game, which I don't have anything against, since I did really like the cars 2 game back then and I haven't played driven to win, despite some of the flaws and criticisms i've heard from that game I still feel like I'll still really enjoy it since it has the same gameplay style as the cars 2 game. I also do like how that game also takes place after the third movie but I cannot speak for how well it expands upon the concepts presented in it's movie as I have never played it but I find it very sweet that the tutorial race has lightning doing a simulated race with doc even if it's present kinda weirdly cause of the dialogue/voice acting in that game is really strange. But it's fine honestly, I kinda don't really mind that those games deviate so hard from the first 3 cars games. however I cannot deny that little egg me found it odd when the second movie and it's game had not a single appearance of any of these things that were established in the games, however that didn't stop little egg me from making both the first movie, games, and second movie all be canon in my cars diecast lore.

[secretly-tword-obsessed]

Yes a tickle fic!! For anakin and Ahsoka :) I was thinking something like anakin training her, and then she ends up sneak tickle attacking him to which he falls or something and she immediately regrets it when he gets up because she can just tell he’s going to get her back… and he does!! I can just imagine this dialogue: “Do you regret it yet?” “I absolutely do not.” *proceeds to die of laughter*

Aww I was so blushy reading this! Hope you enjoy (:

Title - Disobedient

Ashoka had been Anakin's Padawan for quite a few months now, and she was steadily improving her control of the force, her ability to concentrate and execute lightsaber duels. She was also growing a vast knowledge base of Anakin himself.

For one, he was a hypocrite - never following protocol but relentlessly pestering his Padawan for doing the same.

"Improvisation is ineffective without experience", he would always say, "You need to learn the rules before you start breaking them".

Anakin nevertheless had an adventurous and overall dissobedient attitude. He had grown an attachment to R2 despite Obiwan's protests, and Ashoka often found her master playing or chatting with the droid when she was late for training. Anakin and Ashoka's stubborn and childish attitudes had caused them to clash with one another many times, having playful battles of snarky banter or mimic-lightsaber duels or back and fourth pranks. Today, Anakin was continuing to mentor Ashoka on using the force to lift objects. She had already mastered small things like little rocks and fruit, but she still struggled with heavier things. Today, Anakin was trying to get her to make R2D2 levitate.

"Focus", Anakin said, standing behind Ashoka.

"Shut up Skyguy, your just being condescending", Ashoka countered, her voice straining as her eyes remained tightly shut and she struggled to make the droid budge.

Anakin's tone hardened, "Come on Snips, this is no time to be argumentative. All of your mental effort should be concentrated on R2. You can do this, I know you can".

With that, R2 shifted slightly to the left.

"Well done Snips, your getting somewhere!"

Ashoka opened her eyes, admiring her progress.

"Okay, back to work", Anakin commanded, "Lift him".

Ashoka rolled her eyes. "I moved him! Isn't that enough for today!"

"But your so close Ashoka", Anakin said with a warm smile, "Your almost-"

He was interrupted by a defiant poke to his side. Ashoka smirked, wiggling her fingers just under her master's robe, causing the Jedi to squeal and collapse in jittery giggles.

"Nohoho!", he laughed, taking a step back as his Padawan followed him determinedly.

"You don't appreciate my efforts Skyguy", she said matter-of-factly, "I worked hard today, and I think I deserve a break at your expense".

Anakin's giggles became more high pitched as Ashoka switched from wiggling her fingers to gently squeezing, causing her to smile and admire her work of reducing such a powerful Jedi to a cackling mess. Finnally, in an attempt to evade Ashoka's ruthless fingers, Anakin lost his footing, falling to the floor with a thud.

There was silence for a few seconds as Anakin slowly sat up and rubbed his hair. Than, Ashoka burst into laughter.

"Skyhyguy!", she laughed, "You should have seeheen the loohook on your fahace!"

Anakin scowled and groaned.

"The great and powerful Anakin Skywalker", she continued, "Defeated by his own laughter".

Ashoka stopped laughing when her master stood up ominously. Than he smirked, his eyes glowing evilly, and Ahoka knew she doomed.

"That was a low move Ashoka", he said calmly, "Even for you".

Ashoka felt herself shaking. She knew that, if her master was planning what she thought he was, she had no hope of escape.

"Oh come on", she stuttered, her eyes darting everywhere but at Anakin, "You were being to pushy and I was just using reasonable means to put you in your place".

Anakin raised an eyebrow and chuckled, "Reasonable means?"

Ashoka started getting more defensive now as Anakin slowly neared her with his hands in front of him.

"W-well", she said, "I was just poking you. It's not my fault your so ticklish".

Anakin's eyes widened at his padawan's audacity.

"Okay, that's it".

Suddenly, he launched at her, lifting her up as she squirmed in his arms. He immediately dug his fingers under her arms - a particularly bad spot. Anakin tried to maintain his calm and stern demeanor as his padawan collapsed into laughter, pinning her arms desperately to her sides and kicking her legs in a futile attempt to get away.

"NOHOHOHO! ANIHIHIHI!"

"I'm just poking you Snips", Anakin responded, not being able to hold back his smile at the satisfaction of using Ashoka's line against her, "It's not my fault your devastatingly ticklish".

At the word, Ashoka squirmed even faster, and her orange cheeks went dark red.

Anakin lifted his hand, letting Ashoka catch her breath. Such a ruthless attack on her worst spot was a particularly brutal tactic.

"So", he said, watching as Ashoka bashfully recovered yet not letting her go, "Do you regret it yet?"

Ashoka, ever stubborn, crossed her arms. Anakin deserved what had come to him and he knew it.

"I absolutely do not"

Anakin tutted and shook his head, "I'm afraid that's the wrong answer my Padawan". He resumed his attack, going right back under her arms. She screamed in surprise, with her scream quickly transforming into laughter.

