#and I have that completionist urge

[butnobodycame627]

want to do everything in papa's freezeria. already got every achievement ages ago but I want every character to be gold star and every gold medal in mini games and everything I want everything forever grrrr raaaaarrr

[wyllzel]

FINALLY closing out his game hahaha i've been procrastinating rip

[skitskatdacat63]

Atp I should make a tier list of Red Bull flavors, I've been trying all of them over the past week 😪

[xreveriez]

Playing pikmin 4 again despite not having played it in months. Getting used to the controls again is so difficult pls send help

[tambutt]

WHEN DOES THIS GAME END????

[ryutarotakedown]

[ID copied from alt text: screenshot of the title screen of Professor Layton and the Curious Village, showing a little car puttering along a road with the options "New Game," "Continue," and "Bonuses" above it. End ID]

end of an era (4 days)

[drdemonprince]

Re hobbies: I am a new-ish birder, and it’s my favorite new hobby I’ve had in a really long time. It really satisfies the autistic completionist “gotta catch ‘em all” urge to categorize and identify. It has been super easy to pick up as a beginner, but there’s a really high ceiling of mastery.

I often have really crushing feelings that humanity has ruined the earth, but it’s reassuring existentially to see hundreds of species continuing to survive and thrive even in my massive major city. Big city parks are actually some of the best places for species diversity because all the migrating birds stop through the same couple “islands” of nature in denser quantities.

Walking around a public park with a pair of binoculars is also probably the single best way to connect with a ton of very autistic-seeming elderly people. I’ve been trying to interact with strangers more in my day to day life, and birding has been a very low-stakes way to do that.

hellla!

[drksanctuary]

Ok last one so I can be a completionist @titan-army-week

PART 7: Family

After what feels like hours he doses off…memories of Celina flooding him. Her smile,the way she cheered when she got a potion to have the exact reaction she wanted. How she would proudly show off her new concoctions to Alabaster. He also had thoughts of Shreya with her watchful eyes, reading auras almost psychic-like in her interpretations of the smallest movements. He remembered Eva’s mastery of mist manipulation…and how much she liked horses. He thought of Brandon’s struggle with runes, how it frustrated him that it didn’t come as easy as spell-casting. Not every part of Magic comes easy to every one.

/That’s easy for you to say/ a voice in the back of his head prods at him.

What? …

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re good at every part Alabaster.” Lou Ellen said, directing a tone at him that is somehow both petty and full of wisdom and maturity.

“Just let me talk to him,” Al said starting toward Brandon’s bunk.

Lou Ellen stood in his way. “No,” she said, “Just give him some space Al.”

“But if I knew what the problem was I could fix it-“

“That’s exactly the problem, Al.”

“We can figure it out together!” Al stepped to the side.

“It’s not what he wants.” Lou moved in front again.

“But I can-“ Al strode forward,

“Make it worse,” Lou said. Finally resorting to physically pushing him away. Her eyes glowed purple.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the most powerful, the strongest child of Hecate…”

“Yeah which is why I am qualified to-“

“Gods could you just let me finish?!”

Alabaster heaved a sigh. An exaggerated one.

“It’s hard to be our best when your around.”

“Our?”

“Yes”

“Why? Lou you’re second strongest…I’d say you’re doing your best just fine.”

“Hardly second, Magic wasn’t as intuitive to me, I had to work SO HARD. Brandon is the same way. But Al, he cares so much about making a good impression.”

“Exactly, I know exactly what impresses mother, so if I help him-”

“Gods you’re so stupid,” she said her palm to her forehead.

***

“Well then explain it to me” Alabaster said, fighting the urge to stop her from packing. “Explain to me why you are deciding to leave us when we need you.”

“You proved just fine you don’t need me,” Lou scoffed, closing her suit case a little harder than she intended. She was just so mad. So frustrated.

“What?? Because of one game? come on Lou, are you that much of a sore loser-“

Lou turned on him eyes flashing purple and green.

This gave Alabaster pause he’d only ever seen her use purple. A strong purple but never green. Never had she been able to use the strongest of the magic glows.

He was tempted to say, “See? You grow stronger everyday!” but the way she glared at him was more than a petchulant loss of a silly training game. She looked like she was going to cry…or rip him apart…or both.

“You think,” she said, advancing on him, “that I’m referring to the game?”

“I-had” Al swallows, “up until you glowed at me like that.”

“You are so smart, Al…I don’t know how your also so fucking stupid.”

“And I still don’t understand why you think it’s ok to abandon us when we need you.” Alabaster said, his own frustration growing. He didn’t like being called stupid.

“Like I said, you don’t need me,” Lou Ellen continued, “You already have a second strongest, and it’s not me!”

Al scoffed. “Lou, do you think that mom wants Marina to fight in a battle with me? While she has raw power and talent she’s hardly ready to-“

“Oh! You see, there it is!” Lou said, smugly.

“What? Theres what?? I gave all of our siblings their assignments based on where they’d be most useful and most safe! Do you want me to put a little eight year old girl in the line of fire? Perhaps you are the stupid one!” Alabaster seethed.

“I never…said who I thought the second strongest one was” Lou said

“You-“

“But you knew.”

“Well- I mean, I-“

“I don’t want to hear it Al, you think she’s stronger than me,” Lou said. And she seemed truly hurt by the sentiment.