"You know Snips", Anakin commented, as if he wasn't tickling his padawan half to death, "The more you try to squash my hands with your arms, the harder it is for me to get them out. it's like I have no choice but to wiggle my fingers until my hands are free".

"HEHEHE! I CAHAHN'T HEHEHELP IHIHIT!"

"Sure thing Snips", Anakin teased, "Whatever you say".

Ashoka tried to channel that concentration Anakin had taught her into fighting her reflexes and lifting her arms. But the tickling sensations were just too much for her.

"NOHOHO! STAHAHAP!"

Anakin rolled his eyes with a smile, stopping. As she caught her breath once again, Ashoka glared at him.

"Oh come on Snips, why the long face?", Anakin teased, booping his Padawan's nose to aggravate her further.

"That was cruel", Ashoka said.

"Well, to be fair, you started it", Anakin responded. Just as Ashoka was about to reply, the door opened. Anakin immediately put his padawan down.

Obiwan smirked, "We could hear the ruckus you two were making from all the way down the hall. Remind me of how this has anything to do with training"

"Well...", Anakin blushed and scratched the back of his neck, "Ashoka attacked me and I needed to discipline her".

Obiwan just shook his head and chuckled, knowing exactly what had just happened, "You know, revenge isn''t the Jedi way".

"Yeah", Ashoka smirked, "It really isn't Anakin. Your not teaching me very well".

Anakin groaned as his Padawan and former master shared a conspiratorial grin.

"Okay you two, that's enough, everything's always my fault isn't it?"

Obiwan just smirked, as Anakin felt something pushing him toward the older Jedi. Anakin gulped when he found himself on the floor, with Obiwan smiling evilly down at him.

"What I'm about to do can't be considered revenge as I was not the one attacked", Obiwan stated matter of factly; "However, consider it rettribution for your foolishness.

Before Anakin could make an argument about Obiwan being a hypocrite, the room was filled with laughter once more.

I hope you enjoyed this! Sorry if my characterization isn't spot on.

Have a giggly day and happy holidays (:

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

"Nancy's in a healthy relationship with Jonathan" 🤨 Really?

Neither one of them are being honest with each other. Jonathan didn't want to see her and was grateful that she wasn't there. Nancy didn't want to see him and was grateful that he wasn't there. Jonathan assumed that Nancy was going to give up her dream for him, so he lied to her about where he was going to go for college. There are things that they both need to talk about but don't. One of them is how they got started in the first place, and the other thing is the camera incident. Nancy pushed it aside because there were other things going on, but she never really addressed how uncomfortable it made her feel or how it made her feel when he did that then took back his apology by calling her a slut and telling her she was going to end up like her parents. Jonathan really never felt remorseful about the whole thing until now, and I think that's a reason why he hadn't picked up a camera in season 4. There's some underlying resentment on both their parts. If neither of them are communicating properly, it's not a healthy relationship. It's been pointed out that they also hate each other a little bit. Yeah, that's not healthy. But just because they're not in a healthy relationship right now doesn't mean they can't be in one later. But to say they're in a healthy relationship right now, it's. . .*Nancy Wheeler voice* bullshit! There's one thing that they haven't talked about either, the one thing Nancy has in sort of in common with Steve. It's Barb. Jonathan Byers was the last person to see her alive, and instead of talking to her, he took her picture without her knowing about it while she was looking all sad and thought she was alone. Then she died. Now, Nancy doesn't blame him for it, but there's got to be a little resentment for just taking her picture like that, right? There's just so many things that they don't talk about and that they need to. Nancy needs to have a talk with Steve, too, but more than that with Jonathan. And Jonathan should have seen by now that Steve has changed grown and to continue to not see that for like three years. . .it's weird. It's fucking laughable to say their relationship is healthy because it has never been healthy. When they got together, Nancy had just gotten out of a serious relationship with Steve, and she was still quite vulnerable about Barb. She wasn't ready for any relationship then, and the fact that she listened to a complete stranger rather than herself should tell you Nancy wasn't ready. Yes, right now Nancy and Steve's, despite me thinking they're endgame, relationship isn't healthy either. They all still have a long way to go, but Nancy's putting some progress into finally accepting her feelings for Steve like she was unable to do so in the past. You don't have to come up with complete bullshit to put another ship down, it just makes you look catty. *scoffs* Healthy, whatever you say. Honestly, they have the same amount of problems that Nancy and Steve do which is why I think all three of them need to sit down together to talk. I really think it's going to be Steve who helps them get there, who opens up a dialogue, and if it's not, it should be. Nancy's severely traumatized. She's going to have a hard time forming a healthy relationship with anyone. Do I think she can do it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Healthy?! Not a single damn one of them has a healthy relationship. It's not a bad thing to struggle or to admit that your favorite characters or your favorite ship is struggling or that they have flaws. Saying something is unhealthy is not always a bad thing.

[loveofdetail]

@sigilmint oh friend this comment made me so 😍

Short version: As far as in-game actions, really all you need to do is initiate his romance, betray the grove, roll to convince him to stay in the party, then continue his romance, roleplaying the situation however you want from there.

Long Version beneath the cut—this has a lot more to do with how my own out-of-game decisionmaking got me here, and how I interpret the macro-arc of my party/character.

My first bg3 campaign is a co-op game where we are mostly trying to do Good Route Things. Gale has been stuck in camp permanently because I was dead set on playing a wizard myself.

So I started my solo campaign with the vague notion of doing a Full On Evil Run. My character, Vuei, is a disillusioned and broken oathbreaker paladin. I was planning to romance Minthara because if she's only available in the evil route, might as well go all the way.

But I recruited Gale and immediately had a category 5 "Ohhh I can't not fuck him" moment.

Now, at the time I thought that betraying the grove would straight-up lock you out of his romance. Tbh I'm not sure why I thought this? But somehow that was the impression I'd gotten, so, I promptly jettisoned all my Evil Plans in favor under Get Under Gale's Robe ASAP.

I got all the way into Act 2 like this. Defeated and looted the whole goblin camp, made it to Last Light, all that.

Then one night I wanted to play but I was feeling too mentally wiped to make real progress and real decisions, so instead I loaded a save from right before saving the grove. I figured I would see what it was like, get to hear some Minthara dialogue, that would be that.

Instead I got one of the most immersive emotional rollercoasters a video game has ever given me.

I failed some rolls to deceive Minthara and started spinning a narrative where Vuei, who has recently lost everything and everyone they thought they valued, just... panics. Doesn't see a way out other than bending to Minthara's demands. Goes reflexively numb and nihilistic because apparently this is just the way the world works.

From there, the entire sequence from the combat itself, to Karlach (who was in my party) leaving me, to the reactions of various people at the party... it was just Moment after Heartwrenching Moment. I'm leaving some details out here because they really deserve to be experienced first-hand but at the end I was like. Staring at my ceiling processing all the implications for the characters.

Gale specifically delivers one of the Verbal Smackdowns of All Time to you afterward. You have to persuade him to stay.

But he does stay.

This was the point when I started getting the feeling that maybe his romance flag was still active? And the implications of THAT... my mind just ran wild with them. Who was this guy who would bitterly, righteously tell you that you're making him worse, then give you a second chance, secretly thinking maybe he's Not Actually So Different, then fall in love—ACTUAL love, not just 'I don't deserve better' resignation—with you despite it all?

I never reloaded my original save.

The game doesn't actually let you have any additional decompress-and-discuss dialogue after persuading him to stay, but in my imagination what I filled in was: a really painful heart to heart where Gale and Vuei agree Never Again. Where they are both at a loss as to how they can even go on from this. But they have to. So they will. At least they know the other feels just as guilty and ashamed as themself, and that counts for something.

It also made me think, why the pure black and white Evil Run/Good Run dichotomy? I really, REALLY latched on to the story structure of a party that makes One Huge Ruinous Fuckup at the very beginning that colors all their further attempts to Do Better, and that's how I RP'd going into act 2.

For instance: we couldn't rescue the tieflings but maybe we can extend the same grace to Minthara that we hope might be extended to ourselves.

In terms of game mechanics I actually took quite a hit here. Karlach took a bunch of great gear with her when she left (this may not happen in the current patch? unsure) and I decided my characters would not have it in them to go back to the goblin camp just to completionistly gobble up loot.

It felt like penance. The very beginning of the tangible consequences of the thing my character will regret most, for the rest of her life.

I felt closer to my remaining companions. Bound by atrocity. The last ones standing. By the gods it shouldn't have happened this way but after that we will NEVER doubt that we have each other's backs. I put Astarion in my party for the first time ever and this is when I began warming up to him as a character. Eventually when Shadowheart killed the Nightsong, it was like Vuei (and Gale) deeply disapproved but couldn't bear to cast judgement. The only thing to do is be there for her and hope she does better next time. We are all just hoping we'll do better next time.

The morning after our lowest point, we trudged resignedly to Rosymorn monastery. The stark, sublime grandeur of the landscape was a slap in the face. It was wrong that such beauty could still exist as though the world was indifferent to what we'd just done. It was wrong that we could literally climb above the ruins we made and in the distance they're just... another part of a breathtaking view. But here we are, standing on this cliff, somehow still able to feel wonder.

The new dawn imagery was both a lash and balm.

We carry on. We find a way.

OH ALSO I gave Gale Volo's eye and continued making Alterations to him as things progressed. Being vague because that's quite a bit further in but yeah, Gale Undergoing Changes is another big part of my vision here. It's All Connected.

[something-pithy]

Heyo, glittercats and kittens! So chapters 6 and 7 of an echo, a stain are up! And starting this week, I'm going to start including story notes along with the link.

I'm a note writer lol. Part of how I even begin to keep track of all the wildness of writing something longer than a grocery list is to write about it before I start writing it, if that makes sense lol. Character sketches, ideas about why certain things are happening, backstory, setting details, etc.

I'm pretty verbal about my writing process because -- well,  I like writing about writing a lot, and also, I think it improves both the work and how I get there. Anything might end up here -- character sketches, ideas about why certain things are happening, backstory, setting details, etc. I don't really wanna be leaving like eighteen thousand words of notes on every chapter, so here we are!

Sometimes I think they might add some interesting context for readers, sometimes it's information that I think is important but it's too much for the notes section on the story itself, and sometimes it's just so I have a document of my progress for this story. So here are my notes for chapter 7! ---

Chapter 7's title is from "Come to Me" by Bjork, which is definitely one of my Astarion / Tav falling in love themes for when I'm up in these flashbacks, back before Astarion Ascended (and he still had a soul loool).

The notes from previous chapters had promised a Shadowheart & Tav conversation in this chapter. This is not the Shadowheart & Tav chapter I promised, but it is the one that continued to demand to be written until I capitulated. 

And also, honestly, the one that's going to benefit that other chapter that was supposed to be 7 and the story as a whole in the long run, so I hope you like it! 

I was getting really stuck with my original plan, and so I just started writing -- well, this. And the chapter after this. And possibly the one after that. Loooool there is a LOT going on at this point in these kids' lives.

The original plan is still 100% happening, but I think I needed to 

1. explore the foundations of who these people have become (by these people of course I mean Tav and Astarion, but also friendship is magic, so our beautiful OG friendgroup babies) 

2. what the relationships between them look like and 

3. some clues, at least, as to how they got there. 