“Well she has a lot of potential is what I was trying to s -“

“No.” Lou Ellen cut him off, “it’s what you said.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the ranking, Mom wants us to be a team, not infighting! The strongest protects but we all contribute.”

“And mom only ever really talks to you! She hasn’t spoken to any of us more than once!”

“Is that what this is? You want more validation from Mom?”

“No! I just…I have seen how you get Al. So focused. So sure you are right about things, but you don’t understand that not all of us have that… and the rest of us aren’t Marina, ok? We aren’t all your little prodigies!”

“Marina has probably heard from mother the least, and you want to compare clout there?”

“I don’t care about moms attention Al! We all care about one thing!”

Al was confused. Winning the Titan war? Their mother getting a throne? “Equality for all demigods, not just Olympians,” Al said, so sure he is correct.

“No Al.” Lou said, her things all packed. She grabbed it all, ready to leave she started for the exit but pauses at Al’s shoulder who retracts his attempt to stop her when he sees her purple and green glowing eyes bore into his own.

“Your loyalty is to the cause. Ours? ….We all care so so much…” Lou said, in a sharp whisper. “About what YOU think of us.”

Alabaster inhaled sharply, he expected her to shove him, but honestly this hurt more. Lou Ellen walks past him.

“S-since when do you care what I think of you?”

“I always have,” Lou said, “But don’t worry…I’ll get over it.” She turned and headed out.

Al wanted to be petchulant. To say “Fine go” but all he could do was default to what he always did for his siblings.

“Lou!…” Al called after her, “If you’re going to go, at least don’t go to Camp!…it’s not safe there….“

The visions of Camp half blood burning returned to him.

“Lou??” He called again, but she was already gone. He was…

***

Alone. Al is alone.

Luke is dead. Silena is dead. Ethan…there’s no way he could’ve survived that fall…Ethan is…dead.

Alabaster looks left and right of the battle theater they’re in. It’s over. They’ve lost. This…wasn’t supposed to happen.

He can’t find his siblings anywhere on the battlefield. When he’d ordered the retreat some monsters turned on them. He told them to hide while he fended them off. He stands now, alone…monster ash swirling at his feet. On instinct he heads to Marina’s safe reinforcement site.

He turns the corner to find Ares’ gigantic form casually strolling along. He seems to be surveying the damage of the battle with the cheer of someone meandering through the park on a warm summer day. Al sees the god start to pick his teeth with a small gold sword.

Marina’s sword.

When Ares moves to the side…Alabaster sees it. Or rather he doesn’t see it. The small building…the reinforcement site…was gone. Clobbered down to the foundation stones by what looks to be a giant flaming sword that now lies in the scabbard on that assholes hip. There looks to be bodies…and blood.

Alabaster is in attack mode before he can fully register it. He activates one of the traps Brandon had set on the perimeter knocking the Olympian bastard to the ground and covering him in a green net.

He draws his sword and charges the runes until they’re practically dripping with magic. He runs over and stabs it into the gods neck.

“Argh!!” Ares growls

The wound was not deep enough . Shit.

“Who the fuck are you?” Ares says

“Why?” Is all Al can manage

“Why what?” Ares says flexing his neck muscle to push Al’s sword out.

Al smacks it in and activates all the damage runes he has. It goes deeper into the flesh with a sick squelch as ichor splurts out.

“Ow! fuck!” Ares curses, his skin starting to glow faintly.

“WHY DID YOU KILL THEM??! THE BATTLE WAS OVER! WHY???!!??”

Ares chuckles. Apparently Alabasters suffering was amusing to him.

“My job punk…snuffing out the resistance!” He says and his skin starts to glow brighter with yellow light.

Al averts his eyes the yellow light gets mixed with green. He had been certain that he used the last of his magic. Where is -

He is picked up and mist traveled away before he can understand it and he arrives somewhere and appears to be…

***

Alone.

The adrenaline is still thrumming through him when he registers where he is. The black tumbled throne. He looks around for the sibling that brought him here. He hopes for Marina. But all he sees no one. He whirls around, doing a full 360. But when he turns again, suddenly he sees:

“Mom?”

“Shhh” Hecate reaches out to brush his hair with her hand.

“Mom! they kiled them!! They’re dead…Brandon, Eva, Shreya,…m-Mari-” he chokes.

“Alabaster,” she says softly but firmly,“I know, it’s a great terrible loss but you have to be quiet.”

“Why?!” Alabaster screeches.

“Because we are deciding your fate, boy.”

Zeus, Hera, Ares and Hermes stood before them.

“Please.” Hecate says, “Spare him.”

Ares scoffs.

“Please.” Hecate reiterates…pleads.

“We have made our decision,” Hera says very diplomatically. “He may live, but he is never to set foot on the camps or he may corrupt the remaining siblings…as he did the others.”

“Fu-“ Alabaster tries to curse but Hecate’s hand covers his mouth.

“Thank you, my Lords and Lady.”

Al is mist traveled again.

“Fuck them!” Alabaster says.

“Alabaster,” Hecate says.

“I’m going to to destroy them.” He says shaking.

“Alabaster.” she admonishes.

“I’m going to burn Olympus to the ground!” Alabaster tells the green glowing in his eyes erupting into small green flames. The strongest level. He seethes. Smoke coming out of his mouth.