(tl;dr we're purposefully time-jumping, and I'm having fun with it, so I hope you will, too!)

But never fear, Shadowheart and Tav will of course be chatting when we return to the story's present. And it won't be in just one chapter.

OR

hey y'all, we're gonna be doing some purposeful (and hopefully at least coherently executed) flashing back and jumping forward (or up! or laterally! OR WHATEVER) in/on/around this story's timeline!

Final note, but an important one, on Tav's identity: 

I tried to keep Tav ambiguous for the first few chapters because I know that sometimes a really detailed and specific-looking or backstoried Tav can make people disengage from the story because they don't relate to the identifying details provided. (also, it's me, I'm people, or at least one of the people lol)

But at the end of the day, as soon as I started even thinking about writing a BG3 fic, I started really digging into and developing this Tav, who does reflect the dialogue, action, and relationship choices I've made in my current playthrough of the game with her, yes. But in having spent / continuing to spend some time thinking and writing about who this Tav is.  I'm not going to lay them all out here, but I think when you want to play in a sandbox as fucking ginormous and intricately, infinitesimally detailed as Faerun / The Forgotten Realms / DnD,  a little story/character-relevant contextual frontloading can help readers have as much fun with it as the writer does. 

Also, and I'm just going to say it, Tav is a queer, first-generation Baldurian child of two immigrants. She's the Faerun / Baldur's Gate equivalent of a BIPOC, with parents who were born in places very different both from Baldur's Gate and each other's home cities / kingdoms. Also, she's mixed-heritage elf (sun, moon, sea -- yeah, I'm that guy, come at me bro loooool). All this context is key to who Tav is as a person, as a creator, as an adventurer, and just in general.

I want anyone to be able to read Tav and be able to understand who she is, if not be able to relate to some small part of her -- but in my mind, people like Tav are essential to the story of a place like Baldur's Gate, and I really enjoy exploring what that looks like.

I'm having fun with it, so I hope you will, too!

[ireallyneedaintrestinglife]

Security Breach Ruin Theory

I've thought about it for a bit longer and I'm not 100% convinced that who we are hearing at the end (with the elevator) is Gregory.

We never get straight up confirmation that Gregory is real in fact they make it a point to specially call out the fact that this might not actually be Gregory.

Cassie says "How do I know this is you for real" to which Gregory responds, "Is there another option" which I mean...fair.

I also wouldn't spend unnecessary time trying to get someone to listen to me in that situation but after watching multiple other playthroughs things just don't add up 100% for me.

But you might be thinking...so what about it maybe they just needed some kind of filler dialogue and who wouldn't ask about the validity of something after they literally just shut down an entire pizza-plexs worth of security for someone who wasn't there at all.

Well I just find it curious that once the 'real' Gregory gets in contact with us it becomes super duper staticky. Just like mimic does right before he, they, it?? reveals itself to us.

Which ok could just be that Gregory is trying to get in contact with us through A LITERAL WALKIE-TALKIE while presumably very far away from the pizza place but again its the little things that add up to make the big picture. And I mean are we even certain that a walkie talkie would be able to connect from that far away. I mean even if he's at the entrance of the pizza-plex that sinkhole is a good ways down right??

Next why lead us all the way to the elevator just to leave us trapped down there anyway. It doesn't really make much sense to me. Also how was he able to connect to the elevator intercom.

The ending speech once we get to the elevator is heard over the intercom speaker we hear a classic speaker sound and they even have Cassie look directly at the intercom. So how did he manage to do that??

It's one thing to connect to the walkie talkie which again is a little weird. It's not something Cassie and Greg already had that was hijacked by the mimic (Cassie finds the walkie talkie in the pizza-plex she didn't have it with her to begin with) so how did 'real Gregory' manage to get in contact with us over it. But it's something else completely to switch from walkie-talkie to intercom for quite literally no reason at all dude could have continued on the walkie-talkie.

I don't know much about electronics so maybe it's really easy to do something like that idk I just find it a bit weird. I also know that in the books it's also confirmed that Gregory or at least GGY is described as like an 'ultimate hacker' and we all pretty much agreed that GGY is more than likely a stand-in for Gregory. I guess some of the weird tech stuff can be explained away with that line of thinking but I digress.

This last piece is what really sealed the deal for me because while you are running away from the mimic every once and a while Gregory will say, "it's right behind you!!" and "almost there!!" And like how??? How would he know how close the mimic is and how close we are to the elevator. We never respond back to him like "yep got it" or "oh I see it" so how??

I don't know maybe I'm just in a state of denial or... maybe the mimic knew we wouldn't die from that height. Maybe it needed us to be mad at Gregory so that we would have a legitimate reason to stop him from presumably ending or hindering the mimics progress. Maybe the mimic needed an ally and instead of gaining one it made one.

Especially when he needs someone elses help to guide you through this last bit. He specifically says, "my friend has access to the building maps" not 'I have access to the building maps.' He also says the direction we need to go in at exactly the right time which I mean I am much more willing to take that as a gameplay feature than a lore one though.

[kirchefuchs]

HELLO CERES!! I hope you're doing well!! I have come to rant about the Skip Button Ending <3

Tis I, your local overthinker, who takes everything seriously <33

distant, confused cheering

ANYWHOO SO

Did you know? If you listen closely, you can take notice of The Narrator going through the stages of grief as he and Stanley progress through the Steam Pressured Gas reviews:

Denial: "Surely, these reviews were glowing as well; weren't they?"

Anger: "UNFUNNY!?"

Bargaining: "Preachy? Stanley, I'm not preachy, am I? You could tell me if I'm preachy, honestly, you can–! ..Oh goodness.. Honestly, this is quite shocking for me.. I– I always–..

Depression: [continuation] ..well, to be honest, I had always thought of the game's dialogue as being rather terse to begin with. You can't know how much fluff I cut from the game to make it feel as light and airy as it– well... I always thought it did.. but maybe it wasn't.." || "I feel.. like a failure. Like I had let these people down.

and Acceptance: [continuation] ..perhaps The Stanley Parable isn't quite as sterling as I always remembered." || "...A Skip Button?.. ..Well.. Well, yes! Yes, I think we can do that! If I'm truly too preachy, then.. then maybe letting you skip ahead for just a moment surely, it couldn't hurt.." [can also be seen as bargaining]

Take this information however you want lol, this is just a little thing I noticed as I listened to The Skip Button Ending like a podcast while falling asleep last night (may or may not have gotten a Stanley Parable-themed dream shshshhdhd)

— 🅰️non || 05/01/2023 [I decided to add this just because lol. once again, hope ur doing okay, bud!! rest well <3 /p]

Mans really do be mourning the death of The Stanley Parable 2013, poor guy.

It always hurts to see him fall into accepting the game wasn't good enough just because of those handful of bad reviews. I don't know much about how the original did on Steam overall back then, but while obviously the game couldn't have been perfect for everyone, it still found its way to the people who did care, who did think it was perfect, who took it and thought to themselves "it's almost like this game was made for me".

Because that's the truth isn't it? The game was never made to be for everyone, it was made for the people who would love it and cherish it for what it is and what it will grow into being. I think that's where the Narrator really went wrong, as much as it hurts to say. He got so wrapped up in the positive feedback he fell into this delusion that the game was perfect and it was that way for everyone, when that is quite an impossibility. Then when he found the bad reviews instead of shifting his view to the reality that "while it was never perfect, it touched the hearts and connected with those who are important. Its good to take advice from the negativity, but you shouldnt dwell on it." He instead fell into another delusion of negativity where the bad reviews were right and the game could never have held up to any sort of praise. One extreme to another.

The truth is, while the Narrator always talks about catering to the player and capturing the hearts of the people, he fails to realize he already did that by just being himself. That you can never perfectly replicate a feeling from so long ago since people change and grow. He failed to understand that its okay that things change. It's okay for the game to do a little worse. It's okay for him to keep going and keep trying to make something new. Because we are here for the wid-eyed wonderment that comes with exploring a new story and a new path. Meeting new characters and greeting old ones. We loved the 2013 Stanley Parable yes, but we are old and wise enough to understand that it cannot feasibly be remade to perfection, and that new and different isn't always a bad thing. It's okay to keep growing. Better to grow and change than to stay where you are to be left behind and forgotten.

I think the Narrator needs a hug. For someone to tell him it's okay that what he made isn't perfect. It's okay it wasn't perfect because it was good. And that's the best anyone can hope to do.

[saberamane]

Now that I'm home from work, here's my thoughts on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

Overall, loved the game. I love the fact that you literally start off where you ended in AC2, and that you get to see the grand escape from the Vatican. I wish there was a bit more story before Cesare's attack, allow you to really feel the victory, you know? Mainly because the fact the Cesare attacks you literally the day after you beat up his dad and took the apple seems a bit...fast? Like how did he not only get informed of the incident, but he was able to rally his army at Monteriggioni with siege towers and everything? I don't think he'd actually be able to mobilize that fast.

I do love that when Ezio wakes up in Rome he immediately begins to fuck with the Borgia. The day he wakes up he kills an executioner and burns a Borgia tower?? He certainly works fast.

I do love the 'recruits' part of this, how you can find people to become assassin's, send them on missions that help you get money and items, I only wish that you could continue to personalize their outfit after they become Assassin's. And maybe give us a selection of weapons they can use? Instead of them basically being copy and paste.

Story wise, I think they could have given us a bit more background on some of the other 'big' assassinations, like Juan Borgia. He's related to Cesare and the pope, but we only know him as having a risque party and being a banker? Give us more reasons to hate this guy and want him dead! Overall, he didn't seem like an 'evil' guy.

The Romulus lairs were fun, but overall kind of pointless? You never ran into any of these guys actually harassing citizens or anything, so they didn't really have a plot point that we could see. They could have made them random encounters in the more ruin-like area's, like the hundred eyes thieves who would randomly attack you.

Fuck the checkpoint system. The whole point is to save your progress so if you die you can 'reload' to that point in time. Meaning if you fail a 100% synch requirement after a checkpoint, reloading should make it that you still have that progress and not make you REDO THE WHOLE FUCKING THING. I'm looking at you flying machine. If I'm at 100% synch so far, get a checkpoint, fail the 100% synch and then die, I should be reloading at my checkpoint with the same status as when I got the checkpoint. Meaning health, weapons, notoriety, and SYNCHRONIZATION!

The Copernicus Conspiracy was kind of pointless. It was just a bunch of assassinations of 'important' npc's.

The Da Vinci Disappearance, however, was great. Lots of story and purpose behind it, and the missions were fun and interesting. 10/10.

I also liked the modern bits. Leaving the Animus and walking around as Desmond, seeing the modern differences in Monteriggioni, was great. And also added subtle characterization. Shaun and Becca were friendly and joking with each other through email, Lucy was a bit more 'mission oriented' trying to stay serious. And poor Desmond often got ignored. He basically just got the schedule and emails that were sent to everyone. And I get that they had limited dialogue options, but after you spoke to everyone about 3 times they began to just brush Desmond off. I would say arguably Desmond is doing the hardest work, putting his very mental state on the line for these people (with little to no actual, genuine, consent from Desmond) and they can't even have meaningful conversations with him? I don't think anyone really ever asked if he was alright??