“My son-” Hecate says, this time with concern. “I’m sorry…I could only do so much…but you need to keep living… please.” she hands him something flat, a piece of paper maybe. “Don’t forget them and you’ll never be…”

****

Alone… after all of it…the Titan army, survival with no camp, Lamia…and here he was. Alone again. His bullet proof vest ripped to shreds. Claymore …is dead. It’s happened again.

He has a small notebook with the spell in it. The one that will keep Lamia away from him. On the last page of the notebook is a picture he’d taped there when he incurred his last loss. He thought he’d learned his lesson.

The picture showed him and his siblings…he’s even managed to wrangle Ethan into it. He had a knack for that didn’t he…getting people to go places they normally wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry” he says for what must be the thousandth time. But this time it stings anew. “I’m so sorry,” he sobs, “I don’t know what to do…what am I supposed to do???” he hugs his legs.

They don’t answer…of course they don’t. They just appear as vague shadowy mist figures around him. Trying to comfort him. But he is inconsolable. He’s gotten yet another person killed by involving them in his problems…how is he supposed to go on.

“Don’t let it happen again?” a voice says

Alabasters head shoots up. His mist forms never spoke to him unless he wanted them to.

“Claymore??” He says incredulously.

“Hey, kid.”

Al wipes the tears from his eyes.

“How are you here?”

“You’re mom wanted me to stick around….watch after you. I figure I’d be a better guardian then your fake father in that card.

Alabaster nods, “Yeah, probably.”

“So…you ready to help an old man find out some truths?”

“Yeah,” Alabaster says.

He looks down at his family photo, just underneath it, a new mist card appeared. One with a sketch of Dr. Howard Claymore.

Maybe, Al thinks, Maybe he’s not alone and this…is the start of his new Family.

The end????

(Probably not find out more in Lifting the Mist curse Comic or Son of Magic volume 2) hahahaha

[anneapocalypse]

Why I Love the Hinterlands

The Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition get kind of a bad rap, and for kind of understandable reasons. For anybody who doesn't know the story, some context. The Hinterlands are the first open world area that unlocks for the player, a vast and highly explorable map full of quests, worldbuilding, and NPCs. So what was the problem? The problem was that the Dragon Age series had set two games' worth of precedent that the player could get locked out of an area and lose access to sidequests and other content—and the devs seemed not to fully realize they were fighting this precedent, or how strong it was, until the game came out and completionist players were getting exhausted and annoyed running around this huge map trying frantically to knock out all the side content before moving on. We still make jokes about devs on twitter trying to tell players that they could leave the Hinterlands. Lines were later patched in for the starting companions urging the player to go to Val Royeaux and advance the plot; you'll hear those lines if you play the game today, but they weren't there in the beginning.

The game's executive producer Mark Darrah has even spoken about this problem in his Dragon Age: Inquisition Memories and Lessons video on YouTube. From a game design perspective I do not dispute this issue. It definitely represents an oversight in the way the area is presented to players and the context they are given for what they should do next.

All that said… I love the Hinterlands, and with every replay (I have beaten the game four times at this point) my appreciation for this area and what it brings to the story has deepened. And as recent polls have raised discussion about the merits of various maps, I've felt moved to rise to their defense, so... here's why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually.

Every map in Inquisition has its own overarching story, introduced by Scout Harding when the map unlocks and revealing itself through exploration and completing the quests within. Crestwood has the story of the flood during the Blight. The Exalted Plains have the story of the Orlesian Civil War. The Hissing Wastes have the story of Fairel and the surface thaig. And so forth. For this reason, I've come to feel that once you've progressed far enough in the main quest to have collected most or all of your companions, the most rewarding way to experience each area is at one go, as much as possible. Popping in and out of maps to complete one quest at time is, in my opinion, really detrimental to exploration and makes it harder to see the big picture. This is also one place where I really appreciate the invisible approval meter, because it discourages me from always stacking my party to game approval, the way I pretty much always play DA2.

At first glance, the story of the Hinterlands is the story of the ongoing war between the rebel mages and the renegade templars. This is one reason the Inquisitor may go there: to make contact with the rebel mages. They have been offered refuge in Redcliffe and are presently entrenched in the castle and adjoining village; the templars continue to attack the mages' position, and thus there is concentrated fighting in this region. Splinter factions of both mages and templars are also entrenched elsewhere in the area.

But this is just the setup. What the Hinterlands is about, its real story, is the common people.

The Inquisitor is first sent to the Hinterlands to make contact with Mother Giselle, in hopes of gaining some Chantry support. Seeking her out requires the Inquisitor to fight their way through the conflict to reach the Crossroads, where many refugees have gathered.

In these big, sweeping stories about heroes and villains, I think it's easy for the perspectives of common people to get kind of lost. One thing I do appreciate about the Dragon Age series is that every game does make a real effort to give voice to the commoner perspective. Origins has its city elf and casteless dwarf origin stories, and the player encounters many commoners throughout the game and gets to hear a bit of their perspective. Dragon Age 2 wouldn't be Dragon Age 2 without Darktown and Lowtown and the elven alienage and our interactions with the people who inhabit those parts of the city. Oddly enough, though, every human character we've ever had the chance to play in Dragon Age has come from a noble family; sure, Hawke starts out living as a commoner, but doesn't stay that way for long.