And finally, the ending. Honestly, from the climb of the castello to find the apple to the literal end of the game, was very rushed. A 'point of no return' if you will, that is not even hinted at really. And literal years pass from one mission to the next. It's all very quick and leaves little to no emotional connection to what's happening. One scene Cesare is being arrested, and the next he's leading an attack? When did he get out of jail? Did he get out himself or did he have help? And how, exactly, did Ezio know just from the apple? I don't believe the apple would have straight up said 'yo, Cesare is out of jail and attacking Viana'. That part didn't really make sense. And getting the idea to 'ask' the apple because Cesare said something along the lines of 'no chains will hold me' or whatever? Why did that make Ezio believe there was cause for concern of Cesare being freed? I'm sure a lot of people say that when being arrested.

To end this, I just want to say that I know it's an older game, and bound to have issues. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but I am saying that some of the issues could have been patched by now if Ubisoft cared to. And those patches might make it a better experience. But overall, it's a great game with 1 great DLC. (I just wish there was more Leonardo interaction! <3)

[semi-imaginary-place]

5.0 rambling and 5.x adventures

when was it established that summoned being return on death of the summoner. also if you're tearing into the rift shouldn't bringing and sending be equaally as easy/difficult

elidibus seeing zenos walk up sword drawn and running away is so funny. he just noped out of that situation. not sure why they cut the scene at gaius attacking zenos, zenos has way too much plot armor to die by gaius.

oh hey amurot and all it's people are still hanging around. would have thought with emy's death they would have all dissipated and the city returned to ruin. i think it has something to do with how the game is coded. just like how the garleans didn't disappear after 2.0. if anything making amurot an instanced area might have been a better idea would have really hit home the transcience of everything that this place was like a liminal space. but unlike other areas after msq progression dialogue does not change here although this effect is lessened since in like 2.0 and 3.0 they didn't change much either.

Ok time to look things up. Right 7 calamities, 6 elemental, bahamut, and the doom timeline #8. G'raha awoke then went to the first 100 first years ago just in time for the Flood. I wonder how many source years that was would be would be. The wods went back tot he first in patch 3.4. actually they were on the source for a while since 3.1 at least. How much time passed on the first. Ironworks timetravel might have actually been pretty accurate in their rewind. G'raha was sent 100 years ago into the First's past but that might have only been a few months ago source time.

Looking at everything i think the devs just wanted g'raha back and then wrote a timetravel plot point to bring him back into the story. And there were so many ways to kill him off in 5.0 like if emy hadnt shot him and he'd actually died on gulg or the timeline dissolving thing (could also mean the 8th rejoining could still happen but let's be real, it's because g'raha is the dev's favorite i mean i got spoiled he's now a scion and is in dawntrail. The devs just want him to continue being a part of the main plot.

Sundering happened to break up zodiark and seal him

Wonder what the advertisements for ascians was like we heard varis about a true glorious humanity. Wonder how lahabrea, elidibus, and emet-selch got the others onboard because the ascians in general (thanks arr) seem pretty bwahaha kick puppies evil.

So the 13th was never rejoined so um real calamity of darkness. So 7 calamities + the first + the failed 13th + the source. Only 3 other intact shards.

arr and sb were both about geopolitics, war, military power, and garlemald. hw and shb meanwhile were more sentimental narratives that had less to do with the mainplot. good thing i like both. idk what dt is about seems like a beach episode.

Another plot point lost is that the devs could have made the crystal exarch the g'raha tia of another shard instead of doing timetravel. Yes yes the game game would have to be remade im not talking about that, im talking about when the devs storyboarded abd outlines shb they could have done this differently. Now with multiple timelines any character that dies (hades) can also timetravel back into the story. Narratively it means no one ever ends. And between this and zenos im never going to believe a character is gone for good. The wall has been broken.

Was thinking about Ardbert and emy again. Ardbert was 1/14, death, and so faded he'd sort of hlf forgetting himself by the time we meed him in the story. In addition whenever he's with wol-chan it's like the sun covering up the sky no was you are going to see some faint star. No way Emet-Selch saw him around the wol. And he'd have no reason to notice Ardbert outside of that context. And even if he did I don't think emy would care.

Azem is the title. Sidenote let's be real because the devs cycle names like lahabrea (and maybe even emet-selch) were likely originally intended to be names. The writers for shb likely retconned them to be titles. Like what do lahabrea, and emet selch even mean is there an ancient language and these are just untranslated? And then you can tell azem was conceptualized later with its connections to azemya and azim. I did get ew spoiled just bit as bad as shb for ew it's like i have to deliberately not put the pieces together because im very good at putting the pieces together. Anyways ancient names seem to be greek inspired like hylotheu...s the talking shade or hades is straight up mythology. Venat is an import character from ffxii where she seems to do the exact same thing and play the same role? (I'll get to ew eventually... probably...). So if azem with their sun connections follows the pattern then they'd be something related to apollo or helios. The devs are never going to confirm an azem personal name because this fandom runs on wol ocs and people would riot over their special little baby.

i saw a pixie die. maybe

ok actual moral dilemma in the qitari we don't have enough information to tell what is the truth what actually happened. instead the game is asking the player what story should be told. if this was irl the father's story would be more likely but this is a videogame and ffxiv loves it's historical twists (im looking at you ivallice raids) so who knows what is actually true the devs probably never decided. so the question is of what effect each story will have on the future if the ronkan emperor is framed as a subjugator would this act as a cautionary tale about power? if the son's interpretation is enshrined would this be about the benefits of encountering different cultures? im probably overthinking this.

for some reason the player is given the choice on which interpretation of history will be recorded. not enough info is given to be able to tell which interpretation is better supported by evidence. so it becomes a moral question of what history should be remembered. that's the qitari's first contact with the ronkas was conquest and slavery, or as saviors and and protectors of the weaker

oof this is the hardest decision in the game. because I'm on the side of truth what I would do is not restore the stela and leave it as be open to interpretation and then like write competing academic analyses. but there is no truth here only the story we want to tell. i keep going back and forth. the ronkan empire seems to generally have a favorable reputation, the vii are still loyal to them but we don't know about it's formation or relationship with the qitari. also i dont like empires the inherent nature of conquest and satellite states.

the twinning: ah back to the crystal tower trapped in there for 76 years in alliance raids. DOOMED TIMELIME IRONWORKS MADE A MINI ALEXANDER that's how they did the timetravel! i just connected 2 dots. and we learn why g'raha is crystalized, he was merged with the tower to survive the "infinite chaos" of the rift and this was done somehow by studying how omega could?? does that mean omega's world and the omega raids were in the rift???

i think it could have been cool to play in a rejoined world. obviously this wouldn't work because of player customization and what not but i personally like the idea since i have little attachment to my player characters.

[riddlerosehearts]

more thoughts on my baldur's gate 3 playthrough! still running around exploring this giant city and trying to make my way through act 3. in this post, i continue gale's companion quest.

all right, so i explored the city a bit more. found carm's garms and uhh, also found naaber. i'm dying at him trying to be a cleric, praying really really badly and when you ask what god he's praying to he goes "there's more than one?!" like HOW do you get to be a grown adult in this world and not know that skjdafg 😭

anyway, i exhausted all of his dialogue. thought it was kind of funny but was surprised at how bizarre and out of place he felt and especially by the fact that he talks kind of like spongebob. looked him up to see if there was anything more to his entire deal and found out that apparently he's a running gag from previous baldur's gate games! so that's neat, but i seem to have turned the poor guy into an oathbreaker paladin. oops!

also found the harper hideout, did the battle there and learned about minsc! i know he's from a previous game like jaheira is, and i also know he's recruitable later. not sure i'll end up using him any, especially since i already thought halsin and jaheira became recruitable a little too late, but maybe once i meet him i'll change my mind.

then i continued the murder investigation, and on my way to progress through the quest we got invited to gortash's coronation! made sure to bring karlach along with me for that and damn, she was immediately SO ready to kill him. he says a single sentence and she says she can taste his blood. and then she yells at him and stops just short of saying she's going to shove her boot up his ass LMAO. i also had wyll with me and there was a bit of extra dialogue about his father!

i'm actually a bit annoyed about how the whole deal with mizora plays out because like, there's this whole theme of the companions reclaiming their agency and i believe letting shadowheart make the choice to spare the nightsong on her own is actually the "correct" option over trying to persuade her. so... why do you have to choose whether wyll should break his pact or save his father? why can't you tell wyll to make the choice for himself? and tbh i also feel like there's basically zero chance that wyll as a character would ever not choose his father anyway, whereas with shadowheart there's this tension and ambiguity where right up until that moment you can't be sure what she'll do, so that's another flaw in how wyll is written imo. oh well.

walked into a church in the city and there is a statue of mystra here. elenion made small offerings to tyr and helm and a larger offering to selune, but for mystra? he kissed gale in front of her statue and then left <3

lakrissa and alfira are so cute 🥺 i found them on the roof of the tavern and alfira was looking out at the city and said she'd never get tired of this view, while lakrissa who was looking at alfira said "same here"... god i'm so weak for that sort of thing.

honestly i've wished alfira had been recruitable ever since i first encountered her in the game, and i guess if she was then we would lose this sweet wlw couple, which would also be a shame AKLJGHDF but idk i like her a lot and i think having her around and getting to know more about her would've been fun!! especially since i think it's a huge shame that there isn't a bard companion.

hey, i finally figured out where sorcerous sundries is! the lorroakan fight was a little annoying with all his myrmidons running around, but i did manage to cast tasha's hideous laughter on him for a few turns, which was hilarious. god i can't wait to get elenion up to level 11 so he can learn otto's irresistible dance.

the vault frustrated me in a way that i don't think it was supposed to, because wyll got downed from a trap without me realizing and i got kind of lost trying to get back to where he got downed at and then i forgot how to get back to the beginning of the vault so i could leave omg. i'm probably the only person in the world to have that kind of trouble with it. but oh well, we got gale his super dangerous-sounding book!!

and then i got to see the gorgeous boat scene that i've seen so many gifs of. and i love gale so much askdjghfdsgjhdf i'm 😭😭 first of all i will never understand how anyone could hate a man who says things like "with you, i forget my goddess" and "you put the stars to shame". that second quote especially is killing me because it feels so tailor-made for my tav! and then the fact that he is so surprised and relieved that they love him just the way he is!! aaaaaaaaaa i'm going to explode. hate when people say gale fumbled a goddess because she's the one who fumbled him!

going to end this post here, now that i've seen gale's talk with mystra, so i can take a look at my quest log and decide which of the 93475384 sidequests i've picked up should be handled next!

[runimanio]

2024 Game Clear #18 Ranma ½: Treasure of the Red Cat Gang

I've been really getting into Ranma½ lately, and after learning that there was a RPG with an English fan translation I knew I had to play through it as it is my god given duty to play through every turn based RPG licensed after a property I like and .... it's just okay

The fan translation has two versions one for fans of the anime and one for the manga, I chose the anime version because at this time that is the version of Ranma I'm more familiar with, I'm don't know what all the changes are in the manga patch as their doesn't seem to be a place online that documents all the differences. The translation seems pretty good especially for a early 2000s fan translation, there's perhaps one grip I have with it and it that they chose to name an equippable armor for the girls as just "bitch" which I feel is unnecessary and unprofessional (and frankly a bit confusing like what exactly am I equipping here?) I do lack the knowledge to properly criticizes the translation here but the guide I was using did choose to translate it to "Angry Dress" instead so I felt it was worth bringing up.