In Inquisition especially, we don't have the option of a commoner prologue to really drive home that perspective and carry it through the story. And while a Dalish elf, a Carta dwarf, a qunari mercenary, and a Circle mage certainly live very different lives than a human noble, they also live very different lives than Giles the farmer—not necessarily more privileged, but still different, with differing priorities and different stakes in this conflict. Bron the farmhand has no reason to be at the Conclave; he's here mucking out stalls, knowing the horses still need to be fed even if there is a rift spewing demons over there in the middle of the neighbor's pasture. Elaina the farmer is putting away cabbages for winter and hoping the barn doesn't get burned down by a stray fireball. And Elaina is one of the fortunate ones: her family's home and livelihood are still intact, for now. The Crossroads now hold many ordinary people who through no fault of their own have lost their homes, their crops, even family members.

Theirs is the perspective we get in the Hinterlands.

You don't have to stick around for all that. You can take Mother Giselle’s advice immediately, go to Val Royeaux, go deal with bigger and more important things and people. You will need 4 Power to go to Val Royeaux, but Power is easy to come by. Close a few rifts, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to care about these refugees and their problems.

But you know, something I notice is that the founders of the Inquisition spend a whole lot of breath talking about "the people." How they have to restore order for the people. How the people are looking to us—to you, Your Worship. The people need you. The people need to believe in you. That’s why we’re raising an army and building a cult around you! For the people.

Well, here are the people.

And if you talk to the people at the Crossroads, it turns out that what they actually need is less faith in Andraste’s chosen, and more blankets for the cold nights, medicine for the sick and injured, and food so they don’t starve. They need the war ended and the Breach closed so that they can return to what’s left of their homes and salvage what crops and livestock they can.

It is easy to feel a bit smothered by the Inquisition’s overwhelming Andrastian-ness, especially when playing a character who has their own religious beliefs, or none at all. We have a lot of characters trying to tell us about the importance of faith—their faith, specifically. We’re told that the people need to believe, and that’s why we have to play the role of this figurehead. And you can run with that idea and play it straight, if you want to. But there is, in fact, a different story to be found here, if you want to look for it—a story told in the world itself and the people who who inhabit it: people cannot eat faith.

And Mother Giselle, the person we are sent to the Hinterlands to find, knows this. She is certainly a devout Andrastian and deeply influenced by a life in the Chantry—but she also chooses to be on the ground helping people in need rather than arguing with her fellow clerics in Val Royeaux. After the attack on Haven, Mother Giselle and the Inquisitor have a conversation about faith, in which the Inquisitor points out, in one way or another, that faith may not be enough. Giselle may seem to disagree. Yet it is she who then leads the survivors in a song that does not mention the Maker or Andraste even once. The much-maligned “The Dawn Will Come” is so frequently assumed to be a Chantry hymn because it is Mother Giselle who starts it; even the fan wiki lists it as such. But I hear something much more akin to a folk song, a marching tune—not a high holy chorus for a cathedral choir, but a song with a simple tune and repetitive lyrics, about hope in dark times.

Perhaps she was rather more persuaded than she appeared.

When you ask your ambassador Josephine, “What do the people make of us?” she tells you how many noble allies you’ve gathered. And that’s not unimportant; this boots on the ground shit costs money, and most of that is coming out of noble coffers. But when you ask Mother Giselle, “How are the people?” she speaks of the terror and suffering of the people in the Hinterlands, and warns of mass starvation if the farmers cannot return to their fields.

This is the story of the Hinterlands.

And the density of side quests on this map reflects that. In addition to aiding the refugees with food, blankets, and medicine, there are so many more opportunities to help people in small but meaningful ways. An elven widower who cannot reach his wife’s grave through the fighting asks the Inquisitor to bring flowers there as is his custom. A grieving widow asks for the retrieval of her husband’s wedding ring from the templars who murdered him. A beloved ram has gone missing. A mage mourns her templar lover and the war that has come between them. A note speaks of two brothers, templar and apostate, torn apart by the war. A son has gone off to join the cult in the hills (no, not our cult in the hills, another one), and his mother needs the special remedy for her breathing problems that only he knows how to make. And so many more. Even the Winterwatch cult itself asks us to consider what it is the people truly need: the Inquisitor can enlist them as Inquisition agents, or ask them to aid the refugees.

Are all these sidequests vital to the plot? No. You can skip them if you want to. Are they relevant to the plot? Absolutely. Are they meaningful? To me, yes. Maybe they didn't change the whole world, but they changed something for these people.

It is so important to me that we get to actually meet the common people whose lives are depending on us. Whatever you think of the Inquisition itself, people actually are dying because of both the rifts and the war, and many more will die if these problems aren’t resolved. Meeting them, giving them names and faces and side quests dealing with their more mundane needs is so much more meaningful to me than standing around back at base being told “People are starving in the Hinterlands.”

It's understandable that the Hinterlands had to fight the precedent set by Lothering getting locked off, because in many ways the Hinterlands serves the same narrative purpose as Lothering: showing the effects of the present crisis on the common people and what's at stake for them.

I should note that the Hinterlands are not the only part of the game that addresses the impact on common people—far from it, in fact. The Exalted Plains give us a taste of how many have died for the Gaspard's attempted coup; Emprise du Lion shows us commoners kidnapped and tortured by Red Templars; the Winter Palace puts the bloody reality of the "Grand Game" in stark contrast to its gilded veneer with the indiscriminate murder of servants for expediency.