Now for the actual game itself. The Jusenkyo guide accidently broke a seal releasing The Ghost King Cat Nekomaou upon the world who seeks strong men to rebuild his Red Cat Gang and wishes acquire the three sacred treasures that can grant any wish when brought together. The Red Cat Gang kidnaps Ranma father Genma, Mousse and the students of Furinkan High to use as muscle. Ranma, Akane & Shampoo (Ryoga too but of course he immediately gets lost and separated from the party) sets off to save everyone and to acquire the three treasures in hopes of using the wish to cure Ranma of his curse.

I think it's a pretty strong set up for a Ranma RPG honestly, but in practice alot of the writting feels like a reheated version of what you know, if you watched even a couple of episodes of Ranma, you've seen all the jokes before just now it's in a pretty static form which doesn't really lend much strength to all the running gags, even the ghost cat stuff isn't really that special since Maomolin exists but weirdly unless I missed something they never actually point that out.

The party also doesn't banter among themselves as much as you'd hope, only really speaking up when it's time to do their running gag. Akane suffers the most from this I think, as perhaps 95% of her dialogue is getting angry at Ranma which very little moments (if any) that explore her more tender side. It's a Akane completely removed of nuance and I think that's lame

That said there was gags that I did think translated well into the RPG format, Having a party member like Ryoga who will just... keep walking unaware that he's leaving the party is pretty funny joke for a RPG, Genma continues to be the world worst dad, and Cat Fu gets to be a mechanic in a boss fight (though Ranma fear of cats isn't really brought up as much as you might think it would be considering the plot)

On the the actual gameplay side...I like a fair bit about it! It's pretty simple but I appreciate that it doesn't waste your time, a lot of other licensed rpgs that i've played try to hide the fact that they likely made the game in 8 months by forcing a brutal grind or by splitting up the party to hid a lack of meaningful progression.(looking at you Sailor Moon Another Story) I only really had to grind once at the end and it was a pretty light grind, the party does split up a bunch but it never feels like a tactic to artificially increase difficulty and therefore extend the game length then more the product of the Ranma cast being chaotic, it's a miracle that a party of these characters can hold together for 5 minutes.

That said I do wonder if they purposely made your movement speed in the overworld slow to compensate, it not that bad and you get used to it but it's pretty noticeably slow when you first start playing but even with that it's a very short rpg, I got through half the game in like 4 hours unquestionable the shortest tradition rpg i've ever beaten but I actually think it's to the game strength that it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

I general I don't look the look of this game but I do like how battles look, the special moves are flashy and I love that characters fly out of the arena when K.O, battle are pretty easy though you can pretty much get through everything by just spamming attacks, start doing basic rpg stratagems like using stat boosting abilities and your pretty much invincible, being too easy might seem like a detriment but i vastly prefer that to the likely alternate of a grindfest so it's fine

Last note on the gameplay is the UI isn't the best, visually it looks fine but it lacks a lot of information that would be useful to know, items & abilities don't have descriptions which can makes it hard to parse what something actually does even after using it if the effect isn't visually obvious which is why I kept a guide open to reference. you can also only see your ki amount in battles which isn't a big deal but a little annoying when you want to check if your ready before a boss fight

Ultimately though I think a RPG is just kinda a weird choice for a Ranma game, turning the chaotic gender swapping martial arts romance gag manga™ into a slow turn based rpg isn't the most natural match, there's probably way to make it work really well but It probably would take a longer timetable then the dev team probably had. There are Ranma fighting games and visual novels which seem like a better fit but i'm surprised out of all the IP in the 90's that got beat em ups Ranma wasn't one of them, somewhere out there there's a world with a banging Konami or River City style Ranma beat em up and im sad I don't live in that world lol.

With all that said and all my criticism aside... I do still recommend it for Ranma fans, it more time in this world and with these characters and it's a short painless experience so it's not a huge time sink, it's just whenever you merge a property I like with this genre I'm always gonna come in with higher expectations then I probably should have lol

[x-pair-o-dice-x]

halloooooo!!! i'll send the second ask game in another ask but for now i'm doing the emoji one !! :D

🌞,🦅, 👐, 🤯,💔

— brick

🌞 — Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

nnnnnot really? i tend to write late at night, but i wouldn't say i prefer writing then,,, dkdmkdks. (granted, i haven't been doing much writing lately, but uhh. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

🦅 — Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

okay, it's a mix of both? at first, i never really wrote outlines? but lately,, i've been experimenting with doing so for some of my fics.... mostly ones on my main, but there's a couple(or, like. one, i guess) outlines i wrote for fics on this account!

🤲 — Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

for crafty creations! bit stuck on now to continue it,, so i haven't made too much progress on it yet, h.

🤯 — What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

uhhhh,, i tend to have a hard time with action,, kdjdksjsk. i tend to write a lot of inner monologues, or dialogue, that i tend to forget that i also should be actioning stuff,,, odmdkdmmd. romance can also be hard, cuz uhhh. [glances at the aro flag hovering ominously above me]. yeah.

💔 — Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

mmmmmm.... by nature(soft vore warning), i guess? or prepare for the horrors(soft vore warning). i don't really tend to write super sad fics, though,, cuz that's not really the stuff i like to read, personally. i like happy endings and hugs and comfort,, ksjwosis. i guess prepare for the horrors is the closest one would get to that, though? 'cause while ranboo does end up okay in the end, it's not exactly like he got comforted at any point of the story,, dkdnsksjs. might change that if i ever get the motivation to continue writing a sequel, tho!