But it’s important that we are introduced to the suffering of the common people early in the game, when the Herald—not yet the Inquisitor—may still feel pretty shaky on their motivations for even sticking around.

While I've mostly been talking about non-mage commoners here, I do want to say a few words about the rebel mages as well, since they too are a part of the story of the Hinterlands. I hope that no one reading thinks I am blaming the rebel mages as a whole for what's happening in the Hinterlands, for what the common people here have suffered. The templars, notably, are not entrenched in the Hinterlands. Their present stronghold is Therinfal Redoubt, an old Seeker fortress, which is a significant distance from Redcliffe. The fact that the bulk of the fighting is taking place near Redcliffe, while we've no evidence of a mage offensive against Therinfal, makes it pretty clear that it is the templars who are pursuing the mages at this point, not the other way around. Certainly some in the region may not bother to make that distinction while their crops are on fire, but let's be clear about the story the map is telling us: it is the mages who are under attack here, not the templars. It is sometimes said that Inquisition deliberately draws a false equivalence between the mages and templars in this war. I would like to point to this piece of environmental storytelling as evidence that that is not entirely true.

Sometimes, it seems like pointing out that collateral damage happens is read as condemning an oppressed people for defending themselves. I want to make it clear that this is not what I am saying. I simply feel that those characters who have lost homes and livelihoods in this conflict are also worth seeing, and talking about. But I also don’t think it’s an accident that this is the map whose story is all about the suffering of ordinary people, and it is also the rebel mages who have their base on this map; the templars do not.

So, that’s why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually! They contain an absolute wealth of worldbuilding, and their story frames the game’s central conflicts around the people suffering for them, early in the game when that perspective is most needed.

[under-snail]

y'all i think i cracked deltarune

sort of. this theory is really long but broken into parts to make it easier to read.

I. Sans originates from Deltarune

so, it's pretty much confirmed that pre-Undertale Sans came from somewhere else, right? some place that he misses, but can't go back to.

so where did he come from?

I think, the world of deltarune. I have enough evidence that I'm pretty sure that at the least this part of the theory is correct. there are lost of hints, but overall:

there's one major difference between monsters in undertale and monsters in deltarune.

monsters in undertale don't bleed. they dissolve into dust the moment of their death. this makes for a unique type of funeral.

now, let's compare this to deltarune:

even though we don't see any monsters die (yet) in deltarune, in chapter 1 Susie makes a very interesting comment.

well actually, susie, everyone does NOT bleed, right?

the only dead monster we see in the light world is Berdly after killing him in the dark world. he is, presumably, dead, but he hasn't turned to dust. he's just...sitting there.

not to mention, IF monsters turned to dust in deltarune, there would be no reason for there to be a cemetary in the town, right? because there would be nothing to really bury.

So we've established that monsters in undertale turn into dust, while monsters in deltarune bleed and die similarly to humans.

there are no monsters in undertale that bleed or leave behind a body after being killed.

except for one.

now, we don't see sans leave behind a body. but, he moves just out of our line of sight just before dying. most likely he teleported elsewhere just before he died.

so, now that we've established sans originating from deltarune, let's move onto the next part of the theory

II. Deltarune is a sequel to undertale genocide.

(this part of the theory has been positied before, but I don't know where it originated. i first heard it from a deltarune playthrough by BornLosersGaming)

so, let's start with a seemingly innocuous fact.

this is taken from the official deltarune website.

now, this could mean nothing. but I find toby's word choice of 'completed' to be very interesting.

not for people who have played undertale, or even who have finished undertale. it's for people who completed undertale. the word completed is generally intended to mean having done everything possible. ex. the completionist instinct. completionists being those who have completed genocide.

let's look at chara's words after we complete the genocide run:

could the 'next' world mean deltarune?

that would indicate that the red soul possessing kris could be chara, moved on from erasing undertale and intending to do the same here.

let's remind ourselves that chara is US. we give them our own name at the start of undertale. they are meant to be a stand in for the player.

but how can chara make a reappearance, since they don't exist in deltarune. they don't even have a name. except, they do.

i think this was a very clever trick on toby's part to ensure the player enters their own name.

so to summarize: chara/frisk(frisks role will be discussed)'s soul has erased the undertale timeline, and have 'moved on to the next' possessing Kris and planning to erase the world of deltarune as well.

III. Chara represents the completionist instinct

so, this might be a little more of a meta take than a theory, but I think it ties in.

so, I don't think chara is a 1:1 representation of the player. chara doesn't appear in every playthrough of undertale. their presence only becomes known when we make illogical decisions.

when we play the pacifist run, we play in the role of frisk. almost nobody commits genocide in their first playthrough of undertale: it's our urge to complete, to know everything, that pushes us, the player, to light.

frisk is the character. chara is the controller. when frisk's actions reach the point of nonsensical, it doesn't make sense for frisk. we are no longer playing within the role of the character. we are playing solely to fulfill the desires of the completionist instinct. this instinct is said the best through the words of flowey. the only other being, aside from chara, not to have a soul. (as chara's soul was 'stolen' from frisk)

i think this could be a sort of commentary from toby, about how completionism takes away from the 'soul' of a game. as when you're acting in its favor, you are no longer playing the role you've been given.

as the completionist instinct takes over, the lines blur between frisk and chara. chara gains more and more control until they have complete control over frisk. we have taken control of the narrative in a way it was never meant to go.

we are no longer frisk. we are only ourselves.

IV. Sans is the sole survivor of deltarune

I think that by the end of deltarune (at least the snowgrave route, but possibly all routes) we will erase the deltarune timeline in the same way that we erased undertale's.

sans will be the sole survivor of this 'genocide' prompting him to escape to the universe of undertale and try to stop the 'anomaly' before it begins erasing timelines.

in undertale, sans acts like he knows what's coming next. what the anomaly (us) is capable of. and he spends the game trying to prevent us being taken over by chara, by befriending frisk so they don't feel the need to give in to chara or, as a last resort, fighting us himself.

while sans doesn't have complete omnisciense over the resets, he definitely has more of a sense of when the timeline is being messed with than other characters. because he's experienced is the most of anyone.

a lot of his fight dialogue gives us the feeling that he's seen this play out before.

this was the tip off, when he first sees chara jumping from timeline to timeline, jumbling them, throwing them off course, and eventually erasing them entirely.

sans knows where this is all going. that chara's victory won't just mean a reset, but the complete erasure of the timeline.

contrary to popular belief, i don't think the resets are what sans is primarily upset about. otherwise he'd fight us in other routes. no, he onlu fights us in the complete genocide run, when he sees chara fighting to take full control, because he knows what that means.

deltarune is our future, but it's sans' past. i think this is true because the sans we meet in deltarune is a sharp contrast to the one we all know. he doesn't appear suspicious of kris or on-edge. because unlike undertale's sans, he doesn't know the stakes of what's going on.

i think chara's past and intentions may also play a role in why kris is so distressed by the soul's presence. don't get me wrong, it would be distressing to be controlled by another being regardless of what that being is doing. but i think it might go deeper than that.

kris is desperate to get rid of the soul even in the case of a complete pacifist. even if all we're doing is sniffing flowers and making friends. maybe kris knows what we're capable of, maybe even what we've done in the past. we played innocently in the role of frisk for a while, too. but eventually our completionist urges-Chara-took over. Kris knows that the same thing will happen in their timeline, and they're trying to prevent it.

tldr: sans originates from the deltarune universe. deltarune takes place post-undertale genocide but in sans' past. chara represents the completionist instinct of players and the cruelty we're willing to commit to 'complete' the game. the soul is chara and is controlling frisk with the end goal of erasing the deltarune timeline.

bonus: who the hell is ralsei?

i don't actually think that ralsei is secretly evil. i think they're more aware than most characters of the soul and its intentions. they plot with kris behind our back and tries to shepherd us into a pacifist path, perhaps to delay our intentions of erasing the timeline.

[downwithpeople]

bg3

bg3 was good. even if it wasn't good it's hard to deny that it became a key facet of my life for the past two weeks.

i'm gonna say bg3 isn't smart. it's like ordering a family meal from a fast food restaurant and slowly eating the whole thing yourself. it's a deeply stupid game and if it wasn't for how well it generally carries across the spectacle of the thing i think i would have written it off as a shameful attempt to remaster dragon age inquisition. the opening cutscene, with the nautiloid plowing into hell pursued by dragons, really got me hype for the whole thing.

i came into bg3 halfway through my second rogue trader campaign and bg3 feels much sloppier in the moment to moment play. this is because much like dnd 5e itself, bg3 is trying to be a simulation which sometimes makes moving around the map feel like herding four stupid cats. the plus side of this is that sometimes you can move and interact with the environment in a way that kinda feels like rennfaire hitman.

the mystery of the tadpole and all the weird mindflayer shit is cool. that it eventually becomes a fight against three evil power rangers combining their evil powers is a mark against it. i think the story as a whole suffers because instead of just focusing on the mindflayers, the emperor and maybe the githyanki, we have a separate bad guy for act 2 and two more completely different bad guys for act 3. it's like when an OVA for an anime comes out and it's all original story; yes the main plot is still important but let's spend 90 minutes fighting THIS guy! i also felt like the final choice the game presents you, to either side with the emperor or set prince orpheus free, is completely artificial. the emperor isn't stupid and he knows everything about you. he repeatedly insists that he wants to be your ally and your friend. all that, but he's still awfully quick to flip allegiance on you and embrace assimilation into the hive mind. for what? he's wrong about orpheus and stupid if he hasn't seen gale cast Magic Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

i found most all of the companion characters to be very likable. i romanced shadowheart and wasn't disappointed. i was set up to hate astarion and gale but the latter is fine and the former is one of the most well-written, well-acted characters in the whole thing. i didn't care much for halsin, because he's a boring druid guy. i also didn't care much for jaheira, who doesn't join your party until the final act of the game and who i know nothing about because i haven't played bg1 or 2. the same is true of minsc, but minsc is fun and not a fantasy CIA agent.

the pacing of the game is a little odd. act 3 should by rights be the shortest act in terms of mandatory boss fights. the reality is that if you're even remotely completionist you're going to spend half of your playtime there. it's densely packed with sidequests and punchlines for set-ups from 50 hours ago, and if you're invested in the characters at all then you feel obligated to see their shit through. you also have some of the worst fucking quests and setpieces in the game in act 3, like oskar's stupid ghost mansion or the disappointing fight against orin.

i just started my dark urge playthrough and i'm ready to durge all over these suckers

[i-am-grell]

Abrupt Anime Poll Time

If this headache goes away, I will definitely finish Chainsaw Man tonight (keep watch for me being So Normal in a notes app reaction), so I'll start running the next poll.

If you're new here, I like anime, but I'm terrible at finishing and starting series, so I let friends, mutuals, and strangers control my life via the internet.

As always, propaganda* (*unhinged rambles) below the poll. You are allowed and encouraged to reblog if you wanna bully your followers into voting for your choice. Other people's followers and assorted users, you do not have to know me, follow me, like me, or like anime if you want to vote. Pick a button. Do it. Give into the urge to press it.

Propaganda:

How we handle long long series - When it comes to those billion-episodes-long series we all know and love, I'll watch a season/arc/naturally-divided-segment of the series. I'll always specify how much I'll be watching here.

Rambles

Free! - You are absolutely allowed to vote for Free! however (ignore this for your voting choices) the longer it stays in the polls, the more 50% Off! quotes I get to use.

Fairy Tail - I keep forgetting this is the Fairy Tail Webbed Site. (Also that bit above was a witty quip; Gray doesn't need clothes.) Anyway, this poll will cover a rewatch of season one because I don't know where I left off last time so I'm just gonna go around again.

Voltron: Legendary Defender - Before we get technical here, the Um, Actually home game has a question in the anime section about V:LD and if the pedantic nerd show says it's anime, I can put it in a poll. Anyway, I never finished it because a) what the fuck was that release schedule I'm bad with normal release schedules and b) yeah, I know from being on Tumblr that it goes in some unsatisfying directions, but completionist brain always meant to finish it.

Buddy Daddies - I think outside of the few it was paired with SK8 (though it did well there too), Buddy Daddies has been another consistent second place choice in these polls. So, I summon the Buddy Daddies fandom. Let's see if you can defeat the Fairy Tail fans on the Fairy Tail website.

Blue Period - Painting sure is fun! You know what else is fun? Killing your best friend. That doesn't sound fun at all, Haru. I think Haru's right. We should branch out in our hobbies. There. I got another 50% Off! quote in. Anyway, this is an anime about painting and I just bought the first vol. of the manga (haven't read it yet though).

Bungo Stray Dogs - Hi, I'm an English major-

[wildymoon]

if I hadn't slept at 4am last night and played for 8h today I would do more, here is my recap

(act 2-3 spoilers)

I GOT THE FUCKING LEVELS BUT THE ACHIEVEMENT DIDN'T PROC

on the bright side because Siffrin's at max I get to obliterate everything in sight and that makes fighting funnier

OVER 1000 ERASED SADNESSES. I AM GOD /silly

obliterated the King very easily (forgot I had the bomb too but shhh)

and flames and flood that glitch effect. oh by the stars above. oh wow. YES. but also that was spooky despite me having been spoiled for that

the fact that the smell of burnt sugar was so prominent and yet Siffrin hasn't commented at all on the nostalgie (AND THE TEARS???) smelling sweet is driving me up the wall

adhd moment everything gets a speedrun

ghost jumpscare is very fun, I read through the achievements but seeing one still gives me the urge to just go "WHAT THE FUCK."

Bonbon. is going to make me cry. help they're so cute and they just wanna help and not see their found family get hurt and then shrug it off forever, Siffrin-

this image. by the skies. look at them.

I do not normally actually laugh out loud at my computer when not on voice call. "we have one of those at home" in Mirabelle's hangout got a big laugh out of me. Well played, game <3

poor Odile went on a wile-d goose chase (this pun was a stretch but I Had To)

impatience moment from me but it's easier to manage than the sugar thing

Isabeau trans moment??

this and Mirabelle's hangout make me really want to stream this game to a friend of mine. they may end up crying tho.

urge to murderhobo. but scared. ask multiple sources and places whether it's a loopending thing if I go feral. get no answer. chicken out because the anxiety always wins in this scenario because FAMILY ON THE LINE. this is probably in character tbh

otherwise vibe through loop as normal

temptation. to pineapple. cause completionist and "what does the button do". but I don't wanna upset them. and I'm scared. hhhhhhhhhh

WHAT THE FUCK?

CHANGE GOD??????

change god is an uwu I'm going to explode (it's hilarious but I am lowkey dying here)

ring ring ring ring ring, banana fone!!!!

oh

oh god oh fuck

....

you BITCH /lh

the final snacktime of this run nearly killed me I don't usually cry but this nearly made me tear up. found family really do get me

giving the King a flower may not have been the Smartest idea, but for some ungodly reason it's giving me Hollow Knight vibes and that makes it worth the confusion

I know this isn't the end but new dialogue!!!

ISABEAU YOU CHICKEN. PLEASE. I am too soft to call you a useless gay even in jest but COME ON MAN

welp here we go again

poor Siffrin

uh

oh

FUCK

GUYS????????

I stopped after the loop ended but it feels like a cliffhanger.

MAN. MY BRAIN. I wanna keep going but it's been 8h and now that I have the memory of family there is literally nothing keeping me from going for OP 2 Electric Boogaloo when I get back to playing. and I don't wanna stay up until 4am again.

I don't have to chain fam runs in order to get You Are Loved, right? I mean I probably will but I'm tempted to make Odile suspicious of me and that might fudge it a bit.

[tishinada]

It's probably no surprise that my only real "completionist" urge in FFXIV are the fishing achievements, lol. While I prefer the ocean trips generally, I have recently been focusing on the other fishing achievements. I got the fishing rod recently for catching 1140 unique fish & pushed onwards toward the next one (currently at almost 1220). And at this point, I mostly have the hard-to-catch fish that only appear at certain times of day/certain weather conditions/etc. left. So I decided I'd mostly focus on clearing the last few ARR fish, then work my way through the other expacs one by one.

The very *last* fish left anywhere in La Noscea was The Lone Ripper in Halfstone. I stg I've been there trying to catch that one off and on for months, but in the past 3 weeks, I've probably been there at least 20 times, and it has a window that lasts about 20 minutes. Sometimes the damned thing wouldn't bite at all. Sometimes it would bite 5 or 6 times and escape with the bait in one window.

The day before yesterday, I thought I had it finally. If you've fished much, you know the exact point when fish escape with the bait, and I got past it. I'm starting to cheer and about 2 seconds later, it snapped the line. Shit. That's so rare I'd forgotten it was even a possibility.

Tonight was my second window today alone. And after 15 minutes, I had it hooked and the damned thing snapped the line again. That's more snapped lines in less than 60 hours than in the last 6 months, lol. So...I assume there's little chance during the rest of the window, but I keep fishing because damn, I'm there already. Not even paying that much attention.

And as the clock ticked off the last 5 seconds of availability for this window:

DONE!!! Zas has caught every single fish in La Noscea at least once (excluding a few spearfishing fish.) I think she has maybe 5 or 6 each left in Thanalan and the Shroud and only slightly more than that in Coerthas Central.

Honestly, I think fishing fanatics in FFXIV are at least slightly masochistic lol. But man, the thrill when you finally land that rare fish...

Farewell (FINALLY) to Halfstone lol

[comfortlesshurt]

July 2024 Plans!

I'm trying something new to see if it works for keeping me more consistent, so don't mind me.

Still insanely obsessed with Keith Kogane so uhh... sorry, that's all you're probably going to see from me this month if you read my stuff.

General Goals:

Get more comfortable with writing shorter fics instead of pushing for record word counts

Work on finding better end scenes for fics

Brainstorm for some longer multi-chapter fics for the future

Newly published word count: 19,920/15,000

Come up with a consistent writing schedule before August

Drafting priority - aim for the minimum viable amount of initial editing (then go back and refine everything in September)

Whumperless Whump Month:

7/1 (emergency first aid) - published

7/3 (like a record, baby) - published

7/10 (your work is never finished) - published

7/16 (say goodbye to filters) - published

7/19 (the whump morning after) - published

7/30 (I don't mean to get emotional) - published

Looking into 1 or 2 more days between the 19th and the 30th, but I haven't picked any yet! (Got sucked into another project and moved on to that!)

Really pushing to finish the days on time for this and move on no matter what at the end of the month. No completionist attempt here!

Bingo Prompts from @builder051:

Addiction/withdrawal - published along with whumperless whump fill

Self-surgery - published along with Whumperless Whump fill

Outlines for 3 other TBD squares, but unlikely to finish those fics in July (I'm short on my projected word count goal for August, so I'm expecting to get these finished and posted then)

Apologize profusely for taking 6 years to get to this

Augusnippets:

By mid-July, decide between path of hurt and path of whumperless whump

Resist urge to say I can do both because I simply cannot

Complete all outlines for chosen path by end of July (did I say outlines? because I accidentally made rough drafts for all of these instead)

Draft the first week by the end of July (I suspect work will be busy in August, so we're getting a buffer ready)

July and August are both planned writing months, but I'm expecting to take September to publish less and focus more on editing some stuff I've posted in the past without polishing as well as I could have. I also think I'll burn myself out if I try to write a ton three months in a row, so this just works out well.

Quick overview of the rest of 2024:

July - Whumperless Whump Event focus

August - Augusnippets focus

September - 1 or 2 short fics and a big round of editing my backlog; start to get a detailed outline on my Klance series

October - Whumptober focus

November - NaNoWriMo (either original fiction or a longfic I've been outlining, depends how I feel by October)

December - probably a heavy editing month (I want to get that NaNoWriMo fic edited so it can start to be published as we ring in 2025, but that probably means I won't publish anything new in November or December)

[triviallytrue]

Baldur's Gate 3 initial thoughts

I'm only like 4 hours of gameplay in

Good:

Cinematics look awesome, especially in the opening scenes.

Really great balance between open-world vibes and still being able to pursue the plot.

Relatedly, the map feature is very good.

For me specifically, going straight into 5e mechanics makes it very easy for me. A complicated and reasonably powerful combat system that I don't have to learn.

There's a phenomenal amount of depth and detail everywhere.

The writing is good so far - I'm generally interested in the characters and prying into their backstories.

Character creation goes hard.

Bad:

The skill check system has the messy side effect of making it both easy and incentivized to save-scum. You can just... die, pretty early on, if you blow the right rolls outside of combat. Limitations of the D&D ability check system.

All the normal criticisms of 5e combat.

I don't really like the movement/camera feel. I'll get used to it, but I feel like I frequently miss things and need to take extra time to orient myself.

Making me choose companions to leave behind hurts my soul.

There's too much stuff, everywhere. I listed this as a pro as well because I think it's only that for most people, but my completionist magpie urges do not serve me well here.